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Clinical Nurse SpecialistA Copyright B 2017 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. All rights reserved. Nursing and the Arts Column Editor: Jeanine Young-Mason, EdD, RN, CS, FAAN

The Poet ’s Warning to the World Jeanine Young-Mason, EdD, RN, CS, FAAN

ew would challenge the claim that Wilfred Owen is PART ONE the greatest writer of war in the English lan- WilfredOwen(1893Y1918)iswidelyrecognizedasone Fguage. He wrote out of his intense personal expe- of the greatest voices of the First World War. His self- rience as a soldier and wrote with unrivaled power of the appointed task was to speak for the men in his care, to physical, moral, and psychological trauma of the First World show the ‘‘Pity of War.’’ War. All of his great on which his reputation rests Owen’s enduring and influential poetry is evidence of were written in a mere 15 months.1 his bleak realism, his energy and indignation, his com- passion, and his great technical skill.2

Preface by Wilfred Owen This book is . is not yet fit to speak of Biography them. Wilfred Edward Salter Owen was born to Thomas and Nor is it about deeds or lands, nor anything about glory, honour, Susan Owen on the 18th of March 1893 near , might, majesty, dominion or power, except War. . Upon the death of Owen’s grandfather in Above all, I am not concerned with Poetry 1897, the Owens family was forced to move from the house he had owned in Oswestry to lodgings in The subject is War, and the pity of War. (1898) Merseyside, and it was in Birkenhead Institute that The Poetry is in the pity. Owen’s education began. In 1907, when Thomas Owen Yet these elegies are to this generation, in no sense consolatory. They was appointed assistant superintendent for the Western may be to the next. All the poet can do today is to warn. That is why the Region of the railways, the family moved to , true Poets must be truthful. where Owen’s education continued at the Shrewsbury (If I thought the letter of this book would last, I might have used Borough Technical School. Upon leaving school at 18, proper names; but if the spirit of it survivesVsurvives PrussiaVmy Owen spent a period of months working as a pupil- ambition and those names will have achieved themselves fresher fields than teacher at Wyle Cop School. In the autumn, he passed I Flanders ) the matriculation examination for the University of Written for a war poem collection Owen hoped to pub- but without the first class honors needed to gain a scholar- lish in 1919.2* ship. Unable to afford to study, he worked as lay assistant to the Vicar of Dunsden near Reading. In his spare time, he also attended University College, Reading, and is known to have studied botany and poetry. Between 1913 and 1915, Owen travelled to , , and taught at the Berlitz School of English. He was actually tutoring in Author Affiliation: Distinguished Professor Emerita, College of Nursing, University of Massachusetts Amherst. the Pyrenees when war was declared. The author reports no conflicts of interest. Correspondence: Jeanine Young-Mason, EdD, RN, CS, FAAN, College of Nursing, University of Massachusetts Amherst, 9 Seaview Lane, Newbury, *The Wilfred Owen Association Web site holds a wealth of information, including Owen_s biography, Owen the Poet discussion, Music Commemo- MA 01951 ([email protected], www.arts4health.org). rations, Drama, photographs, Educational Resources and Critiques of DOI: 10.1097/NUR.0000000000000275 Owen_s Poetry.

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Increasingly aware of the scale of the war, Owen re- chological casualties created in the muddy trenches of turned to England in autumn 1915 and enlisted in the the First World War; and, in particular with the huge in- Artists’ RiflesI On June 4, 1916, Owen was commissioned crease of casualties following the battle of Somme in as a second lieutenant with the . In 1916. The Hospital’s fame is unsurprising in that two of the last days of 1916, he was posted to France. In January the finest poets of a war over-flowing with poetic voices 1917, he and his men held a flooded dugout for 50 hours were treated there–Wilfred Owen and . under heavy bombardment. In March, he suffered a con- It was Sassoon who nicknamed the place ‘‘Dottyville’’ in cussion and spent time in hospital. In April, he returned a letter of 1917.’’ 4 to the front again, only to be caught up in fierce fighting. In his essay, ‘‘DottyvilleVCraiglockhart War Hospital and At one point, he was hit by a shell blast at Savy Wood and Shell-Shock Treatment in the First World War,’’ Web chronicles lay semiconscious in a shell crater with the dismembered the short history of Criaglockhart. He discusses command- remains of a friend. On the 30th of April, while on parade, ing officers, several of whom were dismissed, revealing he was noted as being ‘‘shaky,’’ and on 1st May, he was the differing views held by the war department about the diagnosed as suffering from shell-shock (‘‘neurasthenia’’) treatment for neurasthenic patients. However, he highlights and evacuated to England. Brock’s insightful approach to therapy. Arthur John Brock After a medical examination, Owen was sent to was an clinician and medical historian who was War Hospital in Edinburgh. There, he met asked to join the staff because of his experience in treating Siegfried Sassoon, also a patient and already a noted poet. ‘‘neurasthenia’’ before the war. Owen was to gain immeasurably from the friendship that developed between them. Sassoon’s poetic voice, with its strong emphasis on realism, influenced Owen’s developing THE CURE BY FUNCTIONING style, as the poems and Anthem ‘‘The hospital’s cognitive therapy existed within a complemen- for Doomed Youth demonstrate. This realism and emphasis tary framework of an ’environmental’ active and behavioural on experience also played a part in Owen’s therapy in approach created by Brock, which he termed ‘ergotherapy’ Craiglockhart, where Arthur Brock, Owen’s doctor, encour- or cure by functioning. The shell-shocked needed, in his aged him to translate the experiences he had suffered view, to rediscover their links with an environment from into poetry. Sassoon both edited and vigorously promoted which they had become detached. They could only due his work and brought him into a wider literary circle. As this through active and useful functioning; through working. Owen recovered, he worked for a short time as a teacher Brock played a central part in organizing many activities in the in Tynecastle High School, before returning to light regi- hospital to provide patients with a means of helping them- mental duties, first at Scarborough, then . It was at selves back to health. RiponthatOwen‘‘seemedtohavecomposedorrevised Perhaps Brock’s most important tool, both to communi- virtually all his war poems.’’ cate his aims to the patients and also as a form of therapy in In June 1918, the 25-year-old officer rejoined his regi- itself, was The Hydra, the hospital magazine. The Hydra, ment and was again posted to France. He was awarded the many-headed monster whose defeat was one of Hercules’ the Military Cross (posthumously) for his leadership and most difficult labours, was to provide a jokey description of bravery during the attack on Joncourt on 1st October, storm- the character of the hospitalVthe officer, or head, being ing enemy points and turning a German unit’s own machine removed (or discharged) only to be replaced by new inmates. gun against them. On November 4, 1918, leading an attack by It also provided a more serious analogy for the results of the Sambre Canal near Ors, Owen was killed in action. The poorly carried out shell-shock treatment: the resurfacing news of Owen’s death reached his family on Armistice Day. of psychological problems in different, but equally distressing Owen’s poetry was promoted and published by Sassoon and incapacitating forms. The magazine was the vehicle after his death and backed by , a proponent through which the patients could express and share their of innovative trends in English poetry. In 1931, Edmund experiences, as well as learn about the hospital ethos Blunden’s anthology of Owen’s work sent his reputation and activities. Brock’s patient Wilfred Owen was editor of soaring to new heights, and today, Owen is regarded as this monthly periodical for much of his time at the hospital, one of the most talented poets of the period. He is buried and had his first published poems within its pages. Indeed, in a Ors communal cemetery in France.3 Owen did not begin writing war poetry until Craiglockhart. This was due largely to his budding friendship with Sassoon, but also due to Brock’s encouragement: that he direct his PART TWO: CRAIGLOCKHART WAR HOSPITAL FOR artistic eye over his experiences and not his fantasies, to NEURASTHENIC OFFICERS, EDINBURGH approach a cure by functioning. Perhaps the most famous ‘‘Craiglockhart is perhaps the most famous shell-shock anti-war poem, Dulce et decorum est was written at the hospital. It was set up to deal with the epidemic of psy- hospital in 1917.’’4

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References copies of The Hydra. www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/collections/ owen. Accessed November 11, 2016. 1. Roberts D. The War Poetry Web site. www.warpoetry.co.uk/ 4. Webb Thomas EF. ‘‘Dottyville’’VCraiglockhart War Hospital and Owena.html. Accessed November 11, 2016. shell-shock treatment in the First World War. JRSocMed. 2. Preface poem by Wilfred Owen on Wilfred Owen Associa- 2006;99(7):342Y346. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. Accessed tion Web site. May 1918. www.wilfredowen.org.uk. Accessed November 12, 2016. November 12, 2016. 5. Owen W. 1914. The /The Wilfred Owen Literary 3. Biography of Wilfred by Stephanie Fishwick. Oxford University. Estate via First World War Poetry Digital Archive. 1893-1918. http:// The First World War Poetry Digital Archive. The Wilfred Owen www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/collections/item/4694. Accessed Collection. The First World War Poetry Digital Archive hold November 23, 2016.

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