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    Topic: Attack" and Other Poems, A Collection of Sassoon's Works

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    Yesha Shah
    The document provides context and analysis of the poem "Dreamers" by Siegfried Sassoon. It discusses that the poem is a Petrarchan sonnet about soldiers dreaming of normal lives while facing enemy fire in WWI trenches. It explores Sassoon's background and inspiration from his own experiences in the war. Additionally, it analyzes literary devices in the poem like alliteration and irony, and how the theme comments on how war contrasts with societal glorifications of battle.

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    Topic: Attack" and Other Poems, A Collection of Sassoon's Works

    Uploaded by

    Yesha Shah
    142 views2 pages
    The document provides context and analysis of the poem "Dreamers" by Siegfried Sassoon. It discusses that the poem is a Petrarchan sonnet about soldiers dreaming of normal lives while facing enemy fire in WWI trenches. It explores Sassoon's background and inspiration from his own experiences in the war. Additionally, it analyzes literary devices in the poem like alliteration and irony, and how the theme comments on how war contrasts with societal glorifications of battle.

    Original Title

    Siegfried Sassoon

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    The document provides context and analysis of the poem "Dreamers" by Siegfried Sassoon. It discusses that the poem is a Petrarchan sonnet about soldiers dreaming of normal lives while facing enemy fire in WWI trenches. It explores Sassoon's background and inspiration from his own experiences in the war. Additionally, it analyzes literary devices in the poem like alliteration and irony, and how the theme comments on how war contrasts with societal glorifications of battle.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    142 views2 pages

    Topic: Attack" and Other Poems, A Collection of Sassoon's Works

    Uploaded by

    Yesha Shah
    The document provides context and analysis of the poem "Dreamers" by Siegfried Sassoon. It discusses that the poem is a Petrarchan sonnet about soldiers dreaming of normal lives while facing enemy fire in WWI trenches. It explores Sassoon's background and inspiration from his own experiences in the war. Additionally, it analyzes literary devices in the poem like alliteration and irony, and how the theme comments on how war contrasts with societal glorifications of battle.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 2

    Siegfried Sassoon's "Dreamers" is a sonnet, a lyric poem with fourteen lines and a specific rhyme

    scheme. There are two types of sonnets: Petrarchan and Shakespearean. “Dreamers" is a Petrarchan
    sonnet, named after the Italian poet Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374), known in English as Petrarch. A
    Petrarchan sonnet consists of an eight-line stanza (called an octave) and a six-line stanza (called a
    sestet). The first stanza presents a theme or topic, and the second stanza develops the theme or
    topic.  
    .......Sassoon observes Petrarch's stanza format but ignores his rhyme scheme. Petrarch's scheme in
    the first stanza of his sonnets is abba, abba. In the second stanza, it is cde, cde (or cdc, cdc; or cde,
    dce). By contrast, Sassoon's rhyme scheme in the first stanza is abab, cdcd. In the second stanza it is
    efefef.

    Topic
    ......."Dreamers" is a war poem centering on the thoughts of foot soldiers facing enemy fire in the First
    World War (1914-1918). 

    Publication
    .......“Dreamers" was published in New York in 1918 by E.P. Dutton & Company as part of “Counter-
    Attack" and Other Poems,  a collection of Sassoon's works.

    Source of Inspiration
    .......Sassoon's own experiences as an English soldier in France during the First World War inspired
    the poem. An infantry officer, he fought in brutal trench warfare, performing heroically under heavy
    fire. He was twice wounded and was awarded a medal for rescuing a wounded comrade. Sassoon
    wrote many poems about the horror of war and the folly of regarding it as a glorious enterprise for
    young men.

    Notes

    1...death's . . . land (line 1): The battlefield. 


    2...Drawing . . . to-morrows (line 2): Unable to count on the promises of a future life, for they may die in battle. 
    3...Soldiers . . . lives (lines 5-6): Society expects soldiers to fight bravely with patriotic fervor and, if necessary, die in a
    glorious moment (flaming, fatal climax). 
    4...dug-out (line 9): Hole or trench dug in a tract of land or a hillside.  
    5...balls and bats (line 11): The leather balls and flat bats used in cricket. 
    6...Bank-holidays (line 13): Weekdays on which banks close for a legal holiday or another reason. 
    7.picture shows: Movies. 
    8...spats (line 13): Cloth or leather material worn by fashionable men over the the middle part of the shoe to cover the
    instep and ankle.

    .
    Interpretation and Theme
    .......Society frequently depicts war as an exciting adventure offering opportunities to prove one's
    mettle and win glory. But, says Sassoon in presenting his theme, war is a brutal ordeal for soldiers in
    muddy, rat-ridden trenches facing bullets and artillery bombardment--and the sight of bloody uniforms,
    torn limbs, and twitching bodies. At such times, what occupies their minds is not thoughts of heroic
    deeds but dreams of what really matters in life: "firelit homes, clean beds, and wives" (line 8) and
    other ordinary, mundane activities. 

    Literary Devices
    .......Examples of literary devices Sassoon uses in "Dreamers" are the following.

    Alliteration

    Soldiers are citizens (line 1) 


    Drawing no dividend from time's to-morrows (line 2) 
    Soldiers are sworn (line 5) 
    flaming fatal climax (line 6) 
    balls and bats (line 11)
    Repetition
    Lines 1, 5, and 7 each begin with "Soldiers are."
    Irony

    Young men ordinarily dream of participating in extraordinary events and becoming part of history. But,
    facing the reality of war, they dream of participating in ordinary events of little consequence
    historically.

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