dangerous hallucinations that presage freezing to death. At the end of the poem, though, “nothing the men are trapped permanently in a no land between life and death, where happens” – man’s the transition between those two states is indistinct. In Owen more clearly imagines himself as dead, escaping battle “Strange Meeting,” profound to a by “down some dull tunnel” primordial realm “scooped” ancient, “titanic” wars. There he meets someone who looks at him with and suddenly the speaker “piteous recognition,” in This stranger mourns the lost years, the of and the “knew we stood Hell.” “pity war” realization that will break ranks, though nations trek from The power of the “None progress.” at the end, as the stranger reveals he is enemy you killed, poem’s imaginative vision comes “the my the dead self and his doppelganger, the stranger, emerge from vision friend.” Both Owens’s of unity. He imbues the dead German with courage and humanity, showing a degree of empathy and brotherhood that transcends nationalities as well as life and death. In empathetic Owens’s imagining, the distinction between living and dead, friend and foe, English and German, is erased. Imagining Themselves in Hell Most poetic treatments of the dead, however, are neither as conciliatory nor as optimistic. Close physical association and philosophical identification with the dead made poets imagine the fallen soldiers to be in circumstances as remarkably depressing as their own; after all, the landscape of the front resembled descriptions of hell that educated soldiers had read from Dante and Milton. The landscape of the front was so unrelentingly bleak and the time there so soldiers’ apparently unending that their vision of the front and their idea of Hell became intertwined. If live soldiers and dead soldiers were trapped alike in a hell on earth, it seems reasonable that souls
dangerous hallucinations that presage freezing to death. At the end of the poem, though, “nothing happens” – the men are trapped permanently in a no man’s land between life and death, where the transition between those two states is indistinct. In “Strange Meeting,” Owen more clearly imagines himself as dead, escaping battle “down some profound dull tunnel” to a primordial realm “scooped” by ancient, “titanic” wars. There he meets someone who looks at him with “piteous recognition,” and suddenly the speaker “knew we stood in Hell.” This stranger mourns the lost years, the “pity of war” and the realization that “None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress.” The power of the poem’s imaginative vision comes at the end, as the stranger reveals he is “the enemy you killed, my friend.” Both the dead self and his doppelganger, the stranger, emerge from Owens’s vision of unity. He imbues the dead German with courage and humanity, showing a degree of empathy and brotherhood that transcends nationalities as well as life and death. In Owens’s empathetic imagining, the distinction between living and dead, friend and foe, English and German, is erased. Imagining Themselves in Hell Most poetic treatments of the dead, however, are neither as conciliatory nor as optimistic. Close physical association and philosophical identification with the dead made poets imagine the fallen soldiers to be in circumstances as remarkably depressing as their own; after all, the landscape of the front resembled descriptions of hell that educated soldiers had read from Dante and Milton. The landscape of the front was so unrelentingly bleak and the soldiers’ time there so apparently unending that their vision of the front and their idea of Hell became intertwined. If live soldiers and dead soldiers were trapped alike in a hell on earth, it seems reasonable that souls