Wilfred Owen for VCE English

1. How To Study For
Wilfred Owen’s TheWar Poems

2. Study Skills
• Know the poems
• Remember the quotes
• Be able to talk about the devices
• Use vocabulary for poetry
• Plan effective responses

3. Chunking
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4. Chunking
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5. Chunking poetry
What connects all of Owen’s poetry is...
What Owen says to us in his poetry is...
In a number of his poems
Owen...
In several poems Owen
explores...
In a number of his poems
Owen...
In several poems Owen
explores...
In a number of his poems
Owen...
In several poems Owen
explores...
In this poem
Owen focuses
on...
In this poem
Owen focuses
on...
In this poem
Owen focuses
on...
In this poem
Owen focuses
on...
In this poem
Owen focuses
on...
In this poem
Owen focuses
on...
In this poem
Owen focuses
on...
In this poem
Owen focuses
on...
In this poem
Owen focuses
on...

6. Chunking the poems
• Dying in war: Dulce et Decorum Est,With
an Identity Disc, I Saw His Round Mouth’s
Crimson
• The impact of war: Dead Beat, Disabled,
Mental Cases
• The pointlessness of war: Inspection,
Futility,Anthem For DoomedYouth

7. Something Funny

8. Dying in War
• Dulce:“Guttering, choking, drowning”;
“froth-corrupted lungs”;“incurable sores”.
• I Saw His Round Mouth’s Crimson:“In his
eyes / the cold stars lighting, very old and
bleak”
• Identity Disc:“Until the name grow vague
and wear away.”

9. Key Words To Use
• Owen characterises dying in his poems as:
• dehumanising
• brutal
• lonely
• an emptiness

10. The Impact of War
• Dead Beat:“stupid like a cod”;“it’s not
these stiffs have crazed him”;“that scum...
died. Hooray!”
• Mental Cases:“memory fingers in their hair
of murders”;“Dawn break open like a
wound that bleeds afresh.”
• Disabled:“his colour.../Poured it down shell
holes”;“the women’s eyes / Passed from

11. Key Words To Use
• In Owen’s poetry, the soldiers who are not
physically killed are:
• morally and spiritually deadened
• brutalised
• irreparably traumatised

12. Anthem For Doomed
Youth

13. The Pointlessness of
War
• Inspection:“The world is washing out its
stains”
• Futility:“O what fatuous sunbeams toil / To
break earth’s sleep at all?”
• Anthem For DoomedYouth:“What passing
bells for these who die as cattle?”;“What
candles may be held to speed them all?”

14. Key Words To Use
• The experience of war in Owen’s poetry is
represented as:
• Without hope
• Relentless, merciless
• Unnatural / At odds with nature

15. The Ordinary Soldier
• Owen emphasizes the experience of the
ordinary soldier because...
• The experience of the ordinary soldier is
contrasted with that of officers because...
• The experience of the ordinary soldier is at
the centre of Owen’s poems. He attempts
to...

16. Understanding An Essay
Question
‘Owen’s poems reveal tenderness and compassion
towards those whose lives have been destroyed
by the war.’
i. ‘The poems condemn those who encourage young
men to go to war.’
Discuss.

17. Planning A Response
• Poems = Which poems reveal tenderness
and compassion?
• Reveal = How do they reveal tenderness
and compassion?
• Destroyed = Who is destroyed by the
experience of war? What does it mean to
be destroyed?

18. Practise Writing Tasks
• All of Owen’s poems reveal tenderness and
compassion through the empathy he shows
towards the common soldier.
• Many of Owen’s poems show young men
physically destroyed by war - either
through death or injury.
• Furthermore, Owen’s poems deal in the
mental destruction of soldiers.

19. Study Goals
• Chunk poems
• Learn quotes
• Write statements
• Practice planning through chunking