Wilfred Owen FUTILITY poem analysis | First World War Poetry | 20th Century English Literature | WW1

Analysis of Wilfred Owen’s haunting World War One poem Futility, which describes the existential crisis brought about by witnessing the freezing to death of a soldier (as well as the pervasive endless death more generally) in the trenches in the First World War.

LECTURE OUTLINE
Introductory background
Wilfred Owen’s biography: brief overview of Owen’s military career in WW1 & Owen’s treatment at Craiglockhart War Hospital (poetry as part of recovery)
Immediate background to & context of the poem Futility
Summary of the poem Futility
Analysis of the poetry
Analysis of Form (modified sonnet)
Analysis of rhyme scheme & Wilfred Owen’s use of pararhyme
Analysis of metre
Comparison of formal & structural aspects of the two stanzas
Analysis of allusions: classical epic, biblical, & literary (Virgil’s Aeneid; the Bible’s Book of Isaiah & Book of John; John Milton’s Paradise Lost & Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein)
Considers the metatextual irony of the poem’s title ‘Futility’

Manuscripts from the University of Oxford’s First World War Poetry Digital Archive
http://ww1lit.nsms.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/

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