Siegfried Sassoon

Poem Review # 117464

English > Analysis
Literature > Poetry

Siegfried Sassoon

A review of the poems "The Redeemer" and "Counter Attack" by Siegfried Sassoon.

2,190 words () | 9 sources | MLA | 2009 United States

Paper Summary:

This paper examines how Siegfried Sassoon's poems "The Redeemer" and "Counter Attack" are both examples of the type of poems that Sassoon wrote to showcase the difficult lives faced by British soldiers in the trenches of World War I, and to expose the ugly face of war to the naive civilians on the home front. Through an analysis of the poems, the paper concludes that nothing had a more profound effect on altering Sassoon's tone and writing style than the terrible series of events that Sassoon endured on the battlefields of World War I.

From the Paper:

"Both "The Redeemer" and "Counter Attack" are set in the trenches in the area of France that was known as the Western Front. The trenches of World War One were not environments that were very conducive to writing upbeat poetry. The conditions that faced the men that resided in these squalid environments were enough to drive even the most stable individual to the breaking point. While trenches were able to provide adequate cover; for the troops on both sides that huddled in similar excavations, their shortcomings were endless. These labor intensive defenses had to be literally scratched from the earth by lowly soldiers under constant enemy harassment. When it rained, the trenches filled with water and mud. When it snowed, the trenches offered little protection. "

Sample of Sources Used:

Alfier, Jeffery C. "The Poetry of Shell Shock--Wartime Trauma and Healing in Wilfred Owen, Ivor Gurney and Siegfried Sassoon." War, Literature & the Arts: An International Journal of the Humanities 18. 1/2 (Nov. 2006): 344-347.
Barth, R.L. "Sassoon's Counter-Attack." Explicator 49.2 (Winter91 1991): 117.
Dollar, Mark. "Ghost Imagery in the War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon." War, Literature & the Arts: An International Journal of the Humanities 16. 1/2 (Mar. 2004): 235-245.
Lane, Arthur. An Adequate Response: The War Poetry of Wilfred Owen & Siegfried Sassoon. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1972.
Saks, Paul S. "Aftermath: The Implicit Process of Integrating Traumatic Experience in the Poetry of Siegfried Sassoon." Journal of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis & Dynamic Psychiatry 35.4 (Winter2007 2007) 591-604. 15 Apr. 2009