Poetry Explication Essay

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Poetry Explication Essay
The poem Dreamers is a lyric poem composed by Siegfried Sassoon. It can be dated to the historic World War I between 1914 and 1918.The poem centralizes mainly around the soldier rather than the war itself. For a long time, the society has looked at soldiers to be enjoying their work with victory always associated with them. However, such is a notion which I would rather disagree with based on the hardships these soldiers have to undergo when fighting an enemy. Since nothing comes out of a silver platter, there must be immense contributions from soldiers in order for them to achieve positive results.
Sassoon unveils both sides of the coin in this poem. The first five lines describe the achievements the soldiers are to make. They have experience in overcoming the enemy without any wastage of time. The main reason for recruitment is to win the battle which seems mandatory. This is supported by: Drawing no dividend from time's to-morrows/ hour of destiny they stand/ sworn to action; they must win (2-3, 5). The poem also portrays the challenges the soldier has to undergo in waging war. The risk involved is very high including losing their lives. This is evident in: fatal climax with their lives/ dreamers; when the guns begin/ mocked by hopeless (6-7, 12). The soldier forgets all the pleasures of life and concentrates on every detail of the battle geared towards the conquest of the enemy. The title ‘Dreamers’ is very appropriate for this poem due to the many uncertainties associated with the mission of the soldiers. Their life is that of imagination and optimism with minimal contemplation of the outcome of their duty. Despite such risks, they always hope for triumph over the enemy. All the comforts are put aside envisaging them from a distant with no guarantee of the next day.
The poet addresses war and the selflessness of the soldiers as the main themes. They struggle so much and toil for the sake of their Governments’ interests. They stay for long in the battle field until they are viewed as citizens of that country as per: ‘citizens of death’s grey land’ (1). This helps to clearly understand the context of the poem laying emphasis on the vulnerability of soldiers to death. There is a tumultuous mood in this poem with turbulence as soldiers cannot quit from the war unless they are wounded or killed.
The poet uses many poetic devices to uncover these two extremes. This 14-line sonnet has a regular rhyme scheme at the end of the lines with the pattern; ‘abab cdcd efefef.’ Most of this rhyme is masculine in nature with feminine rhyme present in: Drawin...