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| Pic: Catherine Ashmore |
They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old...
I, like many others, first came across the war poetry of Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon during English literature lessons at secondary school, so it is something most people are familiar with, if not necessarily proficient in.
I remember having to pick apart each line of Owen's devastating Dulce et Decorum est and analysing it almost word for word, then writing an essay about its expert construction and the deeper meaning of its rhythms. And while I enjoyed doing this, it did put me off poetry for the rest of my life.
I've never believed that art can be analysed, or ever should be. I prefer to take from a painting, poem or novel what I read into it, based upon my personal life experience: dismantling Owen's war poems seems to me, in hindsight, rather crass.
