Form and structure
Anthem for Doomed Youth is a sonnet.
It has the octetA group of eight people or things. / sestetA stanza of six lines, or the last six lines of a 14-line Italian or Petrarchan sonnet. structure of the Italian Petrarchan sonnetA form of sonnet perfected by the Italian poet Petrarch in which the 14 lines are divided into two sections., but is loosely based on the rhyme scheme of the English Shakespearean sonnetThe Shakespearean sonnet has the rhyme scheme ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. It is made up of three quatrains (four lines in a group) and a closing couplet (two lines that rhyme)..
The sonnet form - often used to praise or elevate - seems ironic in its use here as the poem is a lament for the brutal deaths of young innocent men.
The poem is structured as an octet and a sestet. The structure of the sestet mirrors that of the octet in that both stanzas open with a rhetorical questionA question that you ask without expecting an answer. The question may not have an answer. Alternatively, it might have an obvious answer but it has been posed to make a point. which is then answered by the speaker in the following lines.
The octet introduces the reader to the brutal environment of the trenches. An onslaught of sensual imagery describes and creates the harsh sounds which would have surrounded the men as they fought and died.
The octet culminates in a reference to the 鈥渂ugles calling for them from sad shires鈥. This reminds us of the towns left grieving for the men who will never come home. This poignantBringing about a sense of sadness or regret. final line of the octet, moving from the noise of war, links us to the silence of the sestet, with the voltaThe turn of a thought, or a shift in the meaning or argument within a sonnet. signalling a move from the sounds of war to the funeral practices associated with Christianity.
Owen asks 鈥淲hat candles may be held to speed them all?鈥 He responds by contrasting various familiar religious practices with the realities of a lonely death in the trenches.
The final poignant rhyming couplet A pair of successive lines of verse, typically rhyming and of the same length. slows the pace of the poem by concluding with an evening image of 鈥渟low dusk鈥 and 鈥渁 drawing down of blinds鈥, symbolising the deaths of the men in the trenches.