“I hate washy pacifists as temperamentally as I hate whiskied…” — Wilfred Owen | V2Melody

“I hate washy pacifists as temperamentally as I hate whiskied prussianists.”

Rejecting simplistic positions on both pacifism and militarism · Letter, 2 October 1917

About Wilfred Owen

Wilfred Owen

18 March 1893–4 November 1918

Wilfred Edward Salter Owen was born on 18 March 1893 at Plas Wilmot, a house near Oswestry in Shropshire, on the borderland between England and Wales. He was the eldest of four children of Thomas Owen and Susan Shaw Owen; his siblings were Mary, Harold, and Colin. The family’s circumstances were respectable but…

More by Wilfred Owen

Poems by Wilfred Owen

More remarks by Wilfred Owen

“The sensations of going over the top are about as exhilarating as those dreams of falling over a precipice, when you see the rocks at the bottom surging up to you.”

Comparing an infantry attack to the helpless terror of a falling dream · Letter, 14 May 1917

“Suffer dishonour and disgrace, but never resort to arms. Be bullied, be outraged, be killed; but do not kill.”

Setting Christian non-violence against the demands of military and patriotic duty · Letter to Susan Owen, May 1917

“I came out in order to help these boys — directly by leading them as well as an officer can; indirectly by watching their sufferings that I may speak of them as well as a pleader can.”

Defining his double responsibility as both an officer and a witness for his men · Letter to Susan Owen, 4 October 1918