1. Introduction Crossing ravaged landscapes, uprooted trees, blood and mud everywhere, trenches infested with rats, half-filled with water and corpses: these were the circumstances in which some 8,700,000 lives were lost during the First World War. However, this reality was long hidden from the knowledge of the country's civilians, who continued to write about the noble pursuit of heroic ideals in old patriotic slogans (Anthology 2012: 2017). The poets engaged on the front quickly understood the full horror of war, which was reflected in their poetic techniques, their diction and their imagination. Campbell (1999: 204) characterizes their poetry as trench lyrics, which draw attention not only to the poems' more common setting, but also to the accompanying images of filth, barbed wire, shell fire, etc. The genre depicts these harsh conditions in an unromantic light, thus differentiating it from the patriotic lyrics of the early war. It is realistic in the sense that it employs the traditional styles and diction of English poetry, while using these conventional poetic forms to describe the gruesome details of the situations in the trench (Campbell 1999: 205). One of these poets was Wilfred Owen, whose work later became canonized as representative of trench lyrics. He is the poet who wrote with the most pathos, who began as a disciple of Keats and Shelley but who hardened and tightened his language under the pressure of traumatic experiences at the front and who came to see his poetic task as was to warn against the horrors of war. (Buelens & Claes 2013: 115). In this essay, I will explain how Owen's use of a variety of pervasive poetic techniques reinforces the dark atmosphere of his poems, and how his poetry evolves...... middle of paper ...... : More recent period. » English Literature II. Historical investigation: more recent period. 2013. 113-115. Print.Ramazani and Stallworthy. “Voices from the First World War” The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Gen.ed. Stephen Greenblatt. 9th ed. Flight. F. New York: Norton, 2012. 2016-2018. Print.Ramazani and Stallworthy. “Siegfried Sassoon” The Norton Anthology of English Literature. The general ed. Stephen Greenblatt. 9th ed. Flight. F. New York: Norton, 2012. 2023.Print.Ramazani and Stallworthy. "Wilfred Owen" The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Ed. general. Stephen Greenblatt. 9th ed. Flight. F. New York: Norton, 2012. 2034. Print. Campbell, James et al. “Fighting Gnosticism: The Ideology of World War I Poetic Criticism.” » 30.1 (2014): 203-215. Print. Kerr, Douglas. “Wilfred Owen and the social question.” 34.2 (2014): 183-195. Print.