Born on March 18th, 1918, Owen would spend his childhood in Oswestry, England up until he was four. There he would live in a happy home, that according the poetry foundation website, it was considered “beautiful and spacious” (www.poetryfoundation.org). After that, he would live in a more modest home but just as equally comfortable. At the age of eighteen, he would graduate from the Shrewsbury Technical School, in 1911. Later on, he would dedicate himself to the Church of England and volunteer his time to the poor. It was during then he would become terminally ill, with a respiratory infection, and in 1913 he would return home. During his convalescence, he would consider his true passion poetry but was not approved by his father. The poetry foundations states, “He talked of poetry, music, or graphic art as possible vocational choices, but his father urged him to seek employment that would result in a steady income” (www.poetryfoundation.org). One year into World War One, he decided to enlist, and join the Artists’ Rifles, in October of 1915. Owen would then be commissioned as a lieutenant in June of 1916. In January of 1917 he would be stationed in war-torn France, just three years before, he’d live there with a Catholic French family tutoring their children. It was then that he would come to the understanding of just how destructive war actually was. At first just like every other soldier, he felt like it was his heroic duty to serve and aid the country he once lived abroad. The poetry foundation found letters he had written to his mother stating “There is a fine heroic feeling about being in France....” (www.poetryfoundation.org). It was shortly after his opinion and reality would be completely askew. Another letter he wrote to his mother on January 6 carries a harsher tone. It described the roads being an “awful state” (www.poetryfoundation.org) and how the weight was too much for the men to carry. It was that same January he would be trapped in a poison gas attack and would write one of his famous poems “Dulce et Decorum Est”. When translated it means that, “it is sweet and proper to die for your country”. The poetry foundation describes the events in a different light:
They marched three miles over a shelled road and three more along a flooded trench, where those who got stuck in the heavy mud had to leave their waders, as well as some clothing and equipment, and move ahead on bleeding and freezing feet. They were under machine-gun fire, shelled by heavy explosives throughout the cold march, and were almost unconscious from fatigue when the poison-
gas attack occurred (www.poetryfoundation.org).
The rest of his time during the war would only grow darker. In November 1918. He would be killed in action, only one week before the Armistice.
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