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FAMOUS SHROPSHIRE WRITERS
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Wilfred Owen by Esther Dowd
ilfred Owen is regarded by many as the greatest poet of World War One. His poems about the experience of war were honest and did not in any way cover up the gruesome reality of what soldiers on the front line experienced. Poems such as “Dulce et Decorum est”, “Anthem for the doomed youth” and “Spring Offensive” are some of the most famous. People studying GCSE English Literature will recognise that it was Wilfred Owen who wrote the powerful poem “Exposure” which is studied in the poetry section of the course (found in the power and conflict section of the anthology.)
such as these are referenced in his poems. After these terrible events Owen was diagnosed as suffering from shellshock and was sent to a hospital in Edinburgh to recover. It was during this time that he met the prominent war poet Siegfried Sassoon. Owen and Siegfried formed an extremely close relationship and much of Sassoon’s work had a large influence on Owen’s poetry.
In July 1918, Owen returned to active service in France, although he was given the option to stay on home-duty indefinitely. His decision to return was probably the result of Sassoon's being sent back to England, and put on sick-leave for the remainder of What a lot of people do not know is the war after being shot in the head. Owen that Shropshire was the birth place saw it as his duty to add his voice to that of Wilfred Owen. He was born on 18 of Sassoon’s, so that the horrific realities March 1893 at Plas Wilmot, a house in of the war would continue to be told. Weston Lane, near Oswestry. Owen later lived in Monkmoor in Shrewsbury. He Tragically on the 4 November 1918 during attended Shropshire schools including the the crossing of the Sambre–Oise Canal, Shrewsbury Technical School (later known Owen was killed in action. Almost exactly as the Wakeman School). Owen's last two one week before the signing of the years of formal education saw him as a armistice which ended the First World War. pupil-teacher at the Wyle Cop School in Shrewsbury, (very close to the High School). His mother received the telegram informing her of his death on Armistice On 4 June 1916, he was commissioned as a Day, as the church bells of St Chad’s in second lieutenant and was sent off to fight Shrewsbury were ringing out in celebration. on the front line in France. Here he suffered wen’s legacy has and will live on from the traumas of war. He fell into a shell for ever and it is amazing to think hole and suffered concussion; as well as that like many of us from the being blown up by a trench mortar and spending several days unconscious on an High School, he grew up in Shropshire embankment lying amongst the remains and walked the streets we walk. Indeed of one of his fellow officers. Experiences you will find his name on the war memorial opposite St Chad’s church.
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