Anthem For Doomed Youth

Question 1

Anthem For Doomed Youth

Answer 1

Willfred Owen
Written while recovering from then effects of shell shock in Craiglockhart Hospital
Influenced by fellow patient Siegfried Sassoon

Question 2

Form

Answer 2

Sonnet- Lamenting the loss of life on the Western From WW1
Follows the conventions of a Petrarchan sonnet with Owen choosing to divide the stanza into octave and sestet
But follows rhyme scheme of Shakespearian sonnet

Question 3

Half rhyme in the in the first stanza:

“Guns / orisons”

Answer 3

Radical and jarring feature, it heightens the mocking quality of the implied relationship between gunshot and prayer

Question 4

“The stuttering rifles”

Answer 4

The hard dental consonants of the onomatopoeic ‘stuttering’ mimics the sound of machine guns