"The Dead-Beat" is a poem 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 b ...

. It deals with the atrocities of

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

Composition

Owen developed the poem while he was a patient at

Craiglockhart Craiglockhart (; gd, Creag Longairt) is a suburb in the south west of Edinburgh, Scotland, lying between Colinton to the south, Morningside to the east Merchiston to the north east, and Longstone and Kingsknowe to the west. The Water of Leith ...

, a hospital for officers suffering with mental illness. It was here that he met fellow poet

Siegfried Sassoon Siegfried Loraine Sassoon (8 September 1886 – 1 September 1967) was an English war poet, writer, and soldier. Decorated for bravery on the Western Front, he became one of the leading poets of the First World War. His poetry both describ ...

and where his personal psychological healing from the traumas of war. "The Dead-Beat" marked the beginning of his writings as representations of soldiers who could no longer tell their own stories. In writing the poem, Owen received help from Sassoon, who he elsewhere called one of his dearest friends. Sassoon's influence is apparent particularly in the poem's anger over injustice. Owen described the experience in a letter in which he suggested that the middle sections needed work. The night he met Sassoon, he began writing "The Dead-Beat", as described in the letter: "After leaving him, I wrote something in Sassoon's style... The last thing he said was 'Sweat your guts out writing poetry!' 'Eh?' says I. 'Sweat your guts out, I say!'"

Pat Barker Patricia Mary W. Barker, (née Drake; born 8 May 1943) is an English writer and novelist. She has won many awards for her fiction, which centres on themes of memory, trauma, survival and recovery. Her work is described as direct, blunt and pl ...

, in her novel '' Regeneration'', describes a fictitious workshop between the poets based on this letter.

Analysis

Like many of his poems about the war, Owen explored both courage and cowardice in "The Dead-Beat". He also attempts to emulate the vernacular of a common soldier in a realistic war setting.Cuthbertson, Guy. ''Wilfred Owen''. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2014: 204. In particular, "The Dead-Beat" depicts how war can isolate rather than unite individuals who share common causes or experiences.Hipp, Daniel. ''The Poetry of Shell Shock: Wartime Trauma and Healing in Wilfred Owen, Ivor Gurney, and Siegfried Sassoon''. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2005: 66.

References

Poetry by Wilfred Owen World War I poems {{1910s-poem-stub