Anthem for Doomed Youth
Student Activities
LET’S MAKE THINKING VISIBLE!
Core Thinking Routine: Think/Pair/Share
This routine will help you to think about and articulate your understanding of the ideas in Anthem for
Doomed Youth.
THINK
What ideas can you identify in Anthem for Doomed Youth? Make a list.
PAIR
Share your list of ideas with a nearby student, adding further ideas that emerge from your
discussion. Write these new ideas in a different colour.
SHARE
Share your thoughts with the class.
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Textual Analysis
1. Consider the title of the poem. An ‘anthem’ is a song of celebration, yet Owen subverts this meaning
by writing his anthem for “doomed youth”. What is the effect of this subversion of meaning?
2. The poem opens with a rhetorical question that includes a simile: “What passing-bells for these who
die as cattle?”. What perspective on the nature of World War One are we offered by the comparison
Owen in making here?
3. With reference to TWO poetic devices used in the octave, explain how Owen has presented the idea
that to die without receiving proper burial rights, as many soldiers did during World War One, is
deplorable.
4. Owen suggests that the sounds of the battlefield are the only tribute offered to the fallen soldiers.
Analyse how this idea is successfully communicated. In your answer, make reference to Owen’s use
of:
a. Aural imagery
b. Alliteration
c. Personification
5. What is the effect of opening the sestet with the rhetorical question “What candles may be held to
speed them all?”
6. How does Owen successfully shift the focus from the battlefield in the octave to the home front in
the sestet? Why do you think he chose to do this?
7. What, according to Owen, were the consequences for the families of the fallen who were unable to
pay tribute to and grieve for their loved
ones in the culturally conventional manner
of a funeral service?
8. Explain how Owen has used the funereal
language and symbols to communicate the
private grief and suffering of the families of
the fallen.
THINKING ABOUT POETIC FORM
Similar to The Next War, Anthem for Doomed Youth is written in sonnet form.
In your view, why does Wilfred Owen’s use of the sonnet form prove a powerful means of
communicating his ideas about the pity of war?
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