GCSE: Other Poets
- Marked by Teachers essays 3
- Peer Reviewed essays 1
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Base Details is a war poem written by Siegfried Sassoon in 1918. The year of 1918 was a crucial one in the First World War, and Base Details seeks to explore some of the bitterness and cruelty
3 star(s)Most notable is perhaps how the author chooses to purposely understate serious issues, in order to suggest patriotic and sympathetic feelings for the reader. An example of such an understatement would be line 7 which says: "Yes we've lost heavily in this last scrap." "Scrap" in this context means "battle". However, we'd normally see "scrap" used in context with normal, unimportant fights, and even used as another term for "junk" or "garbage". This implies that the 'major' who articulates this line is obviously understating and fails to acknowledge the consequences, dramatic events, and horrors of the particular battle, thus making the reader feel disgusted about this 'major' character.
- Word count: 698
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Poetry from different Cultures
5 star(s)The cocoa pod is from somewhere like Africa. In the second line, the way the words are placed really emphasises the word 'never' as it catches you out when reading out loud. You would normally say that phrase as 'is never', but in this poem, to emphasize the rhythm and the word 'never' the sentence is 'never is'. In the second stanza, onomatopoeia plays a fairly big part, taking over 3 words, 'drip', 'splash' and 'echo'. I think this not only gives a strong visual image, but allows the reader/listener of the poem to really imagine what's going on.
- Word count: 873
