The Soldier and Glory of Women

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Rupert Brooke and Siegfried Sassoon are both well known poets from the first world war. During a time of great conflict which claimed around 40 million casualties worldwide, these two young soldiers depicted their thoughts and feelings into works which would forever be reflected upon, and regarded with appreciation of a time known as "The Great War". With these two authors interpretations of the same period in history, i intend to compare and contrast two of their most famous poems " The Soldier" by Rupert Brooke and "Glory of Women" by Siegfried Sassoon. While both can be considered as 14 line sonnets, they differ somewhat in their structure. "The Soldier" is constructed in two stanzas, an octet and a sestet with rhyme sequence 'ababcded' and 'efgefg'. A rather simple style adopted by many of the early war poets who wrote with an innocent, idealistic view on war. "Glory of Women" however, appears to be a traditional sonnet but a closer look at the structure shows it to be in the form of both an English and Italian sonnet creating a competely unique sonnet altogether, known as an 'Italian Petrarchan Sonnet'. What seems as an octet, is infact two quatrains identified by their rhyme sequence 'abab,cdcd' followed by a sestet with rhyme sequence 'efggfe'. Both poets use the tradional sonnet theme of love and death, but it is Sasoon who adopts an ironic interpretation. Brooke writes "The Soldier" as if autobiographical, with his use of first person pronouns such as "I" and "me". His neat and regular structure reaffirms the notion of someone with an idealistic approach, thus apparent in the language and opening line "If I should die, think only this of me", by using the word "If" he immediately directs the reader to an imaginary situation. It could perhaps be said this poem is divided into two parts, the first stanza refering to the physical part of
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