Comparing 1916 And Prelude: The Troops By Sigfried Sassoon

This essay will look into the similarities and differences between two war poems, 1916 seen from 1921 by Edmund Blunden and Prelude: The Troops by Sigfried Sassoon. In this essay, I will focus on the writing techniques such as imagery, metaphors and rhyming scheme.

In Blunden’s 1916 seen from 1921, he writes of his time during the war when he eventually returns home to his now destroyed hometown. The use of negative language in the poem proves his sadness towards his life from the war and the effects it had not only on people he knew and loved but also the effect it had on his home. In line one of the poem, Blunden states that he has ‘grown old before my day’ giving the reader the sense that the poet is young but has seen enough from the war to taint his view of the world. The use of the oxymoron in line three, ‘silent laughters’ gives the reader the sense that there was very little to laugh about during the poet’s time in the war. Throughout the poem, the reader gets a sense that the poet is suffering from shell shock due to his emotive yet cynical language. On returning to his hometown, the poet is realising that his life has changed ‘what once was mine is mine no more’ (11). We experience Blunden’s sadness towards his lost memories and psychical reminders of the life he once lived, before he was sent to war. The juxtaposition of ‘strong gentleness’ shows his feelings towards the image of the destroyed houses of his neighbours and how seeing these sights is affecting him