Strange meeting summary and analysis notes PDF

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Summary

Strange Meeting is a poem about reconciliation. Two soldiers meet up in an imagined Hell, the first having killed the second in battle. Their moving dialogue is one of the most poignant in modern war poetry. Wilfred Owen fought and died in WW1, being fatally wounded just a week before the war ended ...

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Strange Meeting by Wilfred Owen

Summary Last Updat ed on May 5, 2015, by eNot es Edit orial. Word Count : 468 “St range Meet ing” is probably Owen’s most celebrat ed poem. He may have t aken his t it le from a line in The Revolt of Islam (1818), a poem by t he Brit ish Romant ic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. In Shelley’s poem, t wo warriors are reconciled in life, but Owen’s poem is more pessimist ic: His soldiers can become friends only aft er bot h have died and are no longer fight ing for t heir respect ive count ries, England and Germany. Owen implies t hat as long as men and women live, t hey will fight wars. T he t unnel down which t he speaker escapes in t he first st anza could be a t rench, t he speaker’s unconscious, or t he classical underworld, where people were supposedly sent aft er deat h. Owen describes t his t unnel as having been “scooped” by many wars t o indicat e t hat what he has t o say in t his poem applies to wars t hroughout t he ages, not merely t o World War I. People have always realized t oo lat e t hat t he so-called enemy was really a friend, no mat t er how st range or foreign t hat enemy may have seemed at first . Owen’s use of off-rhymes emphasizes t he digging pain of war (“groined” and “groaned”) and forces readers t o see t he lines t hat deat h et ches int o human faces (“grained” and “ground”). At t he same t ime, t he fact t hat t hese words almost rhyme suggest s t hat t hese sworn enemies are really very much alike in t heir vulnerabilit y t o pain and in t heir shared mort alit y. T he speaker realizes t hat he and his enemy shared t he same hopes while alive and t hat each was, in a sense, t he ot her’s hope: Each might have made t he ot her man laugh in fellowship; each might have done somet hing, if he had lived, t o make t he world a bet t er place for ot hers. Perhaps most import ant , each might have t old ot hers about t he t rut h of war, about how unglorious and merely wast eful deat h is. Inst ead, bot h men are now dead, and t he t rut h about war will die wit h t hem. T he ignorant people back home who do not realize t he t rue horror of war will only cont inue t he meaningless fight ing. T hey will be quick t o act , but quick in t he sense of rash and fierce, like a mindless animal “swift wit h swift ness of t he t igress.” T hey will go looking for grand advent ure, but by going t o war t hey will make a journey back int o barbarism, a “t rek from progress.” T he poem ends wit h t he st range friend suggest ing t hat he and t he speaker, now t hat t hey have fought and killed each ot her, should now go to sleep. At least in deat h, t hey are at peace. Fort unat ely, t he t rut h about t he horror of war does not have t o die wit h t hem. Owen’s poem conveys it and suggest s t hat readers t ake pit y on ot her people and on t hemselves—before it is t oo lat e....