���˿���

In autumn 1917 Wilfred Owen was treated for shell shock at Craiglockhart Hospital in Edinburgh, where his doctor encouraged him to write poetry as part of his therapy.

With help from the poet and fellow patient Siegfried Sassoon, Owen wrote one of his most famous poems: Anthem for Doomed Youth. Several of the original handwritten drafts have survived, showing how Owen repeatedly changed and redrafted earlier versions. Having access to these earlier drafts makes this poem a useful example of how to redraft poems.

Drafting is an important part of the writing process. It is when the writer puts their ideas into writing. The first draft is their first go at writing their idea. Writers might write many drafts until they are happy with what they have written.

After writers have written a draft, they usually edit and improve their work. They might cross out sections, change individual words or add more words in.

Owen worked on his drafts, often taking advice from his poet friend Siegfried Sassoon.

True or false?

Wilfred Owen said, ‘My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity.’ He wanted to get across ‘the Pity of War’ with his poetry. It was important to him that the readers of his poem understood the horrors of World War One.

After his first drafts, he would discuss his poetry with Siegfried Sassoon and both would make annotations on the poem. It is clear that Owen wanted every word and phrase to count: to show clearly how terrible the war was so that the people back home did not keep believing that it was heroic and noble to fight and die in war.

This idea is picked up in his other poems, including Dulce et Decorum Est where he attacks the ‘old lie’ that it is a sweet and fitting thing to die for your country.

Title changes

We can see his changes in the title of the poem. The famous title: Anthem for Doomed Youth actually began as Anthem for Dead Youth.

We don’t know Owen’s thoughts when he edited it but ‘doomed’ does seem a more powerful word choice than ‘dead’. The word ‘doomed’ sounds like the booming guns on the front line as well as giving the idea that the soldiers were doomed (couldn’t escape death) from the start. It suggests that war can only mean death for the soldiers.

Opening line changes

We can see many drafting changes in his opening line. As with most writing, the opening line has to be as powerful as possible to grab and hold the reader’s attention.

• The opening line first began as: ‘What passing bells for those who die so fast?’ Then it became: ‘What passing bells for you who die in herds?’

• It became: ‘What passing bells for these dumb-dying cattle?’

• Before finally becoming: ‘What passing bells for these who die as cattle?’

You can see how he changes the words. First, to emphasise how large numbers of young men were dying ('in herds'). Then he expands the idea by using 'cattle' to imply that the soldiers were also being treated as animals. This not only implies that they were being slaughtered in the war as though they were farm animals but also that this was their only purpose and future. It makes the whole opening line extremely powerful with its angry and bitter tone, questioning why this terrible loss of life is taking place. The bells refer to the church bells that would ring at funerals for the soldiers who had died.

Drafting and editing helps writers, like Wilfred Owen, add to, clarify, and change their first ideas. It also helps them organize their writing in a more powerful way.

Dulce et Decorum Est

The British Library has draft manuscripts of some of Owen's other poems. In Dulce et Decorum Est, Owen describes a gas attack and the moment when the soldier who has inhaled the gas and is dying reaches towards Owen.

He writes:

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

On the draft version of the handwritten poem you can see where Owen crosses out and tries different words (gargling, gurgling, goggling) before finally choosing 'guttering'. You can clearly see his thought process: that he is trying to get across the idea of the sound of the choking man in his word choice as well as describing what is happening.

True or false?

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
      – Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
      Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells,
      Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, -
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
      And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?
      Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
      The pallor of girls’ brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing down of blinds.

Explore the redrafts