Dead Silence

Dead silence. Dead bodies. Dead smiles.
What could be a more fitting subject for

poetry about war than death? In death come also the issues of aloneness, emptiness
and loss. All of the poets and poems that are placed into this category, World War I
poetry, write about these topics. There is no glory of war or defeat mentioned.
Heroic efforts are rarely, if ever applauded. Poets of this category, Wilfred Owen
included, write to inform, not to glorify the horrific images of war. Through their
utter sense of loss and their hopelessness, these poets mystify their readers. By
doing what they attempt not to (glorify it), they accomplish exactly that; the
ultimate contradiction of terms.
The simplicity, pain and emptiness of the World War I poetry entrance readers.
This is what these poets bring into their work and what they share with their
readers. They pity war and their involvement in it and search to write the truth
about the horrors of it. Wilfred Owen, like many of the World War I poets,
experienced the tragedy personally and wrote through it; leaving his readers feeling
as though they too, were involved and were along their side in the trenches. These
poets’ words have a way of jumping out from the page and coming alive for the all
of the readers. While most of them use graphic, descriptive language that could be
seen as violent, their work has been described as "glorious" (in the Norton
Anthology) and not glorified. The poets’ individual styles vary, yet all make the
readers feel as though it could have been them seeing all of this horror and hysteria
with their own eyes and minds. Through the lack of romanticism of this poetry, it
becomes romantic. The rush of emotions, the quietness of mind, the loss of life
around these people awakened something in the poets and made them yearn to
share it for no other reason than informing and relaying the truth.
In the poem "Strange Meeting", Wilfred Owen discusses these horrors of war and
the emptiness which it brings to a person and to all involved. Like many poets and
poems there were many versions of this and Owen revised it several times before
the version that is printed came to be. Much can be discussed about the poem and
the poet because of these changes and revisions. Upon first reading the poem in the
anthology, I felt emptiness and sorrow for all those that were involved. I felt their
emptiness and sorrow and loss of hope. Through meeting and talking with the
"stranger", Owen cemented his own anguish and loneliness. It was a quiet point in
the war where "…no guns thumped…." With bodies of the dead all around him,
Owen prods and tries to find one other soul alive. He finds someone, his
"stranger", but I began to wonder what was meant by alive. This stranger was
breathing, he had life, but he was hardly alive. He too, like Owen was full of dread
and sorrow and hopelessness. The main body of the poem dealt with this man’s
thoughts on life and what they had stumbled across; about each other. Owen
claimed that by this man’s "…dead smile, I knew we stood in Hell." Owen came to
the realization, by talking to this man, that no one there was truly alive, breathing
or not breathing. What mattered was the truth of war and what he felt he must
share and let people know. In a footnote on page 542 from the anthology, Owen
says that
"This book is not about heroes. English poetry is not yet fit to speak of them. Nor
is it about deeds, or lands, nor anything about glory, honour, might, majesty,
dominion, or power, except War. Above all I am not concerned with Poetry. My
subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity. Yet these elegies are
to this generation in no sense consolatory. They may be to the next. All a poet can
do to-day is warn. They is why the true Poets must be truthful."
Owen, more than likely thinking this, came to the version of the poem "Strange
Meeting" in the anthology because he sought the truest way he could write his
thoughts.
There were several instances where words and whole lines were changed and even
omitted from the two versions of the poem that I worked from. They are all
significant to Owen and his want to be truthful and write to inform. The first is
from the first line of the poem. In the printed version the line is as follows: "It
seemed that out of battle I escaped". Owen changed this line to this from "It seems
that from my dug-out I escaped." This first change gave me the impression that he
was trapped in the dug-out beneath everything, hiding from the battle, from the war
and perhaps from life itself. In the printed version, it seems that he gained power or
confidence, or maybe both and joined everyone and everything else around him.
He was escaping the battle instead of just his little piece of it. This first stanza of
the poem set the scene for the entire poem. Owen was alone, trying to escape what
was all around him, what was causing his grief. In the next part, he introduced
other people, whether alive or not symbolizing his successful attempt at joining
what was going on around him and the fact that he was no longer alone. In his
search for finding another soul with life, he came across his "stranger".
In this part, Owen made changes to the main point of his description of this man
and what he saw when he looked at him. In the anthology, these two lines (Lines 9
and 10) read: "And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall,- By his dead smile, I knew
we stood in Hell". Owen lengthened what he originally attempted to say in one
sentence, to two. At this point in the poem, Owen finally finds someone who is not
dead. By lengthening it, Owen was able to more slowly, more deliberately describe
this man’s face and their situation. It seems to me he did not want any of his
readers to miss this part, he made it so it would be more focused on. And this
smile, this "dead smile" that was on the man’s face was not a smile of joy or even
relief. It was a smile that symbolized death and the Hell that they both realized they
were in. The smile was dead as the two of them were dead, through each of their
separate, individual losses and their collective one. The smile was a discovery that
each man was truly lost and alone.
Owen made this portion of the poem more dramatic by placing a break after that
line. This began the third part of the poem where the two met in their quiet, dead
and hopeless world and talk. Owen here originally said, "But all was sleep. And no
voice called men." He took this line out completely. By taking it out, he made the
silence that was all around them, more silent. By not saying that "no voice called
out to men", the reader is able to experience the silence in the poem as is they were
there. Had I not read this part, I would have probably overlooked the importance
that the silence really places on the scene.
Next, Owen addressed stranger. He changed the line from, "My Friend…" to
"Strange Friend". It was quite evident as to why Owen did this with the poem. He
knew that "my" was a personal possessive word and how could he use it with a
complete stranger? By changing it to "strange", Owen also made the fact that they
were both unknowing and alone more evident to the reader. This man was not his
friend in the common sense of the word. Owen did not want to claim "ownership"
or take responsibility (in the poem) for this man and changed it thus.
For much of the remainder of the poem, Owen was consistent and made no major
changes. The next difference between the two was the fact that he made it a point
to circle the last line of the main body of the poem. He possibly wanted this line to
somehow stand out from the rest of the poem and signify the beginning of the end
– of the poem and of his meeting with this stranger. It seems to me that he may
have wanted to somehow draw more out of this line by marking it the way he did
in the early version. The line could signify two different things. First, while these
men with the foreheads did not shed their own blood, Owen may have wanted the
readers to picture these men with the blood of their own men on them physically. It
could also signify the bleeding, or loss, that these men felt from the "bleeding" of
their men. There may not have been physical wounds, but there were probably
mental and emotional ones.
The last stanza of the poem, the quote from one "stranger to another" ties together
the entire poem and ties it in the idea of the utter loss and waste of war. He
separated this to do just that. To make it its own part to somehow stand out from
the rest of the poem. This part sums up Owen’s thoughts on war. He realizes that
there is fighting and killing, but the two of them are still alive. They both know
they suffer ultimate disparity and loss and this is the ultimate truth.
Owen, like the other World War One poets wrote the truth. That was their goal.
They did not romanticize or dramatize their poetry. The simplicity of it is what
draws in readers and what they feel they can relate to. Through the different
versions of "Strange Meeting", Owen proved to his readers that his intent was the
simple truth; and this is what he accomplished.

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Dead silence. Dead bodies. Dead smiles.

What could be a more fitting subject for

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