Where is it set?
On the way to battle
What’s going on?
Men are marching to their deaths
Men are singing
Who’s involved?
Soldiers
What’s going to
happen?
Many of them are going to die
What contributes
to the significance of this passage?
They are going to give back to the earth
Rhyme
Some Rhythm
Repetition –‘so be merry, so be dead,’ earth, S at the
end,
Structure- indentations
Step 3:
Who is speaking?
A man who knows about the marching to death
To whom are they
speaking?
To the soldiers
What is their situation?
Purpose?
The men are marching off to battle. They are probably
going to die in the upcoming battle.
Where is the setting?
Purpose?
Hills and Valleys
How does the
author use tone, style, diction? Purpose?
Singing vocabulary, repetitive (gladness), up lifting (flowing)
diction, the tone is quite happy for a poem about the walk to death, but at the
same time appears to be sarcastic because the author is saying that the soldiers should
be happy even though they are walking to their deaths.
What patterns do
you see? Structure, Form, Repetition?
Indentations – directly talking about singing and giving
to the earth (main idea to give back to the earth)
Repetition-“So be merry, so be dead” (importance that
they can be together death and happiness)
Gladness
‘s’ at the beginning of lines, at the end of poem
Earth
Sing
Death
All the patterns can be seen as circular
Rhythm- adds to the reader’s perception of the marching,
around the same length,
Rhyming – adds to the readers perception of marching
Pulls the lines together à
What tension do you
see? Contrasts, Conflicts, Ironies?
The contrast between the sadness of death and the
happiness of the poem
Step 4:
Circle of life because the Earth will be happy for the death
(not in an evil way) because it will help flower bloom and create beauty from
death
To give back to the Earth, not to be so depressed that
you are going off to die, but be happy because your happiness will be
remembered by the earth
All of this is ridiculous in the opinion of the speaker
Step 5:
Diction – repetition
Structure – indentation, rhythm, rhyme
Tone- (diction), contrast (‘happiness’ of the poem, and
then the sadness of death) = sarcasm
Step 6:
Introduction
Author- Charles Hamilton Sorley
Written between 1895-1915
Talking about WWI
Sorley uses diction, tone and structure to comment on the
death of soldiers and how absurd it is to talk about happiness when they are
walking to their deaths
Paragraph 1
Tone
-Originally feels happy
-Sarcastic because of the contrast between the happiness
of the diction, with the sadness of death
-effect of this makes it feel the opposite of the
original perception, deflating, death is coming and there’s nothing the
soldiers can do.
-So be merry so be dead – you are happy and then you’re dead
Nothing that’s going to change
Low chance of survival – ‘little live, great pass’
Only thing that will benefit is the ground
Paragraph 2
Diction
-Makes it feel like a ‘happy’ and uplifting poem
-Contrasts with the topic of the poem
-Repetition
-Gladness
-Emphasize
the happiness of the earth
-“So
be merry, so be dead”
-Returning
to the fact they ‘should be glad’ even though the will die
-Bringing
they idea that they are going to die up repeatedly, and that the earth will
benefit, and that the earth seems to be the only ones, final shows us that they
poem is not up lifting
-Jesus Christ and Barabbas
-good
and bad
Paragraph 3
Structure
-pulls out the repetitious parts
-the same ideas are repeated in the indented areas
-Rhythm
-adds
to the readers marching because of the pace of the poem due to the syllables
-
the poem feels paced
-Rhyme
-adds
to the readers marching
-connects
the lines together stronger
-brings
the entire poem together because of the pattern
Conclusion
