Siegfried Sassoon’s “Repression of War Experience” is rises above other contemporary poems of its time because it brings to light the world of the shell shock or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) of World War One and shares it with the public in a way that inspires compassion but is also damning to those who would continue for their blind praise for a war that took so many lives. Sassoon’s description of being in a convalescence home brings the reality of what he was experiencing to light for those he would accuse of being so ignorant to the reality that lurked across the English Channel. Sassoon describes the house that he is convalescing in briefly. “Books; what a jolly company they are/ Standing so quiet and patient on their shelves/, Dressed in dim brown, and black, and white, and green/And every kind of colour. Which will you read?/Come on; 0 do read something; they’re so wise/I tell you all the wisdom of the world/ Is waiting for you on those shelves.” Sassoon was sent to …show more content…
It was doubtfully his goal, as his pointed words are directed at a public that is no longer alive and could not have been completely ignorant of the plight of its soldiers during those days. Although contemporary poets of his day wrote equally moving and powerful words that describe in detail the horrors of the Great War neither Owen nor Graves bring direction to their words like Sassoon does. “A Repression of War Experience” leaves the reader following Sassoon through the hospital corridors, wishing for rain, and trying desperately to steady a shell-shocked hand. As he wonders if there are ghosts in the trees it’s the reader checking to see if they are there while, Sassoon fights the sounds of canon in his head, this is why this poem rises above its