지그프리드 사순(S. Sassoon)의 전쟁시 읽기

A Reading on Siegfried Sassoon's War Poetry

This paper is to introduce and explore Siegfried Sassoon's satiric war poems condemning the war. In the earlier years of the war, Sassoon himself served in the war valiantly and the Military Cross for his bravery was awarded to him. But his war poems had taken an anti-war attitude in his later works. No man who took part in the First World War completely shook off the experience. Some men who had never killed before executed killing without remorse. That is indeed one savage image of war. As the war continued, Sassoon came to the conclusion that it was being needlessly prolonged. Sassoon declared that he had joined the war believing it was "defence and liberation"; but he recognized it as a war of "aggression and conquest." Because of this, he became a pacifist poet. Sassoon's war poetry is not subtle or complex, its power derives from its strength of feeling and a sheer force of indignation. Perhaps his satire and irony made his war poems successful. But one of his later poems, "Reconciliation" shows harmony and reconciliation between German soldiers and English soldiers. His war poems are thought to be in the traditional English satirical poetry as well as first-rate anti-war poetry. In conclusion, I recognize that Sassoon's anti-war poems had been transformed into a subtler form of pro-war propaganda and some of the very people Sassoon condemned celebrated his war poems.