Siegfried Sassoon´s Poem

Even a century long time after his death, Wilfred Owen is still famous for his war poetry written during World War 1. In his poems, Owen uses various language techniques to vividly illustrate the horrendous reality of war. Hence, he communicates his own anti-war feelings, that are embedded beneath his techniques. However, although he is now known as an anti-war poet, for once, he had been a naive boy, who had been pressured by the propaganda and volunteered to fight in war.

Pain can be expressed in both sorrow and anger. Sappho creates great imagery in this fragmented poem by taking pain into natural moving actions. She expresses how her feelings change from hurt to anger and how heavy pain can really be. Sappho uses physical movement to express her emotions in different directions. She also emphasizes how she sees revenge is the ultimate goal in order to recover from that pain.

Wilfred Owens poem “Dulce et Decorum est” and Bruce Dawe’s poem “Homecoming” are poems from different wars, however both highlight the indignity of war. Owen’s poem is broken up into three sections, where he expresses the torture soldiers suffer

Literature and poetry are a reflection of society. The words are reflected in numerous feelings that we can almost touch and can be deeply felt in its reach. Most poets expressed their perception and emotion through their writings. Unfortunately the art and poetry describes one of the worst things that human can do to one another. The legalized murder called "war." Hence, this type of self-reflection called "poetry" has help create new fundamental ideas and values towards our society. In this essay, I will discuss the issue of the "War Poetry" during the "Great War" along with comparing and contrasting two talented renowned poets; Wilfred Owen (1893-1918) and Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967).

The idea of loss is explored diversely in the poems ‘Conscript’ by FA Horn and ‘The Photograph’ by Peter Kocan. Where ‘Conscript’ conveys the loss of a soldier on the battlefields of World War II and his physical demise, ‘The Photograph’ conveys the loss of a World War I Australian soldier and the grief his family endures with the passing of time. Although the two poems are set in different wars, the poets similarly reinforce the devastation, as well as the emotional and physical impact associated with war.

Wilfred Owen can be considered as one of the finest war poets of all times. His war poems, a collection of works composed between January 1917, when he was first sent to the Western Front, and November 1918, when he was killed in action, use a variety of poetic techniques to allow the reader to empathise with his world, situation, emotions and thoughts. The sonnet form, para-rhymes, ironic titles, voice, and various imagery used by Owen grasp the prominent central idea of the complete futility of war as well as explore underlying themes such as the massive waste of young lives, the horrors of war, the hopelessness of war and the loss of religion. These can be seen in the three poems, ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’, ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’ and

Many war pieces express a distinct sense of truth, hatred, and anger that can be found in the style, tone, and imagery they possess. Incredible images are created in ones mind as war writings are read and heard. Works written by such writers as Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen, and Tim OBrien really reach out to the audience by way of the authors choice of words and images that they use in their writing. These talented writers create very touching and heart-felt images as they write about the true occurrences, problems, feelings and emotions that soldiers encountered throughout times of war. It is by way of these

The first of Sassoon poems “In an Underground Dressing Station” is about the pain and suffering there was during the time. There is a reason the author did not specify what country this man belonged to. This poem was about one person, but no matter what country they were fighting for, so many people went through this pain. The next poem “Battalion-Relief” also showed how even in these beautiful towns, they faced the terror of artillery and heard distant gun fire everywhere they marched. The soldiers were stuck in this extended nightmare with nothing to do but following order to their almost inevitable demise.

War poetry displays an accurate representation of the sensations felt during the horrid times of battle. In the novel The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger, D.B. asks Allie, “who was the best war poet, Rupert Brooke or Emily Dickinson” (140). The question proposed can be answered with many different opinions, as the individual's knowledge and understanding of each poet will impact their decision. In contrast to Rupert Brooke, Emily Dickinson is clearly the superior war poet as she portrays soldiers and the idea of death in an insightful manner, which causes the reader to go beyond their comprehension of the words to recognize the full potential of the poem.

Sappho is an ancient Greek poet who is known for her capability in the theorization and processing of love, though in The New Sappho her curiosity and amusement tends to turn its perspective to the idea of age. While we are used to the common concept of love and appearance of Aphrodite, the goddess of love, in Sappho’s poems, it seems that The New Sappho is both a play on her age, as well as a metaphor for her new subject. The poem’s title seems to suggest a rebirth or a renewal of being, yet in contradiction her physical form is aging.

Thousands of young Europeans went to serve their country (draft) during the first world war and were met with death and destruction. In addition to having to witness comrades and friends being killed, they had to kill others which will undoubtedly change someone. It takes away your innocence to have to do and see things such as this. For those that survived these images haunted them for the rest of their lives changing their outlook on life and general disposition. Which such a large percent of the population having had such damaging effects it takes a toll on the entirety of Europe. Siegfried Sassoon, a British poet who fought during WWI, recounts his experience and the damaging effects of war. In Sassoon’s Suicide in the Trenches he writes about the effects of the war on the soldiers and the disillusionment people at home had about war. The first stanza of the poem has as cheerful tone. Sassoon writes “I knew a simple soldier boy,” choosing to use the word “boy” instead of man to put an emphasis on how young and youthful these soldiers were. There is a sharp change of tone between the first and second stanza in which Sassoon talks of the hardships of the trenches and has a an emphasis on winter. The boy who was spoken about in the first stanza as

Life in the trenches during WWI was miserable. There seem to be no words that could truly match the horrific experience, but soldiers tried to conjure images using literature to come close to their experience. As stated in The World’s History, Europe had not warfare on such a scale since the Napoleonic wars (Spodek 664). Even watching the American Civil War from afar could not have prepared Europe and the young men that served for the devastation WWI brought. The poems described the war as a collection of numbed men, simply waiting to die, “lines of grey, muttering faces.” Men who had joined to serve their country had now become disillusioned with the nobility of dying for their country, wondering if the suffering both in and out of the trenches

though they are so tired have to keep awake, so that they do not get

The poet Siegfried Sassoon saw that war was destructive and it should not happen because it was a waste of human life, Sassoon described the horror of war unsparingly, also, his poems were often based on actual incidents. Wilfred Owen focused his poetry on the particulars of war and the men involved: dirt, muddle, boredom etc, Owen often wrote about the horror of war and the dignity of men. He deeply felt a sense of the appalling wastefulness of war, casualties and the human spirit. The similarities between these two poets are they both tried to record realistic horrors of the war; to have it stopped. They were both angry at the war’s brutality, they were also showed very compassionate studies of the circumstances of fighting men.

War, a slaughter of men that has gone on for hundreds & thousands of years. One of the most gruesome wars was WW1 which lasted for 4 years, 28 Jul. 1914 – 11 Nov. 1918. In this devastating war, the total number of casualties includes about 11 million military personnel and about 7 million civilians. Many of those soldiers were young men. The poem “Suicide in the trenches” written by Siegfried Sassoon tells what the harsh trenches had being like and how many soldiers became depressed. Sassoon was an officer who earned a military cross after carrying a wounded solider through enemy’s crossfire. He fought in many battles till 1917 where he would then have to leave the war due to Shellshock. Sassoon criticized the political leaders who sent young men off to die in huge battles that seemed pointless and while Sassoon was in Hospital he opposed the war by writing many poems including “Does it Matter”, “The Hero’ and arguably the most tragic poem, “Suicide in the Trenches”.