{"id":99698,"date":"2017-10-09T12:00:44","date_gmt":"2017-10-09T11:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=99698"},"modified":"2017-10-03T14:59:28","modified_gmt":"2017-10-03T13:59:28","slug":"we-need-their-voices-today-16wilfred-owen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2017\/10\/we-need-their-voices-today-16wilfred-owen\/","title":{"rendered":"We Need Their Voices Today! (16) Wilfred Owen"},"content":{"rendered":"

Introduction<\/em><\/p>\n

This is a collection of biographical sketches showing people whose wise voices from the past can help to guide us today. All of the women and men, brief glimpses of whose lives and ideas are portrayed here, gave a high place to compassion. None of them was a slave to greed. We need their voices today!<\/p>\n

[Note from TMS editor: It will be posted one biographical sketch per week]<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

**********************************************<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Expressing the horror of war<\/strong><\/p>\n

Wilfred Owen and his mentor, Siegfried Sassoon were two poets who eloquently described the horrors of World War I. They met in a military hospital, after both had been wounded in the war. Owen had been writing poetry since the age of 11, but not about war. When he became friends with Sassoon during their hospital stay, Owen was inspired by Sassoon’s example and realized that the horrors of trenches and gas warfare deserved to be described realistically in poetry. Against the strong advice of Sassoon, Owen insisted on returning to active duty in France, where he wrote the eloquent and bitter war poems for which he is remembered.<\/p>\n

Owen was killed in action exactly one week before the end of the war. His mother received the telegram informing her of his death on Armistice Day, as the church bells were ringing out in celebration.<\/p>\n

Here are two of Owens\u2019 poems:<\/p>\n

Dulce et decorum Est<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cBent double, like old beggars under sacks,
\nKnock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
\nTill on the haunting flares we turned out backs,
\nAnd towards our distant rest began to trudge.
\nMen marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
\nBut limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind;
\nDrunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
\nOf gas-shells dropping softly behind.<\/p>\n

\u201cGas! GAS! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling\\
\nFitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
\nBut someone still was yelling out and stumbling
\nAnd flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.
\nDim through the misty panes and thick green light,
\nAs under a green sea, I saw him drowning
\nIn all my dreams before my helpless sight
\nHe plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf in some smothering dreams, you too could pace\\
\nBehind the wagon that we flung him in,
\nAnd watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
\nHis hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin,
\nIf you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
\nCome gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs
\nObscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
\nOf vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
\nMy friend, you would not tell with such high zest
\nTo children ardent for some desperate glory,
\nThe old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
\nPro patria mori.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The parable of the old man and the young<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cSo Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,
\nAnd took the fire with him, and a knife.
\nAnd as they sojourned both of them together,
\nIsaac the first-born spake and said, My Father,
\nBehold the preparations, fire and iron,
\nBut where the lamb for this burnt-offering?
\nThen Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,
\nand builded parapets and trenches there,
\nAnd stretch\\`ed forth the knife to slay his son.
\nWhen lo! an angel called him out of heaven,
\nSaying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,
\nNeither do anything to him. Behold,
\nA ram, caught in a thicket by its horns;
\nOffer the Ram of Pride instead of him.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut the old man would not so, but slew his son,
\nAnd half the seed of Europe, one by one.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wilfred Owen, eloquent opponent of war, tragic victim of war, we need your voice today!<\/h2>\n<\/blockquote>\n
\"\"<\/a>

Together<\/p><\/div>\n

Contents:<\/strong><\/h2>\n

1 Saint Francis of Assisi<\/a><\/p>\n

2 William Blake<\/a><\/p>\n

3 Thomas Paine<\/a><\/p>\n

4 Thomas Jefferson<\/a><\/p>\n

5 Mary Wollstonecraft<\/a><\/p>\n

6 William Godwin<\/a><\/p>\n

7 The Marquis de Condorcet<\/a><\/p>\n

8 Thomas Robert Malthus<\/a><\/p>\n

9 Percy Bysshe Shelley<\/a><\/p>\n

10 Robert Owen<\/a><\/p>\n

11 John Stuart Mill<\/a><\/p>\n

12 Henry David Thoreau<\/a><\/p>\n

13 Count Leo Tolstoy<\/a><\/p>\n

14 Mahatma Gandhi<\/a><\/p>\n

15 Martin Luther King<\/a><\/p>\n

16 Wilfred Owen<\/p>\n

17 Albert Einstein<\/p>\n

18 Edna St. Vincent Millay<\/p>\n

19 Bertha von Suttner<\/p>\n

20 George Orwell<\/p>\n

21 Helen Keller<\/p>\n

22 We need their voices, and yours!<\/p>\n

________________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>John Scales Avery, Ph.D., who was part of a group that shared the 1995<\/strong><\/em> Nobel Peace Prize<\/em><\/strong> for their work in organizing the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, is a member of the TRANSCEND Network<\/a> and Associate Professor Emeritus at the H.C. \u00d8rsted Institute, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. He is chairman of both the Danish National Pugwash Group and the Danish Peace Academy and<\/em> received his training in theoretical physics and theoretical chemistry at M.I.T., the University of Chicago and the University of London. He is the author of numerous books and articles both on scientific topics and on broader social questions. His most recent books are Information Theory and Evolution and <\/em>Civilization\u2019s Crisis in the 21st Century<\/a> (pdf).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wilfred Owen, eloquent opponent of war, tragic victim of war, we need your voice today!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-transcend-members"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99698\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}