The Full Text of “1914”
1War broke: and now the Winter of the world
2With perishing great darkness closes in.
3The foul tornado, centred at Berlin,
4Is over all the width of Europe whirled,
5Rending the sails of progress. Rent or furled
6Are all Art's ensigns. Verse wails. Now begin
7Famines of thought and feeling. Love's wine's thin.
8The grain of human Autumn rots, down-hurled.
9For after Spring had bloomed in early Greece,
10And Summer blazed her glory out with Rome,
11An Autumn softly fell, a harvest home,
12A slow grand age, and rich with all increase.
13But now, for us, wild Winter, and the need
14Of sowings for new Spring, and blood for seed.
The Full Text of “1914”
1War broke: and now the Winter of the world
2With perishing great darkness closes in.
3The foul tornado, centred at Berlin,
4Is over all the width of Europe whirled,
5Rending the sails of progress. Rent or furled
6Are all Art's ensigns. Verse wails. Now begin
7Famines of thought and feeling. Love's wine's thin.
8The grain of human Autumn rots, down-hurled.
9For after Spring had bloomed in early Greece,
10And Summer blazed her glory out with Rome,
11An Autumn softly fell, a harvest home,
12A slow grand age, and rich with all increase.
13But now, for us, wild Winter, and the need
14Of sowings for new Spring, and blood for seed.
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“1914” Introduction
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"1914" is a sonnet by the British poet and soldier Wilfred Owen about the outbreak of World War I. The poem laments the destructiveness of war and compares the rise and fall of Western civilization to the progression of the seasons. WWI has thrust the world into a dark winter, the speaker says, and it's unclear whether a new spring will follow—that is, if civilization can be renewed. Owen was killed in action at the age of 25 in 1918, just before the war's end. "1914" was published posthumously.
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“1914” Summary
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The speaker compares the outbreak of war to a vast winter—a season of cold, deadly darkness closing in across the world. The war is like a terrible cyclone that began in Berlin and has now spun across the whole of Europe, ripping down the sails of progress along the way. Art's flags are all torn or rolled up, and poetry cries out in despair. There's an extreme shortage of critical thinking and empathy. Love is weak. The fruits of human civilization are rotting, having been tossed to the ground.
Comparing human progress to the seasons, the speaker deems ancient Greece to have been the springtime of human history. Ancient Rome was then summer, a time when civilization quickly grew and spread in a blaze of glory. Then autumn, the harvest season, quietly set in. This season of humanity was an era filled with slow yet abundant growth and prosperity. But in the present, all that's left is the savage winter season. Civilization needs to sow seeds if it is to be renewed, to enter a new spring, and all there is to plant is the blood of the fallen.
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“1914” Themes
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The Total Destruction of War
“1914” is a sonnet about the outbreak of World War I. In an extended metaphor, the poem compares this war to the “Winter of the world,” a time of death, destruction, and the collapse of Western civilization itself. War, in this poem, is like a natural disaster that indiscriminately destroys everything in its path—including human progress.
The speaker begins by declaring that the beginning of World War I has plunged the world (especially Europe, the heart of Western civilization and the main battleground of WWI) into a terrible “Winter.” This winter represents not only the physical costs of war (such as the destruction of buildings and people) but also the loss of the very things that define society and make life worth living: art, thought, morals, culture, and love.
The destruction of those things has left society (especially Europe) in a kind of spiritual wasteland, the speaker argues. The “foul tornado” of the war rips society’s “sails of progress,” while “Art’s ensigns” (the flags, banners, and emblems of art, which the poem sees as the spiritual opposite of war) are all torn or rolled up. Likewise, poetry “wails,” and people suffer “[f]amines” of “thought and feeling,” not just of food. The wine of love—the affection that bonds people together in a peaceful, prosperous society—is “thin.” This war, the speaker thus makes clear, is about more than bombed cities and lost lives; it’s about the loss of ideals, morals, and virtues that have made centuries of human “progress” possible.
In fact, the poem suggests that war doesn’t just destroy human progress; it’s also a direct result of people not sufficiently valuing the benefits of a peaceful, stable, prosperous society. In other words, war doesn’t just come out of nowhere. The conditions for war have been created because the “grain of human Autumn”—the rich harvest of enlightened human society—has been recklessly thrown to the ground, where it “rots.” Likewise, the primal impulses suggested by the symbolism of the “foul tornado” have begun to win people over—and not just the actual aggressors in the war. War breaks out and civilization collapses, the poem suggests, because people do not sufficiently value the benefits and rewards of peaceful human society.
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Societal Collapse, Renewal, and Sacrifice
The poem sees WWI as part of a long cycle of societal growth, collapse, and, possibly, renewal. The speaker specifically compares the growth and decline of civilization to the progression of the seasons: the seeds of civilization bloom in spring, grow through summer, fully ripen in autumn, and die off in winter.
Here, that winter season represents World War I, which spreads icy darkness across Europe. And because winter is followed by spring, the poem's extended metaphor might suggest that civilization will be renewed after this conflict—that the war will pave the way for a kind of rebirth, essentially paid for with soldiers' "blood." At the same time, the poem implicitly questions whether this "blood" can really be the "seed" that humanity needs to enter a new "spring"—that is, whether the horror and violence of war can possibly usher in an age of prosperity and growth.
The speaker views ancient Greece—the birthplace of democracy—as the “Spring” of modern civilization, the time and place where the foundation of modern Europe was first established. “Summer” then represents ancient Rome, the great empire that spread civilization widely across the globe. Even though Rome eventually collapsed, the speaker sees modern civilization as having sprung from its ashes. The fall of Rome gave way to a long, prosperous “Autumn” (a “slow grand age”) during which human society gradually improved. Civilization here is like a crop ripening for the harvest.
The world is now at the end of this cycle, the speaker says: society has collapsed with the outbreak of war, and now humanity is in its “wild Winter”—a time of death and destruction. And yet, winter is also a time of anticipation for the coming spring. Spring follows winter, and in this way the poem suggests that a renewal of civilization may follow its destruction by war.
If there’s a chance that the cycle of human progress can begin again, people will need to plant seeds that will blossom into a “new Spring.” However, the world has only “blood for seed.” In this striking image, the blood of those killed in the war (which soaks the ground of much of Europe) becomes the seed that may prompt another spring season and a new, blossoming era of civilization.
Of course, blood is emphatically not seed; it’s very possible, the poem suggests, that the “new Spring” the world needs will never come. The things that normally lead to society’s growth and “progress”—art, thought, feeling, and love—have been destroyed, cast down, and forgotten and left to "rot." The blood of those killed in the Great War may or may not be a sufficient substitute for those things, but it is all the world has left. In the end, then, the poem leaves open the possibility of humankind’s redemption through the trauma of war, but the speaker remains seriously disturbed by the great cost of the sacrifice.
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “1914”
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Lines 1-2
War broke: and now the Winter of the world
With perishing great darkness closes in."1914" begins suddenly, with a stark declaration: "War broke." The title indicates the specific war in question: World War I, which began in mid-1914 following the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria.
But "1914" doesn't get into too many historical details about the war. Rather, the unidentified speaker (who seems to be speaking during the year 1914, sometime shortly after the outbreak of war) is concerned with the war's general destructiveness and horror. In a striking metaphor, the speaker compares the war to the "Winter of the world," a human season of cold, death, and destruction that "closes in" threateningly on the poem's present. These first two lines present the war as a brutal, unavoidable fact. Now that war has begun (no matter how it began), it seems inevitable that the situation will get worse before it gets better, if it gets better at all.
The poem's beginning is all the more striking thanks to several poetic devices. Just listen to all the repeated sounds in these first two lines:
War broke: and now the Winter of the world
With perishing great darkness closes in.Alliteration and consonance give the lines an intense, dramatic effect. Assertive, punchy stresses on "War broke" and "great darkness" reflect the destructive, violent force the lines describe. And the colon after the poem's first two words creates a dramatic division in the first line, called a caesura, which breaks the line itself in two. War "broke" out (in the sense that it began), but it also "broke" this line of poetry, just as it destroys human lives and uproots whole societies. The full extent of war's destruction—as well as the possibility for repairing the damage—will be the central preoccupations of the rest of the poem.
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Lines 3-5
The foul tornado, centred at Berlin,
Is over all the width of Europe whirled,
Rending the sails of progress. -
Lines 5-8
Rent or furled
Are all Art's ensigns. Verse wails. Now begin
Famines of thought and feeling. Love's wine's thin.
The grain of human Autumn rots, down-hurled. -
Lines 9-10
For after Spring had bloomed in early Greece,
And Summer blazed her glory out with Rome, -
Lines 11-12
An Autumn softly fell, a harvest home,
A slow grand age, and rich with all increase. -
Lines 13-14
But now, for us, wild Winter, and the need
Of sowings for new Spring, and blood for seed.
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“1914” Symbols
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The Seasons
The speaker of "1914" uses an extended metaphor to compare the collapse and renewal of civilization to the progression of the seasons, which take on special symbolic power in the poem:
- Winter, the season of darkness and cold weather, symbolizes death and destruction. Here, it indicates the specific destructiveness of war—the death of soldiers and civilians, the bombing of cities, and the decay of the art, morals, and love upon which society depends.
- Spring symbolizes freshness and new life—and, more specifically in the poem, the birth of civilization. The speaker traces this to ancient Greece, while summer, a time of "blaz[ing]" light and heat, reflects the Roman Empire's spread of that civilization.
- When the empire collapsed—"blazed" out in "glory"—the modern world grew from the ashes. The long, slow development of that world (especially the modern nation-states of Europe) is then represented by the "slow grand age" of autumn, a time when crops fully ripen to the point of harvest.
- That prosperous autumn has given way, in 1914, to a sudden, devastating winter, and the speaker is unsure if a "new Spring" will ever come again.
Using the seasons as the poem's defining symbol allows the speaker to create some ambiguity about the power people have to influence the rise and fall of civilization. After all, the seasons are forces of nature that change without regard for human beings or their actions. Perhaps, then, the "Winter of the world" that prompted the poem was in some way inevitable, just as the actual winter season is inevitable.
Yet, the poem also suggests that people have influenced these symbolic changes of season—from the ancient Greeks and Romans of early civilization to the Germans and their allies who have created the "foul tornado" of global conflict. People start wars, after all; what's less clear to the speaker is whether they can establish lasting peace following such a devastating, global conflict. Even if people decide they want to sow the seeds for a "new Spring" of peace and prosperity, it may not matter since there is only "blood for seed."
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The Tornado
The "foul tornado" symbolizes the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire), who fought against the Allies (France, Britain, Russia, Italy, Japan, and others) in World War I. The tornado is said to be "centred at Berlin" because Germany, led by Kaiser Wilhelm II, was the dominant nation of the Central Powers.
At another level, the tornado symbolizes all the "foul" impulses that, in the speaker's view, have led to the war and are destroying human progress. These forces are destructive to art, poetry, thought, feeling, and love—all the things the speaker views as essential to human civilization and prosperity.
The symbol is especially appropriate because tornados form quickly, yet the larger storms that produce them have usually been brewing for much longer. Likewise, the poem suggests, the dark forces that have led to the sudden outbreak of war have been gathering for a long time, though now it's too late to address them in any way besides armed conflict.
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“1914” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Alliteration
"1914" contains many examples of alliteration. Take the first two lines, where dramatic, whooshing /w/ sounds add intensity to the speaker's language and, in doing so, emphasize the destructiveness of war:
War broke: and now the Winter of the world
With perishing great darkness closes in.That /w/ occurs again in line 4 ("width of Europe whirled") and line 13 ("wild Winter"), making it a kind of sonic through-line in the poem.
In the poem's octave (or first eight lines), several other repeated consonant sounds contribute to the punishing overall sense of war's destruction. In line 5, for example, the speaker repeats the guttural /r/ sound across a strong mid-line pause, or caesura, reflecting the rip in the "sails of progress." The assonance of the short /eh/ sound adds to the echo on either half of the line:
Rending the sails of progress. Rent or furled
Likewise, the speaker repeats /f/, /th/, and /h/ sounds in lines with strong caesuras, subtly reminding of the way war breaks society—as well as the lines and repeated sounds of this poem—apart:
Famines of thought and feeling. Love's wine's thin.
The grain of human Autumn rots, down-hurled.Alliteration doesn't always mean doom and gloom, however. Parallel /s/ and /bl/ sounds ("Spring had bloomed" and "Summer blazed") help to signal the sonnet's turn to an atmosphere of relative peace, prosperity, and harmony. Likewise, line 11's "harvest home" takes the bitter, despairing /h/ of line 8 and makes it glad.
Of course, this detour into gladness doesn't last long. While "1914" suggests some hope for society's renewal through the blood sacrifice of war, the speaker doesn't seem extremely optimistic or see much reason for celebration. Nothing indicates the speaker's feelings more strongly than the return to strong, ominous alliteration in the poem's last lines:
But now, for us, wild Winter, and the need
Of sowings for new Spring, and blood for seed.- See where this poetic device appears in the poem.
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Consonance
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Assonance
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Extended Metaphor
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Allusion
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Metaphor
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Personification
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Caesura
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Juxtaposition
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"1914" Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- War
- Winter
- Perishing
- Whirled
- Rending
- Rent
- Furled
- Art's
- Ensigns
- Verse
- Thin
- Down-hurled
- Harvest home
- Sowings
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Specfically World War I, which began in July and August of 1914.
- See where this vocabulary word appears in the poem.
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “1914”
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Form
"1914" is a variation of the Italian (also called Petrarchan) sonnet. Italian sonnets begin with an eight-line stanza (called an octave), which itself contains two four-line quatrains, and end with a six-line stanza (or sestet) that can be subdivided into two three-line tercets. There's usually a notable shift (in tone, subject matter, time, setting, or all of the above!) between the octave and sestet. This formal shift is called the sonnet's turn, or volta.
True to its form, "1914" is divided into two stanzas: an opening octave and a closing sestet. That octave can be broken into two quatrains and the sestet into two tercets. There's a major shift (in tone, time, and setting) in line 9, when the speaker moves from talking about modern war to discussing human history more broadly.
Note, however, that the poem actually ends with a rhyming couplet—something that's not unheard of, but also not typical of, Italian sonnets. This couplet gives the poem something of the flavor of an English (or Shakespearean) sonnet, which contains three four-line quatrains followed by a couplet. The sonnet is technically still Italian, with a strong turn between the octave and sestet, but it also benefits from the foreboding power of the concluding couplet rhyme between "need" and "seed."
There's also a secondary shift between line 12 and the final couplet. Whereas the volta between the octave and sestet moved from the "Winter" of World War I to the blossoming of civilization in ancient Greece, the poem now turns from the rich "Autumn" of civilization back to the "wild" and horrifying present of a world at war. This formal trajectory underscores the urgency of the "need" for a "new Spring"—and the difficulty, or perhaps impossibility, of a true renewal of human society.
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Meter
Like most Italian sonnets, "1914" is written in iambic pentameter, a meter in which each line contains five iambs (feet with an unstressed-stressed syllable pattern). Take lines 3 and 4 as an example:
The foul | torna- | do, cent- | red at | Berlin,
Is ov- | er all | the width | of Eur- | ope whirled,A closer look at the meter throughout the poem, however, shows that not every line is in perfect iambic pentameter. Owen sometimes modifies the expected number or order of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line, resulting in a more flexible, expressive overall meter. Let's listen to the first two lines to get an idea of how this can work:
War broke: | and now | the Win- | ter of | the world
With per- | ishing | great dark- | ness clos- | es in.Notice how the strong double stress (called a spondee) on "War broke" makes the poem's opening statement seem even more sudden, surprising, and intense. This variation of the line's first foot highlights the shock and violence of war, which "broke" out (that is, began) but also breaks human bodies and the human spirit of civilization.
In line 2, the middle part of the line ("perishing great darkness") differs from the expected da-dum iambic rhythm. The second foot is called a pyrrhic (unstressed-unstressed), and the third foot is another spondee (stressed-stressed). The rhythm of the word "perishing" seems to mirror the word's meaning: after a strong stress, the word itself perishes with two quick, light unstressed syllables. Then, another strong double stress emphasizes the immense scope of the "great darkness" that is closing in on the world.
The rest of this stanza (the octave) contains other repeated stresses, such as "Verse wails" and "Love's wine's thin." These moments—which express the desperation of art and love caused by the war—seem even more devastating because of their strong, insistent rhythm packed into short, single sentences.
But the meter of "1914" doesn't always express darkness and destruction. Following a lot of variation and repeated stressed syllables in the octave, the first three lines of the sestet return to the relative peace and calm of straightforward iambic pentameter. This makes sense because the lines describe the prosperous spring, summer, and fall of human civilization, which contrast with the present winter of war.
In line 12, there's another repeated stress, but it emphasizes the prosperity and growth of human autumn (a "slow grand age") rather than death and destruction:
A slow | grand age, | and rich | with all | increase.
In this poem, death and destruction can't be held off for too long. Notice how, with the shift back to the war-torn present in the final couplet, two more double stresses rear their heads: "wild Winter" and "new Spring." These final moments of metrical variation signal a return to the ominous, deadly atmosphere of the poem's beginning. They also emphasize the speaker's relative lack of hope that a true renewal of civilization will be possible with only "blood for seed."
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Rhyme Scheme
"1914" follows a variation of the typical rhyme scheme of an Italian (or Petrarchan) sonnet:
ABBAABBA CDDCEE
In other words, the opening eight-line stanza (the octave) contains two four-line quatrains that rhyme ABBA. This rhyme pattern is often called enclosed rhyme because the A rhyme "encloses" the B rhyme. Also notice how these first eight lines share the same two rhyme sounds, A and B. The shared sounds give the octave a sense of cohesion and focus. The intensity created by the repeated rhyme sounds contributes to the dark, desperate, threatening atmosphere of the lines, which vividly describe the high costs of war.
The last six lines of an Italian sonnet, called the sestet, usually rhyme CDEDCE or CDCDCD, though poets have come up with several other variations. "1914" uses one of these, CDDCEE, which was also used by John Donne, Thomas Wyatt, and others. This rhyme produces a special effect because it causes the poem to end with a rhymed couplet (EE), which is a typical feature of the English (or Shakespearean) sonnet.
Make no mistake: "1914" is still an Italian sonnet, with its strong division between the octave and sestet and its use of enclosed rhyme (ABBA and CDDC) instead of an English sonnet's alternating rhyme (ABAB, CDCD, and so on). The couplet rhyme between "need" and "seed" is especially impactful because it is unexpected; Italian sonnets don't usually end on such a strong repeated sound. By choosing to end the poem this way, the speaker emphasizes the dire urgency and tragic uncertainty of civilization's renewal.
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“1914” Speaker
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The speaker of "1914" remains anonymous, though it's clear that this speaker cares a lot about World War I and its negative effects on society (especially European civilization). The speaker sees the "foul tornado" (a symbol for Germany and its allies, who made up the Central Powers) as destroying not only human lives but also art, thought, feeling, and love. Throughout the poem, the speaker takes a long, historical view of human progress and morals, arguing that the Great War represents a tragic, dramatic break from everything that has made human society worth preserving.
It's useful to note that Wilfred Owen himself (or a soldier in World War I, as he was) could be the speaker of the poem. Owen wrote the poem in late 1914, shortly before enlisting in the British army, and likely revised it following his experiences in battle. As in "1914," most of the speakers of his poems talk about war in a no-nonsense way, with a sharp awareness of the catastrophe war represents to individual human beings and to civilization at large. Whether Owen is the speaker of his poems or not, it's clear that his work (including "1914") was strongly influenced by his own personal experiences and his deep sense of the tragedy of WWI.
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“1914” Setting
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The general setting of "1914" is Europe, specifically the part of Western Europe that was heavily impacted by World War I. This could be England (where Owen was from), or France (where he was living when he wrote the poem and where he later fought in battle), or Western Europe more broadly. In any case, the poem laments the war that is "clos[ing] in" on this part of the world and worries about the possibility of a peaceful, prosperous future for Western Europe and the world at large.
The poem makes a brief detour in line 9, where the speaker considers the "Spring" that "bloomed" in ancient Greece, the birthplace of democracy and, in the speaker's view, modern civilization. In line 10, the speaker likewise considers ancient Rome, which spread its empire across the globe. These brief excursions to ancient times and places help to emphasize the harsh reality of World War I when the speaker returns in line 13 to the "wild Winter" of the present.
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Literary and Historical Context of “1914”
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Literary Context
Though "1914" is most obviously a reaction to the outbreak of World War I, it also represents a reaction to traditional ways of writing about war. Before Wilfred Owen and his contemporaries began writing, many poets presented war in a highly patriotic, idealized, perhaps even naive way. These poems tended to glorify war and emphasize the heroism of soldiers, especially those who died in battle. This type of poem is perhaps best exemplified by the work of Rupert Brooke.
In contrast, Owen's poems often offer a scathing critique of war. They are unsentimental and clear-eyed about the true horrors of war, especially the devastating trench warfare of WWI. His later poems, especially, often offer the intimate point of view of the soldier, who becomes the speaker of the poem rather than an abstract hero. As in "1914," Owen doesn't shy away from openly lamenting war's devastation or the existential, spiritual threat it poses to civilization.
"1914" is a somewhat early poem—Owen first drafted it before he had experienced battle—so it doesn't reflect his personal experience of the trenches as vividly as later, more famous poems such as "Dulce et Decorum Est" and "Anthem for Doomed Youth." It's likely, however, that he revised the poem in 1917 or 1918—under the influence of Siegfried Sassoon, his friend and poetic mentor who also served in the war—so it carries the weight of his experiences even if the identity of the speaker remains unspecified.
Owen wrote poetry from a young age, and his skillful handling of traditional forms, such as the Italian sonnet, indicates his familiarity with the English poetic tradition. In particular, he may have been influenced by the work of A. E. Housman, whose collection A Shropshire Lad was wildly popular among British soldiers in WWI. Like Housman, Owen often portrayed the beauty and dignity of the male body in his poems, and his centering of the male soldier's inner, emotional experience chimes with Housman's elegiac celebrations of beautiful young men, especially athletes and soldiers. In "1914," Owen may also have been thinking of the metaphorical richness of the seasons in poems such as "The Human Seasons" by John Keats (another poet who died at the age of 25), "Spring and Fall" by Gerard Manley Hopkins, and many others.
Most of Owen's poems were published posthumously, in 1920. They had an immediate and strong influence on other poets and the reading public at large. Many Modernist poets (most of whom had never been to war) began to respond to the horrors of WWI and the fragmentation of civilization it represented, undoubtedly influenced by Owen's work. It's hard to imagine that T. S. Eliot's "The Waste Land" (published in 1922) or the Cantos of Ezra Pound would be the same without Owen's example. Writers responding to later wars—World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and many others—were also strongly influenced by Owen's approach to writing about war, and that influence continues today.
Historical Context
The First World War "broke" out in July and August of 1914 following the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria. The assassination rapidly escalated global tensions that had been brewing for years. Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, Germany invaded Belgium, and the stage was quickly set for one of the most devastating wars in human history.
"1914" directly responds to the beginning of the Great War, as WWI is sometimes called. The poem's short, sudden opening statement ("War broke") echoes the astonishing speed with which the war actually began, and Berlin (the center of the "foul tornado") was the capital of Germany, led by Kaiser Wilhelm II and perhaps the most important Central Power.
The poem was likely written at the end of 1914, shortly before Wilfred Owen enlisted in the British army. He fought with the Manchester Regiment in France, where he saw heavy combat. While being treated in Edinburgh for shell shock, he met fellow poet and soldier Siegfried Sassoon, who became Owen's friend and mentor and who introduced him to major literary figures such as Robert Graves. He experienced a rush of creative energy during this time and probably revised "1914"—though like most of his poems, it wasn't published until after his death. Wilfred Owen died on the battlefield in France on November 4, 2018—just a week before Armistice Day—at the age of 25.
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More “1914” Resources
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External Resources
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Owen's Life and Work — A short biography of Wilfred Owen.
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Wilfred Owen: A Remembrance Tale — A BBC Documentary about Owen's life and work.
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The Poetry of World War I — A sampling of poetry inspired by the Great War.
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Drafts of "1914" — Manuscript versions of the poem from Oxford's digital archive of First World War poetry.
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LitCharts on Other Poems by Wilfred Owen
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