Does it Matter? Analysis

When you read this poem aloud, you'd be forgiven for not even noticing it's a poem. Frankly, it sounds an awful lot like some dude talking. But there are metrical feet afoot, if you're willing to g...

Our speaker is either the world's biggest idiot or the world's most sarcastic pacifist. Take your pick. If our speaker really means what he says—that it doesn't matter if you lose your legs or yo...

Unlike most war poems, this one has nearly nothing to do with the battlefield. No artillery shells are dropping, no armies are charging, no wounds are festering (yep, we went there). In fact, it's...

Sassoon's poem has a pretty vague title, "Does it Matter?" Does what matter, Siegfried? He could be talking about, well, anything: Does the color of your car matter? Does the pattern of clouds in t...

And yes, that's an understatement. Sassoon wrote a whole lot of war poems, and you won't find much glory and sacrifice. Nope, just death and destruction in his lines. You might think that would get...

"Does it Matter?" doesn't pull any punches. Sassoon tells it like it is, and you shouldn't have any trouble picking up on the sarcasm and irony. He lays it all out there. To be fair, if you weren't...

This brings a whole new meaning to foxhole friends: Siegfried Sassoon was good buddies with many famous literary figures, including Robert Graves and Wilfred Owen. (Source.)Sassoon was a super brav...

You'd be hard-pressed to find a war poem with sex in it, and this one's no exception to the rule.

World War I (throughout)