Wilfred Owen And Stevie Smith On Death - 1889 Words

Chris Shea ENG 477 Professor Heidi Hartwig 04/21/16 Wilfred Owen and Stevie Smith on Death Death, especially that of loved ones: it can be a sensitive topic for anyone. The main connotation for the dead is that although not all circumstances can be revealed, the reasons behind their deaths can eventually be assumed by the living. And while that may be true in the physical sense as the dead cannot physically talk about their own deaths, two major British poets tend to disagree with that belief. In their works, both poets Wilfred Owen and Stevie Smith believe that the dead have more knowledge on the cause of their condition than do the living. One way Wilfred Owen and Stevie Smith present their beliefs on this issue is by presenting the public’s thoughts on said person after their death. And while the public may be sympathetic at times, often they are not in the case of Owen; and in the case of Smith, those who are sympathetic tend to not have a good sense as to what the circumstances were leading up to this person’s death. Overall, the public tends to be ignorant on this topic. Citing the public’s opinions on death is evident in the case of Wilfred Owen’s poetry, in both direct and indirect form. The more indirect approach is in his poem Disabled, although the main character in question is actually alive. However, the same scenario applies as this character is a permanently-disabled (and depressed) veteran; not to mention Owen (a soldier himself) wrote this in the final yearShow MoreRelatedLiterary Group in British Poetry5631 Words   |  23 Pagescentury feminist literature. Matthew Arnold was much influenced by Wordsworth, though his poem Dover Beach is often considered a precursor of the modernist revolution. Hopkins wrote in relative obscurity and his work was not published until after his death. His unusual style (involving what he called sprung rhythm and heavy reliance on rhyme and alliteration) had a considerable influence on many of the poets of the 1940s. [edit]Pre-Raphaelites, arts and crafts, Aestheticism, and the Yellow 1890s