Wilfred Owen

Beauty (Owen)

For works with similar titles, see Beauty.
The beautiful, the fair, the elegant,

Kantian Beauty Definition

Referencing philosopher Immanuel Kant's aesthetic theory that beauty is appreciated without self-interest.

Is that which pleases us, says Kant,
Without a thought of interest or advantage.
I used to watch men when they spoke of beauty
And measure their enthusiasm. One
An old man, seeing a ( ) setting sun,
Praised it ( ) a certain sense of duty
To the calm evening and his time of life.
I know another man that never says a Beauty
But of a horse; ( )
Men seldom speak of beauty, beauty as such,
Not even lovers think about it much.
Women of course consider it for hours

Gender and Perception

Owen ironically suggests women obsess over beauty while men rarely discuss it directly.

In mirrors; ( )

War's Brutal Interruption

Sudden shift from aesthetic contemplation to violent war imagery. Shrapnel wound described like a blooming flower.

A shrapnel ball -
Just where the wet skin glistened when he swam -
Like a fully-opened sea-anemone.
We both said 'What a beauty! What a beauty, lad'
I knew that in that flower he saw a hope

Soldier's Memory Fragment

Beauty becomes a fleeting moment of hope, connected to home and survival.

Of living on, and seeing again the roses of his home.
Beauty is that which pleases and delights,
Not bringing personal advantage - Kant.
But later on I heard
A canker worked into that crimson flower
And that he sank with it
And laid it with the anemones off Dover.
This work was published before January 1, 1931, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse
Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

Beauty Interrupted by War

Wilfred Owen deconstructs aesthetic philosophy by juxtaposing Kant's abstract definition of beauty with brutal war experience. The poem moves from philosophical abstraction to visceral reality, showing how war fundamentally transforms perception.

The shrapnel wound described as a 'sea-anemone' represents how violence can momentarily mirror beauty, while simultaneously destroying it. Owen suggests that wartime experience renders traditional philosophical definitions of beauty obsolete.

Subverting Aesthetic Expectations

[CONTEXT: Owen was a World War I poet known for exposing war's brutal realities] The poem systematically challenges how beauty is traditionally understood. By introducing Kant's definition and then immediately complicating it through war imagery, Owen reveals the fragility of aesthetic concepts.

Notice how the poem shifts between different registers: philosophical discourse, personal observation, and war testimony. This structural complexity mirrors the poem's argument that beauty cannot be understood through pure abstraction.