Another prevailing literary term found in Owens piece is dissonance, the “jam of inharmonious word sounds” (Tucker), because of the startling diction Owen uses throughout the poem. Owen employs the words “no,” “now,” and “nor”, all of which increase the expression of distress these youth face in war. An example of this is in line five of the octave stanza.

Owens also uses consonance to portray his theme as defined on Herbert Tucker’s website For Better or Verse in the terms glossary, it is the repetition of the same consonant sound in nearby words (Tucker). The final four lines uses the repetition of the word “no,” and words like “sad,” “wailing,” “mourning,” and “prayers” to evoke the fear and madness of battle and death in the trenches. In the first four lines of stanza one he uses words like “monstrous,” “angry,” “rapid,” “rifles,” all of which evoke a dreadful sense of war and horrific sounds. Owens’ use of diction is a huge factor in his expression of the theme of youth going to war and dying as well as giving up hope in the war. The final line “And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds” (line14) projects an image of the end of another life and the end of another day in the still ongoing war. Although the sestet also reflects on the “Doomed Youth”, it is less focused on the youth’s deaths and displays more of the losing of their lives and the mourning of their loved ones back at home. Owen uses a Petrarchan sonnet, which divides the poem into an octave and sestet. Throughout the first stanza, Owen continues to speak of the death of youth by bullets and how nothing can stop their end from coming they are inherently doomed. He begins his poem with an image comparing the death of youth at war to that of the slaughtering of cattle, which is a gruesome way to picture the ending of human life. Owen’s poem “Anthem for Doomed Youth” is a sonnet for the thousands of youth who went off to fight in WWI and were killed in battle. Though technology, Jackson brings old war footage to vivid life, restoring a sense of the soldiers as actual people.Anthem for Doomed Consonance, Dissonance, and Diction In this clip, director Peter Jackson discusses his recent WWIfilm, They Shall Not Grow Old. Internationally famous actor, comedian,and writer Stephen Fry reads the poem (with a bugle call in the background).

A valuable resource of Owen's other poetry, and a look at his life. A series of podcast documentaries from the University of Oxford about various aspects of World War I poetry, including some excellent material specifically about Wilfred Owen. A BBC show in which three contemporary poets respond to Wilfred Owen's poetry.

More “Anthem for Doomed Youth” Resources.

Anthem for doomed youth by wilfred owen