Comparison Between John Keats’ “to Autumn” and Wilfred Owen’s “Disabled” Poetry

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Wilfred Owen was significantly inspired and influenced by Keats’ poetry, reforming a vast amount of Owen’s work, and most importantly his style of writing. This analysis will attempt to illustrate some similarities and differences of their work. Owen begins his poem by speaking about a large proportion of the soldiers who have been both physically and mentally affected by the war. Owen masks these soldiers and generalises them to one single “disabled” person. This can be interpreted as Owen attempting to illustrate the voice of many soldiers, through a poem. The line, “…Waiting for the dark” indicates that soldiers were simply waiting for death to come, either because they were critically injured, or because they were waiting to go into battle. Another interpretation of this is that soldiers cannot bear the day, as the sight of their injuries, and their comrades’ injuries is too big of a strain for them, therefore they would rather choose isolation over companionship. The rest of the first stanza, Owen describes how war had changed everything. He writes that “voices of boys rang saddening like a hymn” which indicates that laughter of children saddens him as he isn’t capable of laughing, because of the war. The idea of Owen constantly thinking about the effects of the war is portrayed where it is written “sleep mothered them from him.” This shows that the laughing and innocence of children has been taken away from many younger soldiers including him, which keeps playing on his mind. The second stanza begins with Owen reminiscing about the pre-war period where the “town used to swing so gay,” meaning that everything was joyful and everyone was content before the war broke out. It is also indicated where Owen writes, “In the old times.” This idea of the war changing everything is shown where it is mentioned that men “threw away their knees” suggesting that

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