Im going to do a comparison between John McCraes poem, In Flanders Field, and Siegfried Sassoons Aftermath.

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I’m going to do a comparison between John McCrae’s poem, In Flanders Field, and Siegfried Sassoon’s ‘Aftermath’. Both poems were written in the First World War era and both reflect certain themes from the war.

I’ll talk about the authors first.  John McCrae was born in Guelph, Ontario on November 30th, 1872. He is a Canadian poet, physician and author. He wrote ‘In Flanders Field’ while he was still on the battlefront during the Second Battle of Ypres in Belgium, during the First World War, on May 3rd, 1915. In Flanders Field became one of the world’s most renowned and beloved of all war and Remembrance Day poems.

Siegfried Sassoon was born and raised in Matfield, Kent, England on September 8th, 1886. He is an English poet, author and soldier. ‘Aftermath’ was published in 1920. He became one of the world’s leading poets of the First World War. He believed the war was pointless. During the war, he returned to England on leave because he was ill from Gastric fever. He noticed that perceptions of war at home were very different to what the war was really like, and this angered him. So he decided to write poems that broke the classical war poem mode. His poems, instead of glorifying war and patriotism, he brought harsh details from the experiences of soldiers in war. This is the difference between these two poems.

Flanders was where war casualties were buried and red poppies used to go there and these poppies eventually became remembrance symbols for the war.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders Fields.

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Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders Fields.

This poem follows a very specific structure, known as French rondeau. Where each line contains 8 syllables, and the rhyming scheme AABBA AABC AABBAC. The following words rhyme: blow row… The rhyme scheme is significant because it creates the rhythm in which the poem is read and also acts as a break between stanzas.

In the first stanza, McCrae describes the battlefield. ...

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