{"id":5794,"date":"2024-11-15T18:38:00","date_gmt":"2024-11-15T23:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/?p=5794"},"modified":"2025-10-01T09:44:43","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T13:44:43","slug":"selected-letters-of-wilfred-owen-ed-jane-potter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/2024\/11\/15\/selected-letters-of-wilfred-owen-ed-jane-potter\/","title":{"rendered":"Selected Letters of Wilfred Owen.<\/em> Ed. Jane Potter."},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Selected Letters of Wilfred Owen.<\/em> Ed. Jane Potter.<\/h1>\n\n
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Robert McParland<\/a><\/div>\n\n
in <\/span>Book review<\/a>, <\/span>Reviews<\/a><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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\"Cover<\/a><\/svg><\/span><\/a><\/div><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Selected Letters of Wilfred Owen<\/em>, ed. Jane Potter. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2023. 464 pages. ISBN 9780199689507. US $32.95 (hardcover).<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The pattern of a poet\u2019s life and the rich variety of his moods, ideas, and concerns emerge in the letters of Wilfred Owen, who has become an iconic representative figure of the Great War. Jane Potter, Reader in Arts at Oxford Brookes University, has given us an opportunity to appreciate Owen in the context of his time. Potter is the editor of A History of World War One Poetry<\/em> (Cambridge University Press, 2023). She has restored the text of Owen\u2019s letters, uncovered omissions of names and sentences, and reinstated previously redacted copy. This includes content censored in pencil and ink by Owen\u2019s brother Harold, who redacted material he believed indiscrete with respect to family sensitivities about the war, sexuality, or family members. Potter has added twenty-three letters or postcards beyond the selected letters previously edited by John Bell (1985) and has amended Bell\u2019s footnotes. This cleanly edited volume offers an autobiographical account of Owen\u2019s life in letters and brings us into Owen\u2019s Edwardian world before the war, or what Owen called \u201cthe abode of madness\u201d (Letter 481, p. 244).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wilfred Owen\u2019s letters\u2014many of which he wrote to his mother, Susan Owen\u2014are lyrical and reflect his rich imagination and poetic cadence. They range from the wry and humorous to the serious and anguished. The letters provide images of the veteran\u2019s experience and reflect the lives of people of his generation. The trajectory of Owen\u2019s attitude toward the war, like that of many of his compatriots, moves from early enthusiasm to more sober assessments. Owen begins chronicling his experience of war in June 1915, stating \u201cI now do most intensely want to fight\u201d (Letter 357, p. 174). In the last months of the war, before his death, he writes of \u201cgroans of the wounded\u201d and those who \u201ccould not move from a small trench\u201d (October 6, 1918, Letter 663, p. 399).  Yet he insists that unlike the poet Shelley, who penned \u201cStanzas Written in Dejection\u201d (1818), \u201cthese are not lines written in dejection. Serenity Shelley never deemed crowns me\u201d (Letter 649, p. 387).   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This edition\u2019s clear presentation helps us to better understand Wilfred Owen\u2019s life and his literary reference points. The text is structured in five sections that present letters from phases of Owen\u2019s life from 1902 through 1918. Notes and commentary in italics accompany some of the letters. A few of Owen\u2019s drawings are also included. An appendix indicates where Owen\u2019s manuscripts are held, and there is a select bibliography of biographies and critical studies and a chronology. Overall, Jane Potter has provided a service to scholars and to general readers who seek Owen\u2019s voice, experience, and thoughts alongside further insight into his poetry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Robert McParland, Felician University<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jane Potter\u2019s new edition of Wilfred Owen\u2019s letters restores previously redacted text and allows us to appreciate the poet in the context of his time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5795,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"wp-custom-template-post-template-reviews","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1888,1887],"tags":[1897,1937,1959],"class_list":["post-5794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book-review","category-reviews","tag-20th-century","tag-literature","tag-textual-editing"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5794"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5794\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5921,"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5794\/revisions\/5921"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharpweb.org\/sharpnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}