Base Details, by Siegfried Sassoon

A detailed Summary of Base Details, by Siegfried Sassoon

Siegfried Sassoon is a much admired writer of war poetry, and in his work, "Base Details" we have plenty justification for that admiration. This poem takes the often glorified image of the Majors from World War 1 and strips them bare showing them for their true selves, sending out to us the feeling he has of these Majors being worthy of none of the respect they have ever received. He skilfully uses the powerful medium that is poetry, combines it with his mastery of literary techniques such as word-choice, imagery, rhythm and sound, to create an extremely critical view of the way WW1 was conducted.

The very first thing we notice about this poem is of course the title. The words "Base Details" could be taken to be talking about an actual army base. On the other hand they could be taking another meaning of the word "base", which is dishonourable, and thus getting the title, dishonourable details, which is very much in line with the tone of this poem, which is unyielding, right from the very beginning.

This of course only heightens the impact of the first line.

"If I were fierce, and bald, and short of breath," line 1

There, in that first, single line, Sassoon destroys any preconceptions we might have had about tall handsome

Guzzling and gulping in the best hotel," Lines 4-5

In the very last lines Sassoon displays to us the worst injustice of it all. Perhaps it would have been softer on the reader to have thought these officers would get their just rewards, be killed in a bombing, or fatally wounded in a car crash. No, instead they totter off home, quite the happy gentlemen, to die, peacefully in their sleep.

In the next two lines, the Majors are yet again in the lap of comfort, far away from enemy lines.

"And when the war is done and youth stone dead,

The next group of lines is equally disgusting, if not more so, although in a slightly different sense.

These men clearly are not interested in the war, in the lives of the men they command. The way alliteration draws our eyes to the words "guzzling and gulping" implies that guzzling and gulping is something the Majors pay more attention to as well, greedily gobbling down food and drink as fast as they can, showing no table manners at all. If Sassoon was trying to disgust the reader with the image, he certainly succeeded with me.

Some common words found in the essay are:
Roll Honour, Majors Short, Fodder Majors, World War, Base Details, Word Count, Siegfried Sassoon, guzzling gulping, army base, world war, section poem, base details, front line,

Approximate Word count = 920
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English

join now Save Paper

Saved Paper

Save your papers so you can locate them quickly!

Newest Essays

Testimonials

"Thank You So Much!!! You have saved me once again!!!"
Jack M.
"With so many papers to chose from, I was able to get ideas to help me with all of my classes. Thank You!"
Brian P.
"I've used this site for the last 3 years to help me come up with ideas for my papers."
Sara J.
"I use this site every week to help me write my own papers!"
Rachel W.
"I love this site!!!"
Marie N.