Statue in Madrid (L. S. Carmona, 1750–53).

Wilfred or Wifred, called the Hairy,^[1] was Count of Urgell (870–897), Cerdanya (870–897), Barcelona (878–897), Girona (878–897), Besalú (878–897), and Ausona (886–897).

He was responsible for the repopulation of the long depopulated no-man's land around Vic (the county of Ausona, a frontier between Christian and Muslim), the re-establishment of the bishopric of Vic, and the foundation of the Monastery of Santa Maria de Ripoll, where he is buried.

Historical significance[link]

Wilfred the Hairy was the Catalan Count of Barcelona (878–898) and created the tradition of hereditary passage of titles. His son, Wifred Borell, inherited the county without any interruption and held it between 898–914.

A number of primitive feudal entities developed in the Marca Hispanica, during the 9th century. They were generally self-sufficient and agrarian, but ruled by a small military elite. The pattern seen in Catalonia is similar to that found in similar border lands or marches elsewhere in Europe.

Traditionally the count of Barcelona was appointed directly by the Carolingian emperor, for example the appointment of Bera (in 801). The appointment of heirs could not be taken for granted. However, with the rise of strong Counts such as Sunifred, (fl. 844- 848) and Wilfred, and the weakening of Carolingian, then French royal power, eventually the appointment of heirs become a formality. This trend resulted in the counts becoming de facto independent of the Carolingian Crown under Borrell II in 985).

Wilfred remained obscure until drawn into the historians' net by Sir Richard Southern, in The Making of the Middle Ages, 1953.

Origins[link]

Wilfred was of Gothic lineage from the region of Carcassonne. Tradition claims he was born near Prades in the County of Conflent, now Rià, in Roussillon, France.

According to legend, he was the son of Wilfred of Arriaount (or Wilfred of Arri), a county near Prades. His father was murdered by Salomón and Wilfred became his avenger, killing the assassin.^[2] After the research done by French monks Dom De Vic and Dom Vaissete, authors of Histoire Générale de Languedoc,^[3] he is identified as the son of Sunifred I of Barcelona, count of many counties under Louis the Pious and Charles the Bald. Wilfred's mother may have been an Ermesende. Sunifred may have been the son^[4] of Belló, Count of Carcassonne during the reign of Charlemagne, or more probably, his son-in-law.^[5] Thus, as a descendant of Sunifred and his brother, Sunyer I, count of Empúries and Roussillon (834-848), R. de Abadal and other historians consider him a member of a Bellonid dynasty.

In the dynastic struggles that accompanied the three years between Louis the Pious' death (840) and the Treaty of Verdun (843), the count of Barcelona (and many other margravates and counties: Septimania, Girona, Narbonne, Béziers, Agde, Melgueil, Nîmes, and Toulouse) Bernard of Septimania, aligned with Pepin II of Aquitaine, while the Bellonids maintained their allegiance to Charles the Bald. In 844, after taking Toulouse and capturing Bernard, Charles had him executed. In exchange for his fealty, Charles gave the dead count's honours of Barcelona, Girona, Narbonne, Nîmes, Agde, Béziers, and Melgueil to Sunifred.

In 848, William, son of Bernard, was named count of Toulouse and Empúries by Pepin II. He quickly moved to eliminate Sunifred and Sunyer.

Investiture[link]

The Bellonid lineage was revived slightly by the appointment of Dela and Sunyer II, sons of Sunyer I, to the countship of Ampurias in 862. Next, Charles the Bald made their cousins, Wilfred the Hairy and his brother Miró (known as the Old), counts respectively of Urgell and Cerdanya, and Conflent in June, 870 at an assembly at Attigny. For in that year, the mysteriously ill-chronicled Salomon, count of Urgell, Cerdanya, and Conflent, had died.

After becoming Count of Urgell and Cerdanya in 870, Wilfred received the counties of Barcelona, Girona, and Besalú in 878 from the Carolingian king of France, Louis the Stammerer. His reign coincided with the crumbling of Carolingian authority and unity. He was thus the last count of the Hispanic March appointed by the French king and the first to pass his vast holdings as an inheritance to his sons (albeit sanctioned by the monarch^{[citation needed]}).

Wilfred came into possession of Barcelona through his service to Charles the Bald against the rebel Bernard of Gothia, Count of Barcelona, Roussillon, and numerous other Septimanian counties. Wilfred, Miró, their brother Sunifred (who became the Abbot of Arles), and the Viscount of Narbonne, Lindoí, marched against Bernard on behalf of the King and his son, Louis the Stammerer. In March and April 878, they defeated the nobles loyal to Bernard, including Sigebuto, Bishop of Narbonne, and expelled all partisan priests from the church.

At the Council of Troyes in August 878, presided over by Pope John VIII and King Louis II the Stammerer, Wilfred was formally invested as Count of Urgell and Cerdanya, Miró as Count of Conflent, Sunyer as Count of Empurias, and Oliba II as Count of Carcassonne. On September 11, Bernard was dispossessed of all his titles. The Bishop of Elna, Bishop of Urgell, Bishop of Girona, and Bishop of Barcelona were confirmed in their sees. Bernard's former possessions were given to Wilfred (Barcelona, Ausona, Besalú, and Girona) and Miró (Roussillon). The counties of Narbonne, Béziers, and Agde were separated from that of Barcelona. Sunifred was made Abbot of Arles and Riculf Bishop of Elna. Wilfred immediately ceded Besalú to his brother Radulph (878-920).

Intervention in Ausona[link]

After the investiture of 878, Wilfred's lands stretched from the Pyrenees to the coast, from Urgell and Cerdanya to Barcelona and Girona. This was the first time since the reign of his father (which ended in 848) that these different areas had been united politically and the only other time within that century. The land between these regions—Ripollès, Vall de Lord, Berguedà, Lluçanès, the Plana de Vic, Moianès, Guilleries, and Bages—had long been depopulated; since the rebellion of Aissó.

Wilfred embarked on the process of repopulating these territories with immigrants from the heavily populated mountain regions—Pallars, Urgell, and Cerdanya—to which people had fled in the two centuries between the collapses of Visigothic and Carolingian authority. Wilfred's plan involved repopulating and subsequently annexing the Counties to those he already controlled. Thus, Vall de Lord became part of Urgell and Berga into Cerdanya. Wilfred created the County of Ausona from the remaining Counties made up of Ripollés, Lluçanès, the Plana de Vic, and Guilleries—centred around Ausona (the city), had a unique ethnic and cultural history whose population descended from an ancient historic Hispanic tribe^{[citation needed]}. He also added Moianés and Bagés and the lands around Manresa, which were distinct in their history themselves^{[citation needed]}. In 885, Wilfred designated a Viscount to control the County of Ausona in his absence as it formed the frontier with the Moslem Kingdoms to the south.

Ecclesiastical reform[link]

The ecclesiastic state of the region was no less isolated than its political state, the parishes largely remaining outside of the universal hierarchy. Wilfred brought the parishes of Bergueda and Vall de Lord within the control of the nearby diocese of Urgell. However, he had to re-establish the lapsed bishopric in Ausona. After consulting the Archbishop of Narbonne in 886, he was given permission to install Gotmar, a priest, as bishop of Ausona. The new bishop immediately set about restoring the repopulated city and its cathedral which had been devastated and in ruins since the last Muslim conquest and the rebellion of Aissó.

The churches in the region during this period flourished gaining much power and privilege. This included the right for monks to elect their own Abbots as espoused by Saint Benedict. Wilfred founded two new monasteries: Santa María de Ripoll (880) and Sant Joan de les Abadesses (885). The Abbey of S. Joan de les Abadesses in the diocese of Vic (Catalunya) was founded by Count Wilfred and his wife Guinedilda, to provide for their daughter Emma, who became the community's first abbess in 899 and was given immunity from lay jurisdiction by King Charles the Simple.

Carolingian crisis[link]

When Louis the Stammerer died (879), the kingdom was divided between his two young sons: Louis III received the ancient northern partitions of the Merovingian kingdom, Neustria and Austrasia (including the Lorraine). His other son Carloman received the southern partitions, Burgundy and Aquitaine (including Septimania). The problems plaguing the throne were exacerbated when both Louis (882) and Carloman (884) died soon after their succession. Not wanting to crown Louis the Stammerer's remaining son, Charles the Simple, who was only five, the nobles of France looked about for a powerful man who could defend the land from the fearsome Vikings and their vicious raids on the Channel and Atlantic coasts.

At the Assembly of Ponthion (884), the Franks chose the Holy Roman Emperor Charles the Fat, who was already king of Germany and Italy. Charles, son of Louis the German, therefore became the first person since the death of Louis the Pious to reign over the entire realm of his illustrious great-grandfather. He would also be the last.

Incapable of much, he was lethargic and probably suffered from epilepsy. In November, 885 he raised a grand army to fight off the Norsemen besieging Paris. However, he chose to buy the Vikings off, paying them to attack Burgundy (not a friend of his) instead. He left Paris in December. He subsequently failed to deal with revolts in Swabia, Saxony, Thuringia, Franconia, and Bavaria. The nobles of the Empire deposed him in 887. He died two months later (888).

Charles' nephew Arnulf of Carinthia, succeeded him in Germany, Berengar of Friuli succeeded him in Italy, and Odo succeeded him in France. The breakdown in royal authority and the dynastic change which accompanied it in France broke the Empire in two. The Carolingian polity which empowered the counts at the beginning of the century was nonexistent by the end, the Counts were de facto independent—especially in the outlying regions, like the Marca Hispanica.

The crisis and the counts[link]

In the great tradition of their family, Wilfred, Miró, Dela, and Sunyer II maintained their loyalty to the Carolingian monarchs until the death of Charles the Fat (deposed 887, died 888). They visited the royal court in 886 to ask for privileges and precept to be granted to Teotario, Bishop of Girona. Upon the death of Louis the Stammerer, however, this loyalty became largely nominal. When Louis's sons Louis and Carloman marched against Boso, king of Provence, the Catalan counts supported Carloman, but did not join the campaign. This was a far cry from the prompt action the family had taken against Bernard of Gothia. The Counts became more interested in issues that directly affected them and did not attend the Assembly of Ponthion dealing with the Viking problem which they regarded as meaningless to their domains.

The counts rejected Charles the Fat's successor, Odo, but they did not rise in favour of Louis the Stammerer's surviving son, Charles the Simple. Odo was too absorbed with the Norsemen and those loyal to Charles the Simple to be bothered with the far south of the realm.

In 886, a presbyter named Esclua, taking advantage of the absence of Teotardo, Archbishop of Narbonne, was consecrated Bishop of Urgell and expelled the titular Bishop Ingoberto with the tacit permission of Raymond I, Count of Pallars-Ribagorza, and Wilfred. He complicated the situation further by declaring himself metropolitan of Tarraconensis, separating his diocese from Narbonne. Now acting as metropolitan, Esclua promptly removed Servus Dei from the Bishopric of Girona.

Servus who was rejected by Dela, Sunyer, and Wilfred but who had been consecrated by Teotardo; took refuge in the monastery of Bañolas. Esclua, with the help of the Bishops of Barcelona and Vic, consecrated as the new Eremir Bishop of Girona. In 888, he resurrected the sees of Pallars and Empurias to repay Raymond, Sunyer, and Dela for their support.

If at first Wilfred tolerated the dethronement of Ingoberto — there had been little love between them — however he could not allow the metropolitan pretensions of Esclua because of his friendship with Teotardo. The independent dioceses were a method of securing political independence and Wilfred opposed this. He could not allow the lands under his control to be affected by Nobles or Church.

However external pressures hampered him taking action.

Death[link]

By 883 or 884, the Muslims became increasingly uneasy by the expansion of the Christian Counties to the north. Wilfred had established defensive positions or castles in Ausona at Cardona, Bergueda, and Vall de Lord; some were even in the Vall de Cervelló south of the River Llobregat. The frontier of the County of Barcelona passed north of Solsona, past Besora, Tantallatge, and Correà; that of Berga, past Sorba, Gargalla, and Serrateix; and that of the County of Ausona past Cardona, Manresa, and Montserrat.

The Muslim ruler Ismail ibn Musa ibn Qasi fortified Lleida in response. Provoked by this, Wilfred attacked Lleida and Ismail. The attack however was a disaster. The historian Ibn al Athir describes the massacre of the attackers by the city's defenders. Buoyed by this success Ismail's successor, Lubb ibn Muhammed ibn Qasi attacked Barcelona in 897. Wilfred died in battle on 11 August 897. He was buried in the monastery at Ripoll.

Succession[link]

The weakening of Frankish royal authority in the Hispanic March is principally the result of the establishment of heredity in the succession of the counties rather than by choice of the monarch. In 895, Miró the Old died and his county of Roussillon passed, without interference from King Odo, to Sunyer II of Ampurias. In the same way, Wilfred was never confirmed by the monarch as Count of Ausona. The kings had lost control of the Counts. The importance of this custom in the Middle Ages cannot be overstated. As hereditary succession became the custom, it became accepted as law and there was nothing the kings could do. The Counts had become sovereigns in their own dominions.

The lack, however, of a legal basis for heredity caused the early experiments in hereditary succession to be problematic. When Wilfred died in 897, his sons Wilfred Borrel, Miró, Sunifred and Sunyer governed his realm jointly, recognising the eldest Wilfred Borrel, as primus inter pares, or "first among equals".

However, when the succession came to their sons, this ideal broke down and the counts promptly transmitted their regions of governance to their descendants. Wilfred Borrel and the youngest son jointly ruled over Barcelona, Girona, and Ausona; Sunifred over Urgell; and Miró, over Cerdanya, Conflent, and Berga.

Wilfred and Catalonia[link]

Wilfred the Hairy has become a figure of importance for contemporary Catalan nationalists. Nineteenth century European Romanticism looked to the medieval world for references and links to modern national and cultural identities, and in the context of Catalan nationalism and its search for its historical foundations in a distant and idealised past, Wilfred soon arose as a figure of independence, the de facto founder of the House of Barcelona, and, by purported extension, one of the forefathers of the latter Catalonia.

One of the legends that has arisen around his person is that of the creation of the coat of arms from which the Catalan flag (the Senyera) derives today. After being wounded in battle (some versions say against the Moors; others, the Normans), the Frankish king Charles the Bald rewarded his bravery by giving him a coat of arms. The king slid Wilfred's blood-stained fingers over the Count's copper shield, and thus was the Senyera first born, with its four pallets in Gules on Or. As much as this legend is popular and extended, there is no historical evidence to support it.

Wilfred's actions as a Frankish vassal towards carving out his own domain from several counties and moving out of the sphere of influence of the Carolingian crown — coupled with his creation of the County of Osona and the restoration of the bishopric of Vic — laid out the territorial and patrimonial base for the House of Barcelona, and hence has been posteriorly identified with the creation of Catalonia, even though a written reference to such a territorial entity would not appear historically until more than two centuries later in the Liber maiolichinus de gestis Pisanorum illustribus, a 12th century Pisan manuscript describing the raids of 1114 by Pisans and Catalans on the island of Majorca.

Notes[link]

References[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Wilfred the Hairy

This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (February 2008)

• La família catalana dels comtes de Carcassona. Genealogia de Guifré el Pilós dins d’Els primers comtes Catalans. Barcelona, Ediciones Vicens Vives, 1958. Pages 13–29.
• Collins, Roger. "Charles the Bald and Wifred the Hairy". Charles the Bald: Court and Kingdom. edd. M. T. Gibson and Janet N. Nelson. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981. pp. 169–189. Reprinted in Law, Culture and Regionalism in Early Medieval Spain. Variorum, 1992. ISBN 0-86078-308-1.

Lynn Ferguson (born 11 April 1965) is a Scottish writer, actress, comedienne and presenter. She is the sister of comedian Craig Ferguson and is known for voicing the character of Mac in the animated film, Chicken Run.

Early life[link]

Ferguson grew up in Cumbernauld.^[1] She was the youngest of four and, like her sister, was Senior Prefect at Cumbernauld High School. She left school at the age of 18 and worked one season as a Bluecoat for Pontin's. She was then accepted at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama where she gained a BA in Dramatic Studies in 1986.

To work as a professional actress, however, she required an Equity union card which was at that point only available through paid work, so with fellow student Carolyn Bonnyman she formed the Alexander Sisters - a comedy double act in honour of / parodying traditional Scottish variety styles typified by the Alexander Brothers. She was then side tracked into standup comedy doing her first paid gig on STV’s Funny Farm. Before long she gained residence as compere at the Red Rose Comedy Club^[2] in Finsbury Park, London and continued to perform at numerous gigs throughout the UK.

Though a standup comic at night, Ferguson was also writing and presenting for BBC Scotland’s children’s program Megamag.^[3] She played a comedy character journalist Fergski who blundered through interviewing teen artists of that era - Ant & Dec, Aswad (band) and Michelle Gayle. In one episode a spritely Phill Jupitus dresses as a security guard stops Fergski interviewing East 17 at the now defunct Top of the Pops set.

In 1995, she was commissioned to write an hour of standup comedy for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival but instead wrote her first play, Heart and Sole. This solo show won her the Stage Award for Acting Excellence and transferred to the Hampstead Theatre before being toured to Hong Kong and Melbourne.

She is married to Mark Tweddle, a civil servant and previously a management consultant. The couple have two sons as of July 2008^[update].^[4][5]

Writer[link]

Ferguson has written extensively for BBC Radio 4: three series (18 episodes) of the popular sitcom Millport, various pieces for Woman's Hour including a series of updated fairy tales called After Happy Ever alongside afternoon plays and late night standup monologues.

For BBC Radio Scotland she wrote and presented a series exploring the minds of comedy writers, Laughed Off the Page,^[6] interviewing Colin Bostock-Smith,^[7] Galton and Simpson, Ian Pattison, Dick Vosburgh.

For TV, she has written half hour pilots for BBC Two and BBC Scotland and a half hour short film for Channel 4.

A regular contributor to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, eight of her plays have been produced there and she has won a Fringe First Award from The Scotsman.

As well as her performance pieces, she has written various columns for publications including The Scotsman, The Stage, Time Out, The Big Issue and The Herald (Glasgow).

She has been writing for The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, her brother's American chat programme, since October 2008.

Actress[link]

As well as winning the Stage Award for Acting Excellence she has been nominated twice. In addition to her own written works, she has performed in theatre extensively.

Ferguson toured with the Royal National Theatre in the lead part, Shen Te/ Shui Ta, of the Bertolt Brecht play The Good Woman of Setzuan and played the lead in the Traverse Theatre production of Douglas Maxwell’s Melody.

Vocally, she has numerous credits for radio works and notably played Mac in the film Chicken Run.

For TV she performed regular parts for the Channel 4, comedy drama No Angels and Ben Elton’s BBC1 sitcom Blessed, as well as appearances in The Catherine Tate Show and The Bill amongst others.

Ferguson has film credits for Honest and Chicken Run.

As herself[link]

Ferguson has presented a number of programs including, Doing the Festival for STV and XS, an arts program for the BBC.

In addition, she has been a contestant on the challenging BBC Radio 4 panel game shows Just a Minute, Loose Ends and Banter.

In April and September 2008, she made guest appearances on her brother Craig's talk show, The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson.

References[link]

Notes[link]

1. ^ Hamilton, Alan; Kirkham, Sophie (21 February 2005). "Too ugly to live the awardwinning town begging to be put out of its misery on TV". The Times (London). http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article516987.ece. 
2. ^ http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/comedy/article-23432327-details/Stars+mourn+legendary+Red+Rose+Comedy+Club/article.do
3. ^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/aboutus/wirelesstoweb/history/
4. ^ McGlone, Jackie (26 July 2008). "Side by side". The Scotsman. http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/scotsmanmagazine/Side-by-side.4315763.jp. Retrieved 24 February 2011. 
5. ^ Belcher, David (27 Jun 2002). "Millportis set for a place in the sun Is minuscule Millport about to make it big? Actress Lynn Ferguson hopes so, and not just because she used to holiday on Great Cumbrae. She stars in a new TV sitcom that starts on Sunday". The Herald (Glasgow). http://www.heraldscotland.com/sport/spl/aberdeen/millportis-set-for-a-place-in-the-sun-is-minuscule-millport-about-to-make-it-big-actress-lynn-ferguson-hopes-so-and-not-just-because-she-used-to-holiday-on-great-cumbrae-she-stars-in-a-new-tv-sitcom-that-starts-on-sunday-david-belcher-reports-1.146135. Retrieved 24 February 2011. 
6. ^ http://www.radiolistings.co.uk/programmes/l/la/laughed_off_the_page__radio_scotland_.html
7. ^ http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0098248/

General[link]

• http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article516987.ece
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/aboutus/wirelesstoweb/history/
• http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/comedy/article-23432327-details/Stars+mourn+legendary+Red+Rose+Comedy+Club/article.do
• http://www.radiolistings.co.uk/programmes/l/la/laughed_off_the_page__radio_scotland_.html
• http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0098248/

External links[link]

• Lynn Ferguson at the Internet Movie Database
• Official website
• Edinburgh Comedy Festival

Wilfred Owen
Born	(18 March 1893) Oswestry, Shropshire, England
Died	4 November 1918(1918-11-04) (aged 25) Sambre–Oise Canal, France
Nationality	English
Period	First World War
Genres	War poem
Influences Siegfried Sassoon, John Keats Horace

Wilfred Edward Salter Owen MC (18 March 1893 – 4 November 1918) was an English poet and soldier, one of the leading poets of the First World War. His shocking, realistic war poetry on the horrors of trenches and gas warfare was heavily influenced by his friend Siegfried Sassoon and stood in stark contrast to both the public perception of war at the time, and to the confidently patriotic verse written earlier by war poets such as Rupert Brooke. Among his best-known works — most of which were published posthumously — are "Dulce et Decorum Est", "Insensibility", "Anthem for Doomed Youth", "Futility" and "Strange Meeting".

Early life[link]

Wilfred Owen was born the eldest of four children in a house near Oswestry in Shropshire called Plas Wilmot on 18 March 1893, of mixed English and Welsh ancestry. His siblings were Harold, Colin, and Mary Millard Owen. At that time, his parents, Thomas and Harriet Susan (Shaw) Owen, lived in a comfortable house owned by his grandfather but, on his death in 1897, the family was forced to move to lodgings in the back streets of Birkenhead. He was educated at the Birkenhead Institute and at Shrewsbury Technical School (now The Wakeman School), and discovered his vocation in 1903 or 1904 during a holiday spent in Cheshire. Owen was raised as an Anglican of the evangelical school, and in his youth was a devout believer, in part due to his strong relationship with his mother, which was to last throughout his life. His early influences included the "big six" of romantic poetry, particularly John Keats, and the Bible.

Shortly after leaving school in 1911, Owen passed the matriculation exam for the University of London, but not with the first-class honours needed for a scholarship (his studies suffered as Owen mourned the loss of his uncle and role model, Edgar Hilton in a hunting accident), which in his family's circumstances was the only way he could have afforded to attend.

In return for free lodging, and some tuition for the entrance exam, Owen worked as lay assistant to the Vicar of Dunsden near Reading and as a pupil-teacher at Wyle Cop School. He then attended classes at University College, Reading (now the University of Reading), in botany and later, at the urging of the head of the English Department, free lessons in Old English. His time spent at Dunsden parish led him to disillusionment with the church, both in its ceremony and its failure to provide aid for those in need.

Prior to the outbreak of World War I, he worked as a private tutor teaching English and French at the Berlitz School of Languages in Bordeaux, France. There he met the older French poet Laurent Tailhade, with whom he later corresponded in French.^[1]

War service[link]

On 21 October 1915, he enlisted in the Artists' Rifles Officers' Training Corps. For the next seven months, he trained at Hare Hall Camp in Essex. On 4 June 1916 he was commissioned as a second lieutenant (on probation) in the Manchester Regiment.^[2] Owen started the war as a cheerful and optimistic man, but he soon changed forever. Initially, he held his troops in contempt for their loutish behaviour, and in a letter to his mother described his company as "expressionless lumps".^[3] However, Owen's outlook on the war was to be changed dramatically after two traumatic experiences. Firstly, he was blown high into the air by a trench mortar, landing among the remains of a fellow officer. Soon after, he became trapped for days in an old German dugout. After these two events, Owen was diagnosed as suffering from shell shock and sent to Craiglockhart War Hospital in Edinburgh for treatment. It was while recuperating at Craiglockhart that he met fellow poet Siegfried Sassoon, an encounter that was to transform Owen's life.

After a period of convalescence in Northern Ireland, then a short spell working as a teacher in nearby Tynecastle High School, he returned to light regimental duties. In March 1918, he was posted to the Northern Command Depot at Ripon.^[4] A number of poems were composed in Ripon, including "Futility" and "Strange Meeting". His 25th birthday was spent quietly in Ripon Cathedral.

After returning to the front, Owen led units of the Second Manchesters on 1 October 1918 to storm a number of enemy strong points near the village of Joncourt. However, only one week before the end of the war, whilst attempting to traverse a canal, he was shot in the head and killed. The news of his death, on 4 November 1918, was given to his mother on Armistice Day. For his courage and leadership in the Joncourt action, he was awarded the Military Cross, an award he had always sought in order to justify himself as a war poet, but the award was not gazetted until 15 February 1919.^[5] The citation followed on 30 July 1919:

2nd Lt, Wilfred Edward Salter Owen, 5th Bn. Manch. R., T.F., attd. 2nd Bn. For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty in the attack on the Fonsomme Line on October 1st/2nd, 1918. On the company commander becoming a casualty, he assumed command and showed fine leadership and resisted a heavy counter-attack. He personally manipulated a captured enemy machine gun from an isolated position and inflicted considerable losses on the enemy. Throughout he behaved most gallantly.^[6]

Poetry[link]

Owen is regarded by historians as the leading poet of the First World War, known for his war poetry on the horrors of trench and gas warfare. He had been writing poetry for some years before the war, himself dating his poetic beginnings to a stay at Broxton by the Hill, when he was ten years old.^[7] The Romantic poets Keats and Shelley influenced much of Owen's early writing and poetry. His great friend, the poet Siegfried Sassoon, later had a profound effect on Owen's poetic voice, and Owen's most famous poems ("Dulce et Decorum Est" and "Anthem for Doomed Youth") show direct results of Sassoon's influence. The novel Regeneration by Pat Barker shows this relationship closely. Manuscript copies of the poems survive, annotated in Sassoon's handwriting. Owen's poetry would eventually be more widely acclaimed than that of his mentor. While his use of pararhyme, with its heavy reliance on assonance, was innovative, he was not the only poet at the time to use these particular techniques. He was, however, one of the first to experiment with it extensively.

His poetry itself underwent significant changes in 1917. As a part of his therapy at Craiglockhart, Owen's doctor, Arthur Brock, encouraged Owen to translate his experiences, specifically the experiences he relived in his dreams, into poetry. Sassoon, who was becoming influenced by Freudian psychoanalysis, aided him here, showing Owen through example what poetry could do. Sassoon's use of satire influenced Owen, who tried his hand at writing "in Sassoon's style". Further, the content of Owen's verse was undeniably changed by his work with Sassoon. Sassoon's emphasis on realism and "writing from experience" was contrary to Owen's hitherto romantic-influenced style, as seen in his earlier sonnets. Owen was to take both Sassoon's gritty realism and his own romantic notions and create a poetic synthesis that was both potent and sympathetic, as summarised by his famous phrase "the pity of war". In this way, Owen's poetry is quite distinctive, and he is, by many, considered a greater poet than Sassoon. Nonetheless, Sassoon contributed to Owen's popularity by his strong promotion of his poetry, both before and after Owen's death, and his editing was instrumental in the making of Owen as a poet.

Thousands of poems were published during the war, but very few of them had the benefit of such strong patronage, and it is as a result of Sassoon's influence, as well as support from Edith Sitwell and the editing of his poems into a new anthology in 1931 by Edmund Blunden that ensured his popularity, coupled with a revival of interest in his poetry in the 1960s which plucked him out of a relatively exclusive readership into the public eye. Though he had plans for a volume of verse, for which he had written a "Preface", he never saw his own work published apart from those poems he included in The Hydra, the magazine he edited at Craiglockhart War Hospital, and "Miners", which was published in The Nation.

There were many other influences on Owen's poetry, including his mother. His letters to her provide us with insight into Owen's life at the front, as well as the development of his philosophy regarding the war. Graphic details of the horror Owen witnessed were never spared. Owen's experiences with religion also heavily influenced his poetry, notably in poems such as "Anthem for Doomed Youth", in which the ceremony of a funeral is reenacted not in a church, but on the battlefield itself, and "At a Calvary near the Ancre", which comments on the Crucifixion of Christ. Owen's experiences in war led him to further challenge his religious beliefs, claiming in his poem "Exposure" that "love of God seems dying".

Literary output[link]

Only five of Owen's poems had been published before his death, one of which was in fragmentary form. His best known poems include "Anthem for Doomed Youth", "Futility", "Dulce Et Decorum Est", "The Parable of the Old Men and the Young" and "Strange Meeting". Some of his poems feature in Benjamin Britten's War Requiem.

Owen's full unexpurgated opus is in the academic two-volume work The Complete Poems and Fragments (1994) by Jon Stallworthy. Many of his poems have never been published in popular form.

In 1975 Mrs. Harold Owen, Wilfred's sister-in-law, donated all of the manuscripts, photographs and letters which her late husband had owned to the University of Oxford's English Faculty Library. As well as the personal artifacts this also includes all of Wilfred's personal library and an almost complete set of The Hydra — the magazine of Craiglockhart War Hospital. These can be accessed by any member of the public on application in advance to the English Faculty librarian.

The Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin holds a large collection of Wilfred Owen's family correspondence.

Relationship with Sassoon[link]

Owen held Siegfried Sassoon in an esteem not far from hero-worship, remarking to his mother that he was "not worthy to light [Sassoon's] pipe". On being discharged from Craiglockhart, Owen was stationed on home-duty in Scarborough for several months, during which time he associated with members of the artistic circle into which Sassoon had introduced him, which included Robert Ross and Robert Graves. He also met H.G. Wells and Arnold Bennett, and it was during this period he developed the stylistic voice for which he is now recognised. Many of his early poems were penned while stationed at the Clarence Garden Hotel, now the Clifton Hotel in Scarborough's North Bay. A blue tourist plaque on the hotel marks its association with Owen.

Robert Graves^[9] and Sacheverell Sitwell^[10] (who also personally knew him) have stated Owen was homosexual, and homoeroticism is a central element in much of Owen's poetry.^{[11][12][13][14]} Through Sassoon, Owen was introduced to a sophisticated homosexual literary circle which included Oscar Wilde's friend Robbie Ross, writer and poet Osbert Sitwell, and Scottish writer C. K. Scott-Moncrieff, the translator of Proust. This contact broadened Owen's outlook, and increased his confidence in incorporating homoerotic elements into his work.^[15][16] Historians have debated whether Owen had an affair with Scott-Moncrieff in May 1918; Scott-Moncrieff had dedicated various works to a "Mr W.O.",^[17] but Owen never responded.^[18]