Insensibility

Insensibility is a poem written by Wilfred Owen during the First World War which explores the effect of warfare on soldiers, and the long and short term psychological effects which it has on them. The poem's title refers to the fact that the soldiers have lost the ability to feel due to the horrors which they faced on the Western Front during the First World War.

Owen & World War I
During and after World War I many combatants and former combatants found their lives and minds permanently altered by the violent, loud and traumatic life of trench warfare. This disorder was originally called "shell shock" but today it is referred to as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Wilfred Owen was diagnosed with shell shock in 1916, within four months of arriving in France, and was briefly invalided home. The constant strain of living with shell shock is evident in Owen's poems and personal letters.

After editing a selection of his poems, an editor felt that the cause of Owen's PTSD could be when he was blown into the air by a shell blast, an experience which Owen recounted in one of his many letters home. It is also suggested that an occasion when he was isolated helplessly for 12 days under attack and constant fear of death may have precipitated his PTSD.