The title is, in itself, ironic, for anthems have always meant to sing praises about grand things like love and patriotism, and so at first glance the poem seems to praise the damnation of the youth through war, but once read it will be clear that Owen meant for the exact opposite – it is a reminder of the horrors war brings, and a warning to never let it happen again.ĭulce et Decorum Est is another poem on the atrocities of war, yet this one is more graphic, more vivid and more precise than Anthem. In the second stanza, the rhyme pattern shifts from ABAB to ABBACC, but its striking imagery was unwavering at depicting clearly the bitterness, depression and psychological trauma undergone by the civilians and particularly by the soldiers who ceased to be human and became domesticated animals (Par 3 InspiredWritingResearch), mere numbers in doomed conflict. Metaphors on familial grief over death and mortal pains were used across the lines in the first verse, while the irony that each killer is also a victim resounds throughout the entire poem.

Onomatopoeia is the sound device used in the first stanza, when the battlefield was being simulated. The poem focuses on how soldiers become nameless pawns in a struggle controlled by invisible hands, and how civilians are unnecessarily put through violence and devastation upon senseless orders (Par 1 Elite Skills Classic).

Anthem for Doomed Youth is a sonnet in iambic pentameter, with war, its atrocities and its traumatic consequences as the theme.

Owen anthem for doomed youth