Dreamers is a poem written by Siegfried Sassoon, based on WWI. The poem talks about soldiers rather than the war itself. The poet does not talk about the physical fight that takes place in war between soldiers, instead he focuses on the mental fight that occurs in their heads. The poet draws to our attention the horrendous environment soldiers are forced to live in during this time and the “normal” things that they dream about when in war.
Numerous poetic devices are used in the poem to achieve the above. The first being a metaphor, where the poet states: “Soldiers are citizens of death’s gray land,” (Sassoon, 1) and “Soldiers are dreamers…” (7). The use of the metaphors is portray the soldiers as the victims of the war who wish to go home, as opposed to the idea of them being heroic figures in the society that are willing to fight for their country. Secondly, imagery is being used to illustrate a vivid picture of the traumatic experiences the soldiers go through in war time, this can be seen when the poet states: “I see them in foul dugouts, gnawed by rats, /And in ruined trenches lashed by rain,” (9-10). Another example of imagery, is used to illustrate the soldiers’ dreams for a peaceful life and this is illustrated by: “They think of firelit homes, clean beds, and wives.” (8). Thirdly, the use of diction, aims to put emphasis on the theme of war, and to set the tone of the poem. The use of the words “Soldiers” and “Citizens” in the first line of the poem, indicates how soldiers and citizens are in fact one of the same people, as soldiers are considered to be citizens of a particular country. Additionally, the use of the word “Each” in fourth line of the poem, is used to individualize and humanize the soldiers as they should not be seen as fighting machines but rather as human beings and citizens of a country who have feelings and life outside the particular war that they are fighting in. The use of alliteration in the poem can be seen in several of places throughout the poem, an example is: “Drawing no dividend from time’s tomorrow.” (2) and “Some flaming, fatal climax with their lives.” (6), the purpose of the device was to create a rhythm based on how the poem should be read and to put emphasis on the certain information that is trying to be conveyed from the particular sentence. The use irony is evident when we see the expectation vs. reality moment in the poem. The expectation is that soldiers are brave, show little to no emotion citizens but in reality they too have some doubt and fears in life. The use of repetition is evident as the phrase “Soldiers are…” is used in lines 1, 5 and 7. The aim of this to emphasize the fact that this war is not just fought by everyday citizens, instead it is fought by highly trained human beings.
The poem follows the same structure as a Petrarchan sonnet. A Petrarchan sonnet is comprised of an eight line stanza called an octave, followed by six line stanza called a sestet. The first stanza of the poem introduces the theme while the second stanza develops it. Most Petrarchan poems follow a specific rhyme scheme of ABBA ABBA, instead this particular one follows a different one, the rhyme scheme in the first stanza of this poem is ABAB CDCD and the second stanza is EFEFEF.
When comparing Dreamers to another sonnet such as the Shakespeare’s Sonnet 147, there are some differences between the two. Firstly, with the structure of the two sonnets. Shakespeare’s Sonnet 147 follows the traditional Shakespearean form, which is fourteen lines of iambic pentameter constructed of three quatrains of alternate rhyme and a concluding rhyming couplet. The iambic pentameter, creates a rhyme scheme that reflects daily speech, and the concluding couplet aims to give a solution to the problems introduced in the quatrains. Secondly, both poets choose to start their sonnets with poetic devices but the choice of poetic devices differ, although they are both similar as they both used with the purpose of comparison. Sassoon chooses to start his poem with a metaphor: “Soldiers are citizens of death’s gray land,” (1), while Shakespeare chooses to start his poem with a simile: “My love is as a fever…” (Shakespeare, 1). Another difference, concerning poetic devices, is that Shakespeare chooses to make use personification in his sonnet, where he personifies reason giving it human emotions such as angry: My reason, the physician to my love, /Angry that his prescriptions are not kept.” (5-6), while Sassoon chooses to make use of the alliteration in different parts of the poem as mentioned before. Additionally, rhyme scheme is present in both sonnets, but each sonnet follows the rhyme scheme of the structure they were written in, hence the rhyme scheme of the Shakespeare sonnet is: ABABCDCDEFEFGG.
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