Anthem For Doomed Youth – Wilfred Owen

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?

Only the monstrous anger of the guns.

Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle

Can patter out their hasty orisons.

No mockeries now for them, no prayers nor bells;

Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, –

The shrill demented choirs of wailing shells;

And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?

Not in the hands of boys but in their eyes

Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.

The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;

Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,

And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

Lines 1-8 (the octet) contain a catalogue of the sounds of war, the weapons of destruction -
guns, rifles, shells - linked, ironically, to religious imagery, until in line 8 we switch from the
fighting front to Britain’s "sad shires" where loved ones mourn. The tone now drops from
bitter passion to rueful contemplation, the mood sombre, the pace slower, until by line 14 the
poem quietly closes with "the drawing down of blinds".
In this octet the devilish clamour of trench warfare is carefully set against the subdued
atmosphere of church. These religious images: passing bells, orisons (prayers), voice of
mourning, choirs, candles, holy glimmers, symbolise the sanctity of life - and death - while
suggesting also the inadequacy, the futility, even meaninglessness, of organised religion
measured against such a cataclysm as war. To "patter out" is to intone mindlessly, an
irrelevance. "Hasty" orisons are an irreverence. Prayers, bells, mockeries only. Despite
Owen’s orthodox Christian upbringing, how his faith actually developed during the last years
is far from clear, and it is hard not to think that he was not remembering in this poem those
members of the clergy, and they were many, who were preaching not the gospel of peace
but of war.
Right at the start the simile "die as cattle" jolts us with its image of the slaughterhouse and
the idea of men being treated as less than human. "Anger of the guns" (line 2): were the
men behind the guns angry? Probably not. Hatred of the enemy was more common among
civilians than the troops. Onomatopoeia, alliteration and personification come together in line
3 in a brilliant sound image.
The juxtaposition of "choirs" and "wailing shells" is a startling metaphor, God’s world and the
Devil’s both as one; after which line 8 leads into the sestet with the contrasted, muted sound
of the Last Post.
Religious images and allusions dominate lines 9-14. Forget about altar boys and candle
bearers, says Owen. These have nothing to do with the real rites. Look in their eyes and in
the ashen faces of their womenfolk to learn the truth about war.
In line 12, "pallor" - "pall" (paleness-coffin cloth) is almost an example of Owen’s use of
pararhyme (half rhyme), a poetic device which may give a downbeat, lowering effect or
creates an impression of solemnity. "Flowers" (line 13) suggest beauty but also sadness,
again a word that runs counter to the pandemonium of the first eight lines.
Aptly, dusk is falling in the last line and speaks of finality. The dusk is slow, for that is how
time passes for those who mourn, and with the drawing down of blinds and the attendant
sadness we may think of a house in Shrewsbury’s Monkmoor Road where at the eleventh
hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month a telegram was delivered that informed
Wilfred Owen’s parents of his death just a week earlier.
SUMMARY
Our speaker asks us what sort of notice or holy ritual marks the deaths of soldiers who are
slaughtered in battle. He then answers his own question, pointing out that there are no
special occasions or pleasant ceremonies on the front—only the sounds of weapons and
battle, which he compares to a demented sort of song and ceremony.
Then he asks what ritual can be done to make those deaths a little easier to swallow. He
concludes that only tears and the pale, drained faces of their loved ones will send these
deceased boys off; the tenderness of patient minds will be like flowers on their graves. In the
last image, our speaker shows us an image of civilians pulling down their blinds at dusk.
Stanza 1
Line 1
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
 People are dying and our speaker asks us, what sound is there to mark their deaths?
 Those "passing-bells"? They're church bells, which are rung to mark someone's
death (when they have passed away).

 Already this phrase has introduced religious imagery to the poem, but it's contrasted
with the horrific experience on the front lines of war, where men die like cattle. And
where we can't imagine any church bells are ringing.

 Did you notice that our speaker says "these" instead of "those"? Why do you think
that might be?

 "Those" gives a sense of distance to the poem. You might use that word to talk about
people who are far away, or whom you feel separate from. If you use "these," it's as
though you're talking about someone who's right there in the room with you.

 So with this very slight matter of word choice, our speaker has deliberately brought
the soldiers that much closer to us. It's as if we're on the battlefield, seeing those
soldiers falling right and left.

 And what are these soldiers compared to? Cattle. It's not exactly the
nicest simile we've ever heard. But it does pack a big punch.

 The phrase "die as cattle" suggests slaughter. He's saying that something about
these deaths is especially terrible—it's inhuman, it's treating soldiers like animals.

 Cattle come in herds, right? It seems a lot of these men are dying all at once.

 All in all we've got a pretty bleak start to what will probably be a pretty bleak poem.

 One last thing, Shmoopers. Read this line aloud to yourself. Do you notice anything
about the way it sounds? A rhythm? A meter? "What passing-
bells for these who die as cattle."

 There's a little da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM action, with an extra "da"
at the end of the line.

 When we see this rhythm in poetry (five da-DUMs in a row), we call it iambic
pentameter. In this case, it's got an extra syllable at the end, just for fun. If you're
curious about meter in this poem, be sure to check out our "Form and Meter" section,
and keep a weather eye out for more da-DUMs as you continue reading. There will
be a lot.

Line 2
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
 It's nice of our speaker to answer his own question for us.
 The only thing that marks their deaths is the angry sound of more guns. Gunfire is
just about the opposite of pleasant church bells.

 That word "monstrous" is a pretty big and heavy word, we'd say, especially to load on
top of "anger."

 We mean, anger is already a pretty violent and scary thing. So "monstrous anger"
means that something about these guns is terrible enough to put regular anger to
shame.
  And now we know for sure, if we hadn't already guessed, that this poem is talking
about war.

 After all, where else would men die like cattle to the sound of monstrously angry
guns?

 Finally, we've got ten syllables again, so we're thinking this is a continuation of the
first line's iambic pentameter. Albeit with a variation or two.

Lines 3-4
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
 Our speaker says that rifle fire is the only kind of prayer for the dying soldiers.
("Orison" is kind of a fancy word [from Latin] for prayer.)
 We've got some anaphora action here, what with that repetition of "Only." It's a nifty
trick that Owen uses to build momentum and pacing.

 That word "hasty" makes us aware of the suddenness of death on the war front, and
also underscores the haphazard and senseless nature of the killing that's going on
there.

 These are not thoughtful deaths—they're quick, loud, and messy.

 The word "stuttering" helps bridge the gap between the rifles and the people back
home who are saying prayers for these boys. By personifying the rifles, it gives us a
weird opposite of what happened when the soldiers were first compared to cattle.

 The soldiers become like animals, while the guns become like people. That does not
sound like a good combo.

 In any case, there are some strange connections being made—between guns and
prayer, between people and animals.

 Bonus: did you notice the rhyming action? Yep, rattle rhymes with cattle and orisons
rhymes (sort of) with guns. Neat, huh?

 Keep your eye out for more rhymes as you read, and see if you can spot a scheme
or pattern while you're at it. And be sure to check out the "Form and Meter" section
for more.

Line 5
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
 There are no prayers and no bells on the front to mock the dying men.
 Wait. What?

 Here our speaker's not pulling any punches. He sets us up with the word "mockeries"
then, when we find out what those mockeries would be—prayers and bells. Those
don't sound like mockeries to Shmoop. So what's going on here?

 This line strips the holy, solemn mask off those rituals and casts them as an outright
sham. Those prayers? Those bells? They're a joke.

 Now why might this be?

 We're thinking the speaker feels this way because he thinks that those rituals totally
miss the point. They ignore what's really happening.
  They glorify the deaths by pretending that the fighting is purposeful and noble, when
really it's akin to slaughtering cattle.

Lines 6-7
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,–
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
 In fact, there's basically no mourning going on whatsoever on the battlefield, except
for the wailing of shells, which our speaker compares to the sound of choirs.
 Once again, we've got a traditionally religious image (choirs) being used as
a metaphor for the rather unlovely reality of war (in this case, the sound of shelling).
Now that's a terrifying contrast.

 This is a freaky sort of choir. It's "shrill" and "demented." Something is twisted here.
This is not a choir you want singing at your funeral, or even your average Sunday
mass.

 The use of these uncharacteristic adjectives could be another way for our speaker to
point out the huge difference between what life and death are really like on the front,
and the holy and noble way that those back home present it.

 Plus, this word choice also has a way of pointing out that all the holy and patriotic
civilians are absent at the front. There's no voice of mourning there for the young
men, no pomp and circumstance—just the sound of shells.

 Our speaker is either lamenting this fact—wondering where all these mournful
patriots are in actual battle, or he's saying that if there isn't any fancy memorial going
on on the battlefield, then we shouldn't pretend by having them at home. It just
seems phony (at least, so says the speaker).

Line 8
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
 Our speaker now draws our attention to another sound of mourning for the soldier—
the sound of bugles playing in sad towns.
 A "shire" is an English term for a county. (Just think of Frodo and all the hobbits of the
Shire.)

 And of course the bugle is an instrument with military associations. In particular, it's
the instrument used to play "Taps" at soldiers' funerals.

 This presumably is meant to call to mind all the towns left with half or more of their
young men dead.

 There sure is a lot of sad music in this short poem, although the music of these
bugles is a bit more literal than those scary sounding choirs. There's no metaphor
here. That bugle music is all too real.

Stanza 2

Line 9

What candles may be held to speed them all?

 Now our speaker wants to know what candles all these mourners can hold in honor
of these fallen soldiers.
 We might think of this as a more general question: what rituals can people possible
perform to help these soldiers pass on peacefully (to speed them)? Rituals like, say,
lighting candles in churches.
  So then we might think of these candles as a metaphor for the larger ceremonies we
hold when attempting to honor those killed in action.

 Given what the poem has shown us so far, we're pretty sure that there isn't some
special scented candle that we can light back home that will help the soldier in any
real way.

 We can also expect, since he did it in the first stanza, that our speaker might be
about to answer his own question.

 So let's keep reading, shall we?

Lines 10-11
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
 Sure enough, the answer to the question "What candles?" is exactly that—what
candles! There are no candles here.
 Our speaker brushes off the idea of lighting candles. What's the point of that? He
instead turns our attention to tears, which, if you think about it, are also a sort of ritual
that marks the soldier's death, although less fancy (and probably more sincere).

 This reference to what's "in their eyes" could refer both to the tears of the soldiers'
sons, and to the tears of the soldiers themselves. We're not quite sure yet to whom
that pronoun refers, so we'll just have to roll with it.

 We don't know about you, but those words "shine" and "glimmer" remind Shmoop of
the candles from line 9, even as we know we're now talking about tears. Those two
words make a sort of link, so that we know that the tears are standing in for the
candles.

 Note that these lines employ words that we associate with holy things, rather than
human things. For example, instead of tears we have "holy glimmers," and instead of
deaths we have "goodbyes."

 "Holy glimmers and goodbyes" certainly sound more lofty and noble than tears and
death, but when we think about it, we're still talking about human pain and suffering.

 Owen is emphasizing the emotional aspect of grief—the private mourning that goes
on. Holding a public vigil is nowhere near as poignant as actual tears. They're what
counts.

Line 12
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
 The pale, drained faces of girls will stand in for the cover on the dead soldiers'
coffins. Lovely.
 A pall is the cloth typically draped over a coffin, so in this case, the girls' pale faces
will be metaphorically draped over the soldiers' coffins, sending them off in style.

 The drained (sad, shocked) faces of girls probably refers to the significant others
and/or daughters of the soldiers—the women who are left behind by war.

 This line, like the lines before it, brings our attention to the suffering caused by the
death of the soldiers, not only to the soldiers themselves but also to their towns and
families. And it's mixing that suffering in with the language of funeral rituals.

 So what matters here is not the pall, but the pallor; the girls' grief is what really
counts.

 In this way, our speaker is not letting the funeral ritual get away with seeming somber
and noble; he's forcing it to take on the weight of the real suffering that surrounds it.
Line 13
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
 "The tenderness of patient minds" will be like the flowers put on the soldiers' graves.
 This, for us at least, is one of the more mysterious lines in the poem.

 It could be that our speaker is holding up tender, patient minds in contrast to those
who are all eager and excited about war.

 In that way, this line could be telling us that the only positive tribute to the dead
soldiers comes from the tender thoughts and concerns of those who have more
patient, sensitive minds. Those who are really concerned about their safety and the
danger they're in, and mourn their losses.

 On the other hand, it could be that this line's getting at something more critical of
those patient minds: perhaps they shouldn't be so patient with all the jingoism and
the eagerness to send boys off to die.

 Maybe these minds should be a little less patient, and a little more eager to bring the
boys home.

 How do you read this line, Shmoopers?

Line 14
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.
 Our speaker ends with an image of blinds being drawn shortly before dark.
 That word "slow" reflects the way the poem has been slowing down throughout this
second stanza, with this last line being the slowest and quietest of them all.

 All that pacing is enhanced by the fact that this line, unlike many of the ones that
have come before, is written in perfect iambic pentameter. That meter gives the line
a somber cadence; it really lands.

 But a big part of its impact comes from the image itself.

 The drawing of blinds certainly works on one hand as an image of death. The
families that have lost young men are the ones closing the blinds, as a sort of
matching image to the closing and ending of a life.

 It also works as an image of civilians at home, with the drawing down of blinds acting
as a symbol for the way they're keeping out the realities of the war. They don't want
to be troubled by it. These folks will wave their flags by day, and close their blinds at
night, so they don't have to see the darkness, the terrible realities of the war.

 The grammar of this sentence also has a brilliant way of demonstrating the way that
people are unwilling to take responsibility for what's going on.

 How, you ask? Well, check out the sentence. Who is doing the action, who's drawing
down the blinds? It kind of seems like… nobody! It's a passive sentence, which
makes it seem like the blinds are drawing themselves down. Nobody's in charge
here. No one's responsible.

 This is like when you might say, "The cookies were eaten," or "there was an eating of
the cookies" when you don't want to admit, "I ate the cookies."

 Of course this passive reading lends itself to a more negative reading of Line 13.
Tender, patient minds might be more likely to draw down blinds and block out the real
horrors the fighting men are facing.

 Or, then again, to cut these folks some slack, we might read this line as a simple,
tender, private moment of grief. What else is there to do when you've lost a man in
 combat but to shun the rituals and shut out the world and mourn in your own
personal way?

ANALYSIS

FORM & METER

Sonnet, Iambic Pentameter
"Anthem for Doomed Youth" is a sonnet written mostly in iambic pentameter. Right? Right.
For you poets and poetesses out there, that might sound like a no brainer. But for those of
you who are new to poetry, Shmoop will give you a quick and dirty explanation.
The sonnet is a fourteen-line poem with a rhyme scheme (of which there are several
versions). We can thank the Italians for this one; a dude named Petrarch perfected the form,
and his influence brought it over into realm of English literature. In fact, Thomas Wyatt was
the first guy to translate Petrarch's Italian sonnets into English, which happened in the early
16th century.
Wyatt and his bro buddy, the Earl of Surrey, then gave these new English sonnets their
rhyming meter, and divided them up a little differently, much to everyone's delight. Pretty
soon, all kinds of poets were trying their hands at them. Shakespeare wrote a few (and by "a
few" we mean 154), and pretty much every poet since has at least dabbled in the form.
The sonnet has been around for a while, so it's had time to reinvent itself, several times over.
There are a bunch of different kinds of sonnets now, with exciting names like Petrarchan,
Shakespearean, and Spenserian. (Just think: if you become a literary giant and invent your
own rhyme scheme, you could have a kind of sonnet named after you. Yep, you!)

Owen Owes Us a Sonnet

Owen went old school on "Anthem for Doomed Youth." He chose the Petrarchan sonnet
form from way way back, but then he added a little dose of Big Willy and went for the more
Shakespearean rhyme scheme of ABABCDCD EFFEGG. How'd we figure that out?
Check out the ends of the lines in the octet (that's the first, eight-line stanza of the poem).
Cattle from line 1 rhymes with rattle from line 3 (and guns rhymes with orisons). Bells and
shells rhyme, while choirs and shires have their own thing going on.
Then take a gander at the sestet, or the final, six-line stanza of the poem. All rhymes with
pall, eyes with byes, and minds with blinds. Simple enough, right?
In typical sonnets, the break between the first eight lines—the octet—and the last six lines—
the sestet—marks some sort of shift in the poem. A change of course, a transition between
ideas, a problem and then its solution. In the case of "Anthem for Doomed Youth," the shift is
between the battlefield, and the quieter, less action-packed world of civilians at home.

I Am Pentameter

A sonnet is hardly a sonnet without a bit of iambic pentameter. What's that, you say? Allow
Shmoop to explain:
An iamb is a rhythmic foot (yep, foot) made up of a stressed and unstressed syllable (da-
DUM) and pentameter means there are five of those feet in a row. That makes for about ten
syllables per line and a rhythm like "and each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds" (14).
Of course, in this poem as in many, it's more of a prevailing pattern than a strict rhythm that
must always be used.
But here's the thing. For all its iambic-ness and all its pentameter posturing, this poem sure
does deviate from its own rules. Just look at the first line:
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? (1)
Uh, Owen? We count eleven syllables.
And what about line 2?:
Only the monstrous anger ofthe guns
That's not exactly perfect iambic pentameter. In fact, Owen substitutes what's called a
trochee (think of it as the opposite of an iamb: DA-dum), for the usual iamb.
Owen includes all kinds of variations like these—extra syllables, non-iambic feet, and the like
throughout the poem. He's constantly keeping us on our toes, unsettling us as readers so
that we can never get too comfy with the rituals of grief. We're meant to be off kilter, upset,
and troubled. If we grow too at ease, we're missing the point.

Q and A

Q: What's the one last formal thing Shmoop wants to mention?

A: That this poem is set up in a question-and-answer format.
Q: Why might that be?
A: Well it certainly draws us in as readers.
Q: Why else?
We think it has something to do with the fact that these questions don't really have answers.
There are no "passing-bells for those who die as cattle" (1). And there are no "candles may
be held to speed them all" (9).

SPEAKER
Our speaker is disembodied. No, we don't mean he had his head chopped off in the heat of
battle. We mean, he doesn't seem to be physically present. He's not there to experience any
of the things he's chatting about. There's no "I," "my," or even "our." And yet he clearly
associates himself closely with the soldiers and has an intimate knowledge of the sounds
and terror of a soldier's life.
We get the impression that our speaker is a soldier who has stepped out of himself for the
time being. Whoever he is, he definitely knows the ins and outs and awfuls of trench warfare.
But he also knows something of what goes down on the home front, because he knows all
about the ways in which the noncombatants try to mark the loss of their men in battle. And
he knows, or at least believes, that their rituals and ceremonies can't ever come close to the
terror of war.
What's so great about having a disembodied speaker is that he's got a sort of bird's-eye
view. He has no trouble jumping from image to image, and he can bound with the greatest of
ease from the battlefront, to a church funeral, to a house where the blinds are closed. He
sees it all, knows it all, and isn't afraid to share it all.
We think it's also safe to say that our unflinching speaker is outraged by the costs of war and
what he sees as the inability of religious rituals to address the real suffering that's going on.
SETTING

Here's the short version: it's World War I, folks, and we're in the trenches.
But alas, the short version is nothing without the longer version, and when it comes to
setting, that's a bit more complicated. In the long version, the battlefield gives way to the
home front, with its church bells, candles, windows, and widows. In "Anthem for Doomed
Youth," Owen seamlessly blends images from different places to create a general
atmosphere of war—both at home and on the front.
The effect is that we can be crouching in a trench one moment, listening to shells being fired,
and then standing with a soldier's family at his funeral the next. And, in addition, we can
simultaneously hear a prayer and rifle fire (or a choir and artillery shells) blended together in
a sort of terrifying medley.
They didn't call World War I The Great War for nothin'. It affected everyone and everything;
even the simple act of lowering one's blinds at the end of the day is imbued with the sorrows
of warfare.
TONE
With its end rhymes, rhythms and references to choirs and bells, this poem is downright
musical. And that's as it should be, right? After all, it's called an "Anthem" for a reason. And
while we can't tell you why Owen wrote the way he did (maybe he just thought it sounded
nice) we can talk about the effects that it has. Among the most significant, in our book, is the
way that the beautiful, musical language contrasts with the terrible sounds and images of
war and death.
Why do we think that's so great and significant? Well, it matches pretty well with what our
speaker does in the poem: that is, contrasting the holy rituals that mark death in the civilian
world with the ugly realities of dying on a battlefield. Take lines 2 through 4, for example:
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons. (2-4)
There's an almost chant-like repetition at the beginning of lines 2 and 3. There's all those "r"
sounds, bouncing off the consonance of those "t" sounds. There's the full rhyme of "guns"
and "orisons." It's musical and exciting and yet "monstrous" and frightening. It's rousing, but
at the same time we recoil from it. The poem mimics the way that talk of courage and
fighting for God and glory (and all the pomp and circumstance that follows the last full
measure of devotion) acts as a disguise for the senselessness and suffering of war. Only,
through words like "monstrous," the poem makes sure that we're well aware of the
dissonance.
SIGNIFICANT OF THE TITLE
Owen is really laying all his cards on the table with this one.
The word "doomed" raises the stakes right away, wouldn't you say? It alerts us to the fact
that this poem is going into some heavy territory and is ready to face it head on. "Youth" is
also very direct, highlighting how the young soldiers are the ones who are doomed and
dying, while also suggesting something of the immaturity of the enthusiasm and eagerness
to fight.
The weird part is that first word, "Anthem." Merriam Webster Online gives the following
definitions for anthem:
 a psalm or hymn sung antiphonally or responsively, a sacred vocal composition with
words usually from the Scriptures
 a song or hymn of praise or gladness

 a usually rousing popular song that typifies or is identified with a particular

subculture, movement, or point of view (anthems of teenage angst)

Those first two definitions have some religious connotations, huh? That might mean this title
is totally ironic. After all, this poem is definitely not a song or hymn of praise and gladness.
But the third definition of "anthem" seems to fit the bill; this poem definitely identifies with a
point of view. But rousing? Hardly. Anthem or not, this poem is certainly not causing anyone
to leap to their feet and cheer.
So as a title, "Anthem for Doomed Youth" is a bit ambiguous, a bit contradictory. We mean,
how can you be glad about someone who's doomed? That means that before we even read
the poem, Owen's title is hinting at the contrast between the popular, patriotic perceptions of
war, and the terrible doom the soldiers really face. In calling itself an anthem, it's actually
questioning the very anthems that are meant to cheer and support our troops. An anthem for
a doomed youth is no anthem at all. It's a dirge.
CALLING CARD
Terrors of War, Suffering of Soldiers
Okay, so Wilfred Owen isn't the only poet to write about the experience of being a soldier.
But he did it as powerfully as anyone. Plus, there aren't that many poets who
actually were soldiers, and there are even fewer who wrote their war poems while in the
midst of armed service. And because he died so young, with the war still going, his whole
body of poetry is pretty focused on the struggle and futility of a soldier's life on the front. So if
you see a war poem with stirring images, irregular meter, and the sharp tongue of a war-
weary vet, then you're probably reading Owen.

TOUGH-O-METER

(4) Base Camp

We might need to reach for the dictionary a couple of times (orisons? come again?), and
there's a good bit going on in a small space, but on the whole the poem is direct and
approachable.
The speaker of "Anthem for Doomed Youth" never says the words soldier or war. He
never names a country or particular dispute. In a way, he's signaling to us that this
poem is not about specific battles or individual loves lost. Nope, Owen is writing all
about a much more universal topic: the terrible costs and realities of all wars, and the
inability of our rituals to alleviate the death and suffering it brings about.

THEMES

Warfare
1. Although our speaker gives us a very clear feel for the battlefield, it seems to be all
sounds—not sights. What's the effect of leaving out the visual imagery? How do you
feel about the fact that no specific locations or people are mentioned?
2. Where does the emotion come from that our speaker ascribes to the guns (their
"anger" and their "wailing")? Is this the anger and sadness of the soldiers, does it
come from somewhere else, or is it something built into the guns themselves?

3. Here it is, the Big Question: what's the speaker really saying about war? Is it all
senseless? Is it ever necessary, according to him? How do you know (or not know)?

Chew on This
Try on an opinion or two, start a debate, or play the devil’s advocate.
This poem shows us that the suffering on the home front is equal to the suffering on the
battlefront—albeit a little less violent.
According to our speaker, funerals for fallen soldiers are pointless, because they cheapen
the sacrifice dead soldiers have made.
Choirs, candles, palls, and bells? "Anthem for Doomed Youth" is chock full of religious
imagery, but it lacks the peaceful, contemplative feel you might expect. Instead, our speaker
is bent on comparing religious rituals to the weapons of war, which is an alarming, but
effective way of getting us to face facts: are the religious rituals and institutions that glorify
and promote war just as destructive as the instruments used to carry out war? And will the
religious rituals we participate in to mourn our lost loved ones really be enough to honor
them after they have died as cattle?

Religion
1. Do you think this poem is a criticism of organized religious ritual, or just specifically
those that deal with death? To take the same question a little further: do you think our
speaker is angry about the complicity of the church in the war, or is this a broader
critique of the way we respond to (or fail to recognize) death and suffering?
2. Why does our speaker mention certain religious images and not others? Would they
be interchangeable, or is there something about the ones he specifically notes that
makes them stand out? In other words, why choirs, candles, palls, and bells?

3. What do you make of that final image, of pulling down the blinds? Is that an example
of a religious person turning a blind eye to the senseless violence of war? Or is that a
 mourner attempting to get some private grieving time after the more public, less
sincere ritual of the funeral?

Chew on This
Try on an opinion or two, start a debate, or play the devil’s advocate.
"Anthem for Doomed Youth" is a religious critique, through and through. The speaker is
arguing that our religious rituals are nothing but a hollow attempt to justify pointless deaths.
Not so fast. The speaker is critiquing religion, sure, but only because it's public. Private
prayers and sincere mourning behind closed doors are a legitimate way to mark the passing
of loved ones lost on the front.
Here's the deal: the big problem with war is that people die. We know, we know. Duh. Still,
we figure it's worth pointing out that even though "Anthem for Doomed Youth" doesn't
directly mention death after the first line, it's still completely obsessed with the concept. We
move between the sounds of incoming death (rifle and artillery fire) and images of mourning
(coffin covers, candles, passing-bells). Where do we end up? At dusk, a.k.a. the dying of
day.

Death
1. Is it strange that our speaker doesn't have a physical presence in the poem? Does
that make us less concerned about death, if our speaker doesn't seem to be in peril
himself? Or is he maybe talking from beyond the grave?
2. Can you find a line that doesn't have to do with death? Why are there so few, if any?
And what do the lines that don't have to do with death address?

3. Why does the poem, despite revolving completely around the deaths of soldiers, not
actually show us any images of dying? What is the effect of instead giving us the
sounds of war, and the images of funeral rituals?

Chew on This
Try on an opinion or two, start a debate, or play the devil’s advocate.
The speaker's "Anthem" is really his own version of the rituals the figures in the poems
participate in to honor. He's so angry in the anthem because he has such compassion for the
soldiers, who need not have died in the first place.
The problem with war, the speaker thinks, is that the deaths are actually no big deal. So
many people die with such frequency, that they can never properly be mourned, so their
deaths have less meaning.
QUOTES
1) WARFARE
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? (1)

Cattle? Shmoop can think of a few more flattering things to call fallen soldiers. You might be
expecting something like "die as heroes." But in an Owen poem, there are no heroes, just
senseless death. Yep, he was a real uplifting guy.
Only the monstrous anger of the guns. (2)

That one word "monstrous" does a lot, don't you think? It ensures that we understand that
the awfulness of war isn't something natural or manageable. It's crazy and unbelievable and
just plain horrible. The guns are a sort of monster, brought to life at the expense of the
soldiers who must use them and die by them.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons. (3-4)

Only the sound of rifles can speak the soldiers' prayers. Which seems to be a way of saying
that the soldiers have no voice, no way to express themselves but through shooting. As
bleak as that sounds, that's their duty, after all, as soldiers. No wonder they're compared to
cattle in the first line. These soldiers don't seem to be able to think for or express
themselves.

RELIGION

No mockeries now for them, no prayers nor bells; (5)

The second half of this line is where we find out how critical our speaker is of religious ritual.
Before this, we might have thought he was just missing those passing-bells, wishing they
had some at the front to honor the soldiers. And the way the line sets it up (giving us
"mockeries," then having us find out that those mockeries include prayers and bells) makes
the line that much more shocking, and lets us know that our speaker is really going to let it
rip. Religious rituals as mockeries? Owen sure isn't pulling any punches here.
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, –
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells; (6-7)

This line is a little bit of a sucker punch, too. We hear about the choirs and we picture a choir
in a church singing a beautiful hymn to mourn the sacrifice the dead soldiers have made.
Then we find out that the choir our speaker is referring to is actually the freaky noise made
by incoming shells. Our speaker might be suggesting that this is the very same sucker punch
that soldiers get. They hear all the pomp and rhetoric, the prayers for victory. Then when
they arrive in the war zone – oops! Dying for their country is a little more awful, and
senseless, than it first sounded.
What candles may be held to speed them all? (9)

Since our speaker has already let fly with his critique, the emotion here is clearer than in the
first line of the poem. There's still the sadness and the sympathy for the soldiers, but there's
an unabashed cynicism when it comes to passing-bells and candles. Sure, it's sad that these
soldiers have died, but according to our speaker, the way we mark that sadness is just, well,
ridiculous. Mainly because it's pointless. The pomp and circumstance of public, religious
mourning just doesn't jive with the cattle-like deaths these men endure.

DEATH

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? (1)

Being killed like an animal isn't anyone's idea of glory, and this line makes sure that we don't
approach the idea of dying in war with any undue excitement. Any patriotic idea these
soldiers might have had about how heroic it is to die for their country is totally undercut by
this simile. There's the suggestion, through the comparison to cattle, that the soldiers are
trapped and at the mercy of others. It doesn't leave much hope of escaping death. How
many cattle have you heard of escaping from the slaughterhouse?
Can patter out their hasty orisons. (4)

That word "hasty," plus the haphazardness of "patter," relates to us the suddenness of death
on the battlefield. Not only is death fairly certain, but it doesn't necessarily announce itself far
in advance. It's not stately, heroic, or glory-filled. It's quick and dirty.
And bugles calling for them from sad shires. (8)

This is the first time the poem reaches out beyond the death of the soldiers to mention the
suffering it causes others: relatives, neighbors, and so on. Those "sad shires" really are
pitiful, calling for their dead young men. The only way they seem to get them back is for a
funeral.

QUESTIONS
1. Is this an anti-war poem? Which do you think is more upsetting for our speaker: the
fact that the soldiers are dying, or the ways in which the holy rituals of mourning
civilians understand those deaths?
 2. Why do you think this poem is a sonnet? Do the rhymes and rhythm affect the
meaning of the poem in any way? Does the music of the poem have anything to do
with the music of war—those bells and choirs of shells?

3. Where's our speaker? And who is he? Why do you think our speaker has chosen to
essentially leave himself out of the poem?

4. What do you make of the question-and-response format of this poem? Is it effective?

5. And what do you make of that last image? Are these people drawing down their
blinds to shut out the world's phony rituals and mourn and suffer in their own private
way? Or are they foolishly blocking out the horrors of war?

6. What do you make of the title? Is this poem itself an anthem? Does the poem
approve of anthems for doomed youths in the first place? (Take a peek at "What's Up
With the Title?" for more.)

QUESTIONS

 ANTHEM FOR DOOMED YOUTH

How does the poet powerfully convey his attitude to war in "Anthem for Doomed
Youth"?

Wilfred Owen conveys his anti-war attitude through the central metaphor around which the
poem is organized. The poem asks how the young soldiers who died on the battlefields are
being memorialized....

What are the figures of speech used in the poem "Anthem for Doomed Youth" by
Wilfred Owen?

Some of the figures of speech employed by this poem include simile, personification, and
alliteration. In the first line, the speaker asks, "What passing-bells for these who die as
cattle?" He...

How does Owen use the sonnet form to effectively reflect on the losses of WW1?

Wilfred Owen uses the Italian sonnet form to reflect the losses of World War I by employing
the first eight lines (or octave) to address the terrible cost of the loss of young men's lives in
war...

What do the deceased soldiers get instead of flowers, shrouds, and candles in Wilfred
Owen's poem...

In Wilfred Owen's World War I poem "Anthem for Doomed Youth," the deceased soldiers do
not receive prayers, bells, or songs from choirs. Instead, their deaths are marked only by the
sounds of guns,...

What is an example of shocking imagery in "Anthem for Doomed Youth"?

I believe that you are asking about Owen's use of striking imagery in his powerful, evocative
descriptions of the horrors of World War I in "Anthem for Doomed Youth." "Anthem for
Doomed Youth" is...

How can the theme of Wilfred Owen's poem "Anthem for Doomed Youth" be
explicated?

The theme of Owen's sonnet presents the bitter irony of the terrible costs and brutal realities
of warfare in contrast to the incapability of England's rituals to honor the fallen soldiers and...
Please write about the imagery in "Anthem for Doomed Youth" by Wilfred Owen .
Thanks

In Wilfred Owens's "Anthem for Doomed Youth," the poet employs sound imagery in the first
stanza and visual imagery in the second. With its indirect appeal to the senses of sight,
sound, smell,...

What is the significance of the title "Anthem for Doomed Youth" by Owen?

The irony in the poem is foreshadowed by the irony in this title. Owen writes a bitter poem
about the fate of so many soldiers in World War I and deliberately uses the title to mock
the...

Compare the poems "Anthem for Doomed Youth" and "The Send-Off" by Wilfred
Owen.

The life of the poet Wilfred Owen is as heart breaking as the war poetry he wrote. After
suffering from shell shock in World War I, Owen stayed in a hospital where he wrote many of
his poems....

what does the simile "who die as cattle" suggest about the deaths...

This simile suggests a lot about both the soldiers and the war that is leading them to be
killed in such a spectacularly numerous way. The key to understanding any simile is thinking
about the kind...

what is the overall impression of war that the poet is trying to...

The impression of war that is created is a profoundly negative one. The bitter, strident tone
that dominates the poem is created thanks to the question that interrogates the reader at
the...

What is the attitude of Wilfred Owen in 'Anthem for Doomed Youth' towards war? How
is that...

Owen's aggressively anti-war poem uses the metaphor of a church service to frame the
horrific scene of men dying, most likely in France, during World War I. Instead of the sound
of church bells...

need help in anthem for doomed youthwhat kind of a sonnet is anthem for doomed
youth???

Anthem for Doomed Youth What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? a-- Only the
monstrous anger of the guns. bOnly the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle aCan patter out their
hasty orisons. bNo...

Discuss the meter of Wilfred Owen's "Anthem for Doomed Youth."

Wilfred Owen constructed this poem in iambic pentameter. This means most of the lines are
broken up into five feet (this is the penta- part), and each foot consists of one unstressed
syllable...

What is the tone of the first and second stanzas of Owen's "Anthem for Doomed
Youth"?
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? The tone of the first stanza of Owen's
"Anthem for Doomed Youth" is crystallized in the first line, above. Borrowing from Edmund
Spenser's genius,...

"Anthem for Doomed Youth"poem starts as an English sonnet. Then how author
continue this poem

Most critics view Owens' poem "Anthem for Doomed Youth" as a mixture of the English and
Italian sonnet forms-a hybrid. The poem, as you correctly noted, begins as an English
sonnet with an ABAB...

"The bugles" are likely to be playing: attack, retreat, taps,...

The bugles in Wilfred Owen's "Anthem for Doomed Youth" come "from sad shires." Shire is
the British equivalent of county. They are unlikely, then, to be playing anything directly
related to...

In "Anthem for Doomed Youth," by Wilfred Owen, the antecedent for "these" ( in line
1) is:...

In Wilfred Owen's poem, "Anthem for Doomed Youth," the antecedent for "these" does refer
to the dying soldiers. However, it seems that the poem's title provides us with the best
answer based on the...

what will serve as "passing-bells?" doomed youth,...

In Wilfred Owen's "Anthem for Doomed Youth," the author refers to the tolling of bells. It has
been a common practice in England for hundreds of years to toll church bells at someone's
passing. It...

" to where will the candles "speed them?" home,...

In Wilfred Owen's World War I poem, "Anthem for Doomed Youth," all of the elements of a
funeral are represented by the trappings of war. The guns act like the tolling of bells for the
dead; the...

" "the bugles" are likely to be playing a: -reveille -taps -retreat...

As with any of these kind of questions, it is very important to read the word or phrase you are
trying to define in the context of the poem as a whole and especially the sentence in which
it...

"choirs" is used as a metaphor for: -eyes -shells -prayers...

Let us remember that a metaphor is a form of figurative language in which one object is
normally compared to another directly, without the use of the words "like" or "as," as in a
simile. Normally...

" the antecedent for "these" (line 1) is: -doomed -guns -orisons...

Strictly, an antecedent is defined as the word, phrase, or clause that determines what a
pronoun refers to. Applying this definition to your question, it is clear that "these," and other
words that...

In "Anthem for Doomed Youth," the most alliteration in lines 1-4 is found in which
line?
Alliteration is an example of a literary device where, in a series of words that may or may not
be next to each other, the initial consonant sound is repeated to create a special sound
effect. If...

Is there a pattern to the imagery in "Anthem for Doomed Youth"?

There is a progression of images in the poem, all having to do with those who are left behind
—family, sweethearts, parents. The “holy glimmers of good-byes” suggests how light from
altar...

What is the contrast in the poem "Anthem for Doomed Youth"?

The contrast and tone are set in the first line, where the image of the death of cattle stands
for the death of men in combat. The image suggests that the men are not valued as human
beings....

What is the main type of imagery in "Anthem for Doomed Youth"?

The predominant images in the octave are those of sound. Lines 1, 4, 5, 6, and 8 refer to
sounds of peace, while 2, 3, and 7 displace these peaceful sounds with sounds of war. Thus
the...

What is the theme of "Anthem for doomed youth"? How does the poem view war?

It is clear that this is one of many World War I poems that represent a crushing indictment on
the whole military enterprise, presenting another image than one that views war as
something noble and...

What does Owen mean by .fog of war. ?please answer in detail

I am not sure what you mean by “fog of war” because this phrase does not appear in this
poem by Wilfred Owen, but it certainly is a phrase that has been applied to war and may be
evident in the...

In the poems "Soldier", and "Anthem for Doomed Youth", what are the tensions that
lie between the...

In the poem "Anthem for Doomed Youth" by Wilfred Owen, the poet asks "what passing bells
for these that die as cattle" will ring, but more particularly, will ring in churches. All the way
through...

What point could you mention when comparing and contrasting "Demeter" by Carol
Ann Duffy and...

The poems 'Demeter' by Carol Ann Duffy and 'Anthem for Doomed Youth' by Wilfred Owen
both deal with the theme of mourning. In that much there are similarities. Duffy's poem
reminds us of a story...

Why does Owen use rhetorical questions to open each stanza?

In "Anthem for Doomed Youth," Wilfred Owen is attempting to convey his opposition to World
War I. Owen wants to show the sorrow that war brings and its utter wastefulness (as it
destroys the lives...
Are "Anthem for Doomed Youth" and "Where Have the Flowers Gone" anti-war
poems?

Both of these are anti-war works, but one is a poem and the other is a song. "Anthem for
Doomed Youth" was a poem written by the British poet Wilfred Owen during WWI. Owen
was a soldier in that...

," what sort of religious ceremony is taking place, and what...

I'd call it a religious rite rather than a religious ceremony. Although written in the sonnet form,
this poem is an elegy, or lament for the dead. Wilfred Owen wrote the poem out of his own...

Alliteration is an example of a literary device where, in a series of words that may or may
not be next to each other, the initial consonant sound is repeated to create a special sound
effect. If you think about it, alliteration is commonly found on a day-by-day basis in
newspapers and their headlines, which are more impactful because of the alliteration they
employ. Quickly scanning the first four lines of this excellent poem therefore, it is clear that
line 3 contains the best example of alliteration. Let us examine the first four lines:

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?

Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.

Note how the repetition of the "r" sound operates in line 3 to create alliteration in "rifle's rapid
rattle," which itself seems to be onomatopoeic as it enacts the "stuttering" and "rapid" sound
of the rifles rattling as men shoot each other and men die as if they were nothing more than
"cattle."

oThe poem’s effect relies on the contrast between the actual scene on the war front
described in the present tense in the first seven lines and the imagined scene on the home
front described in the future tense in the last six lines, with line 8 effecting the transition.
Unlike poets who wrote “patriotic” verses aiming to disguise the horrors of trench warfare,
Owen insisted on telling the truth as he saw it in order to voice a protest against the war. The
poem opens with the shocking image of the battlefield as a slaughterhouse where men die
“as cattle”—the mention of “passing-bells” may even hint at cowbells, as though these men
were stumbling as innocently to their deaths as were cows.

The scene might become simply gruesome and ugly, but Owen prevents this by focusing on
the sounds of warfare (rather than the sights) in order to draw parallels between the rites of
burial and the conditions of the front lines. Complicated patterns of sound in these first seven
lines represent the noise and chaos of the front: lines 1 and 3 add an extra short syllable to
the usual iambic pentameter, so that these lines end haltingly, stumbling to a close. The
repetition of a stressed open vowel followed by the sound of the letter n in line 2 (“only,”
“monstrous,” “anger,” “guns”) mimics the steady, regular thundering of the heavy guns, while
the repetition of a vowel followed by the sound of the letter t in lines 3 and 4 (“stuttering,”
“rattle,” “patter”) combined with the alliteration of “rifles’ rapid rattle” mimics the crack of
gunfire.

The fact that the iambic pentameter of line 3 is violated by both the dactyl of “Only the” and
the trochee of “stutter-,” along with the aforementioned extra syllable that ends the line,
means that the line literally stutters, imitating the irregular staccato of rifle fire up and down
the trenches. However, there is more to these lines than straightforward onomatopoeia:
Owen...