Safe Line Eleven example essay topic

Siegfried SassoonBiographyWith war on the horizon, a young Englishman whose life had heretofore been consumed with the protocol of fox-hunting, said goodbye to his idyllic life and rode off on his bicycle to join the Army. Siegfried Sassoon was perhaps the most innocent of the war poets. JohnHildebidle has called Sassoon the 'accidental hero. ' Born into a wealthy Jewish family in 1886, Sassoon lived the pastoral life of a young squire: fox-hunting, playing cricket, golfing and writing romantic verses. Being an innocent, Sassoon's reaction to the realities of the war were all the more bitter and violent -- both his reaction through his poetry and his reaction on the battlefield (where, after the death of fellow officer David Thomas and his brother Ham at Gallipoli, Sassoon earned the nickname 'Mad Jack' for his near-suicidal exploits against the German lines -- in the early manifestation of his grief, when he still believed that the Germans were entirely to blame). As said: 'now he unleashed a talent for irony and satire and contumely that had been sleeping all during his pastoral youth.

' Sassoon also showed his innocence by going public with his (as he grew to see that insensitive political leadership was the greater enemy than the Germans). Luckily, his friend and fellow poet Robert Graves convinced the review board that Sassoon was suffering from shell-shock and he was sent instead to the military hospital at where he met and influenced. Sassoon is a key figure in the study of the poetry of the Great War: he brought with him to the war the idyllic pastoral background; he began by writing war poetry reminiscent of; he mingled with such war poets as Robert Graves and Edmund Blunder; he spoke out publicly against the war (and yet returned to it); he influenced and mentored the then unknown; he spent thirty years reflecting on the war through his memoirs; and at last he found peace in his religious faith. Some critics found his later poetry lacking in comparison to his war poems. Sassoon, identifying with Herbert and Vaughan, recognized and understood this: 'my development has been entirely consistent and in character' he answered, 'almost all of them have ignored the fact that I am a religious poet.

' Survivors No doubt they " ll soon get well; the shock and strain Have caused their stammering, disconnected talk. Of course they " re 'longing to go out again,' -These boys with old, scared faces, learning to walk. They " ll so forget their haunted nights; their cowed Subjection to the ghosts of friends who died, -Their dreams that drip with murder; and they " ll be proud Of glorious war that shatter'd all they " re pride... Men who went out to battle, grim and glad; Children, with eyes that hate you, broken and mad. Annotations to "Survivors " Rhyme scheme; A, B, A, B, C, D, C, D, E, Alliteration; line one: shock and strain|line seven: dreams that drip|line nine: grim and glad Personification; line seven: dreams that drip with murder, dreams don't drip. |line ten: children, with eyes that hate you, eyes don't hate. Biography For one whom Yeats proclaimed 'the handsomest young man in England,' Rupert Brooke has not aged well.

The neo-Romanticism of Brooke and the Georgian Poets was one of the casualties of The Great War. Paul Fus sell (in) sees irony as one of the by-products of the First World War, and one of the many ironies of the war is that Rupert Brooke is remembered as a war poet at all, because he is actually not a war poet -- not in the same sense that, Robert Graves and are war poets. Rupert Brooke is rather a pre-war poet. To borrow Blake's contrast, Brooke wrote Songs of Innocence (if not na"i vet'e), while Sassoon and Owen (and others) wrote Songs of Experience.

Brooke's entire reputation as a war poet rests on only 5 'war sonnets' (6 if you count " treasure" unnumbered in his short sonnet cycle). Brooke's war experience consisted of one day of limited military action with the Hood Battalion during the evacuation of Antwerp. Consequently, his 'war sonnets's well with sentiments of the most general kind on the themes of maturity, purpose and romantic death -- the kind of sentiments held by many (but not all) young Englishmen at the outbreak of the war. Brooke's 'war sonnets " are really more a declaration occasioned by the ups and downs of his tumultuous personal life than a call to war for his generation.

Brooke was already a promising young poet when Britain entered the war the day after his 27th birthday. Unfortunately, the publication of his (pre-) 'war sonnets' coincided with his almost mythological (pre-war) death: on Easter Sunday, 1915, Dean Inge read his sonnet ' from the pulpit of Saint Paul's; on April 23rd (St. George's Day, the traditional observance of Shakespeare's birth) Brooke died in the Aegean Sea (from blood poisoning) on his way to battle at Gallipoli and was buried on the Island of Skyros. Winston Churchill wrote his for The Times, Las celles Abercrombie for the Morning Post. As D.H. Lawrence exclaimed: 'he was slain by bright Pheobus's haft... it was a real climax of his pose... bright Pheobus smote him down. It is all in the saga.

O God, O God; it is all too much of apiece: it is like madness. ' Brooke was born in 1887 at Rugby where his father was a housemaster. His dominating mother exerted a tremendous influence on him. Brooke traveled in Europe where he prepared a thesis, John Webster and the Elizabethan Drama, which won for him fellowship at King's College, Cambridge. He roamed across North America and the South Seas for the Westminster Gazette sending back narratives and poems.

Brooke was an energetic aesthete skilled at playful, irreverent satire ('Heaven') and not afraid to shock his audience with graphic descriptions ('Channel Crossing'). Safety Dear! of all happy in the hour, most blest He who has found our hid security, Assured in the dark tides of the world at rest, And heard our word, ' Who is so safe as we?' We have found safety with all things undying, The winds, and morning, tears of men and mirth, The deep night, and birds singing, and clouds flying, And sleep, and freedom, and the autumnal earth. We have built a house that is not for Time's throwing. We have gained a peace unshaken by pain for ever.

War knows no power. Safe shall be my going, Secretly armed against all death's endeavour; Safe though all safety's lost; safe where men fall; And if these poor limbs die, safest of all. Annotations to "Safety " Rhyme scheme; A, B, A, B, C, D, C, D, E, F, E, F, G, G. Alliteration; line two: He who has|line four: so safe|line eleven: safe shall Repetition; lines nine and ten: we have|lines four, five, eleven, thirteen, and fourteen: some form of " safe"Personification; line nine: not for times throwing, time does not throw. |line ten: a peace unshaken by pain, pain does not shake, neither does peace. |line eleven: war knows no power, war has no mind, therefore can't know. The Dead These hearts were woven of human joys and cares, Washed marvellously with sorrow, swift to mirth. The years had given them kindness. Dawn was theirs, And sunset, and the colours of the earth.

These had seen movement, and heard music; known Slumber and waking; loved; gone proudly friend ed; Felt the quick stir of wonder; sat alone; Touched flowers and furs and cheeks. All this is ended. There are waters blown by changing winds to laughter And lit by the rich skies, all day. And after, Frost, with a gesture, stays the waves that dance And wandering loveliness.

He leaves a white Unbroken glory, a gathered radiance, A width, a shining peace, under the night. Annotations to "The Dead " Rhyme Scheme; A, B, A, B, C, D, C, D, E, E, F, G, F, Alliteration; line two: sorrow, swift|line eight: flowers and furs|line thirteen: glory, a gathered Personification; line one: hearts were woven of human joys and cares, joys and cares cannot be woven. |line two: washed marvellously with sorrow, sorrow cannot be washed. |line three: the years had given them kindness, years cannot give. |lines four and five: the sunset and colors cannot see or hear. |line eleven: frost, with a gesture, frost cannot make gestures. Biography Owen was born on 18th March 1893 in Oswestry, Shropshire, son of Tom and Susan Owen. After the death of his grandfather in 1897 the family moved to Birkenhead (Merseyside). His education began at the Birkenhead Institute, and then continued at the Technical School in Shrewsbury when the family were forced to move there in 1906-7 when his father was appointed Assistant Superintendent for the Western Region of the railways. Already displaying a keen interest in the arts, Owen's earliest experiments in poetry began at the age of 17.

After failing to attain entrance to the University of London, he spent a year as a lay assistant to the Revd. Herbert Wigan at Duns den before leaving for Bordeaux, France, to teach at the Berlitz School of English. During the latter part of 1914 and early 1915 Owen became increasingly aware of the magnitude of the War and he returned to England in September 1915 to enlist in the Artists' Rifles a month later. He received his commission to the Manchester Regiment (5th Battalion) in June 1916, and spent the rest of the year training in England.

1917 in many ways was the pivotal year in his life, although it was to prove to be his penultimate. In January he was posted to France and saw his first action in which he and his men were forced to hold a flooded dug-out in no-man's land for fifty hours whilst under heavy bombardment. In March he was injured with concussion but returned to the front-line in April. In May he was caught in a shell-explosion and when his battalion was eventually relieved he was diagnosed as having shell-shock ('neurasthenia').

He was evacuated to England and on June 26th he arrived at near Edinburgh. Had Owen not arrived at the hospital at that time one wonders what might have happened to his literary career, for it was here that he met who was also a patient. Sassoon already had a reputation as a poet and after an awkward introduction he agreed to look over Owen's poems. As well as encouraging Owen to continue, he introduced him to such literary figures as Robert Graves (a friend of Sassoon's) which in turn, after his release from hospital, allowed Owen to mix with such luminaries as Arnold Bennett and H.G. Wells.

The period in Craig lockhart, and the early part of 1918, was in many ways his most creative, and he wrote many of the poems for which he is remembered today. In June 1918 he rejoined his regiment at Scarborough and then in August he returned to France. He was awarded the Military Cross for bravery at Amiens, but was killed on the 4th November whilst attempting to lead his men across the at Ors. The news of his death reached his parents on November 11th 1918, the day of the armistice. Mental Cases Who are these? Why sit they here in twilight?

Wherefore rock they, purgatorial shadows, Drooping tongues from jaws that slob their relish, Baring teeth that leer like skulls' teeth wicked? Stroke on stroke of pain, - but what slow panic, (5) Gouged these chasms round their fretted sockets? Ever from their hair and through their hands' palms Misery swelters. Surely we have perished Sleeping, and walk hell; but who these hellish?

- These are men whose minds the Dead have ravished. (10) Memory fingers in their hair of murders, Multitudinous murders they once witnessed. Wading sloughs of flesh these helpless wander, Treading blood from lungs that had loved laughter. Always they must see these things and hear them, (15) Batter of guns and shatter of flying muscles, Carnage incomparable, and human squander Rucked too thick for these men's extrication. Therefore still their eyeballs shrink tormented Back into their brains, because on their sense (20) Sunlight seems a blood-smear; night comes blood-black; Dawn breaks open like a wound that bleeds afresh. - Thus their heads wear this hilarious, hideous, Awful falseness of set-smiling corpses.

- Thus their hands are plucking at each other; (25) Picking at the rope-knouts of their scourging; Snatching after us who smote them, brother, Pawing us who dealt them war and madness Annotations to "Mental Cases " Rhyme scheme; scattered Simile; line four: teeth that leer like skulls' teeth|line twenty-two: dawn breaks open like a wound that bleeds afresh. Alliteration; line twelve: multitudinous murders|line fourteen: lungs that had loved laughter. |line twenty: brains, because|lines twenty and twenty-one: sense sunlight seems|line twenty-three: hilarious, hideous. Smile, Smile, Smile Head to limp head, the sunk-eyed wounded scanned Yesterday's Mail; the casualties (typed small) And (large) Vast Booty from our Latest Haul. Also, they read of Cheap Homes, not yet planned,' For', said the paper, 'when this war is done (5) The men's first instincts will be making homes. Meanwhile their foremost need is aerodromes, It being certain war has but begun. Peace would do wrong to our undying dead, -The sons we offered might regret they died (10) If we got nothing lasting in their stead.

We must be solidly indemnified. Though all be worthy Victory which all bought, We rulers sitting in this ancient spot Would wrong our very selves if we forgot (15) The greatest glory will be theirs who fought, Who kept this nation in integrity. ' Nation? - The half-limbed readers did not chafe But smiled at one another curiously Like secret men who know their secret safe. (20) (This is the thing they know and never speak, That England one by one had fled to France, Not many elsewhere now, save under France.) Pictures of these broad smiles appear each week, And people in whose voice real feeling rings (25) Say: How they smile! They " re happy now, poor things.

Annotations to "Smile, Smile, Smile " Rhyme scheme; A, B, B, A, C, D, D, C, E, F, E, F, G, H, H, G, I, J, I, J, K, L, L, K, M, M. Alliteration; line eight: but begun|line fifteen: would wrong|line twenty-one: this is the thing they Simile; lines nineteen and twenty: smiled at one another curiously like secret men who know their secret safe.