"Futility" is a poem written by

Wilfred Owen Wilfred Edward Salter Owen MC (18 March 1893 – 4 November 1918) was an English poet and soldier. He was one of the leading poets of the First World War. His war poetry on the horrors of trenches and gas warfare was much influenced by ...

, one of the most renowned poets of

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. The poem was written in May 1918 and published as no. 153 in ''The Complete Poems and Fragments''. The poem is well known for its departure from Owen's famous style of including disturbing and graphic images in his work; the poem instead has a more soothing, somewhat light-hearted feel to it in comparison. A previous secretary of the Wilfred Owen Association argues that the bitterness in Owen's other poems "gives place to the pity that characterises his finest work". Futility details an event where a group of soldiers attempts to revive an unconscious soldier by moving him into the warm sunlight on a snowy meadow. However, the "kind old sun" cannot help the soldier - he has died. The titular theme of the poem is claimed to be common to many World War I and World War II war poets and to apply not only to war, but human institutions (including religion) and human existence itself. Noting the "religious" nature of the poem's questioning, academics C.B.Cox and

A.E. Dyson Anthony Edward Dyson, aka Tony Dyson (28 November 1928 – 30 July 2002) was a British literary critic, university lecturer, educational activist and gay rights campaigner. Biography Educated at Pembroke College, Cambridge, his academic career ...

claim that "Futility" is a "poetic equivalent...to the famous Tomb in Westminster Abbey."

Depictions in popular culture

In 1982, singer

Virginia Astley Virginia Astley (born 26 September 1959) is an English singer-songwriter most active during the 1980s and 1990s. Her songwriting career started in 1980. Her classical training influenced her as did a desire to be experimental with her music. Alt ...

set ''Futility'' to music she had composed; the track was included on an

NME ''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming, and culture website and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a 'rock inkie', the NME would become a magazine that ended up as a f ...

compilation cassette in October 1982 (credited as The Ravishing Beauties) and on Virginia Astley's 1983 album ''Promise Nothing''. The poem is among those set in the ''

War Requiem The ''War Requiem'', Op. 66, is a large-scale setting of the Requiem composed by Benjamin Britten mostly in 1961 and completed in January 1962. The ''War Requiem'' was performed for the consecration of the new Coventry Cathedral, which was b ...

'' of

Benjamin Britten Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976, aged 63) was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, other ...

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Futility (Poem) World War I poems British poems Poetry by Wilfred Owen