Analyse Break of Day in the Trenches.

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Analyse Break of Day in the Trenches.

     Break of Day in the Trenches was written by Isaac Rosenberg during the time he was serving on the Western Front in the Great War (1914-1918). It was later published during the December of 1916. This poem is often recognised as one of Rosenberg’s finest pieces and is even praised by Siegfried Sassoon, who comments that the “sensuous frontline experience is there, hateful and repellent, unforgettable and inescapable.”

     In my opinion, when reading Break of Day in the Trenches, three other poems by the author should be read in conjunction with it. These would be In the Trenches, Marching and The Troop Ship. The first of the three is often seen as Rosenberg’s first attempt of Break of Day in the Trenches. It also holds a very similar setting to the poem in question and makes strong references to the poppy. The second incorporates striking colours in it which corresponds to the colour imagery of the poppy. And the last describes the conditions of the ship that the author was travelling in.

     Break of Day in the Trenches is a poem containing many of the pastoral elements that were written about a great deal during the World War. This was thought was because the soldiers were living in the pastoral elements themselves and thought that they were closer to nature than they have ever been before (living with mud and rats etc.). The opening of the poem, “The darkness crumbles away,” contains the normal image of morning which is close to ‘normal pastoral mode’ (Fussell). However, in this poem this natural mode is also associated with the images of terror and causes the exact opposite of pastoral emotions to be conjured up. This removes the reader immediately away from the pastoral world frame of mind. Near the end of the poem, Rosenberg wants his readers to get back into this frame of mind but he wants to do it with a slight difference. The author achieves this when he pulls “the parapets poppy” to pace behind his ear and he touches the rat which then scurries away. The difference Rosenberg wants is for the reader to be ‘wrought by the understanding that the sympathetic identification with the rat's viewpoint has been achieved’ (Fussell). The poem resonates as it does because its details point to the traditions of pastoral and general elegy. In other elegies written for the dead soldiers of the Great War, the author speaking is soon acutely aware of his own frail morality and the short period time that he has left to live.

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     The poppy in Break of Day in the Trenches can also be seen in a humorous light; the fact that the speakers thoughts are running whilst he is ludicrously and affectionately wearing the poppy roughly where a bullet would enter if he were to stick his head above the parapet. There fore he is hiding in a whole the way a rate should. This is the role reversal that Rosenberg feels took place during his time in the war. He writes:

     “A queer sardonic rat…what do you see in our eyes/At the shrieking iron and flame/Hurled through ...

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