Introducing 

Prezi AI.

Your new presentation assistant.

Refine, enhance, and tailor your content, source relevant images, and edit visuals quicker than ever before.

Loading content…
Loading…
Transcript

Break of Day in the Trenches

Isaac Rosenberg

Symbols

1 The darkness crumbles away.

It is the same old druid Time as ever,

Only a live thing leaps my hand,

A queer sardonic rat,

5 As I pull the parapet’s poppy

To stick behind my ear.

Droll rat, they would shoot you if they knew

Your cosmopolitan sympathies.

Now you have touched this English hand

10 You will do the same to a German

Soon, no doubt, if it be your pleasure

To cross the sleeping green between.

It seems you inwardly grin as you pass

Strong eyes, fine limbs, haughty athletes,

15 Less chanced than you for life,

Bonds to the whims of murder,

Sprawled in the bowels of the earth,

The torn fields of France.

What do you see in our eyes

20 At the shrieking iron and flame

Hurled through still heavens?

What quaver—what heart aghast?

Poppies whose roots are in man’s veins

Drop, and are ever dropping;

25 But mine in my ear is safe—

Just a little white with the dust

Point of View

Introduction

first-person singular

→ own experiences

second-person plural

→ for all soldiers

  • soldier in World War I
  • green fields of France
  • new day
  • rat's situation ↔ soldier's situation
  • dust = always waiting grave

Isaac Rosenberg

  • °November 25, 1890 in Bristol
  • Jewish immigrants
  • apprentice engraver
  • enlisted in 1915
  • *the battle of Arras on April 1, 1918

1 The darkness crumbles away.

It is the same old druid Time as ever,

Only a live thing leaps my hand,

A queer sardonic rat,

5 As I pull the parapet’s poppy

To stick behind my ear.

Droll rat, they would shoot you if they knew

Your cosmopolitan sympathies.

Now you have touched this English hand

10 You will do the same to a German

Soon, no doubt, if it be your pleasure

To cross the sleeping green between.

It seems you inwardly grin as you pass

Strong eyes, fine limbs, haughty athletes,

15 Less chanced than you for life,

Bonds to the whims of murder,

Sprawled in the bowels of the earth,

The torn fields of France.

What do you see in our eyes

20 At the shrieking iron and flame

Hurled through still heavens?

What quaver—what heart aghast?

Poppies whose roots are in man’s veins

Drop, and are ever dropping;

25 But mine in my ear is safe—

Just a little white with the dust

Explanations

4 queer= strange, odd sardonic= cynical

7 droll= Curious or unusual in a way that provokes dry amusement/koddig

8 cosmopolitan= Familiar with and at ease in many different countries and cultures

13 inwardly= Within the mind

14 haughty= Arrogantly superior and disdainful

16 whims= A sudden desire or change of mind, especially one that is unusual or unexplained

17 to sprawl= Spread out over a large area in an untidy or irregular way

bowels= The deepest inner parts or areas of (something)

20 shrieking= High-pitched piercing cries or sounds

21 to hurl= Throw or impel (someone or something) with great force

22 quaver= A shake or tremble in a person’s voice

aghast= Filled with horror or shock

metaphor

alliteration

Figures of Speech

assonance

1 The darkness crumbles away.

It is the same old druid Time as ever,

Only a live thing leaps my hand,

A queer sardonic rat,

5 As I pull the parapet’s poppy

To stick behind my ear.

Droll rat, they would shoot you if they knew

Your cosmopolitan sympathies.

Now you have touched this English hand

10 You will do the same to a German

Soon, no doubt, if it be your pleasure

To cross the sleeping green between.

It seems you inwardly grin as you pass

Strong eyes, fine limbs, haughty athletes,

15 Less chanced than you for life,

Bonds to the whims of murder,

Sprawled in the bowels of the earth,

The torn fields of France.

What do you see in our eyes

20 At the shrieking iron and flame

Hurled through still heavens?

What quaver—what heart aghast?

Poppies whose roots are in man’s veins

Drop, and are ever dropping;

25 But mine in my ear is safe—

Just a little white with the dust

Themes

enumeration

asyndeton

metaphor

onomatopoeia

repetition

  • freedom

→‘if it be your pleasure

To cross the sleeping green between’

  • life

→life and death in times of war

Learn more about creating dynamic, engaging presentations with Prezi