Strange Meeting | ISC Class 11 English Notes

This note covers Wilfred Owen and the poem, its speaker and situation, a part-by-part summary, a close reading of each part, pararhyme, metre and other poetic devices, themes, tone, key quotations and vocabulary.

Who wrote the poem, and what kind of poem is it?

About Wilfred Owen

Wilfred Owen was an English poet who lived from 1893 to 1918. He served as an officer in the First World War and was killed in action in November 1918.

The first collection of his poems appeared after his death, in Poems (1920), edited by his fellow poet Siegfried Sassoon. A note printed under the poem in that edition records that it was found among Owen's papers and remarks on its unusual ending.

What kind of poem is it?

“Strange Meeting” is a first-person narrative that turns into a long dramatic speech. The narrator tells of an escape from battle and a meeting underground. From line 14 to the end, the man he meets does all the talking: thirty of the poem's forty-three lines.

The situation recalls an old literary convention, the journey to the land of the dead, in which a visitor goes below the earth and hears the dead speak.

The poem is one unbroken verse paragraph, with no stanza breaks, and most of its lines run in pairs joined by half-rhyme.

Note: This note quotes and numbers the poem as printed in Poems (1920), where it has 43 lines. Other editions, possibly including the anthology, differ from it in places and may number the lines differently after line 9, so the student should check line numbers against the anthology and quote the anthology's wording in an exam.

Who is the speaker, and what is the situation?

The narrator

The speaker, or narrator, is a soldier. He has come “out of the battle” (line 1), and the closing lines reveal that he killed a man the day before (lines 39 to 41). He speaks aloud only once, in line 13, and then falls silent.

The poem never says that he has died. Yet he has left the battle for a hall of sleepers that blood and guns cannot reach, the man he meets is dead, and he is invited to share their sleep. These details suggest that his escape may be death itself.

The other

The man who rises is called “one” (line 6), “that vision” (line 10) and “the other” (line 14). He has no name and no nation. Only in line 39 does he say that he is “the enemy” the narrator killed.

Where does the meeting happen?

The setting is a deep tunnel cut through granite, leading to a “sullen hall” (line 9) beneath the fighting. Above lies the “upper ground” (line 11) of blood and guns. Below there is darkness, silence and a crowd of “encumbered sleepers” (line 4).

What happens in the poem, part by part?

The summary follows five movements, marked by changes in action and speaker.

Lines 1 to 8: the escape and the figure who rises

The narrator seems to escape from battle down a deep, dim tunnel, cut long ago through granite by vast, ancient wars. Sleepers lie there groaning, held too fast in thought or death to wake. As he examines them, one springs up, stares at him with pitiful recognition and lifts his hands as though to bless him.

Lines 9 to 13: the silent hall and the greeting

By the figure's smile the narrator understands what this gloomy hall is. The face is lined with a thousand fears. No blood or gunfire reaches here from the ground above, so the narrator, calling the figure “friend”, says there is no reason to mourn.

Lines 14 to 24: the other's lost life

The other replies that there is none, except the years he will never live and the hopelessness. He lived for the same hopes as the narrator. He chased the wildest beauty, not the calm beauty of eyes or braided hair, but one that defies time.

His joy and his weeping might have moved many men. Now what remains of them must die with him: the untold truth, the pity of war.

Lines 25 to 38: the world without him

He predicts that men will either accept the ruined world or turn to bloodshed, swift and fierce, never breaking ranks as nations move away from progress. His courage and wisdom would have kept him out of this march into useless, unwalled fortresses.

When blood had clogged the chariot-wheels, he would have washed them from sweet wells, with truths too deep to be tainted. He would have given his spirit freely, but not through wounds. Men, he adds, have bled from the forehead where there were no wounds.

Lines 39 to 43: the revelation

Finally he reveals that he is the enemy the narrator killed. He knew him in the dark by his frown, the frown he wore yesterday while stabbing him. He tried to ward off the blow, but his hands were unwilling and cold. He invites the narrator to sleep, and the poem stops.

How does the opening build the world beneath the battle?

A dreamlike descent

“It seemed” makes the narrator an uncertain witness from the first words. He reports how things appeared, not what surely happened, which gives the descent the quality of a dream vision.

The tunnel is profound, meaning deep, and dull, meaning dim and lifeless. “Long since scooped” makes it ancient. In Greek myth the Titans were giant gods who fought a great war against the Olympian gods, so “Titanic wars” suggests conflict as vast and old as the world.

Groined is an architectural word for a roof of arched vaults. The tunnel's roof becomes something like a crypt, a place built for the dead, though here war has done the carving.

The sleepers and the one who rises

The sleepers are weighed down and groaning. “Too fast in thought or death” holds two possibilities together: the narrator cannot tell whether they are lost in thought or dead. “Fast” means firmly held, as in fast asleep.

“Probed” suggests a soldier checking bodies after a battle. The figure who springs up has fixed eyes, a stare that may also suggest the open stare of the dead. His “piteous recognition” is not explained until lines 40 and 41.

The lifted hands, “as if to bless”, offer peace before a word is spoken. His first gesture looks like a blessing, not a threat.

What does the silence show?

Lines 11 and 12 define the hall by what is missing: no blood, no thumping guns, no moaning down the flues. The contrast with the “upper ground” makes the battle feel both near and finished.

In this text a comma follows “Strange”, so the word can be read as an exclamation of wonder before the narrator says “friend”. His greeting is kindly but mistaken: he takes the silence to mean that nothing here needs mourning.

What does the other mean by “the undone years”?

An exception larger than the rule

The other agrees that there is “None” and then names the exception: “the undone years, / The hopelessness”. The irony is sharp. The single exception is a whole lost lifetime, and it outweighs the comfort the narrator offered.

Undone carries two meanings: years not done, never lived, and years ruined. The full stop in the middle of line 15 makes “hopelessness” fall heavily.

A life that mirrors the narrator's

“Whatever hope is yours, / Was my life also” makes the two men alike. His life was made of the same hopes, so the enemy becomes a mirror image, or double, of the narrator.

The wildest beauty

He “went hunting wild / After the wildest beauty”. The move from “wild” to “wildest” stresses passion and daring. This beauty is not the calm kind found “in eyes, or braided hair”, the familiar beauty of a loved face.

Instead, it “mocks the steady running of the hour”, scorning time itself, and even its grief is richer than the grief of the hall. The poem never names his calling, but the pursuit sounds like an artist's or a poet's.

The truth untold

His joy might have made “many men” laugh, and something of his weeping was left behind. Both were meant to be shared, and both “must die now”, a blunt phrase that closes a sentence at the start of line 23.

What dies is “the truth untold”. Untold means not told, and it can also mean beyond counting. He then defines it: “The pity of war, the pity war distilled.” The repetition presents pity first as what war causes, then as the essence war has distilled from suffering.

What future does the other foresee for the living?

Lines 25 to 28: acceptance or bloodshed

The verbs turn to the future: “will go”, “will be”. Without his truth, men will either rest “content with what we spoiled” or, “discontent”, boil over in violence.

The pronoun in “what we spoiled” is striking. The other seems to include himself and his killer in the spoiling of the world. The liquid image of men who “boil bloody, and be spilled” turns people into blood that is heated and poured away.

The tigress gives men the speed of a hunting animal. “None will break ranks” pictures obedient soldiers who never step out of line, even as nations “trek from progress”, journeying wearily backwards.

Lines 29 to 32: gifts that would have kept him apart

Two balanced lines list his gifts: courage and mystery, wisdom and mastery. These would have let him “miss the march”, staying out of the world's retreat instead of joining it.

The march goes “Into vain citadels that are not walled”. A citadel is a fortress; one without walls protects no one. “Vain” means useless and can also mean proud, so the retreat is both futile and self-deceiving.

Lines 33 to 38: the healing that never happens

The conditional “I would” describes work he can never now do. When blood had “clogged their chariot-wheels”, he would have gone up and washed them from “sweet wells”. Fresh water set against blood makes truth a cleansing force.

These truths “lie too deep for taint”, beyond corruption. He would have poured out his spirit “without stint”, but “not through wounds; not on the cess of war”. He wanted to give himself to the world, not to bleed for it.

Line 38 widens the picture: “Foreheads of men have bled where no wounds were.” The forehead suggests the mind, so the line points to suffering that leaves no visible mark.

Why does the ending change the meaning of the whole poem?

The revelation

Line 39, “I am the enemy you killed, my friend”, is the plainest statement in the poem. Calling the same man enemy and friend in one breath is a paradox: war made them enemies, but in death they meet as fellow men.

The line answers the narrator's “friend” in line 13. He used the word without knowing who stood before him; the other uses it knowing everything, turning a greeting into forgiveness.

Lines 40 and 41 explain the “recognition” of line 7. The narrator is frowning now as he frowned “Yesterday” while he “jabbed and killed”. “Yesterday” makes the killing horribly recent, and “jabbed”, a short, stabbing verb, suggests close fighting.

Hands that did not want to fight

“I parried” shows that the other only defended himself. His hands were loath, unwilling, and cold. The hands that seemed to bless in line 8 had never wished to kill.

Why does the poem end with sleep?

“Let us sleep now . . .” joins the two men in “us”. Sleep returns to the sleepers of line 4, so the poem closes among the dead where the meeting began. The trailing dots leave the speech unfinished, and the narrator's reply never comes.

Which poetic devices does the poem use, and how do rhyme and metre work?

How does pararhyme work?

Pararhyme pairs words whose consonants match while the vowel changes. In this text every line has a partner in sound except line 9 and the final half-line, and lines 18 to 20 form a group of three.

In many pairs the second vowel sounds lower or darker than the first, as in escaped and scooped, years and yours, killed and cold. Each pair seems to sink as it closes, which suits a poem of loss.

The near misses can also be heard to mirror the two men: alike in outline, different at the centre, never quite matching. The last word, “now”, is left with no echo at all.

What metre does the poem use?

Most lines have ten syllables and five main stresses, a loose iambic pentameter. Line 1 has eleven syllables, as do lines 10 and 24, and lines 27 and 28 end on the unstressed second syllables of “tigress” and “progress”.

Because most lines pair off as pentameter couplets, the poem has the frame of heroic couplets, a traditional form for narrative and argument. Heroic couplets close on full rhyme; here pararhyme takes its place, so the familiar frame is unsettled and order and disturbance are heard together.

A caesura, a pause within a line, gives weight to key words, as after “hopelessness” in line 15 and after “now” in line 23. Enjambment, a sentence running on across lines, carries the long descent of lines 1 to 3 and holds back “Yesterday” until the start of line 41.

Which other devices appear?

What are the poem's main themes and message?

The pity of war

Line 24 names this poem's centre: the pity of war, meaning the suffering war causes and the compassion that suffering demands. The poem practises what it names, asking the reader to grieve for killer and killed alike.

The enemy as a fellow human being

Recognition (line 7), shared hopes (lines 15 to 16), the shared “we” (line 25) and the word “friend” (lines 13 and 39) all erase the line between enemies. Being nameless, he could belong to any army, which widens the message to every war.

Wasted lives and lost futures

The undone years, the gifts of lines 29 to 30 and the unfulfilled “I would” of lines 34 and 36 measure what war destroyed. The loss is not one life only but everything that life would have given to others.

Truth and its loss

The poem itself tells the truth that “must die now” untold, so the reader receives the message the dead man could not deliver: that war's real meaning lies in suffering and pity.

The futility of war

Lines 25 to 32 present war as a retreat dressed up as an advance: an orderly march away from progress into defences that cannot defend.

Death, sleep and reconciliation

The closing invitation to sleep makes death the place where enemies meet without weapons, and “us” offers peace, though a peace that comes too late.

How do tone and the speaker's attitude develop?

Tone is the attitude conveyed by a voice. The opening tone is hushed and uncertain, shaped by the dim tunnel and the groaning sleepers, and the narrator's one speech is gentle.

The other's tone changes as his speech goes on. It is mournful in lines 14 to 24, prophetic and bitter in lines 25 to 28, proud and wistful in lines 29 to 38, and finally intimate and forgiving.

The other never accuses, curses or demands justice. His judgement falls on war and on the world's “retreating” march, not on the man who killed him.

The narrator's attitude is shown through silence. His response to the revelation is left to the reader. The final tone is weary and tender: the request to sleep is gentle, close to an act of pardon.

Which key quotations support close-reading and exam answers?

A strong answer uses a short quotation, names its line and context, and explains its effect in the student's own words.

“It seemed that out of the battle I escaped”

Use it for: the narrator, line 1, on the dreamlike setting and the doubt over whether he has died.

“Whatever hope is yours, / Was my life also”

Use it for: the other, lines 15 to 16, on the two men as mirror images.

“The pity of war, the pity war distilled.”

Use it for: the other, line 24, defining his untold truth; the central theme and repetition.

“None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress.”

Use it for: the other's prophecy, line 28; the futility of war and the pararhyme with “tigress”.

“Foreheads of men have bled where no wounds were.”

Use it for: the other, line 38; paradox and suffering of the mind.

“I am the enemy you killed, my friend.”

Use it for: the revelation, line 39; the paradox of enemy and friend, and reconciliation.

“Let us sleep now . . .”

Use it for: the other's last words, line 43; sleep as death, the shared “us” and the unfinished ending.

Glossary

• Groined: Built with groins, the curved edges where two arched vaults meet; the tunnel's roof is vaulted like a crypt.
• Titanic: Belonging to the Titans, giant gods of Greek myth; here vast in scale and immensely old.
• Encumbered: Weighed down or burdened; the sleepers lie heavy and cannot move.
• Bestirred: Roused or stirred into movement; the sleepers are held too fast to be woken.
• Sullen: Gloomy, dark and silent; describes the hall that lies beneath the battle.
• Grained: Marked with deep lines, like the grain of wood; the fears are worked into the face.
• Flues: Shafts or ducts that carry air or smoke; here passages that might carry the sound of guns.
• Undone: Not done or never lived, and also ruined; the years the other has lost through his death.
• Richlier: More richly; an unusual poetic adverb for the deeper grief of the beauty he pursued.
• Distilled: Drawn out as a pure essence by heating and condensing; war has concentrated pity from suffering.
• Citadels: Fortresses that guard a city; these are vain and unwalled, so they protect nothing.
• Without stint: Without holding back; fully and generously.
• Cess: An old word for a tax or levy; it also calls to mind a cesspool. War is pictured as a toll on men and as something foul.
• Parried: Turned aside or blocked a blow, as in fencing; the other only defended himself.
• Loath: Unwilling or reluctant; the other's hands did not want to fight.

Common errors and misconceptions

• Misconception: The meeting takes place on the battlefield. Correct: The narrator leaves the battle down a tunnel into a silent hall that blood and guns do not reach (lines 1 to 2 and 11 to 12).
• Misconception: The narrator states that he has died. Correct: “It seemed” keeps the experience uncertain; the setting and the invitation to sleep only suggest his death.
• Misconception: The other blames his killer. Correct: He calls him “my friend”, speaks of what “we spoiled” and admits his own hands were loath; regret replaces accusation.
• Misconception: The poem has careless or failed rhymes. Correct: The half-rhymes are deliberate pararhyme: consonants match while vowels change, as in “killed” and “cold”.
• Misconception: The enemy is identified by his nationality. Correct: He is only “the other” and “the enemy”; leaving him nameless lets him stand for soldiers on any side.
• Misconception: “Here is no cause to mourn” is the poem's message. Correct: The narrator's comfort is at once overturned by “the undone years”; the line is ironic.
• Misconception: “The pity of war” means feeling sorry for war. Correct: It is the suffering war causes and the compassion that suffering calls for, which war has “distilled”.

Exam-style questions with model answers

Q1. Read this extract (lines 1 to 4) and answer the questions that follow: It seemed that out of the battle I escaped / Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped / Through granites which Titanic wars had groined. / Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned, (i) Where does the narrator go, and what does “It seemed” add? (ii) “Titanic” refers to the Titans, giant gods of Greek myth who fought a great war. What does “Titanic wars” suggest? (iii) What does “encumbered” tell the reader about the sleepers? (iv) Name the sound device that links “escaped” with “scooped” and “groined” with “groaned”, and explain how it works. [4 marks]

1. (i) He leaves the battle and goes down a deep, dim tunnel. “It seemed” makes the escape uncertain and dreamlike, so the reader cannot be sure it is real.
2. (ii) The wars that carved the tunnel were vast and ancient, on the scale of a war among giant gods. War appears as old as the rock itself.
3. (iii) “Encumbered” means weighed down or burdened. The sleepers lie heavy and helpless, and their groaning shows that they suffer.
4. (iv) The device is pararhyme. The paired words share their consonants but change the vowel, so the echo falls short of full rhyme and sounds uneasy.

Q2. Before this extract, the narrator notes that no blood or gunfire reaches the hall. Read the extract (lines 13 to 16) and answer the questions that follow: “Strange, friend,” I said, “Here is no cause to mourn.” / “None,” said the other, “Save the undone years, / The hopelessness. Whatever hope is yours, / Was my life also; I went hunting wild (i) Why does the narrator think there is no cause to mourn? (ii) How does the other's reply turn his words around? (iii) Give two meanings of “undone”. (iv) What does “Whatever hope is yours, / Was my life also” show about the two men? [4 marks]

1. (i) He has noticed that no blood or gunfire reaches the hall. He takes this quiet and safety to mean that nothing is left to grieve for.
2. (ii) The other agrees there is “None” and then makes one exception: the lost years and the hopelessness. The exception is so large that it overturns the comfort, which is ironic.
3. (iii) “Undone” means not done or never lived, and also ruined. Both meanings describe the future that death has taken from him.
4. (iv) The other lived for the same hopes as the narrator. The two men are alike, so the enemy appears as a mirror image of his killer.

Q3. Read this extract (lines 39 to 42) and answer the questions that follow: I am the enemy you killed, my friend. / I knew you in this dark; for so you frowned / Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed. / I parried; but my hands were loath and cold. (i) What does the first line reveal, and which device joins “enemy” and “my friend”? (ii) How did the other recognise the narrator? (iii) What does “Yesterday” add? (iv) What do “I parried” and “loath and cold” suggest about the other's part in the fight? [4 marks]

1. (i) He reveals that he is the man the narrator killed. Calling him both enemy and friend is a paradox: war made them enemies, but they meet now as fellow men.
2. (ii) He knew the narrator by his frown, which is the same frown the narrator wore while stabbing and killing him.
3. (iii) “Yesterday” makes the killing very recent, so the meeting follows the act almost at once and the guilt is fresh.
4. (iv) To parry is only to block a blow, and “loath” means unwilling. His cold, reluctant hands show that he defended himself but never wanted to kill.

Q4. In line 24 the other defines the truth that must die with him: “The pity of war, the pity war distilled.” To distil is to draw out a pure essence by heating and condensing. Explain the line in two points. [2 marks]

1. “The pity of war” is the suffering war causes and the compassion that suffering demands; this is the truth he can no longer tell.
2. “The pity war distilled” makes pity an essence that war has concentrated out of suffering. The repetition stresses that pity is war's true product.

Q5. The poem describes a soldier's meeting with the man he killed, in a silent hall of the dead. It pairs line endings by sound, for example escaped and scooped (lines 1 and 2), years and yours (lines 14 and 15), friend and frowned (lines 39 and 40), and killed and cold (lines 41 and 42). The last line, “Let us sleep now . . .”, has no partner. Explain in five points how this sound pattern suits the poem. [5 marks]

1. The pairs are pararhyme: the consonants match while the vowel changes, so each pair comes close to rhyme without fully rhyming.
2. The near miss leaves the ear unsatisfied. This unease suits a strange meeting in a hall of the dead, where nothing is quite as expected.
3. In several pairs the second vowel sounds lower or darker, as in escaped and scooped or killed and cold, so the lines seem to sink at their close, a sound of loss.
4. Words alike in outline but different at the centre mirror the two men. Friend and frowned are matched yet opposed, as the dead man and his killer are.
5. The final half-line has no partner, so the poem's last word has no echo. This suits the unfinished speech and the invitation that receives no reply.

Q6. Consider these details: the other stares with “piteous recognition” and lifts his hands “as if to bless” (lines 7 and 8); the narrator calls him “friend” (line 13); the other says “Whatever hope is yours, / Was my life also” (lines 15 and 16), speaks of “what we spoiled” (line 25), calls his killer “my friend” (line 39) and says his hands “were loath and cold” (line 42). Explain in six points how the poem presents enemies as fellow human beings. [6 marks]

1. The look of recognition and the gesture of blessing greet the narrator with pity and peace, not hostility, before any word is spoken.
2. The narrator calls the figure “friend” before he knows who he is, so the first bond between them is ordinary human fellowship.
3. “Whatever hope is yours, / Was my life also” makes their hopes the same: the enemy lived for exactly what his killer lives for.
4. “What we spoiled” shares responsibility for the ruined world between both soldiers, removing the division into sides.
5. “My friend”, spoken with full knowledge of the killing, turns a greeting into forgiveness. The paradox of enemy and friend sums up the theme.
6. Loath and cold hands show that the other never wished to kill. The violence belonged to war, not to the men themselves.

Q7. Consider this outline: “It seemed” that the narrator escaped from battle down an ancient tunnel (lines 1 to 3); a sleeper rises with “piteous recognition” (line 7); in the silent hall the narrator says there is “no cause to mourn” (line 13, his only speech); the other mourns “the undone years” and “the truth untold, / The pity of war” (lines 14 and 23 to 24); he foresees men who “boil bloody” while “nations trek from progress” (lines 26 and 28); he would have washed blood-clogged wheels “from sweet wells” (line 34); he reveals “I am the enemy you killed, my friend” (line 39) and ends “Let us sleep now . . .” (line 43). The lines pair by pararhyme. Write an appreciation of how the poem presents the pity of war, in eight points. [8 marks]

1. The structure moves from the narrator's brief account to the other's long speech, so the dead man's voice dominates and his killer falls silent.
2. “It seemed” and the ancient tunnel create a dreamlike place apart from the fighting, where a truth hidden by battle can finally be spoken.
3. The pitiful look of recognition draws the reader's sympathy before the figure's identity is known, so pity is the first emotion the poem arouses.
4. The narrator's “no cause to mourn” is overturned by “the undone years”. This irony shows that the true cost of war is the future it destroys.
5. The other names his untold truth plainly as “The pity of war”. The truth he meant to share dies with him, which deepens the loss.
6. His prophecy of men who “boil bloody” while nations “trek from progress” presents war as futile, breeding more violence and dragging the world backwards.
7. The wish to wash blood-clogged wheels from sweet wells sets cleansing water against blood, showing the healing work his death has made impossible.
8. The revelation “I am the enemy you killed, my friend” and the closing “Let us sleep now” offer reconciliation only in death, while the near rhymes and unanswered last line leave the reader uneasy.

Key takeaways

• Wilfred Owen's poem follows a soldier who seems to escape from battle into a silent underground hall, where he meets the man he killed.
• The narrator speaks only in line 13; the other's speech fills lines 14 to 43, so the dead man's voice dominates the poem.
• The other mourns “the undone years” and the truth he can no longer tell: “The pity of war, the pity war distilled.”
• He foresees a world that accepts ruin or repeats violence, marching in order while nations “trek from progress”.
• His courage, wisdom and wish to heal the world from “sweet wells” of truth show what war has wasted.
• The revelation “I am the enemy you killed, my friend” turns enemies into fellow men, and the invitation to sleep offers a late reconciliation.
• Pararhyme pairs words with matching consonants and changing vowels, giving an uneasy, often falling sound that mirrors the two men.
• The 1920 text has 43 lines; other editions may differ in places and in line numbering, so exam quotations and line numbers should follow the anthology.

Test yourself

What does “It seemed” add to the opening?

It makes the escape uncertain and dreamlike, so the narrator reports how things appeared rather than what surely happened.

Who are the “encumbered sleepers”?

Weighed-down figures in the hall, held too fast in thought or death to be woken. The setting suggests that they are the dead.

Why does the narrator say there is no cause to mourn?

No blood or gunfire reaches the hall, and he mistakes this quiet for peace.

What are “the undone years”?

The years the other will never live, which are also years ruined by war.

What does “the pity war distilled” mean?

Pity is an essence that war has concentrated out of suffering. It is the truth the other could not live to tell.

Why are the citadels described as “vain”?

They have no walls, so they cannot protect anyone. “Vain” means useless and also suggests proud self-deception.

How did the other recognise the narrator?

By his frown, the same frown the narrator wore the day before as he stabbed and killed him.

What is pararhyme? Give one pair from the poem.

A half-rhyme in which the consonants match but the vowel changes, such as “friend” and “frowned” in lines 39 and 40.