Strange Meeting II Summary & analysis....

Strange Meeting by Wilfred Owen.

 The poem ‘’Strange Meeting’’ was written by an English poet Wilfred Owen in summer 1918. He was one of the famous war poets in the history of English literature. He was also a soldier who took part in the First World War.

Strange Meeting is a noble expression of conjunction of pity and poetry. The poem does not express the glorification of war but pity of war. War does not lead us to the path of progress. It is a symbol of decay and destruction. It is only the waste of lifes.

Through the imagination, a living soldier met a spirit of German soldier in hell whom he had killed in the battlefield. Through their conversation the dead soldier exhibited the naked reality of the war that brings only destruction. The meeting is called strange because a living soldier met a dead soldier. It is also very strange when the dead soldier called the living soldier friend though they felt enmity while they were alive. It is an amazing matter of fact that a dead soldier wanted to save mankind from the war.

Like other poets, Wilfred Owen is against the war. Indeed the poem is all about the pity of war. In the poem, the poet shows his pity for a young soldier who was killed by  himself in the field of battle. The poem is a grim explanation of the folly and futility of war.

The poet Wilfred Owen imagines that he has escaped from the battlefield and entered into the deep tunnel cut long before. He has met there a spirit of German youth whom he had killed in the battlefield. The German youth informs him that he has understood the futility of war through his wisdom and courage. Wisdom and courage helps him to realize the ultimate exactness of war. He has lamented because he can not tell the truth to the world for his sudden death. If he were alive, he would have preached the ideas of peace and harmony.

Centuries after centuries war mongers and politicians have exalted war by saying that it’s a courageous work for country. They consider that soldier must be courageous and brave and they can sacrifice their life for their country. Those who die in the battlefield are martyr. People worship them for their sacrifice. They will be remembered for ever. But Owen does not believe that. To him it is an organized butchery of youths. It is nothing. It means only decay and destruction. Youths are forced to die in the battlefield. Being an officer on the Western Front in first world war, he has experienced the naked reality of the war.