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Siegfried Sassoon's Glory Of Women

Decent Essays
In 1917, Siegfried Sassoon composed the sonnet “Glory of Women” during the first World War, an important piece of twentieth century modernist poetry. In this poem, the role as much as the attitude of women during the Great War is criticised. This essay argues that Sassoon's opinion on war and the participation of women conveyed in his Sonnet is influenced by his own experiences, also by referring to his biography as much as to historical research on World War One. First of all, one has to analyse the poem with regards to form and content. The Sonnet holds the Iambic Pentametre, written “in lines of ten syllables with emphasis on the second, fourth, sixth, eighth, and tenth.” (n.d. 1-2). It is starting with an alternate rhyme (ABAB), having…show more content…
By continuing with “you believe / That chivalry redeems the war's disgrace.” (3-4), it is asserted that female feel attracted to heroic soldiers. It seems as if they were demanding their husbands to go to war without considering its cruelty, or thinking that it is compensated by chivalry, an attitude that can be evaluated as highly selfish. In World War One, women had to work in munition factories, taking on the roles of the left men (Copping). Saying “You make us shells. You listen with delight, / By tales of dirt and anger fondly thrilled.” (Sassoon 5-6), the speaker interprets this as a woman's support of the Great War. They were supplying the soldiers with munition and, in Sassoon's opinion, enjoy paying attention to their narrations. Moreover, they are said to listen to them like fictional stories. The statement “You can't believe that British troops 'retire'” (9) underlines this. He thinks women can not put themselves in the position of a man fighting in the war. In his view, they do not understand its concept and what it is like to be at the front. War's barbarity is also symbolised by the image of “Trampling the terrible corpses…show more content…
Siegfried discovered his homosexual tendencies early, like Max Egremont explains in his work: “The person whom Sassoon loved inside the house was a man: Stephen Tennant.” (10) In this context, his social environment radicalised Siegfried's opinion of women. For example, during his studies at Cambridge University, he got into contact with the poet Edward Carpenter who thought that “homosexuals had greater imaginative freedom than heterosexuals” (46). Having felt different and abnormal, Siegfried's attitude changed: “What ideas I had about homosexuality were absolutely unprejudiced.” (46), maybe this gave him the feeling of being superior to
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