Effective Use of Revision in Strange Meeting Essay -- Owen Strange Mee

Effective Use of Revision in Strange Meeting In report his poem Strange Meeting, Wilfred Owen uses revision as a tool to both clarify his ideas and re-evaluate one of the central figures in the poem. By examining a reproduction of Owens original text and comparing it to the final, published copy, we atomic number 18 able to retrace his steps and, hopefully, gain a further understanding of his thought process and motivations concerning this picky poem. From these examinations, it is evident that Owen spent a large portion of the revision process attempting to alter the compositors case of the encumbered sleeper, whom the narrator encounters in hell. These alterations could be viewed as an attempt by Owen to make this vision more ambiguous, vague, and otherworldly, and therefore to alter his readers perception of this character, the narrator, and the poem itself. The sheer frequency of revisions concerning the appearance and characteristics of the ghostly figure are staggering when compared to number of revisions made elsewhere in the poem. Perhaps the first thing one notices while examining Owens revisions is the long stretch during the figures speech in which there are very few marks of revision by the author. In contrast, the sections in which the figure is described, or in which he describes himself, are heavily revised. It appears, then, Owens primary difficulty with the first draft of his poem was not with the content of what the ghostly speaker said, but with how the character was portrayed. Owen pays exact attention during revision to every mention of this ghostly figure. There are at least six changes made to the text concerning the figures description, including cardinal changes dedicated sol... ...hat absurd how can enemies be friends, and why should they fight and kill one another? In order to bring virtually these changes in perception, Wilfred Owen focus the majority of his revisions on the character of the ghostly figure found in h ell. By making this figure seem more abstract, vague, and otherworldly, Owen alters the significance of his poem and its statements and assumptions about war and battle from draft to draft. By making use of a few seemingly inconsequential revisions, he is able to use the re-evaluation of one character to affect the readers perceptions of both the other main character in the poem, and the poem as a whole. Works CitedOwen, Wilfred. Strange Meeting. The Norton Anthology of English Literature The Twentieth one C Volume 2C Seventh Edition. Ed. M.H. Abrahms. New York, N.Y. W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2000.