ON PASSING THE MENIN GATE

SIEGFRIED SASSOON

Mention your names here

• Kent 1886 – Mells 1967

• Jewish

• English poet and soldier

• Bitter reactions against war

• ‘Mad Jack’

ABOUT THE POET

RECITE OF THE POEMOn Passing the new Menin Gate

Who will remember, passing through this Gate1,The unheroic Dead who fed the guns?Who shall absolve the foulness of their fate,—Those doomed, conscripted, unvictorious ones?Crudely renewed, the Salient holds its own.

Paid are its dim defenders by this pomp;Paid, with a pile of peace-complacent stone,The armies who endured that sullen swamp.Here was the world’s worst wound. And here with pride‘Their name liveth for ever,’ the Gateway claims.Was ever an immolation so beliedAs these intolerably nameless names?Well might the Dead who struggled in the slimeRise and deride this sepulchre of crime.

Who will remember, passing through this Gate,

The unheroic Dead who fed the guns?Who shall absolve the foulness of their fate,—

Those doomed, conscripted, unvictorious ones?

Crudely renewed, the Salient holds its own.Paid are its dim defenders by this pomp;Paid,

with a pile of peace-complacent stone,The armies who endured that sullen swamp.

Here was the world’s worst wound. And here with pride‘Their name liveth for ever,’ the

Gateway claims.Was ever an immolation so beliedAs these intolerably nameless names?

Well might the Dead who struggled in the slimeRise and deride this sepulchre of crime.

ABBA

ABBA

CDEDCE

FORM OF THE POEM

Special:

• Sound Paterns & rhyme schemes:

- Alliteration

- Assonance

- Alliteration

•

SPECIAL• Divided in two parts

- Octave: describing & questioning- Sestet: Condemns the monument

• Sound Paterns & Rhyme schemes- Alliteration (v. 7)- Assonance (v. 14)- Internal Rhyme (v. 2)

• war leaders betrayed the ordinary soldier

• Foul ending, rather than heroic

• monument = lie

• official propaganda

• To: all civilians

• Accusing

• Tone: disgust & contempt

CONTENT OF THE POEM

Themes:

• 1) Death

- Sassoon is angry about…

• 2) Betrayal

- Just to glorify the British government

THEMES• 1) Death

- Sassoon is angry about…- Poor military planning

• 2) Betrayal- To glorify the British

government and history

Themes (part 2)

• 3) Propaganda

- False picture put out by officials

• 4) Memory

- Died as ‘nameless men’

THEMES• 3) Propaganda

- False picture put out by officials- Officials : =)

soldiers : =(

• 4) Memory- Died as ‘nameless men’

THE END