1. INTRODUCTION: Close Study of a Text
MODULE B
INTRODUCTION: Close Study of a Text

2. INTRODUCTION: Close Study of a Text
Emphasis on language as the means of expressing ideas
Essential procedures:
Identify the text’s purpose and ideas
Identify the formal/technical characteristics of the text
Describe how the themes and ideas interact with the stylistic techniques

5. Wilfred Owen
Wilfred Owen (18 March 1893 – 4 November 1918) was an English poet and soldier, one of the leading poets of the First World War. His shocking, realistic war poetry on the horrors of trenches and gas warfare was heavily influenced by his friend and mentor Siegfried Sassoon, and stood in stark contrast both to the public perception of war at the time and to the confidently patriotic verse written by earlier war poets such as Rupert Brooke. Among his best-known works – most of which were published posthumously

6. READING POETRY
Poetry is used to captivate through a variety of techniques of language
A good poem usually disturbs our equilibrium, stability, pricking our conscience, lifting our hearts or engaging our minds
They embody intensities of thought and emotion

7. STEP ONE:
Identifying the text’s themes and ideas:
STEP TWO:
Look at the texts structure.  Here form and content interact.
STEP THREE:
Describing the language techniques of a text – the devices used by the author:
STEP FOUR:
Analyse the interaction of ideas with literary forms and language:

8. Owen’s Poetry
Owen’s didn’t want to glorify war, or write about heroes. He says his concern was WAR, and the ‘Pity of War’.
He spoke about the men sent into the battlefield, and in describing their experience, he challenged the public perception of war at the time.
He criticises the horror and violence of war, the ‘universal pervasion of ugliness.’
He relived his nightmares in verse.

9. Continued
There is a general feeling in Owen’s poetry that things can be resolved without the brutality of war. He sought to explore the potential of humanity, and expose the destruction.
He looks at the psychological effects of war on men – kill or be killed.
HIs poems also reveal the absolute bond amongst the men in War – he even went back to the front (and his death) because he felt the men needed him, and he could not speak for them, unless he had experienced their suffering – this is how passionate he was about his subject – War.