Strange Meeting - Essay Example

And in the words of Owen’s Preface – All a poet can do today is warn. Structurally, the poem is composed of 44 lines of Iambic pentameter, divided into 4 irregular stanzas: the first, 3 lines; the second, 7; the third, 29; and the last, 5. Owen makes use of a lot of Assonance. In the first stanza, we have: down, profound, piteous, recognition, fixed, distressful, bless. Stanza three contains the following: guns, thumped, flues. There are many others scattered throughout the rest of the poem.

Then, we have Alliteration. In the first stanza alone, we have: down, dull; granites, groined. Stanza two has: sprang, stared; smile, sullen. The third stanza yields the following: made, moan; hopelessness, hope; wildest, world; boil, bloody; mine, mystery, mastery; miss, march; wash, wells. This stanza and the last yield many more. The reader finds a single example of onomatopoeia and it is found in the third stanza: And no guns thumped or down the flues made moan. There are two evidences of hyperbole and they are both mentioned in the long, middle stanza: With a thousand pains that visions face was grained and Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot wheels.. It seemed that a thousand pains and much blood are exaggerated.

Personification may also be found in the poem. In the short first stanza: Through granites which titanic wars had groined. (Wars are to humans who can groin or reproduce). In the second stanza, Lifting distressful hands, as if to bless (Hands may be lifted, but it is the person himself who can feel distress and may bless). Going more deeply into the poem, in lines 1-3, the poet Owen sets the scene. Holes, caverns, tunnels – these form a recurring image in his mind and find their way into the poem.

Titanic Wars imply not just World War I in which Owen fought, but conflicts through history on a gigantic scale. In lines 4-10,