Every war is ironic because every war is worse than expected: irony in Siegfried Sasson´s war poems

Abstract

Accounts of the First World War were written by British soldiers who not only experienced and witnessed traumatic events in battle but also depicted them in poetry and prose. This M.A. thesis aims at analyzing the writings of Siegfried Sassoon, his poetry and his prose, and demonstrate some connections among them with the biographies of the poet and historical accounts of the war, and especially to investigate the ironies in his poetry. Theories of irony are cited, especially Wayne Booth's stable irony to link the aspects of irony to his war poetry.