"And finished fields of autumns that are old"
... in the poem "Asleep". I'm at work again, and I can't remember what the replacement line was, but I remember it has the words "rusty old". That line, above, on close examination, has a vague meaning, but it resonates within in me in a way that I can't explain. It seems to capture the inexorable march of time, and the feeling that the world is an ancient place.
Last night, when I got home, it simply slipped my mind to pull out my Owen books and make corrections to my previous post (so I can refer to editions properly, instead of "1960's" and "1989", etc.). I'll try to remember tonight.
I did go to that site last night, and it was just delightful to see all those manuscripts. What orderly handwriting he had! It was also interesting to see poems take shape over several drafts. He had an unerring sense of what sounded right and what sounded wrong, and you could see that sense shaping the poems as he worked on them. It was also exciting, in "Dulce et Decorum Est", to see him slash out an entire section of the poem and replace it with something much more effective.
Now, this may be controversial, but I think that Owen was gay. His laments for the loss of his comrades is tinged with too much affection and subtle eroticism. I think this makes sense, as a heterosexual soldier might not have felt the loss of life around him quite so acutely, or might have been more likely to see it as a necessary sacrifice.
[This message has been edited by Caleb Murdock (edited October 04, 2001).]
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