What Is The Theme Of The Poem By Siegfried Sassoon

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).

In the middle of the poem, the speaker arrives at the number of casualties from the war. When he reads this number he can’t believe that he is still alive. As he reads down the names he uses the visual imagery and simile to describe how he expected to find his own name in “letters like smoke” (line 16). This helps the reader understand how lucky the speaker felt about somehow escaping the war still alive. As he goes

Siegfried Sassoon's poem The Rear-Guard is the story of a soldier, whose facilities have been compromised, frantically trying to escape the tainted and filth of an tunnel in which a war is raging above him. The poem if filled with a very real sense of urgency and horror in this poem. This is no glorious image of war, of charging machine gun nests or pulling wounded comrades out of harm’s way heroically in the eyes of one’s countrymen, but an image of a different sort. One a soldier faces daily, alone and filled with trepidation. This poem is about the images soldiers face in their mind. It clearly comes across as autobiographical; no battle inspired rhymer could understand a scene that comes off as more terrifying as engagement itself.

The soldiers who had attended the war were shown to have died brutally, like “cattle”, yet when reaching the home front, it is seen that they are laid to rest in a much more civil and dignified manner. The concept of this can be seen as an extended metaphor throughout the entire poem, with the battle front seen as a world filled with violence, fear and destruction, where as the home front is perceived as a place marked by order and ritual, a civilized world. The second sonnet opens with “What candles may be held to speed them all?”, invoking a more softer and compassionate tone towards the audience, more specifically through Owen’s use of a rhetorical question. It captures the readers’ attention, engaging them to feel empathetic and notice the shift of energy from anger and bitterness to a sadder and more somber tone. Owen’s use of descriptive language, as simple as it seems, such as ‘boys’ and ‘girls’ provokes the audience to view the horrors of the war as if they had been placed onto children, because in reality the ‘men; who had signed themselves into war to fight in glory for their country had really only just been boys themselves.

In the second stanza the distinctive experience of power is present. The use of the technique of imagery and emotive words “to pluck them from the shallows and bury them in burrows’ tells us that the soldiers were strong, loyal and had enough power within a degree to assist fellow soldiers. The use of personification to create sound “sob and clubbing of the gunfire” This leads the audience to understand what the soldiers were up against without even directly saying it. The imagery visually shows the scene in their

“Attack” The poem “Attack” is about how the war is from the inside of the battlefield. The poem explains the battlefield like it is a terrible place to be in and experience. It explains war as this living hell where there is nothing but fire, smoke, loud noises and gunfire. The planes roaring as they hover over the battlefield and lower to the ground to drop bombs and gunfire, body parts are flying over the fields, tanks are slowly creeping over the hills, the only expressions on the soldiers’ faces are anger and fear; it’s chaos.

Suicide in the trenches were very common in World War I. Many depressed, or physically exhausted soldiers would resort to suicide to end their struggles. Siegfried Sassoon, a war veteran and English poet, wrote ‘Suicide in the Trenches,’ in an attempt to “avoid sentimentality and self-pity while describing the realities of war.” Published in February, 1918, he writes:

This paper focuses on exploring the styles and techniques used by Siegfried Sasson in his war-poem The Rear-Guard. This poem is about the negative effects of war on the minds of soldiers and the events happening in the battle field. Sasson is commonly known as a war-poet as he experienced them personally being part of Royal Welsh army. In this paper the techniques of foregrounding i.e. deviation and parallelism are used to make the implicit meanings explicit, used by the writer. Stylistics analysis is done using the technique of foregrounding. The analysis shows that the horror and brutality is shown by making readers part of poem, it means that the style used is autobiographical which shows the dangers and experiences faced by soldiers

A Sight in Camp in the Daybreak Grey and Dim is a sentimental and bleak poem written by Walt Whitman. This poem focuses on the aspect of war and expresses that war is cruel. It follows the narrator as they discover a few casualties of war after a sleepless night on the battlefield. This discovery is followed by remarks pertaining to the appearance of the soldiers as the narrator pulls the blanket off of the soldier’s bodies. Through the use of imagery, symbolism and repeating phrases, A Sight in Camp in the Daybreak Grey and Dim suggests that war is cruel and unending.

causes the poem to flow, and thus lightens up the dark and serious issue of war. The lines "But ranged as infantry, And staring face to face, I shot at him as he at me, And killed him in his place." are easy to read; however, their meaning is extremely

There are wars going on everyday in our lives, while some people are going through the same, they have many of the same thoughts going through their heads. In the book All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria , and “Suicide in the trenches” by Siegfried Sassoon, although their character are in different parts of World War 1 they have numerous of the comparable thought during this time. Paul and Siegfried have similar conditions when they are fighting on The Front, as Siegfried states in the poem “...In winter trenches, cowed and glum, With crumps and lice and lack of rum…’’(Sassoon). Paul describes a similar setting in All Quiet, since it was constantly at war and with all passed away bodies on the ground the trenches were unimaginable

“He’s lost his color far from here”. This line gives the reader a true image of how horrific military wounds could be. The irony that the soldier of the poem “liked a blood smear down his leg” then becomes rather depressing for the reader. This irony also suggests to the reader how foolish the subject is, due to his want of a “blood smear” and then, ironically he obtains “a leap of purple spurted from his thigh”. As well as graphical contrasts, there are also cases of contrasts between atmospheres before and after the war. It is shown that pre war, majority of the community was more joyful; “voices of play and pleasure.” Now however, it seems to be solemn as seen in “Voices of boys rang saddening like a hymn.” This line symbolizes a disheartening atmosphere and also has connotations of a funeral which, once again, proves the horrors of war portrayed by Wilfred

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.

The second stanza speaks of how it so often slips our mind that war does not only affect the men who are in direct combat. The young women too, suffer greatly in silence. Though so removed from the grime and blood of the battlefield, one cannot imagine the excruciating pain of having to part with their loved ones, with the knowledge that 'the holy glimmers of goodbyes ' might as well be goodbye forever. Every moment of the day, they agonize over the terrifying thought that their loved one has been shot or injured. There is no way of telling - and the guessing game is exhausting. There is no more joy or excitement in life as each 'slow dusk ' drags by, their only reason for existence condensed into a single purpose - receiving news from the battlefield. Often time, their agonizing wait ends in a heartbreaking death. This is signified from the line 'the drawing down of blinds '.

In the opening stanza of War Photographer, references to religion, ‘light is red’, ‘church’, ‘priest’, ‘Mass’, ‘All flesh is grass’, are very prominent and symbolic. The photographer is metaphorically described as a priest preparing to say Mass, with the names of countries in war instead of words of a service, and with the red light of the darkroom symbolizing the church tabernacle lamp. This metaphor reminds us of the transience of life, when one death can mean so little. Likewise in Lament, the repetition of ‘For’ at the start of each verse brings a chanting-like effect, which reflect religion and ritualism. The entire poem is almost like a song, a desolate tune of mourning for the lost lives. In addition, ‘pulsing burden’, also suggests a rhythmic and regular beat to the poem. This phrase in itself is a paradox, where pulsing represents energy and liveliness, whereas burden represents a weight and unpleasantness; it reflects the burden of war on the country, repressing animals and humans who try to