The Rear-Guard
by Siegfried Sassoon
Overview
The Rear-Guard was written in 1917 while
Sassoon was convalescing. It would have been
about the same time he met Wilfred Owen.
Overview
Longer and a little more difficult than the
previous two poems, The Rear-Guard is a
fictional account of a soldier’s experience in
the ‘rear-guard’ (any soldier – the impersonal
pronoun ‘he’ is used). Rear-guard troops are
traditionally responsible for protecting the
vulnerable positions behind the front-line.
Overview
Through the soldier’s experience, the true
horror of war is witnessed. In this respect it is
not dissimilar to Owen’s Dulce Et Decorum
Est. It is a poem keen to give the reader a
sense of the reality – the almost clumsy
changes in meter and rhyme, various uses of
alliteration, assonance and sibilance create
brief but dissonant bursts like gunfire. It is a
very different poem to the simple antiestablishmentarianism of They or The Hero.
Overview
It is a busy and confused poem – lots seems to
happen. As with many of Sassoon’s poems,
speech is used – how does speech differ here
compared with They or The Hero?
Subject & Theme
Make a list under each heading.
Form and Structure
What is the poem’s form and structure?
Language
In pairs, pick three key quotes.
Explain very carefully why you have chosen
them.
Context
Pick out at least one thing that satisfies AO4 –
contextual detail.