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Strange Meeting by Wilfred Owen
Strange Meeting by Wilfred Owen
By Wilfred Owen
❖ The poem “Strange Meeting” is written in heroic couplets and there are a total
of 44 lines contained in four stanzas.
❖ Lines 19-21 form a tercet, ending in three half rhymes: hair/hour/here.
❖ The last line is much shorter and doesn't rhyme with any other line.
❖ The lines are pararhymes.
❖ The poem is written in the first person singular point of view.
Content/ Meaning
❖ The title of the poem “Strange Meeting” was taken from “Revolt of Islam”” by
Pb Shelley- a poem about two people who inhabited Argolis under Ottoman
rule and initiated a revolution against its despotic rule.
❖ The poem was written in 1918 and was published in 1919 after Owen’s death.
❖ Just like all of Owen’s poems “Strange Meeting” was written to describe to
horror and helplessness of war.
Poetic Techniques
❖ Personification:
➢ titanic wars had groined (line 3)
➢ ...steady running of the hour (line 20)
➢ that Sullen hall (line 10)
➢ Vain citadels (line 33)
❖ Oxymoron:
➢ Strange friend (line 14)
➢ Dead smile (liine 10)
❖ Enjambments
➢ To miss the march of the retreating world Into vain citadels that are not walled (lines 33-34)
❖ Caesura
➢ And it grieves, grieves richler than here (line 21)
➢ And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall
❖ Simile
➢ As if to bless (line 9)
Themes
❖ Warfare
❖ Fear
❖ Suffering
❖ Guilt and Blame
❖ Compassion and Forgiveness
References
https://owlcation.com/humanities/Analysis-Of-Poem-Strange-Meeting-by-Wilfred-
Owen#:~:text=Strange%20Meeting%20is%20written%20in,rhyme%20with%20any%
20other%20line.
https://crossref-it.info/textguide/wilfred-owen-selected-poems/36/2648
Strange Meeting by Wilfred Owen
Analysis of Stanzas
❖ In stanza one, the speaker, who is a soldier, finds himself down a very dark tunnel
that seems to have been carved out by some enormous war in the past.
❖ In stanza, the speaker found people asleep moaning and suffering. After poking
and prodding the men, one of them awakens and recognizes the speaker. After
examining the man’s sad expression, the speaker realized that they were in hell.
❖ The other man, who is also a soldier, states that due to his death he was unable
warn others about the horrors of war.
❖ The other man reveals that he was the soldier that the speaker had killed the day
before.
Glossary of Terms