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Attack
The young men in the poem fight in what feels like an almost
POEM TEXT alien landscape. This heightens the sense that these soldiers
are a long way from home, but also suggests that this conflict is
1 At dawn the ridge emerges massed and dun far removed from what the speaker sees as normal human
behavior. In other words, it’s as though the soldiers are in some
2 In the wild purple of the glow'ring sun,
alternate, absurd reality where, for instance, the “sun” is
3 Smouldering through spouts of drifting smoke that “purple” (perhaps because of the way it shines through the
shroud
smoke from ammunition). Even the tanks—normally a symbol of
4 The menacing scarred slope; and, one by one, the fearsome power of war—seem kind of clumsy here. They
5 Tanks creep and topple forward to the wire. “creep and topple forward” towards enemy lines, highlighting
6 The barrage roars and lifts. Then, clumsily bowed the haphazardness of armed conflict—and heightening the
7 With bombs and guns and shovels and battle-gear, poem’s overall sense of warfare as being totally absurd.
8 Men jostle and climb to meet the bristling fire. The soldiers, too, take on this clumsiness, which stands for a
9 Lines of grey, muttering faces, masked with fear, kind of meaninglessness and lack of purpose. They are made
10 They leave their trenches, going over the top, heavy by the weapons and tools that they have to carry
11 While time ticks blank and busy on their wrists, because of the war, turning these men into easy targets. This
12 And hope, with furtive eyes and grappling fists, highlights the way that the First World War was a horrible kind
of numbers game: technology had advanced humankind’s
13 Flounders in mud. O Jesus, make it stop!
methods of killing, and the only way to conduct warfare was to
throw men into “the bristling fire.”
As the poem depicts soldiers going over the trenches to most
SUMMARY likely meet their deaths, it uses two key instances of
personification
personification. Time ticks “busy” on the men’s wristwatches,
In the morning, the top of the trenches appears. It is earthy and indicating the frantic and chaotic reality of war. But time is also
grey-brown under the strange purple sunshine, which burns “blank”—indifferent, unknowing, and unfeeling—about what is
through the smoke that covers the frightening and misshapen happening. Time is a kind of witness to the war, in the sense
hill. Tanks appear, one after the other, tentatively and that these events will mark themselves deeply into time as
awkwardly moving towards the barbed wire. The artillery guns history. However, time is incapable of understanding the events
fire noisily. After this, men, bent under the weight of all the themselves. This might represent the inability of political
weapons and equipment they are carrying, start pushing and leaders to grasp the true horrors of life on the battlefield).
climbing towards the battle, most likely to be hit in a flail of
Hope—the other personified figure in the poem—is like one of
bullets. Rows of pale faces, mumbling and full of fear, leave the
the soldiers itself. It senses that it is in danger, fighting
trenches by climbing over the top. On their wristwatches, time
desperately like a soldier with “furtive eyes and grappling fists.”
ticks away busily and unknowingly. Hope, with darting eyes and
Hope, “flounder[ing] in the mud,” is itself dying. Sassoon seems
flailing fists, struggles in the mud. Jesus, please let it end soon!
to be highlighting the devastating consequences of war that go
well beyond the immediate conflict; this line suggests that war
THEMES destroys humanity’s hope more generally, in addition to
harming the specific men involved.
All in all, then, it’s understandable that the speaker of the poem,
THE HORRORS OF WAR who himself seems to be a witness to the fighting, pleads with
“Attack” aims to convey the horror, suffering, and “Jesus” to “make it stop.” But the reference to “Jesus” doesn’t
sheer senselessness of war before ending on a simple introduce any sense of hope into the poem, instead highlighting
and dramatic plea—to “make it stop!” Written by Siegfried the huge gulf between the promises of religion—peace,
Sassoon—who served as a soldier in World War I—the poem community, joy and so on—and the absurd horror of what the
shows the devastating effects of such conflicts on the young speaker (and the reader) witnesses on the battlefield.
men involved, and is, of course, partly based on Sassoon’s own
experiences. The poem builds a sense of absurdity that seems Where this theme appears in the poem:
to question the purpose of war in the first place, suggesting
that it's not only horrific, but also fundamentally meaningless.

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• Lines 1-13 • Lines 12-13

NATURE AND WARFARE

LINE-BY
LINE-BY-LINE
-LINE ANAL
ANALYSIS
YSIS
“Attack” depicts a desperate world in which
humanity's technological advances have outgrown LINES 1-4
humanity's ability to keep the use of these technologies in
At dawn the ridge emerges massed and dun
check. This gruesome machinery of warfare has a devastating
In the wild purple of the glow'ring sun,
effect on the landscape where the soldiers fight. The poem,
Smouldering through spouts of drifting smoke that shroud
then, subtly suggests that wars don't just harm the people who
The menacing scarred slope;
fight in them, but that they harm the environment in which
they're fought, too. War makes humanity less connected to the Siegfried Sassoon’s “Attack” is a kind of subversive take on an
world in which it lives, the poem argues; it metaphorically aubade—a poem written to celebrate and evoke the morning.
transforms the planet into a kind of threatening and alienating Of course, this is no happy scene, but the heart of a battle in the
place, rather than a more familiar and comforting home. First World War (in which Sassoon himself served). Up until the
caesur
caesuraa in line 4, the poem focuses entirely on the landscape in
The poem opens with “dawn.” Normally, dawn is associated with
which the battle takes place. There are, at this early stage, no
beauty and new beginnings: the birds singing their songs, dew
soldiers in sight (though the “ridge” and “spouts of drifting
on the grass, the brightness of the morning sun, and so on. The
smoke” hint at what is taking place).
natural world is also often associated with paradise and
humankind’s natural state (such as in the Garden of Eden in the This section, then, is like the establishing shot of a movie.
Bible)—one that has been lost. But this dawn instead shines on Sassoon is keen to evoke not just the senselessness of war and
an uncanny and barely recognizable world. The “ridge” in the its grotesque waste of human life, but also something of its
earth is a browny-grey corpse color (“dun”). The sun is not its weirdness. These lines conjure an almost alien landscape,
usual shade, but “wild” (an adjective that indicates a kind of where the ground is “massed and dun” (wedged-together and
widespread savagery) and “purple.” This might be because the grey) and the “glow’ring sun” is a “wild purple” color.
sun is shining through the lingering smoke of fired weapons and The consonance and alliter
alliteration
ation in these first two lines
bombs, and the description highlights that things are not as instinctively evoke a landscape, but it’s as though something is
they are meant to be. not quite right, and the place is not as it seems:
The strange colors and general atmosphere also speak to the
way humankind alienates itself from its own world through At dawnn the ridgge emergges massed andnd dun
warfare. Indeed, instead of morning mist to accompany the In
n the wild
ld purpl
ple of the gllow'ring sun
n,
dawn there are only “spouts of drifting smoke” from weaponry.
Such is the pain and evil of warfare that the “slope” now The tight organization in the sounds of these lines is
appears “menacing” and “scarred”—as though it seeks some deliberately obvious, perhaps mimicking a more typical poetic
kind of revenge for the injuries inflicted on it. Again, this speaks discussion of some beautiful scene: a flourishing field, maybe,
to a breakdown in the relationship between humanity and the or a coast. But purple is a distinctly unusual color for the sun,
world in which it lives. "wild" purple even more so. This might actually be more literal
than it first appears, relating to the odd hue that sunlight takes
In the poem’s closing moments, it again refers to something
on when shining through smoke such as that emitted by guns,
more natural—the “mud” in which the personified “hope” now
grenades, and tank-fire. The “emerge[nce]” of the
helplessly “flounders.” This is a subtle shift in focus back to the
“ridge”—which is the top of the trench over which most men will
earth, reminding the reader that war gravely affects the natural
meet their death or serious injury—mirrors the way that the
world as well as the people who actually fight. Perhaps more
men too will have to emerge into the heat of the battle, once
widely this aimlessness of hope suggests the collective failure
the order is given.
of humanity’s imagination: rather than conceiving of the earth
as a communal home, different nations go to war with one Lines 3 and 4 continue on from the first two, describing the
another, causing untold damage to both themselves and the smoke that drifts over and through the battle scene. The
land. alliteration and consonance are intense and obvious, showing
the way that the smoke dominates the landscape:
Where this theme appears in the poem:
Smouldering through spouts
ts of driftting smoke that
• Lines 1-4 sh
shroud

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The menaccing scarred slope The full-stop caesur
caesuraa in line 6 marks a key shift in the poem, as
the soldiers finally make their entrance (almost halfway
The /s/ and /sh/ sounds here (also known as sibilance
sibilance) fill the through the poem!). They are desperate, almost comical
line as though hiding the other letters, conveying the smoke’s figures, wobbling under the weight of their packs, in a way
effect on the surrounding environment. unsuited to the realities of war. The line itself is “clumsily
Line 4 characterizes the “slope” as both “menacing” and bowed”—the meaning is suspended by the enjambment
“scarred.” Both of these words can be interpreted as ("bowed / With bombs ..."), so that the grammatical subject of
personification
personification, with "menacing" representing the aggression the phrase started in line 6 doesn’t arrive until line 8.
and bloodlust of war, and "scarred" relating to injury and pain. Alliter
Alliteration
ation, consonance
consonance, and the use of polysyndeton are
In a literal sense, these opening lines highlight the effect that important features of this section:
warfare has on the earth itself, pushing the poem’s scope
beyond a sole focus on the human cost. But in making the ... Then, clum
msily bowed
landscape feel uncanny and almost like an alien planet, it With bom mbs and guns and shovels and battle-gear,
reminds the reader of the far-reaching global effects of the Men jostle and clim mb to meet the bristling fire.
First World War, the way that war can turn a comforting
home—the entirety of the Earth, even—into an unfamiliar The alliteration of /b/ sounds gives a sense of just how much
world. the men have to carry, while the repeated “and[s]”
(polysyndeton) make this sound like an unending list. The
LINES 4-6 consonance of the /m/ sound, meanwhile, evokes the way in
and, one by one, which the men themselves are packed in together (like their
Tanks creep and topple forward to the wire. equipment), “jostl[ing]” for space in which to “climb.”
The barrage roars and lifts.
LINES 9-11
The caesur
caesuraa in line 4—the first in the poem—marks a shift away
from the opening scene-setting. It’s as though the poem is Lines of grey, muttering faces, masked with fear,
zooming-in, starting with landscape and now moving on to the They leave their trenches, going over the top,
tanks (before looking at the soldiers themselves). Like the While time ticks blank and busy on their wrists,
descriptions of the battlefield in the previous lines, there is Lines 9 and 10 focus on the men themselves. The soldiers are
something weird and off-kilter about the tanks. “Creep” and grey-faced, and so numerous as to be almost anonymous (a
“topple” are not words that seem like they’d normally be detail that conveys the incredible number of people involved in
associated with these hunks of murderous metal—they're more the First World War). The “grey” color on their faces echoes the
like verbs that might describe the movements of insects. “dun” color of the landscape mentioned in line 1—both are
This is part of the poem’s efforts to defamiliarize the corpse-like, suggesting the way that death rules this terrible
environment of war in order to make it feel more real. That is, conflict. Alliter
Alliteration
ation is used once again here as well:
there is very little attempt to paint a heroic scene of the sort
that might be found in the patriotic poetry of Sassoon’s fellow Lines of grey, muttering faces, masked with fear,
countryman, Rupert BrookBrookee. War is strange—and so this poem
tries to reflect that. These tanks are heading to the “wire”—this The alliteration helps suggest the numerousness of the young
is the barbed wire placed on the ground in an effort to slow men going “over the top,” and the anxious-sounding caesur
caesuras
as in
down the progress of enemy combatants. It’s worth noting that this line and the next have a fearful tentativeness to match the
barbed wire was originally invented to prevent livestock from men’s mood.
escaping their confines—which is an interesting thought given There is also a subtle but intentionally cruel joke with the word
the cattle-like slaughter of young lives in the First World War. “masked”: during the First World War, soldiers frequently
The “barrage” that takes place in line 6 refers to artillery fire. needed to wear masks in case of gas attacks—but here their
This was ammunition fired from large guns in support of the faces are only “masked with fear.” For many of these men,
advancing soldiers, but it was of course chaotic and prone to “going over” the top of the trench will be the last act of their life.
inaccuracy. The loud /r/ consonance in the phrase “the barr rrage The assonance of the two /o/ sounds in "go oing over" has a kind
roarrs” evokes the noise of the artillery guns. of muscular toughness to it, suggesting the physical and mental
effort required to go through with the order to charge.
LINES 6-8 Line 11 then mixes the down-to-earth focus on the men with a
Then, clumsily bowed more abstract reflection on time. The men wear watches on
With bombs and guns and shovels and battle-gear, which “ttime ticks” (the alliterating /t/ sounds giving the phrase
Men jostle and climb to meet the bristling fire. its own ticking sound). But time "ticks blank and busy on their

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wrists”—two traits not usually associated with time. On the one environment.
hand, the busy-ness of time evokes the frantic chaos of the Alliteration is then an obvious feature of lines 3-4. These /s/
battlefield, lifetimes going by in seconds, and seconds seeming sounds—also known as sibilance
sibilance—evoke the smoky battlefield.
to last lifetimes. But time is also “blank,” acting as a kind of They dominate the line, preventing the chance for other sounds
witness to what is happening but removed from the world of to appear (mimicking the concealing effect of the smoke):
human emotion. Time has a “blank” face as it looks out on this
terrible scene—leaving the reader to fill in the emotional Smouldering through spouts of drifting smoke that
response, and to wonder if humankind might have found its shroud
own “blank[ness]” through war. The menacing scarred slope;
LINES 12-13
The alliteration of /b/ sounds across lines 6 and 7 ("bbarrage,"
And hope, with furtive eyes and grappling fists, "b
bowed," and "b bombs") has a loudness to it that suggests the
Flounders in mud. O Jesus, make it stop! noisiness of the battlefield, with bombs falling all around. Later,
Line 12 picks up on line 11’s use of an abstract concept (time) in line 9, there is a kind of double alliteration:
and turns its attention to “hope.” Hope is personified
personified, and in fact
becomes a kind of soldier figure. It has “furtive eyes” because it Lines of grey, muttering faces, masked with fear
is perhaps hoping to avoid being killed, and “grappling fists”
because it too is engaged in a kind of combat (against the These repeated sounds create a sense of numerousness to
hopelessness of war). Furtiveness can also relate to a kind of match the anonymous mass of soldiers going "over the top."
guilt, perhaps suggesting that hope has abandoned these young
Finally, line 11 uses alliterating /t/ sounds to suggest the sound
men (and in turn owes them a kind of debt).
of a ticking clock or watch: "ttime ticks." This is intentionally very
The personified hope “flounders in the mud,” as if blind and close to the usual way of depicting a clock's sound: tick tock.
speechless. This relates to the nature of this kind of warfare,
which was most of the time a kind of guessing game, shooting in Where Alliter
Alliteration
ation appears in the poem:
the general direction of the enemy and "grappling" with unseen
figures. The reference to “mud” also draws the poem back to its • Line 1: “d,” “d”
opening focus on landscape and the natural world. This “mud” is • Line 2: “s”
in part man-made, the earth churned up by the violence of • Line 3: “S,” “s,” “s”
warfare. • Line 4: “s,” “s,” “o,” “o”
• Line 5: “T,” “t,” “t”
The poem concludes on a distinctly desperate and unpoetic • Line 6: “b,” “b”
note: “O Jesus, make it stop!” This uses apostrophe in appealing • Line 7: “b,” “b”
to Jesus (also a kind of allusion
allusion). But the comforts of religion • Line 8: “M,” “m,” “b,” “f”
seem hollow and distant from the scene described by the poem, • Line 9: “m,” “f,” “m,” “f”
with little sense that the speaker makes this call out of any • Line 11: “t,” “t,” “b,” “b”
genuine hope. Rather, it is an expression of desperation and • Line 12: “f,” “f”
hopelessness. This final sentence calls to a moral authority, • Line 13: “F,” “m,” “m”
while at the same time ironically highlighting the absence of
such authority.
APOSTROPHE
Apostrophe is used just once in “Attack”—right at the end: “O
POETIC DEVICES Jesus, make it stop!” This, of course, is also an allusion to the
Christian faith. It’s the first mention of religion in the poem and,
ALLITERATION most likely deliberately, seems somewhat out of place. Up until
this point, the poem has painted a picture of an almost alien
Alliter
Alliteration
ation is a key feature of "Attack." It is first used in the very
landscape, an environment in which the sun is a “wild purple”
first line, with the shared /d/ of "d
dawn" and "d dun." Though these
and men die senselessly in great number.
words are far apart, the similar consonant /n/ sound makes the
alliteration helps more prominent, so that the words actually Perhaps the appeal to Jesus—for some kind of savior—is
half rh
rhyme
yme. The alliteration here works as a kind of contrast: sincere. That is, maybe the speaker really does hope for a divine
"dawn" is often, in poems at least, a visually beautiful time of intervention. In another sense, though, the cry to God serves
day. But the poem's first color is "dun"—which is a kind of only to highlight God’s absence. This seems to be a world
brown-grey. This hints at the way that war has had (and devoid of morality, logic, and order; what the poem describes is
continues to have) an adverse effect on the natural more like anarchy, hopelessness, and violent chaos. So, the

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poem's use of apostrophe captures a complex reaction to the The poem zooms in from the landscape into the machinery of
horrors of war, in which soldiers both have hope and have lost war, and then, finally into the human inhabitants of the
hope—in which they have nowhere left to turn but to a God battlefield. The comma after "and" in this line keeps things from
they might not even believe in. picking up too quickly, inserting a pause that builds some
anticipation before readers learn what, exactly, is moving "one
Where Apostrophe appears in the poem: by one."

• Line 13: “O Jesus” The next significant caesura appears in line 6. The full-stop
after “lifts” indicates that the poem is shifting into its next stage,
and finally—almost halfway through—introducing people into
ASSONANCE
its world:
Assonance is used relatively sparingly in "Attack." One of its
first uses is in line 3, in which "spou
outs" is assonant with The barrage roars and lifts.. Then,, clumsily bowed
"shrou
oud." This line also employs the similar long /o/ sound in
"Smououldering" and "smo oke." The assonance here helps Once again there's another comma after this midline break,
reinforce the image of a landscape dominated by wisps of further delaying the introduction of the soldiers
smoke. This effect continues into the next line, where "slo ope" themselves—much like line 4 delayed the introduction of the
then picks up on the long /o/ sound. Later, in line 10, "go oing tanks. In all, these many pauses add a sense of weight to the
over" rings with a kind of muscular /o/ sound, suggestive of the poem; they make it feel like it's plodding along in fits and starts.
physical and mental effort required of the men entering the line The poem's lines themselves aren't particularly smooth or easy
of "bristling fire." going, which reflects the nature of the content. That is, war in
Lines 11 and 12's assonance also has an important effect: the poem is depicted as clumsy, weighty, and relentless, and so
it makes sense that the poem's language is similarly onerous.
Whiile tiime tiicks blank and busy on their wriists, The period in the final line is also an important caesura. It
And hope, wiith furtiive eyes and grappling fiists creates an emphasis on the word “mud,” linking the end of the
poem back to its opening focus on the (corrupted) natural
Two different /i/ sounds, the long /i/ and short /i/, dominate the environment. It also lends the closing line an air of desperation
lines here. This gives them a kind of tick-tock sound, the and drama before the speaker makes his final—and
different /i/ sounds marking the passing of a small moment in unheard—plea.
time. In war, of course, every second counts: some can lead to
death, and some can feel like they last lifetimes. Where Caesur
Caesuraa appears in the poem:

Where Assonance appears in the poem: • Line 4: “;,” “,”

• Line 6: “.,” “,”
• Line 2: “ow” • Line 9: “,,” “,”
• Line 3: “ou,” “ou,” “o,” “ou” • Line 10: “,”
• Line 4: “o,” “o,” “o” • Line 12: “,”
• Line 6: “u” • Line 13: “.,” “,”
• Line 7: “u,” “o”
• Line 8: “i,” “i” CONSONANCE
• Line 9: “i,” “e,” “a,” “ea”
• Line 10: “ea,” “o,” “o” Consonance is used throughout "Attack." It starts immediately,
• Line 11: “i,” “i,” “i,” “u,” “i” and is packed into the first two lines:
• Line 12: “i,” “i,” “i”
At dawnn the ridgge em
merg
rges massed d and
nd dun
n
CAESURA In
n the wild
ld purpl
rple of the gllow'rring sunn,

Caesur
Caesuraa is used throughout “Attack,” functioning in different If the reader didn't know any better, they could be forgiven for
ways. The first caesura occurs in line 4, with the semicolon after thinking that the poem might be describing something other
“slope.” Put simply, this marks the end of the poem’s than a battle site: beautiful natural scenery, perhaps. These
introductory scene-setting, which works almost like an lines might read like some kind of praise to nature. The lines
establishing shot in a film: seem to be intentionally pretty—not to prettify war, but to
work as a kind of grotesque contrast.
The menacing scarred slope;; and,, one by one,
However, looking closer at the lines, the scene they describe is

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actually quite strange. The "ridge" has a corpse-like grey color, At dawn the ridge emerges massed and dun
and the sun is an unnatural "wild purple." The beauty of the In the wild purple of the glow'ring sun,
sounds is thus somewhat ironic, hinting at the corruption of the
natural environment brought about by the battle. The second enjambment is at the end of line 3. This time, the
In lines 3 and 4, the poem uses numerous /s/ sounds to create a line break also suspends the sense of the sentence (without the
smoky atmosphere: next line to complete it, it wouldn’t make grammatical sense).
This chimes neatly with the word “shroud”; to shroud something
Smouldering through spoutss of drifting smoke that is to conceal it, and the enjambment conceals the sentence’s
shroud meaning until the next line comes along. This conveys the
The menaccing scarred slope; general difficulty that the soldiers have when it comes to seeing
what they are doing through the smoke of the battlefield.
These are mostly alliter
alliteration
ation and are covered in that part of the The third and final enjambment, coming at the end of line 6, is
guide. perhaps the most interesting of all. This is an important point in
Later, lines 7 and 8 make effective use of /l/ and /n/ sounds: the poem, marking the entrance of the soldiers (almost halfway
into the poem’s overall length). Again, the enjambment is used
With bombs an nd gunns an
nd shovells an
nd battlle-gear, to suspend grammatical sense, starting with “Then, clumsily
Menn jostlle an
nd cllimb to, meet the bristllin
ng fire. bowed.” This fragment creates a deliberately awkward tension
across the lines, so that these words require those that follow
These sounds make the lines feel full and burdened, mirroring on the next line. This awkwardness relates to the way in which
the way that the soldiers are "bowed" under the weight of their the men are “clumsily bowed,” heavily weighed down by their
packs. backpacks full of military equipment.

The two final lines make effective use of /s/ sounds:

Where Enjambment appears in the poem:
And hope, with furtive eyess and grappling fisstss, • Line 1: “dun”
Flounderss in mud. O Jessuss, make it stop! • Line 2: “In”
• Line 3: “shroud”
They have a chaotic sound to them, mimicking the • Line 4: “The”
"flounder[ing" motion attributed to the personified "hope." • Line 6: “bowed”
• Line 7: “With”
Where Consonance appears in the poem:
PERSONIFICATION
• Line 1: “d,” “n,” “r,” “g,” “m,” “r,” “g,” “m,” “d,” “nd,” “d,” “n”
• Line 2: “n,” “ld,” “p,” “r,” “pl,” “l,” “r,” “s,” “n” Personification is used in two key moments in “Attack.” The first
• Line 3: “S,” “m,” “ld,” “n,” “s,” “s,” “d,” “s,” “m,” “s,” “d” occurs in the poem’s opening lines, which in general function
• Line 4: “m,” “c,” “s,” “s,” “o,” “n,” “o,” “n” like an establishing shot in a film. These lines focus on the
• Line 5: “T,” “r,” “t,” “r,” “r,” “t,” “r” environment of war, and the effects of warfare on the natural
• Line 6: “b,” “rr,” “r,” “rs,” “s,” “m,” “s,” “b” world. At this point, the “slope” is described as “menacing” and
• Line 7: “b,” “m,” “s,” “nd,” “g,” “n,” “s,” “nd,” “ls,” “nd,” “b,” “l,” “g,” “scarred.” While the second adjective doesn’t necessarily rely
“r” on personification, it does carry with it the sense that the land
• Line 8: “M,” “n,” “s,” “l,” “nd,” “l,” “m,” “m,” “s,” “l,” “f,” “r” is injured (like a soldier might be).
• Line 9: “s,” “m,” “f,” “c,” “s,” “m,” “s,” “f,” “r” “Menacing,” though, is straight-up personification. It assigns a
• Line 10: “Th,” “th” kind of evil and aggressive intent to the landscape which, of
• Line 11: “t,” “t,” “ck,” “s,” “b,” “k,” “b,” “s,” “s” course, is not literally true. Rather, this personification relates
• Line 12: “p,” “f,” “s,” “pp,” “l,” “n,” “f,” “s,” “s” to the way that the natural environment is an active part of
• Line 13: “Fl,” “d,” “s,” “m,” “d,” “s,” “s,” “m,” “s” battle: both sides try to use it to their advantage. Most likely,
the enemy are using the slope as a way of taking cover, meaning
ENJAMBMENT that the slope itself conceals hidden danger and potential
Enjambment is used three times in “Attack.” It first occurs at the death.
end of the first line, allowing for the poem’s opening phrase to The other key example of personification is in the poem’s two
extend over two lines. This has a subtle effect, helping the closing lines. Here, the poem takes an abstract
opening feel like a kind of wide, cinematic establishing shot: concept—“hope”—and turns it into a kind of deranged figure.
Hope is said to be “flounder[ing]” in the mud, fighting with

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“grappling fists.” Hope itself, then, is fighting for its life—and it's word from three syllables (glow
glowering
ing) to two (glow
glow'ring).
an overwhelmingly chaotic fight, like the one faced by the real Smouldering (Line 3) - Something that is burning gently with
soldiers. Hope also has “furtive eyes” (i.e. sneaky eyes) which smoke but no flame (like a hot coal).
relates to the way that hope—like a soldier—is trying to remain
undiscovered by the enemy. But “furtive” also carries Spouts (Line 3) - A spout in this instance is a stream of smoke.
connotations of guilt, suggesting the way that hope has let Shroud (Line 3) - To shroud something is to cover it, especially
these soldiers down. with some kind of material.
The Wire (Line 5) - This is barbed wire spread on the
Where P
Personification
ersonification appears in the poem: battlefield to make it hard for the enemy to progress.
• Line 4: “menacing scarred slope” Barrage (Line 6) - This is artillery fire from large guns.
• Lines 12-13: “And hope, with furtive eyes and grappling Jostle (Line 8) - To jostle is to physically compete for space.
fists, / Flounders in mud.”
Bristling (Line 8) - This can mean covered in hair, but also
carries connotations of anger.
POLYSYNDETON
Furtive (Line 12) - A furtive look is one that is nervous and
Polysyndeton occurs in one line of “Attack.” Up until line 7, the
perhaps guilty.
poem’s grammar behaves pretty much as expected in terms of
its use of commas and the conjunction “and.” But in line 7, a Grappling (Line 12) - Grappling is like wrestling, a kind of frantic
series of nouns—all relating to equipment carried by the close combat.
soldiers—are separated by a corresponding group of “and[s]”: Flounder (Line 13) - To flounder is to struggle clumsily.

With bombs and guns and shovels and battle-gear,

FORM, METER, & RHYME
This is an important point in the poem, essentially marking the
introduction of the soldiers into the poem’s world (the previous FORM
lines focused on the landscape and on tanks respectively). In At first glance, "Attack" looks like a sonnet
sonnet. Indeed, a number of
line 6 the men are described as being “clumsily bowed,” and line the famous First World War poems are sonnets (Wilfred
7 then lists some of the stuff that these soldiers have to Owen's "Anthem
Anthem for Doomed Y Youth
outh," for example). This poem
carry—that is, it basically explains why the men are "clumsily has a similar look on the page. Like a sonnet, it's rh
rhymed
ymed and
bowed." The repeated use of "and" in this list makes it seem written in iambic pentameter
pentameter.
endless and conjures a sense of the equipment’s heaviness; all
On closer look, however, the poem consists of 13 lines—rather
the tools of war just keep piling up. The polysyndeton also helps
than the 14 that usually make a sonnet. The poem, then, doesn't
this sentence delay its main grammatical subject (that is, the
line up neatly with the sonnet form. Perhaps this is a deliberate
“Men” themselves, who aren't actually mentioned until line 8),
attempt by Sassoon to wrong-foot the reader: to say, these are
making the heavy equipment actually arrive in the poem before
the real horrors of war, and in this instance they do not fit into a
the soldiers do. This emphasizes how much of a burden it is to
neat poetic form.
carry all of these tools of war.
Overall, the poem follows a kind of zooming-in trajectory. The
Where P
Polysyndeton
olysyndeton appears in the poem: first four lines are like an establishing shot in a film. Then, tanks
and artillery appear, followed by the hapless men hampered by
• Line 7: “and,” “and,” “and” their equipment. Finally, they have to go over the top and into
the line of fire. The poem pleads aimlessly with Jesus at the end,
clarifying the pure sentiment behind the poem: "make it stop."
VOCABULARY METER
The Ridge (Line 1) - This is the top of the trenches, over which By and large, "Attack" is a poem written in iambic pentameter
pentameter.
the soldiers have to go to engage the enemy. These are lines of five stresses, with each stress consisting of
Massed (Line 1) - This means densely packed, relating to the an unstressed-stressed pattern (da DUMDUM). The first line is a
way the earth has been altered by the digging of the trenches. good example of this steady-sounding meter:
Dun (Line 1) - This is a greyish-brown color.
At da
dawn
wn | the ridge | emer
mer- | ges massed | and dun
Glow'ring (Line 2) - This an abbreviation of glowering, which
means to have an angry look. The abbreviation shortens the But just as it fails to conform to the sonnet structure—with 13,

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rather than 14 lines—the poem also disrupts the regularity of
the iambic pentameter. This is a way of making the meter evoke SPEAKER
the chaos and unpredictability of warfare.
The speaker in "Attack" is unspecified, but is clearly a witness to
The meter is disrupted as early as the second line: the battle that the poem describes. Usually, this poem (and
others from the same collection) are interpreted as being
In the wi- | ld pur
pur- | ple of | the glow
glow- | 'ring sun based on Sassoon's own experience at war. Sassoon survived
the war, after having served in it extensively.
The extra unstressed syllable in the first foot makes the first
But Sassoon deliberately avoids direct mention of himself. This
three syllables collectively into an an anapest (da da DUM
DUM).
makes the poem seem more universal and, in a grotesque kind
This syllable suggests something is not quite right, supporting
of way, more commonplace. In other words, these could be the
the opening descriptions of an almost alien world.
observations of one soldier among many, on any given day
Note that "wild" could also be read as a single syllable, so that during the First World War. For the most part, the speaker
the line would read: maintains a detached tone. But the final line makes the
desperation of the conflict stark and clear, bringing in the
In the | wild pur
pur- | ple of | the glow
glow- | ring sun speaker's simple and personal plea to Jesus: "make it stop!"

Either way, these first few syllables create an awkward, heavy

feeling. The word "of," too, receives a stress because of the SETTING
iambic pentameter pattern, but feels deliberately awkward,
anticipating the image of the pack-laden men later in the poem The poem's setting is the First World War. It doesn't, however,
make reference to any specific battle during the war, meaning
The last line also makes a key variation, swapping an iamb for a
that this is more an account of the kind of battle that was
trochee (DUM
DUM da) in its first foot:
commonplace. Indeed, these kinds of scenes would have been
the reality for hundreds of thousands of men. Trench warfare
Floun
Flounders | in mud
mud. | O Je
Je- | sus, mak
makee | it stop
stop!
took place on the European continent, with a great number of
casualties exchanged for often small gains in territory.
This early stress gives the verb "flounders" an extra sense of
urgency and drama, conveying the way that the personified The poem develops its sense of setting in an interesting way.
"hope" is struggling (metaphorically
metaphorically) in the mud. Most of the first four lines are taken up with description of the
environment in which the battle takes place, sounding
RHYME SCHEME almost—but not quite—picturesque. The vantage point then
Even as early as the first two lines, the reader can tell that this zooms in through the "purple" sunlight and "drifting smoke" to
is a rh
rhymed
ymed poem. Indeed, on first look the poem appears to be a focus on the tanks. Then, in the poem's main section, the focus
sonnet
sonnet, with the rhyme falling into a sonnet-style pattern. But turns to the men themselves as they go "over the top" to meet
all is not as it seems—the poem has 13 lines, not the usual 14 of death, injury, or a lucky escape.
a sonnet. This is an overall strategy to suggest that something is
wrong in the poem's world: things are not as they seem.
CONTEXT
The rhyme scheme, then, is as follows:
AABACBDCDEFFE LITERARY CONTEXT
Put simply, this isn't really a scheme at all—the poem seems to Siegfried Sassoon is one of the most celebrated poets of the
make it up as it goes along. In other words, the poem plays with First World War. Born in 1886 to a fairly wealthy family,
the tension between reality and appearances. This was an Sassoon later studied at Cambridge University, before leaving
important idea for Sassoon more generally, who felt that some without his degree. In the years between leaving university and
war poets were guilty of mythologizing and poeticizing war in a the start of the war, Sassoon lived a comfortable existence of
way that failed to convey the realities of what it was actually writing and sport (especially cricket), supported by private
like. The presence of rhyme coupled with the denial of a regular family income. His first success in publishing was the 1913
scheme suggests that war may seem structured (in terms of parody The Daffodil Murder.
strategy, goals of gaining territory, etc.) but that for soldiers on Sassoon served extensively during WWI. During a period of
the ground it's utterly chaotic. convalescence he met fellow poet Robert Gr Graaves
es. Both agreed
that poetry ought to convey the "gritty realism" of war, as
opposed to the overly romanticized and mythologized work of
someone like Rupert Brook
Brookee (or, indeed, some of Sassoon's

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early work). This meeting had a strong effect on Sassoon, and believed that: "Let no one ever, from henceforth say one word
shows up in the bleakness of this poem. In his other work of the in any way countenancing war [...] for its spiritual disasters far
time, the desire to show the realities of war meant that Sassoon outweigh any of its advantages."
made space in his poems for cowardice, suicide, the It's also important to note that Sassoon had a number of sexual
decomposition of corpses, and horrific injuries (among other relationships with other men long before it was made legal in
challenging subjects). the United Kingdom. He did, however, marry his wife Hester
In another period of recovery, Sassoon was to have a similar Gatty in 1933, with whom he had a child.
influence over the younger Wilfred Owen that Graves had had
over him. Again, both men advocated an unflinching and
realistic way of writing about the horrors of war. This MORE RESOUR
RESOURCES
CES
perspective contrasts with the kind of nationalistic propaganda
that the government used to make young men sign up to fight EXTERNAL RESOURCES
and to keep the public in favor of the war. Such was Sassoon's • A Reading of the P Poem
oem — Sassoon's poem read
impact on Owen that a couple of key phrases from Owen's brilliantly by actor Gemma Arteton.
"Anthem
Anthem for Doomed Y Youth
outh" were actually Sassoon's ideas. (https:/
(https://www
/www..youtube.com/watch?v=r6D3OUJk3rs)
It's also important to note that Sassoon was not just a war poet. • Sassoon
Sassoon's's Correspondence — A letter from Sassoon to his
Despite being one of the most daring and cavalier soldiers in uncle, shortly after Sassoon was wounded in battle.
the army—earning him the nickname Mad Jack—Sassoon (https:/
(https://www
/www.bl.uk/collection-items/siegfried-sassoon-
.bl.uk/collection-items/siegfried-sassoon-
somehow survived the war. He published poetry and novels letters-to-his-uncle
letters-to-his-uncle))
after the war, and worked as an editor. He died in 1967.
• Sassoon
Sassoon's's Life and W
Work
ork — A BBC Radio documentary
HISTORICAL CONTEXT about Siegfried Sassoon and his poetry.
(https:/
(https://www
/www..youtube.com/watch?v=ge2Y0oN-ee8)
At the time, World War I was described with the term "the war
to end all wars"—a phrase that of course turned out to be • Another Reading, This Time b byy Helen Mirren! — This
tragically inaccurate with the onset of World War II. Around 16 excellent reading is by actor Dame Helen Mirren.
million people died directly in WWI, with many more perishing (https:/
(https://www
/www..youtube.com/watch?v=uv8XMiwjH-4)
in the great flu outbreaks and genocides (for example, the
• Bringing WWI to Life — In this clip, director Peter Jackson
Armenian Genocide) that followed.
discusses his recent WWI film, They Shall Not Grow Old.
The war began with the assassination of Archduke Franz- Though technology, Jackson brings old war footage to
Ferdinand, who was the heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire vivid life, restoring a sense of the soldiers as actual people.
(which ruled a large section of Central and Eastern Europe at (https:/
(https://www
/www..youtube.com/watch?v=ZY7R
outube.com/watch?v=ZY7RQ QAX_03c)
the time). The assassin, Gavrilo Princip, wished to see an end to
Austro-Hungarian rule in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Previously • More PPoems
oems F
From
rom WWI — A valuable resource from the
Poetry Foundation focusing on First World War poetry.
arranged allegiances soon brought Germany and Russia into
(https:/
(https://www
/www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/70139/the-
.poetryfoundation.org/articles/70139/the-
opposition, and before too long this conflict pulled the other
poetry-of-world-war-i)
countries of Europe into the war as well. In 1915, the Germans
sank a British passenger ship called the Lusitania, killing many
civilians. Among other reasons, this event drew the United HOW T
TO
O CITE
States into the conflict as well.
As described in the poem, WWI was a horrendously
MLA
destructive war. Life in the trenches of Europe was terrifying
and deadly, and the poor conditions caused frequent sickness Howard, James. "Attack." LitCharts. LitCharts LLC, 28 Oct 2019.
and disease. Sassoon, however, is reputed to have been an Web. 22 Apr 2020.
incredibly brave soldier. His near-suicidal willingness to enter CHICAGO MANUAL
the line of fire earned him the nickname "Mad Jack," and his
Howard, James. "Attack." LitCharts LLC, October 28, 2019.
aptitude for war meant he was later awarded the Military
Retrieved April 22, 2020. https://www.litcharts.com/poetry/
Cross (one of the military's highest honors). Such facts should
siegfried-sassoon/attack.
not cloud the fact that Sassoon came to be highly critical of the
war, and of such conflict more generally. In his own words, he

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