exposure

• Author's name


  Wilfred Owen
• 1893


  when Wilfred Owen was born
• war poet Rupert Brooke's description of World War 1


  'The Great War was senseless; senseless in its outbreak, senseless in its prosecution, senseless in the slaughter of what became a lost generation.
• the start of World War 1

  1914
• November 4th 1918


  when Wilfred Owen died in battle
• 25


  Wilfred Owen's age when he died
• November 11th 1918


  The Armistice, the end of World War 1, when both sides had suffered too much to continue, which Jane Weir alludes to in the first line of her poem Poppies
• the link between Jane Weir's poem Poppies and Wilfred Owen


  Jane Weir admitted her poem Poppies was inspired by Wilfred Owen's mother's loss
• Trenches


  long, deep ditches dug as protective defences
• two major characteristics of World War 1


  dehumanising trench warfare and sophisticated propaganda machinery
• trench warfare definition


  a type of fighting where both sides build deep trenches as a defense against the enemy. These trenches can stretch for many miles and make it nearly impossible for one side to advance
• jingoistic definition


  characterised by extreme patriotism, especially in the form of aggressive or warlike foreign policy
• propaganda definition


  information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote a political cause or point of view
• effects of propaganda


  changes how the public views issues such as war
• characteristics of World War 1 propaganda

  jingoistic, inflamed national hatreds, presented the soldiers' mission as a necessary patriotic sacrifice for God, King and country; in some cases, welcomed war as a necessary blood-letting that would 'stiffen' the nation's weakened character; recruitment advertisement of 1914 also promised that 'the war would be over by Christmas
• Wilfred Owen hoped-for 'flight... from overbearing elders' (Letter 172)


  Wilfred Owen claimed the very first poem in the selection 'On my Songs', was, the nineteen-year-old Owen explained to his mother, about his hoped-for 'flight... from overbearing elders' (Letter 172) - possibly the reason why he joined the war effort: a victim of the propaganda
• Owen's desire for a memorial in Westminster Abbey's Poet's Corner


  One of Owen's later poems movingly mentions another audacious ambition dating from these early years to earn himself an eventual memorial in Westminster Abbey's Poet's Corner
• The initial romantic view of war


  At the outbreak of war, the mainstream of English poetry conveyed the optimistic and chivalrous feelings of the first heady months of the war as Britain was confident it would emerge from the war victorious
• the Battle of Somme and the change in mood "
• The optimistic and chivalrous mood did not survive long; within six months, the war had settled into the near-stalemate of trench warfare on the Western Front; at the Battle of the Somme on 1st July 1916, there were nearly 60,000 casualties, one-third of them fatal on the first day alone; romantic and pastoral verse could not convey the horror of this battle which lasted four months."
• public attitudes towards the war

  unrealistic: Britain hadn't experienced a major war for over a hundred years, and war was considered brave, honourable and exciting. Owen was keen to dispel this myth, and 'expose' the reality
• the surviving war poets' attitudes

  For example, W. B. Yeats found that the 'land fit for heroes' lived only in the rhetoric of politicians; the previous romantic tone and Ballad forms were no longer fashionable in expressing the deep emotion and revulsion of war
• Wilfred Owen, the war poet


  Before Owen, war poetry focused largely on patriotic verse which praised brave soldiers and glorified battle (such as Tennyson's Charge of the Light Brigade). Owen was keen to dispel this myth, and 'expose' the reality.
• the mood on the front line

  In contrast to the heroic rhetoric of the politicians, the popular song of the front-line soldiers combined fatalistic lament and grimly knowing pragmatism: 'we're here because we're here / because we're here, because we're here
• the central theme


  focuses on Owen's experiences in trench warfare
• the experience of trench warfare

  while Hughes' Bayonet Charge focuses on a fictional soldier's experience between the trenches, called 'no-man's-land', Exposure focuses on Owen's experiences inside the trenches
• "The marvel is that we did not all die of cold. As a matter of fact, only one of my party actually froze to death before he could be got back...'


  how Owen described his experiences in a November 1917 letter to his mother
• questioning the purpose of war


  The poem describes the way a group of soldiers suffered in harsh weather conditions, dreaming or, perhaps, hallucinating of home and questioning why they were offering themselves up for such a terrible experience.
• the futility of war

  Owen did not believe, like many war poets before him, of the "glory, honour, might, majesty, dominion, or power," of war. He believed that war was pointless, and this is the recurring theme throughout his poetry: the futility of war.
• the link between Ted Hughes and Wilfred Owen

  Ted Hughes echoes the work of Owen in his own WW1 poem Bayonet Charge.
• the abandonment of soldiers


  the soldiers in the poem are stuck in no-man's-land and abandoned by those who have sent them there
• the forgotten soldiers


  the soldiers in the poem seem to have been forgotten by society
• the wasting away of human life


  the author tries to make the reader empathise with the soldiers who have given their lives for their country and yet all their sacrifices are going to waste
• the pain of dying a slow death


  the slow death the soldiers are going through builds even more sympathy for the soldiers because it seems ironic that of all the ways there are of dying in war, dying slowly by being exposed to the harshness of the weather appears to be one of the worst
• parodying jingoistic poetry


  Owen's choices of form and structure can be seen as a parody or ironic allusion to the jingoistic ballads of authors such as Tennyson who used the ballad form to drum up excitement and ferver for war; however, Owen believed that the traditional poetic forms had become invalid in expressing the brutal experience of 'The Great War'.
• human suffering


  the entire poem is structured to render the suffering of the soldiers in the trenches
• empathy


  the author uses sensory language to help the reader empathise with the soldiers
• the destructive power of nature

  Sudden successive flights of bullets streak the silence. / Less deadly than the air that shudders black with snow,' - ironic that the bullets are 'less deadly' than the air - this is a contrasting view to those of the Romantic poets of the past that characterised nature as benign, beautiful and nurturing
• Form of Exposure


  appears to be a hybrid form of a ballad, elegy, interior monologue and autobiographical poem
• general definition of an elegy

  a poem of lamentation and mourning for the dead; it can also express a feeling of loss in a broader sense, such as for a way of life or reflection of human morality