exp context

• Wilfred Owens was a soldier, killed in battle one week before the armistice (WW2 ending).
• Owens was inspired by writers such as Siegfried Sassoon who was also a war writer who critiqued patriotism and jingoistic (extreme patriotism, especially through war) attitudes.
• Owens wrote his poetry to express the horror of war as opposed to internalising it.
• Exposure was written in 1917, as Owens was at war in the trenches, creating an impression of salience (importance) on the reader.
• Exposure contrasted the jingoistic (extreme patriotism through violence) and glamourised portrayals of war by poets such as Jessie Pope.

  • Owens dispelled this myth by "exposing" the harsh realities and virulence (harmfulness of a disease/poision) of war.