Arms & the Boy

Wilfred Owen was a Shropshire lad, born in Oswestry. He is regarded by many to have been the greatest British poet of the Twentieth Century despite living only to the age of twenty-five. Certainly, he is considered the best of the war poets, and there is no denying that what makes his poetry so powerful is his ability to combine the elegiac form with a deep-felt love for his subjects. His horror at seeing what bullets and shrapnel can do to a beautiful male body is made powerful in his verse precisely by his attention to the body. His mentioning of specific body parts is effective, as is his personification of the machinery of war. He writes of bullet-heads that "long to muzzle in the hearts of lads," and of "a boy's murdered mouth," and "hearts made great by shot." In doing so, the outrage of war intermingles with eroticism to produce a powerful emotion in the reader.