Owen’s death at the age of twenty-five became symbolic of the fate of his whole generation—the “lost generation,” as it was quickly called, though more in romantic legend than historical truth. The old men who were thought to have cheated the young generation of their hard-won victory and the ideals they had been fighting for were the generals, the politicians, the bosses, portrayed in angry articles and novels as the cynical and incompetent survivors of the Victorian age.
