Wilfred Owen’s ‘Strange Meeting’

In this issue of THE ENGLISH REVIEW, we include two contrasting articles on Wilfred Owen, both of which focus on analysing individual poems in detail. In the first, Barbara Morden explores the cultural and literary background to ‘Strange Meeting’, and relates these contexts to our understanding of the poem

CHRISTIAN JACQUET/FOTOLIA

War literature: AQA (A) Literature; Edexcel Literature; OCR Literature; WJEC

Written sometime in 1918 as the Great War was being played out, ‘Strange Meeting’ is often regarded as Wilfred Owen’s signature poem. It was described by his friend John Middleton Murry as having the ‘modulation of his voice’, with a tone that is ‘low, muffled, subterranean’. This article explores the way that this distinctive tone is achieved through the melding of theme, images and technique to communicate his message: ‘the pity of war, the pity war distilled’.