All Quiet On The Western Front Sassoon Analysis
Death comes to summon the soldiers and escort them to their final resting place when Sassoon says:
When death stood near them they have seen
The radiant forests where her feet
Move on a breeze of silver sheen. (“France,” 1918, p. 16)
The message implicit in the lines is the beautification of war and sentimentalization of death for one’s country. Sassoon employs the glamorous scenery of nature so as to romanticize death, personified here, whose presence, although announcing the imminent demise of the soldiers, is not unwelcome since it is accompanied by “a breeze of silver sheen” and “radiant forests.”
When death stood near them they have seen
The radiant forests where her feet
Move on a breeze of silver sheen. (“France,” 1918, p. 16)
The message implicit in the lines is the beautification of war and sentimentalization of death for one’s country. Sassoon employs the glamorous scenery of nature so as to romanticize death, personified here, whose presence, although announcing the imminent demise of the soldiers, is not unwelcome since it is accompanied by “a breeze of silver sheen” and “radiant forests.”