Consider how the poets of Lamentations and Bohemians tell us about the :: English Literature

Consider how the poets of Lamentations and Bohemians tell us about the way in which the army can be a brutal and demoralising institution. We all know that the army is surely very tough psychologically, but surely no one from our generation can understand the pains and sufferings that men would have had to go through fighting in the First World War. The army during this time must have been devastatingly hard to cope with and indeed a demoralising institution. Ivor Gurney, author of Bohemians, and Siegfried Sassoon, author of Lamentations, convey the ideas of demoralisation in these two poems concentrating on two different viewpoints. A ‘bohemian’ is someone who chooses to not follow the rules and regulations set by superior powers and lives his life according to his own rules. In the poem Bohemians, Ivor Gurney explains how these were the types of soldiers who would have made life uneasy for their superior officers. Gurney tells the reader how these â€Å"people would not clean their buttons/Nor polish buckles after latest fashions†. This conveys the idea that bohemians were the kind of people who were unfazed by the war and although it troubled them to be at war fighting, they lived life as they would if they were not there; â€Å"smoking without army cautions/Spending hours that sped like evil for wickedness†. These soldiers would have chosen to not become ‘model’ or what they would have considered to be ‘mindless’ soldiers. Gurney has written this poem almost in free verse, though certain words at the end such as ‘cautions’ and ‘promotions’ give the poem a sort of rhyme scheme. This portrays the notion that the bohemians would not have followed the rules whilst fighting at war, and not abided by the regulations set. Coupled with this is the comparative lack of punctuation that continues throughout the poem, except from commas. This enjambment proceeds until the penultimate line, in which the first full stop occurs. This accentuates the last line, which is the most poignant line of the poem, â€Å"In Artois or Picardy they lie – free of useless fashions.† This line shows that now they have died, they are finally free from having to tolerate the decrees set by the governing officers of the First World War. This is an ironic final line as through death, they are freed from the bonds of army expectations and regulations about behaviour and uniform. This poem is, to a certain extent, about the dehumanising effects of war â€Å"and wrenched/What little soul they had still further from shape,† and how the bohemians did not allow the war change their view on life