1. Introduction Trudging through devastated landscapes with uprooted trees, blood and mud everywhere, rat-infested trenches, half filled with water and corpses: these were the circumstances in which an estimated 8,700,000 lives were lost during the First World War. However, this reality was long hidden from the knowledge of civilians at home, who continued to write about the noble pursuit of heroic ideals with old patriotic slogans (Anthology 2012: 2017). The poets working at the front quickly realized the horror of war, which was reflected in their poetic techniques, their diction and their imagination. Campbell (1999: 204) refers to their poetry as trench poetry, which not only calls attention to the poems' more common setting, but also to the accompanying images of dirt, barbed wire, bombing, and so on. The genre portrays these distressing conditions in an unromantic light, thus differentiating it from patriotic early war lyrics. It is realistic in that it employs the traditional styles and diction of English poetry, yet uses these conventional poetic forms to portray the gruesome details of trench situations (Campbell 1999: 205). One of these poets was Wilfred Owen, whose later work has been canonized as representative of trench poetry. He is the poet who wrote with the most pathos, who began as a follower of Keats and Shelley but hardened and strengthened his language under the pressure of traumatic front-line experiences and who came to see it as his poetic task to warn against horrors of war. (Buelens & Claes 2013: 115). In this essay, I will discuss how Owen's use of a variety or pervasive poetic techniques reinforces the dark atmosphere of his poems, and how his poetry evolves... halfway through the paper...: Most recent period. " English Literature II. Historical survey: most 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. vol. F. New York: Norton, 2012. 2016-2018. Print.Ramazani and Stallworthy Sassoon" The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Gen. ed.Stephen Greenblatt. 9th ed. vol. F. New York: Norton, 2012. 2023.Print.Ramazani and Stallworthy. "Wilfred Owen" The Norton Anthology of English Literature . Gen. Stephen Greenblatt et al. “Fighting Gnosticism: The Ideology of World War I Poetic Criticism.” 30.1(2014): 203–215. Kerr, Douglas. “Wilfred Owen and the Social Question.” –195. Print.