Wilfred Owen FUTILITY poem analysis | First World War Poetry | 20th Century English Literature

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Wilfred Owen FUTILITY poem analysis | First World War Poetry | 20th Century English Literature | WW1

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Analysis of Wilfred Owen’s haunting World War One poem Futility, which describes the existential crisis brought about by witnessing the freezing to death of a soldier (as well as the pervasive endless death more generally) in the trenches in the First World War.
LECTURE OUTLINE
Introductory background
- Wilfred Owen’s biography: brief overview of Owen’s military career in WW1 & Owen’s treatment at Craiglockhart War Hospital (poetry as part of recovery)
- Immediate background to & context of the poem Futility
Summary of the poem Futility
Analysis of the poetry
- Analysis of Form (modified sonnet)
- Analysis of rhyme scheme & Wilfred Owen’s use of pararhyme
- Analysis of metre
- Comparison of formal & structural aspects of the two stanzas
- Analysis of allusions: classical epic, biblical, & literary (Virgil’s Aeneid; the Bible’s Book of Isaiah & Book of John; John Milton’s Paradise Lost & Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein)
- Considers the metatextual irony of the poem’s title ‘Futility’
Manuscripts from the University of Oxford’s First World War Poetry Digital Archive
ww1lit.nsms.ox....
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Пікірлер: 37

@DrOctaviaCox 2 жыл бұрын

Thank you for watching. If you like my channel, then you can support it here: www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=D8LSKGJP2NL4N

@lisatitirangi 2 жыл бұрын

I have found his poems too painful to read as I age, but I love your work so much that you have taken me back to my teenage enthusiasm and astonishment at Owen's war poems. Thank you, as always, for all that you do bringing to us new classics and new perspectives on old friends.

@DrOctaviaCox 2 жыл бұрын

Thank you so much for your thoughtful message, Lisa. I really do appreciate the kind words. I adore analysing such beautiful, meaningful, powerful literature, and sharing it with others, and hopefully bringing some interesting thoughts and ideas to these - as you say - old friends.

@londongael 2 жыл бұрын

Thank you for this. I wonder if, without taking away from the fitting bleakness of the poem, there might be a "meta" potential for some, albeit slight, alleviation of despair. In the first place, the poem was written at all, and, by the poet's choice, published. All art, even the bleakest, militates against despair. Secondly, to whom are the final questions addressed? Not really to the sun, or to God, I submit, but to us. The sun cannot make sure the half-sown field can be reaped, that young men do not have to die for nothing, in horrible wars - but maybe, maybe we can. Perhaps he hoped that our reading this poem makes us more likely to try.

@DrOctaviaCox 2 жыл бұрын

Yes, indeed. I too think there is actually some hope in the poem. As I said in the video, the speaker cannot have totally given up on a better world otherwise they would not still be questioning and challenging. Frustration, as its one-time title shows, was a central emotion of the poem, and if one is frustrated then one must at least believe that better is possible. Frustration only comes when you think things could, should, ought to be better. And, as you say, the contemporary reader might well be compelled into action in answering "no, it was _not_ for this!"

@Khatoon170 2 жыл бұрын

How are you doing dr octavia thank you for your wonderful cultural channel we appreciate your great efforts as foreigners subscribers as overseas students want to increase our cultural level improve our English language as well literature lovers too as always iam gathering main information about topics you mentioned briefly here it’s futility poem written by Wilfred Owen it’s about British soldier during world war 1 this poem written in year 1918 elegizes an unnamed soldier lying dead in snow in France imageries with poem speaker causing him or her to reassess life value given death inevitability and two stanza structure of futility reflects change in tone from hope and confidence and despair and three major themes of poem poet goes into questing mode when he sees his friend dead he asked his friend to move his body to turn him to sun may make him get up but doesn’t not happen the form of poem short elegy it’s form of writing first depiction in 16 th century techinque of the poem half rhyme as sun France seeds

@robinem3107 2 жыл бұрын

I love the multi factorial use of the word clay, connecting the sun the earth and the soldiers (the dead and the living clay.)

@DrOctaviaCox 2 жыл бұрын

Yes, it's beautiful. So much meaning imbued in one word.

@brianmcdevitt2691 2 жыл бұрын

One of your best. Well done.

@DrOctaviaCox 2 жыл бұрын

Thank you!

@margaretrimmer2002 2 жыл бұрын

I read Owens poem “Strange Meeting” for the first time today and now found your analysis of “Futility “ I would love to hear your analysis of Strange Meeting. Thank you for your great work. It made Owens come to life for me.

@Khatoon170 2 жыл бұрын

Last part of my research Wilfred Owen the writer of poem futility born in year 1893 died in 1918 he was English poet soldier he was one of leading poets of First World War his poetry on horror of trenches and gas warfare influenced by his mentor Siegfried sassoon he killed in action aged 25 in France we appreciate your great efforts thank you for your giving us chance to read learn new information happy Easter to you may all your days as spring bright and flowering stay safe blessed good luck to you your family friends

@DrOctaviaCox 2 жыл бұрын

It's my pleasure, Khatoon. Thank you for your interest. Yes, great point - I think we can see the poem in some ways as an elegy to the dying/dead man.

@timothywoods1147 4 ай бұрын

Thank you , it made me feel like I was a student again receiving wisdom from a gifted professor.

@adayofsmallthings 2 жыл бұрын

Thanks very much! Really enjoyed watching it and learnt a lot!

@DrOctaviaCox 2 жыл бұрын

Oh good - I'm glad you found it interesting. Thanks for watching.

@DrOctaviaCox 2 жыл бұрын

What are your interpretations and analyses of Wilfred Owen’s poem Futility?

@helenbirch5719 2 жыл бұрын

Thank you for this. My knowledge of Owens' poetry comes from singing Benjamin Britten's Wat Requiem, which powerfully juxtaposes some of the poems, including this one, with the liturgy of the Anglican Mass. I cannot divorce these words from that music, especially the soloist singing the terrible question "Was it for this the clay grew tall?" I am glad to learn more about this man and his work, however tragic. He is an important voice.

@DrOctaviaCox 2 жыл бұрын

Britten wrote about him, "Owen is to me by far our greatest war poet, and one of the most original and touching poets of this century". His recognition of Owen as one of the most "touching" poets is significant, I think - meaning emotionally evocative. For a campaigning pacifist, that is a useful quality to embrace and transmute.

@HRJohn1944 2 жыл бұрын

Thank you so much for this. I first heard Owen's poetry almost 60 years ago through Britten's "War Requiem". I was later given a book of Owen's poems - a book which I still have and which is still much read. Your analyses are - as always - fascinating.

@maostrap7850 2 жыл бұрын

Out in the hinterlands of America, I am besieged by people who have no sense that poetry has an art behind it: tools and materials to be mastered as much as they have only recently realized music has. I am going to share this with my son. It may give him the sense an art of language does not need a beat or screaming, gesturing, lights, pyrotechnics at all, to carry it.

@DrOctaviaCox 2 жыл бұрын

All good art requires good technique to support it. In the words of Alexander Pope: True Ease in Writing comes from Art, not Chance, As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance (An Essay on Criticism) You need to master the skills of composition (of whatever art - be it poetry, music, painting, dancing), and only _then_ think about "Ease" or _appearing_ natural.

@londongael 2 жыл бұрын

It's not just in America! The concentration on detailed technicalities in Dr Cox's lectures enhances the emotional impact of the poem, for me. Good to share with the next generation.

@maostrap7850 2 жыл бұрын

@@DrOctaviaCox I 100% agree. I wish there were millions of you.

@evelinharmannfan7191 2 жыл бұрын

Thank you so much, your explainations are really helpful. Not only to understand the poem, but also to understand my emotional reaction to it. Thank you again.

@justinanovak8040 2 жыл бұрын

Thank you for introducing me to a new to me poet. Would you explain the use of ‘clay’ related to ‘star’? I thought the second use of clay was about a human is made from the earth\dust/clay… which you mention. But the first has me confused, clays referring to the ‘of a cold star’. Is the first use about the sun in a winter’s day-How it’s there but doesn’t seem to stir life? But the sentence doesn’t seem to work that way when the clays is ‘of’ a cold star. Is it only because ‘star’ single syllable…and planet or something else wouldn’t work… sphere, orb, globe. Earlier it refers to the ‘sun’ which is a star… So star referring to the earth in one place and the sun in another in the the same poem, same section of the poem? And sun is sun in the first section? confused!

@davidwright7193 2 жыл бұрын

At the time stars were thought to be powered by the gravitational collapse of a dust cloud under its own mass producing the energy of the star. So woke the clays of a cold star probably referrers to the sun sparking its self into life. At the same time as this poem is being written Edington is in West Africa to make the eclipse observations that will confirm General Relativity, E=MC^2 is just a theoretical construct. Edington’s proposal that stars are powered by nuclear fusion is some years off and 20 years or so away from being broadly accepted.

@DrOctaviaCox 2 жыл бұрын

I have always taken "the clays of a cold star" to mean the clays of earth. So the idea (obviously not scientifically correct!) is that the sun warmed the earth, transforming it from being a "cold [and so lifeless] star", and woke it into fertility and life.

@londongael 2 жыл бұрын

@@davidwright7193 Thank you - this makes so much more sense. Even in 1914, people knew the earth is not a star.

@justinanovak8040 2 жыл бұрын

Thank you Dr Cox and David too.

@samantha-kemp-therapy 2 жыл бұрын

Just discovered your channel - subscribed!

@rikimarco1826 2 жыл бұрын

I have long admired Owen's work. His ability to illuminate the language with such powerful meaning. But my concern is the debasement of language in our own time. How can we use the same expression 'mental health' to describe Owen's experiences with those of a Zoomer who feels a bit depressed? Have we lost our ability to recognise & react to nuance? When words & phrases become a 'trigger' to provoke a Pavlovian response are we not in danger of turning the world into cliche & bombast? Oh dear, have I scored an own goal!

@jpf119 2 жыл бұрын

Audio and video are still desynchronised

@karinpage3407 9 ай бұрын

Second stanza - couldn't "seeds" be a human embryo, clay symbolize humans made of earth ("cold star"), limbs be arms and legs and sides refer to the boy or man?

@ayooalani8719 2 жыл бұрын

Can i get what you talk about as something written

@karinpage3407 9 ай бұрын

Adam's rib was removed from his side to make Eve - they were to be equal partners and parents. Adam's fall was redeemed by Christ.

@renaldodaly537 2 жыл бұрын

Felicidades, es un buen ejemplo. 401 sentadillas son unos XX18LIKE.Uno muchas y un buen ejercicio. Se deja ver que hay muy buenos resultados 😍👍 Saludos desde la Cd.. de world 🌹😉💖 los mortalesz abian apreciado tan hermosa mujer.k