WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.419 Welcome to the deep dive. I want you to imagine 00:00:03.419 --> 00:00:05.620 for a moment that you spend your life creating 00:00:05.620 --> 00:00:08.699 something so profoundly moving. Truly revolutionary. 00:00:08.880 --> 00:00:10.820 Yeah, revolutionary. Something that permanently 00:00:10.820 --> 00:00:14.119 changes how society views an entire concept, 00:00:14.419 --> 00:00:17.079 a concept as massive as war. Right. But the catch 00:00:17.079 --> 00:00:20.160 is you die just days before the world ever realizes 00:00:20.160 --> 00:00:23.980 you're genius. Sounds like the plot of a film. 00:00:24.539 --> 00:00:27.140 But for the subject of today's deep dive, it 00:00:27.160 --> 00:00:30.140 was harsh reality. It was indeed. Today we are 00:00:30.140 --> 00:00:33.079 looking at a comprehensive biographical and historical 00:00:33.079 --> 00:00:35.659 text on the English poet and soldier Wilfred 00:00:35.659 --> 00:00:38.600 Owen. Yes. And the mission of our deep dive today 00:00:38.600 --> 00:00:42.159 is to really explore how a young man with basically 00:00:42.159 --> 00:00:45.039 no money for university became the definitive 00:00:45.039 --> 00:00:47.659 piercing voice of the First World War. We're 00:00:47.659 --> 00:00:49.719 going to see how trauma, a faithful friendship, 00:00:50.060 --> 00:00:52.740 and a hidden identity shaped his timeless art. 00:00:52.990 --> 00:00:54.990 It is a remarkable journey we have ahead of us 00:00:54.990 --> 00:00:57.009 today because this isn't just, you know, a dry 00:00:57.009 --> 00:00:59.929 recounting of history. It is really a story about 00:00:59.929 --> 00:01:02.350 the violent collision of these grand romantic 00:01:02.350 --> 00:01:05.430 ideals with the gritty horrific reality of the 00:01:05.430 --> 00:01:08.450 trenches. It's about how experiencing the worst 00:01:08.450 --> 00:01:11.750 of humanity can sometimes forge an artistic voice 00:01:11.750 --> 00:01:15.090 that echoes for generations. If you look at the 00:01:15.090 --> 00:01:17.370 letters provided in our source material, you 00:01:17.370 --> 00:01:20.840 can actually trace the exact week. His tone changes 00:01:20.840 --> 00:01:24.120 from arrogant snobbery to total psychological 00:01:24.120 --> 00:01:26.379 devastation. OK, let's unpack this, starting 00:01:26.379 --> 00:01:28.319 right at the beginning. Right. Wilfred Edward 00:01:28.319 --> 00:01:32.079 Salter was born in March 1893 up in Shropshire. 00:01:33.000 --> 00:01:34.560 At first, things were relatively comfortable 00:01:34.560 --> 00:01:36.680 for his family. They lived in a nice house owned 00:01:36.680 --> 00:01:38.879 by his grandfather. But that didn't last. No, 00:01:38.920 --> 00:01:41.439 it didn't. When his grandfather died in January 00:01:41.439 --> 00:01:44.859 1897, the house was sold. The family's financial 00:01:44.859 --> 00:01:47.420 situation took a really severe hit. They ended 00:01:47.420 --> 00:01:49.480 up moving frequently, lodging in the back streets 00:01:49.480 --> 00:01:51.459 of Birkenhead while his father worked for a railway 00:01:51.459 --> 00:01:53.819 company, and later moving to Shrewsbury. And 00:01:53.819 --> 00:01:56.400 that financial struggle is crucial to understanding 00:01:56.400 --> 00:01:59.219 his early trajectory. Because he was smart. Incredibly 00:01:59.219 --> 00:02:02.400 bright. In 1911, he actually passed the matriculation 00:02:02.400 --> 00:02:04.700 exam for the University of London. But there's 00:02:04.700 --> 00:02:07.329 a catch. Yeah, he didn't get the first -class 00:02:07.329 --> 00:02:09.870 honors required to secure a scholarship, and 00:02:09.870 --> 00:02:12.509 a scholarship was literally the only way he could 00:02:12.509 --> 00:02:15.189 have afforded to attend university. Wow. It was 00:02:15.189 --> 00:02:18.009 a massive closed door. It left him scrambling 00:02:18.009 --> 00:02:20.090 for a way to continue his intellectual life. 00:02:20.349 --> 00:02:22.750 So instead of going off to university, the sources 00:02:22.750 --> 00:02:24.969 show he ends up working as a lay assistant to 00:02:24.969 --> 00:02:27.849 the vicar of Dunstan near Reading. Yes. He got 00:02:27.849 --> 00:02:30.009 free lodging and some tuition for the entrance 00:02:30.009 --> 00:02:33.759 exam in exchange for his work. But this period 00:02:33.759 --> 00:02:38.180 from September 1911 to February 1913, it really 00:02:38.180 --> 00:02:40.759 shifted his worldview, didn't it? It did. And 00:02:40.759 --> 00:02:43.180 in a way that planted the seeds for his later 00:02:43.180 --> 00:02:46.520 poetry, his time at the Dunstan Parish led to 00:02:46.520 --> 00:02:49.219 a really profound disillusionment with the church. 00:02:49.340 --> 00:02:51.539 Because he was dealing with actual poverty. Exactly. 00:02:51.639 --> 00:02:53.840 He wasn't just doing administrative work. He 00:02:53.840 --> 00:02:57.099 was dealing directly with the rural poor. He 00:02:57.099 --> 00:02:59.379 became heavily disillusioned with the ceremony 00:02:59.379 --> 00:03:02.199 of the church when contrasted with its total 00:03:02.199 --> 00:03:04.780 failure to actually provide material aid for 00:03:04.780 --> 00:03:07.039 those starving parishioners. This questioning 00:03:07.039 --> 00:03:10.000 of faith and institutional failure is a theme 00:03:10.000 --> 00:03:12.780 that would heavily seep into his later war poetry. 00:03:13.759 --> 00:03:15.719 He would eventually go as far as to write poems 00:03:15.719 --> 00:03:18.360 commenting on the crucifixion of Christ, claiming 00:03:18.360 --> 00:03:20.759 that the love of God seemed dying in the mud 00:03:20.759 --> 00:03:23.639 of France. Before the war though, His early poetic 00:03:23.639 --> 00:03:26.219 influences were deeply rooted in the Romantics. 00:03:26.560 --> 00:03:29.240 Oh, absolutely. If you read his early drafts, 00:03:29.240 --> 00:03:32.419 he is heavily channeling John Keats and Percy 00:03:32.419 --> 00:03:35.080 Bish Shelley. Very floral, beautiful imagery. 00:03:35.180 --> 00:03:37.340 Very traditional. Yeah. He actually discovered 00:03:37.340 --> 00:03:40.379 his poetic vocation around 1904 during a childhood 00:03:40.379 --> 00:03:43.080 holiday in Cheshire. But fast forward a bit to 00:03:43.080 --> 00:03:46.300 1913, and he is working as a private tutor teaching 00:03:46.300 --> 00:03:48.819 English and French in Bordeaux, France. Which 00:03:48.819 --> 00:03:51.460 is an interesting detail. It is. When the First 00:03:51.460 --> 00:03:53.719 World War broke out, he didn't rush to enlist 00:03:53.719 --> 00:03:56.120 right away. In fact, he even considered joining 00:03:56.120 --> 00:03:57.979 the French army because he felt so culturally 00:03:57.979 --> 00:04:00.520 tied to the country. I mean, have you ever had 00:04:00.520 --> 00:04:03.039 a life plan completely derailed like missing 00:04:03.039 --> 00:04:05.979 out on university only to find it sets the stage 00:04:05.979 --> 00:04:08.840 for an unexpected greater calling? That's a great 00:04:08.840 --> 00:04:11.930 question. The transition from a young tutor reading 00:04:11.930 --> 00:04:15.569 Keats in a French villa to a soldier enduring 00:04:15.569 --> 00:04:19.189 gas warfare is just jarring. Completely. And 00:04:19.189 --> 00:04:21.170 the sources point out that his return to England 00:04:21.170 --> 00:04:23.870 wasn't driven by some sudden burst of jingoistic 00:04:23.870 --> 00:04:27.230 fervor. It was a slow build of societal pressure, 00:04:27.629 --> 00:04:30.329 a sense of duty, and perhaps a bit of guilt watching 00:04:30.329 --> 00:04:34.459 others go. By October 1915, he enlisted in the 00:04:34.459 --> 00:04:37.740 artist's rifles, and by June 1916, he was commissioned 00:04:37.740 --> 00:04:39.959 as a second lieutenant in the Manchester regiment. 00:04:40.480 --> 00:04:42.500 I was reading the excerpts from his letters home 00:04:42.500 --> 00:04:44.699 during this period, and there is a really surprising 00:04:44.699 --> 00:04:47.459 detail. The snobbery. Yes. When he first took 00:04:47.459 --> 00:04:49.939 command, Owen was quite the snob. In a letter 00:04:49.939 --> 00:04:52.319 to his mother, he described his own troops, the 00:04:52.319 --> 00:04:54.899 men he was leading, as expressionless lumps. 00:04:55.519 --> 00:04:57.079 Expressionless lumps. Yeah, he seemed to hold 00:04:57.079 --> 00:04:59.060 them in contempt for what he called their loudish 00:04:59.060 --> 00:05:01.769 behavior. He was very much playing the part of 00:05:01.769 --> 00:05:03.990 the refined, educated officer looking down on 00:05:03.990 --> 00:05:06.170 the working class enlisted men. But that initial 00:05:06.170 --> 00:05:08.610 arrogance, that class -based distance he tried 00:05:08.610 --> 00:05:10.750 to keep from his men, it was shattered almost 00:05:10.750 --> 00:05:12.670 immediately upon reaching the front lines in 00:05:12.670 --> 00:05:15.620 France. The reality hit hard. Very hard. The 00:05:15.620 --> 00:05:18.360 source details specific, horrific experiences 00:05:18.360 --> 00:05:21.879 that broke down those barriers. First, he fell 00:05:21.879 --> 00:05:24.100 into a deep shell hole in the dark and suffered 00:05:24.100 --> 00:05:26.360 a severe concussion. Which is terrifying enough. 00:05:26.519 --> 00:05:28.720 Right. But shortly after returning to the line, 00:05:29.040 --> 00:05:31.519 in an even more traumatic event, he was caught 00:05:31.519 --> 00:05:34.660 in the blast of a trench mortar shell. He spent 00:05:34.660 --> 00:05:37.120 several days lying semi -conscious on a railway 00:05:37.120 --> 00:05:39.980 embankment. pinned down by enemy fire. Oh my 00:05:39.980 --> 00:05:42.220 God. And he was right amongst the scattered remains 00:05:42.220 --> 00:05:44.860 of a fellow officer. Just the sensory overload 00:05:44.860 --> 00:05:48.379 and the pure psychological terror of that are 00:05:48.379 --> 00:05:50.699 hard to even fathom. The military at the time 00:05:50.699 --> 00:05:53.350 barely understood that toll. They slapped the 00:05:53.350 --> 00:05:55.329 label neurasthenia on it, which is the medical 00:05:55.329 --> 00:05:57.670 term for what we now call shell shock, and he 00:05:57.670 --> 00:05:59.870 was removed from the front lines. They shipped 00:05:59.870 --> 00:06:02.410 him to Craig Lockhart War Hospital in Edinburgh 00:06:02.410 --> 00:06:04.769 for treatment. And what's fascinating here is 00:06:04.769 --> 00:06:07.930 how this psychological breaking point, this diagnosis 00:06:07.930 --> 00:06:10.029 of shell shock, was actually the catalyst for 00:06:10.029 --> 00:06:12.769 his true creative genius to emerge. It really 00:06:12.769 --> 00:06:15.310 was. Craig Lockhart wasn't just a hospital. It 00:06:15.310 --> 00:06:18.000 was an incubator. because it's at Craig Lockhart 00:06:18.000 --> 00:06:19.959 where the most pivotal encounter of his life 00:06:19.959 --> 00:06:23.060 happens. He meets a fellow patient, the already 00:06:23.060 --> 00:06:27.040 established poet Siegfried Sassoon. A huge moment. 00:06:27.319 --> 00:06:30.339 Owen, completely hero worshipped him. The source 00:06:30.339 --> 00:06:33.120 notes that Owen told his mother he was not worthy 00:06:33.120 --> 00:06:35.860 to light his pipe. He even wrote to Sassoon saying, 00:06:36.319 --> 00:06:39.319 you have fixed my life however short. The dynamic 00:06:39.319 --> 00:06:42.220 between them was incredibly fruitful. But we 00:06:42.220 --> 00:06:45.220 also have to credit Owen's doctor at Craig Lockhart, 00:06:45.480 --> 00:06:48.100 Arthur Brock. Dr. Brock practiced something called 00:06:48.100 --> 00:06:51.279 ergotherapy, or a work cure. Work cure, right. 00:06:51.500 --> 00:06:53.779 As part of his treatment, Brock encouraged Owen 00:06:53.779 --> 00:06:57.000 to translate his trauma, specifically the terrifying 00:06:57.000 --> 00:06:59.680 visual experiences he was reliving in his nightmares, 00:07:00.120 --> 00:07:02.120 directly into poetry. So he couldn't run from 00:07:02.120 --> 00:07:04.860 it. Exactly. Instead of avoiding the memories, 00:07:04.920 --> 00:07:07.540 he had to face them on the page. Sassoon, who 00:07:07.540 --> 00:07:10.439 was being influenced by early Freudian psychoanalysis 00:07:10.439 --> 00:07:13.019 through his own doctor, aided Owen in this process. 00:07:13.620 --> 00:07:15.939 Sassoon showed Owen, by example, what poetry 00:07:15.939 --> 00:07:18.300 could actually do when applied to modern warfare. 00:07:18.779 --> 00:07:20.800 Sassoon essentially taught him how to use realism 00:07:20.800 --> 00:07:23.240 and satire. Up until this point, Owen's style 00:07:23.240 --> 00:07:26.079 was still heavily influenced by those romantic 00:07:26.079 --> 00:07:28.240 notions of honor and beauty. Teets and Shelley. 00:07:28.519 --> 00:07:32.279 Yeah. But Sassoon's emphasis was on writing from 00:07:32.279 --> 00:07:35.870 direct brutal experience. He taught Owen to focus 00:07:35.870 --> 00:07:39.610 on gritty realism to shock the civilian population 00:07:39.610 --> 00:07:42.209 out of their complacency. And that is the alchemy 00:07:42.209 --> 00:07:44.629 of Wilfred Owen's work. He didn't just become 00:07:44.629 --> 00:07:47.089 a Sassoon clone. He took Sassoon's gritty realism 00:07:47.089 --> 00:07:49.949 and fused it with his own romantic sensibilities 00:07:49.949 --> 00:07:52.709 and immense technical skill. Right. The synthesis 00:07:52.709 --> 00:07:55.250 created a poetic voice that was intensely potent, 00:07:55.649 --> 00:07:58.689 highly visual and deeply sympathetic. It's a 00:07:58.689 --> 00:08:01.290 style beautifully summarized by Owen's own ficus 00:08:01.290 --> 00:08:03.939 phrase describing his subject matter, the pity 00:08:03.939 --> 00:08:06.399 of war. Here's where it gets really interesting. 00:08:07.079 --> 00:08:09.240 Owen eventually surpassed his mentor technically. 00:08:09.839 --> 00:08:12.019 Sassoon's poetry was amazing at delivering a 00:08:12.019 --> 00:08:15.079 blunt satirical punch, but Owen started experimenting 00:08:15.079 --> 00:08:17.339 extensively with innovative poetic techniques 00:08:17.339 --> 00:08:20.339 that changed English literature. The source highlights 00:08:20.339 --> 00:08:22.699 his use of something called pararyme and his 00:08:22.699 --> 00:08:24.980 heavy reliance on assonance. Which requires a 00:08:24.980 --> 00:08:26.899 bit of explanation for those of us who haven't 00:08:26.899 --> 00:08:29.040 sat in a literature seminar recently. Please 00:08:29.040 --> 00:08:32.259 do. Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds 00:08:32.259 --> 00:08:36.440 to create a mood. But pararyme, which Owen pioneered 00:08:36.440 --> 00:08:38.840 the heavy use of, is when the consonants match 00:08:38.840 --> 00:08:41.669 but the vowels don't. So instead of a perfect 00:08:41.669 --> 00:08:44.629 satisfying rhyme like cat and hat you rhyme flush 00:08:44.629 --> 00:08:47.509 with flash or groined with groaned Right and 00:08:47.509 --> 00:08:49.590 the text points out how brilliant this was for 00:08:49.590 --> 00:08:52.909 his subject matter by using para rhyme He deliberately 00:08:52.909 --> 00:08:54.970 denies the reader the comfort and resolution 00:08:54.970 --> 00:08:58.309 of a perfect rhyme. Yes, it creates this unsettling 00:08:58.309 --> 00:09:02.110 incomplete dissonant sound When you read a poem 00:09:02.110 --> 00:09:04.690 like Strange Meeting, the rhyming of escaped 00:09:04.690 --> 00:09:07.309 and scooped literally sounds like the broken, 00:09:07.850 --> 00:09:10.590 jarring reality of the war itself. The language 00:09:10.590 --> 00:09:13.409 is musically reflecting the trauma. It is brilliant 00:09:13.409 --> 00:09:15.870 structural engineering in his poetry. And it's 00:09:15.870 --> 00:09:17.649 important to note that while his artistic life 00:09:17.649 --> 00:09:19.870 was expanding at Craig Lockhart, his personal 00:09:19.870 --> 00:09:21.909 life was experiencing a parallel awakening. This 00:09:21.909 --> 00:09:24.470 is a huge part of the story. Through Sassoon, 00:09:24.690 --> 00:09:27.710 Owen was introduced to a sophisticated homosexual 00:09:27.710 --> 00:09:30.870 literary circle. This network included Robbie 00:09:30.870 --> 00:09:33.809 Ross, who was famously a loyal friend and literary 00:09:33.809 --> 00:09:36.629 executor for Oscar Wilde, as well as the writer 00:09:36.629 --> 00:09:40.490 Osbert Sitwell and CK Scott Moncrief, the Scottish 00:09:40.490 --> 00:09:43.149 writer who would go on to translate Marcel Proust. 00:09:43.529 --> 00:09:45.789 I was really struck by how massive this exposure 00:09:45.789 --> 00:09:49.080 was for him. coming from somewhat sheltered religious 00:09:49.080 --> 00:09:51.840 background, meeting this group broadened his 00:09:51.840 --> 00:09:54.399 worldview significantly. It did. This introduction 00:09:54.399 --> 00:09:56.960 to a supportive literary and artistic circle 00:09:56.960 --> 00:09:59.639 gave Owen the confidence he needed to incorporate 00:09:59.639 --> 00:10:02.360 homoerotic elements into his own work. People 00:10:02.360 --> 00:10:04.980 who knew him intimately, like Robert Graves and 00:10:04.980 --> 00:10:08.120 Cheverell Sitwell, firmly believed Owen was homosexual 00:10:08.120 --> 00:10:10.600 and that homoeroticism was a central driving 00:10:10.600 --> 00:10:13.740 element in much of his poetry. Right. The biographer 00:10:13.740 --> 00:10:16.159 Andrew Motion noted that Sassoon's homosexuality 00:10:16.009 --> 00:10:18.330 admitted Owen to a style of living and thinking 00:10:18.330 --> 00:10:20.870 that he found naturally sympathetic. It allowed 00:10:20.870 --> 00:10:22.710 him to write about the physical bodies of his 00:10:22.710 --> 00:10:25.210 fellow soldiers with a deep, tender intimacy 00:10:25.210 --> 00:10:27.870 that contrasted sharply with the mechanized slaughter 00:10:27.870 --> 00:10:30.570 around them. But the sources reveal a really 00:10:30.570 --> 00:10:33.669 tragic layer to this part of his life. During 00:10:33.669 --> 00:10:37.409 Owen's lifetime and for decades afterward, homosexual 00:10:37.409 --> 00:10:40.409 activity between men was a heavily punished criminal 00:10:40.409 --> 00:10:42.769 offense in the United Kingdom. Yes. Because of 00:10:42.769 --> 00:10:45.789 this, his posthumous legacy was severely censored. 00:10:45.840 --> 00:10:48.740 His own brother, Harold, was named his literary 00:10:48.740 --> 00:10:51.120 executor and went to great lengths to construct 00:10:51.120 --> 00:10:53.659 a sanitized image of Wilfred. It's terrible to 00:10:53.659 --> 00:10:56.039 read about. Harold literally took a penknife 00:10:56.039 --> 00:10:58.759 to Owen's private diaries and letters, scraping 00:10:58.759 --> 00:11:01.500 away words, crossing out names, and removing 00:11:01.500 --> 00:11:04.899 any passages he considered discreditable to obscure 00:11:04.899 --> 00:11:06.860 the account of his brother's sexual development. 00:11:07.039 --> 00:11:09.659 And this academic and familial suppression wasn't 00:11:09.659 --> 00:11:11.919 just a brief hiccup. It lasted for the majority 00:11:11.919 --> 00:11:15.179 of the 20th century. It wasn't until 1987 that 00:11:15.179 --> 00:11:17.539 a major turning point occurred in Owen's scholarship. 00:11:17.720 --> 00:11:20.620 1987. Yeah. An article called The Truth Untold 00:11:20.620 --> 00:11:22.480 by Jonathan Cutbill was published in the New 00:11:22.480 --> 00:11:25.259 Statesman. Cutbill aggressively attacked this 00:11:25.259 --> 00:11:28.000 ongoing academic suppression of Owen as a poet 00:11:28.000 --> 00:11:30.500 of homosexual experience. The details in that 00:11:30.500 --> 00:11:32.879 article recontextualized things that had been 00:11:32.879 --> 00:11:36.019 hiding in plain sight. For example, it revealed 00:11:36.019 --> 00:11:39.139 that a poem of Owens called Shadwell Stare, which 00:11:39.139 --> 00:11:41.379 mainstream academics had previously dismissed 00:11:41.379 --> 00:11:44.539 as just a mysterious atmospheric piece, was actually 00:11:44.539 --> 00:11:46.919 a straightforward elegy to homosexual soliciting. 00:11:47.580 --> 00:11:49.659 Exactly. Shadwell Stare was an area of the London 00:11:49.659 --> 00:11:52.059 docks that was widely renowned as a cruising 00:11:52.059 --> 00:11:55.639 ground. It just shows how easily academics can 00:11:55.639 --> 00:11:57.340 miss the truth when they are looking through 00:11:57.340 --> 00:12:00.039 the lens of a preconceived myth. They were so 00:12:00.039 --> 00:12:02.860 invested in the image of the pious, tragic war 00:12:02.860 --> 00:12:05.580 hero that they assumed the poem was a gothic 00:12:05.580 --> 00:12:08.759 ghost story. They entirely ignored the lived 00:12:08.759 --> 00:12:11.299 reality of the man writing it. It reminds us 00:12:11.299 --> 00:12:13.340 how much of the person's truth can be erased 00:12:13.340 --> 00:12:15.799 by history when society deems it unacceptable. 00:12:16.620 --> 00:12:19.460 But Owen himself was intensely committed to truth, 00:12:19.740 --> 00:12:22.379 particularly the unvarnished truth of his era, 00:12:22.860 --> 00:12:25.419 which brings us to the events of 1918. Let's 00:12:25.419 --> 00:12:27.580 sit the scene based on the timeline in the text. 00:12:27.759 --> 00:12:30.740 It's the summer of 1918. Sassoon has been shot 00:12:30.740 --> 00:12:33.059 in the head in an apparent friendly fire incident, 00:12:33.059 --> 00:12:35.460 and he is sent back to England unsickly for the 00:12:35.460 --> 00:12:38.500 rest of the war. Meanwhile, Owen is safely stationed 00:12:38.500 --> 00:12:41.279 on home duty in Yorkshire. He could have stayed 00:12:41.279 --> 00:12:43.779 there indefinitely. The military considered him 00:12:43.779 --> 00:12:47.440 fit for home service. But he makes the monumental 00:12:47.440 --> 00:12:49.820 decision that he must return to the front line 00:12:49.820 --> 00:12:53.720 in France. He saw it as a terrible, unavoidable 00:12:53.720 --> 00:12:56.720 duty. With Sassoon incapacitated and back in 00:12:56.720 --> 00:12:59.519 England, Owen felt he had to carry the torch. 00:13:00.069 --> 00:13:03.129 He had to be the witness. Exactly. He needed 00:13:03.129 --> 00:13:05.370 to ensure that the horrific realities of the 00:13:05.370 --> 00:13:07.409 war would continue to be reported to the public 00:13:07.409 --> 00:13:10.509 by someone who was actually in the mud. He felt 00:13:10.509 --> 00:13:12.950 a profound obligation to the men who were still 00:13:12.950 --> 00:13:15.669 out there fighting and dying. He couldn't abide 00:13:15.669 --> 00:13:17.230 the thought of writing about their suffering 00:13:17.230 --> 00:13:19.990 from the safety of an English drawing room. When 00:13:19.990 --> 00:13:22.529 you read about Sassoon's reaction, It is intense. 00:13:22.870 --> 00:13:24.929 Sassoon was furious when he found out about this 00:13:24.929 --> 00:13:27.330 idea. He violently opposed Owen going back to 00:13:27.330 --> 00:13:29.490 the trenches. He famously threatened to stab 00:13:29.490 --> 00:13:31.570 him in the leg if he even tried to return. A 00:13:31.570 --> 00:13:35.029 very Sassoon thing to say. Yeah. Because of this 00:13:35.029 --> 00:13:38.029 fierce opposition, Owen actually kept his deployment 00:13:38.029 --> 00:13:41.080 a secret. He didn't inform Sassoon that he was 00:13:41.080 --> 00:13:43.279 returning to active service until he was already 00:13:43.279 --> 00:13:46.059 physically back in France, beyond Sassoon's reach. 00:13:46.440 --> 00:13:48.679 Once back at the front, Owen proved his courage 00:13:48.679 --> 00:13:50.759 in a way that is almost hard to reconcile with 00:13:50.759 --> 00:13:54.210 his earlier shell shock. On October 1st, 1918, 00:13:54.669 --> 00:13:57.169 he led units of the 2nd Manchester's to storm 00:13:57.169 --> 00:13:59.450 several German strong points near the village 00:13:59.450 --> 00:14:02.049 of Jeancourt. Right. His company commander became 00:14:02.049 --> 00:14:05.450 a casualty, so Owen assumed command. The military 00:14:05.450 --> 00:14:08.330 records state he showed fine leadership, resisted 00:14:08.330 --> 00:14:11.129 a heavy counterattack, and personally manipulated 00:14:11.129 --> 00:14:13.529 a captured enemy machine gun from an isolated 00:14:13.529 --> 00:14:16.309 position, inflicting considerable losses on the 00:14:16.309 --> 00:14:18.509 enemy. And for this action, he was awarded the 00:14:18.509 --> 00:14:21.539 Military Cross. But the text makes an incredibly 00:14:21.539 --> 00:14:24.139 heartbreaking point about why he wanted that 00:14:24.139 --> 00:14:26.860 medal. Yes. He specifically sought out this award 00:14:26.860 --> 00:14:30.440 in order to justify himself as a war poet. He 00:14:30.440 --> 00:14:32.620 knew that a pacifist poet without a medal would 00:14:32.620 --> 00:14:34.700 be easily dismissed by the public as a coward, 00:14:35.340 --> 00:14:37.559 but a decorated officer with a military cross. 00:14:38.080 --> 00:14:40.080 That is a prophet they're forced to listen to. 00:14:40.139 --> 00:14:42.500 It's a powerful motivation. He felt he needed 00:14:42.500 --> 00:14:45.279 the ultimate military validation so the public 00:14:45.279 --> 00:14:47.440 at home would read his poetry about the horrors 00:14:47.440 --> 00:14:49.980 of the war and actually believe him. It is a 00:14:49.980 --> 00:14:51.919 devastating commentary on the society at the 00:14:51.919 --> 00:14:54.259 time, that a poet felt he had to prove his bravery 00:14:54.259 --> 00:14:56.620 by participating in the slaughter just to earn 00:14:56.620 --> 00:14:58.879 the right to speak out against it. And then the 00:14:58.879 --> 00:15:01.360 timeline delivers a staggering blow. On November 00:15:01.360 --> 00:15:04.879 4th, 1918, Wilfred Owen is killed in action during 00:15:04.879 --> 00:15:07.659 the crossing of the Sambreois Canal. He was just 00:15:07.659 --> 00:15:10.620 25 years old. So young. This happened exactly 00:15:10.620 --> 00:15:13.980 one week, almost to the hour before the signing 00:15:13.980 --> 00:15:16.419 of the armistice, which ended the war. The cruelty 00:15:16.419 --> 00:15:18.960 of that timing is immense, but the way his family 00:15:18.960 --> 00:15:21.580 received the news is even worse. His mother, 00:15:21.899 --> 00:15:24.399 Susan, was handed the telegram informing her 00:15:24.399 --> 00:15:27.679 of his death on Armistice Day itself. Unbelievable. 00:15:27.860 --> 00:15:30.000 She read the news of her son's death at the exact 00:15:30.000 --> 00:15:32.100 moment the church bells in Shrewsbury were ringing 00:15:32.100 --> 00:15:34.399 out in joyous celebration of the war ending. 00:15:34.659 --> 00:15:36.940 So what does this all mean? How do we measure 00:15:36.940 --> 00:15:39.580 the impact of a life cut so incredibly short? 00:15:40.279 --> 00:15:42.419 We see in the sources that his legacy wasn't 00:15:42.419 --> 00:15:44.850 actually universally praised at first. That is 00:15:44.850 --> 00:15:47.250 correct. It is important to acknowledge the literary 00:15:47.250 --> 00:15:50.029 naysayers of the time. The most prominent was 00:15:50.029 --> 00:15:54.429 the famous poet William Butler Yeats. Yeats aggressively 00:15:54.429 --> 00:15:57.009 excluded Owen from the Oxford Book of Modern 00:15:57.009 --> 00:16:00.230 Verse. He was brutal in his assessment, describing 00:16:00.230 --> 00:16:03.350 Owen's work as all blood, dirt, and sucked sugar 00:16:03.350 --> 00:16:06.259 stick. Yates belonged to an older, more romantic 00:16:06.259 --> 00:16:09.799 tradition. He argued that in great poetry, a 00:16:09.799 --> 00:16:11.879 tragedy should be a joy to the man who dies, 00:16:12.320 --> 00:16:14.460 and that passive suffering is not a subject for 00:16:14.460 --> 00:16:16.899 poetry. Which completely misses the point. The 00:16:16.899 --> 00:16:18.899 blood and dirt was exactly the point Owen was 00:16:18.899 --> 00:16:21.600 trying to make. He wanted you to feel the suffocation 00:16:21.600 --> 00:16:23.879 of a gas attack, so you wouldn't glorify the 00:16:23.879 --> 00:16:27.000 conflict. Thankfully, Yates' view did not win 00:16:27.000 --> 00:16:29.679 out in the long run. Owen's legacy is massive 00:16:29.679 --> 00:16:32.200 and enduring. Very much so. He was heavily championed 00:16:32.200 --> 00:16:34.480 by Sassoon, who made sure his works were collected 00:16:34.480 --> 00:16:37.000 and printed, as well as the poet Edith Sitwell. 00:16:37.340 --> 00:16:39.320 Yes, his work eventually achieved widespread 00:16:39.320 --> 00:16:41.559 acclaim and became the standard by which all 00:16:41.559 --> 00:16:44.860 war poetry is judged. In 1985, he was one of 00:16:44.860 --> 00:16:48.360 16 great war poets commemorated on a slate stone 00:16:48.360 --> 00:16:50.580 unveiled in Westminster Abbey's Poets Corner. 00:16:51.000 --> 00:16:54.000 A huge honor. His poetry also served as the foundational 00:16:54.000 --> 00:16:57.159 text for Benjamin Britten's famous War Requiem, 00:16:57.440 --> 00:17:00.360 which was first performed in 1962 to consecrate 00:17:00.360 --> 00:17:03.500 the new Coventry Cathedral. I was looking at 00:17:03.500 --> 00:17:06.259 the publication dates in our sources, and it 00:17:06.259 --> 00:17:09.039 blew my mind to realize only five of his poems 00:17:09.039 --> 00:17:11.220 were published while he was alive, and one of 00:17:11.220 --> 00:17:13.630 those was just a fragment. Just five. He had 00:17:13.630 --> 00:17:16.329 plans for a whole volume of verse, had even written 00:17:16.329 --> 00:17:18.549 a preface for it declaring my subject as war 00:17:18.549 --> 00:17:21.210 and the pity of war, but he never lived to see 00:17:21.210 --> 00:17:25.019 it published. Yet despite that— he became the 00:17:25.019 --> 00:17:27.380 defining voice of an entire generation. It is 00:17:27.380 --> 00:17:29.319 a profound legacy, and I want to leave you with 00:17:29.319 --> 00:17:31.619 a final lingering thought to mull over today, 00:17:32.119 --> 00:17:33.599 something we haven't touched on yet regarding 00:17:33.599 --> 00:17:36.000 how he is remembered. When his mother, Susan, 00:17:36.099 --> 00:17:38.039 was tasked with choosing the inscription for 00:17:38.039 --> 00:17:40.599 his gravestone in northern France, she selected 00:17:40.599 --> 00:17:43.619 a line from one of his own poems, The End. The 00:17:43.619 --> 00:17:46.539 line she chose reads, Shall life renew these 00:17:46.539 --> 00:17:49.319 bodies? Of a truth, all death will he annul. 00:17:49.519 --> 00:17:52.039 But if you look at Owen's original manuscript, 00:17:52.329 --> 00:17:55.990 That line ended with a question mark, all death 00:17:55.990 --> 00:17:59.349 will heed it all. It was a profound expression 00:17:59.349 --> 00:18:02.589 of theological doubt. By intentionally deleting 00:18:02.589 --> 00:18:04.569 that trailing question mark for the gravestone, 00:18:04.910 --> 00:18:07.589 she transformed his aggrazing question into a 00:18:07.589 --> 00:18:09.990 definitive statement of faith. That is such a 00:18:09.990 --> 00:18:12.450 striking paradox. His family desperately tried 00:18:12.450 --> 00:18:14.349 to edit out his doubts in his authentic self 00:18:14.349 --> 00:18:17.609 to make him fit their ideal mold. Yet it is exactly 00:18:17.609 --> 00:18:21.109 his raw, uncensored, un -pious honesty about 00:18:21.109 --> 00:18:23.269 the realities of human suffering that made his 00:18:23.269 --> 00:18:25.690 work immortal. He refused to look away from the 00:18:25.690 --> 00:18:28.109 ugly truth in his poetry, even while his loved 00:18:28.109 --> 00:18:30.150 ones tried to soften the complex truth of the 00:18:30.150 --> 00:18:32.690 man himself after he was gone. Thank you so much 00:18:32.690 --> 00:18:34.470 for joining us on this deep dive into the life 00:18:34.470 --> 00:18:36.089 and mind of Wilfred Owen. Carry that thought 00:18:36.089 --> 00:18:37.650 with you and we will see you next time.