By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘Insensibility’ is one of the longest poems written by the pre-eminent English poet of the First World War, Wilfred Owen (1893-1918). Owen, who famously said that ‘the Poetry is in the pity’, explores in ‘Insensibility’ the way the war necessitates a closing-off of feeling in those who experience the horrors of the trenches. ‘Insensibility’ is about this loss of feeling and what it signifies. As well as being one of Wilfred Owen’s longest poems, ‘Insensibility’ is also, we feel, one of his great achievements as a poet.
‘Insensibility’ by Wilfred Owen
                   I
Happy are men who yet before they are killed
Can let their veins run cold.
Whom no compassion fleers
Or makes their feet
Sore on the alleys cobbled with their brothers.