Sigfried sassoon 1886-1967

SIGFRIED SASSOON

He was born in 1886 and served with great courage his country in France in the First World War.

He wrote his war poetry AT THE FRONT, and he was one of the firsts poets that express contempt for the generals and politicians and to describe the horror of the trenches. He survived the war.

'THEY'

The Bishop tells us: 'when the boys come back

They will not be the same; for they'll have fought

In a just cause; they lead the last attack

On Anti-Christ; their comrades' blood has bought.

New right to breed an honourable race,

They have challenged death and dared him face to face'

'We're none of us the same' the boys reply.

'For George lost both his legs; and Bill's stone blind

Poor Jim's shot through the lungs and like to die

And Bert's gone syphilitic: you'll not find

A chap who's served that hasn't found some change'.

And the Bishop said: 'The ways of God are strange!'

The poem is divided into two stanzas and it's meaningful because in the first speaks the BISHOP, who stands for the establishment ( attitude to hypocrisy);  in the second speak the SOLDIERS. This underlines the juxtaposition between the point of view of the bishop (they go to fight for a just cause) and the one of the soldiers (the war is very hard and difficult trough examples they want us to understand what they live).

The title 'THEY' underlines the distance between the soldiers and the Bishop, 'they' represents an indefinite number of people an abstract contents reproduced by the Bishop's words.

BISHOP: His point of view is idealistic, because of his idealised vision of the war. He didn't fight and he didn't see what the war really was. WAR is for the bishop a source of moral change for the soldiers, they will become better, when they will come back from the war they'll have honour and they will be considered heroes. As his conception of the war is abstract, his language is full of  ABSTRACT WORDS (cause, right, Anti-Christ, race). Also the use of EVALUATIVE ADJECTIVES (just, honourable) before the abstract words convey the meaning that the speaker wants to give to his speech. There's a large use of LATINATE WORDS and a RELIGIOUS and BIBLICAL CONNOTATION (Death, Anti-Christ, God).

'They lead the last attack/On Anti-Christ' is a figure of speech, a metaphorical image which personifies an abstract concept THEY DESTROY THE GERMANS, THE EVIL

'Their comrades' blood has bought' is a MITHONIMY, blood stands for the death; the death of those soldiers has given something to England.

'Challenged Death and dared him face to face' is a PERSONIFICATION and wants to underline the courage of the soldiers.

BISHOP'S LANGUAGE: figurative because of the use of the figures of speech; general because he doesn't know the reality of the war and he speaks in general of every war; high-flown because of the use of Latinate words, the figures of speech, the elevate language; idealistic because of the fight for the religion; ornate, rhetorical  because of personification.

'New right to breed an honourable race' the fact that British soldiers died gives the right to say that it is a race full of honour.

SOLDIERS: They are who fights at the war and are at the front. WAR is a physical change in worse all what you can have from war are physical problems.

SOLDIERS' LANGUAGE: factual; descriptive; conversational; literal because of the direct way to present and explain what they mean; specific; informal because of the use of words like cheap and stone blind; down to earth because they don't use difficult words or figures of speech; realistic and concrete because of the use of many concrete elements like the mutilation and physical degrade that convey to a realistic point of view.

OTHER CONSIDERATIONS:

-The two stanzas are spoken by different people but have the same structure: they consist in general statement supported by reasons (THE SOLDIERS WILL NOT BE THE SAME).

Bishop: -they will have fought in a juste cause

-they lead the last attack on Anti-Christ

-their comrades blood has bought

-they have challenged death and dared him face to face

Soldiers: -they are mutilated and some comrades' died during the war.

-After the answer of the soldiers and their reasons; the Bishop speaks again ('the ways of god are strange') he wants to justify his first affirmations (first stanza) because of the concrete and horrible side of the war given by the soldiers.

-Two different point of view:

Bishop: based on opinion

Soldiers: based on facts

-Situation: the setting is not clearly defined; the subject is the coming back of the soldiers from the front and the different opinion of the Bishop and the soldiers; the task of the two parts is to present the two different points of view on the same statement; they are speaking in a dialogue.

REGISTER JUXTAPOSITION

Every language has a wide range of language varieties or REGISTERS, which have special features, or Lexis, syntax and even pronunciation called REGISTER MARKERS. Their use is dictated by the situation in which they are supposed to occur. Poets can draw on different varieties of English for the language of a single poem and MIX REGISTERS used by different sorts of people.

THE PURPOSE OF THE POEM IS TO ATTACK THOSE WHO JUSTIFY WAR ON RELIGIOUS AND MORAL GROUNDS.