The soldiers fights for glory, and a shilling a day.
Please explain this poetic line.
Please explain this poetic line.
This line attempted to get the following meaning across:The soldiers fights for glory, and a shilling a day.
Please explain this poetic line.
Well put. I'm moved and therefore convinced by your insightful and eloquent comments.I believe that the line is ironic.
Blokes generally do not join the army seeking glory.
It is the only way for many young people to obtain a regular income.
I think that this is what the line may be about.
Soldiers fight because of the regular income. Politicians fight for glory while soldiers fight for survival.
.,,
I do love the power poetry possesses to compress so much into so few words and give multiple meanings depending on interpretation.Well put. I'm moved and therefore convinced by your insightful and eloquent comments.
Well as it's poetry, it could be fights, reproducing a solecism of the ordinary soldier - qua Kipling for example.The soldiers fight (not fights since it is more than one)
No - it's zeugma isn't it? And doesn't zeugma require that the two senses be utterly different - with comic effect, as above?Similarly the example "she was carried away in a flood of tears and a sedan chair" is not syllepsis
It wasn't uncommon for common soldiers to be given a share of the booty, back in the olde days but you are right, Capere XXII probably existed back then to make sure that no one ever qualified.Granted, Robert, and quite right too, but I still doubt that a " common soldier" in the olden days would receive such generous treatment. This is pure conjecture, of course.![]()
Sorry, I don't know.Well as it's poetry, it could be fights, reproducing a solecism of the ordinary soldier - qua Kipling for example.
Do we know who the poet is please Michael?
How do you know it is not ironic? It sounds to me to be saturated with irony.Originally it is not " the soldiers" but "The soldier" and it is not Ironic. This line says that a soldier doesn't fight for the money because at the day end, he is getting only a shilling. He fights for the glory of the country because that, for a soldier is bigger than anything.
Oh goodee! The voice of authority. What is your source please?Originally it is not " the soldiers" but "The soldier" and it is not Ironic. This line says that a soldier doesn't fight for the money because at the day end, he is getting only a shilling. He fights for the glory of the country because that, for a soldier is bigger than anything.
Dear Emma,The juxtaposition of "glory" and "a shilling a day" seem to me to be ineluctably ironic, and possibly zeugmic (?!).
Glory - what the soldier is told he is fighting for, what little boys imagine, what the public are told, the subject of countless works of art (widest sense).
A shilling a day - (a very small part of the) reality. This is what the soldier is actually risking his life for.
I'm not qualified to argue with you, I'm afraid Monty! I'm an entirely self-taught poetry geek. I was working from personal notes that don't show what my source is, as they pre-date my acquisition of study skills. I was specifically looking for the word for Virgil's phrase though as its one of my favourite lines in the Aeneid, so if its not a syllepsis I really need to know which of the other sorts of zeugma it is.Waspsmakejam:
It's not a syllepsis, is it?
Isn't that where one verb is applied to two nouns but only one makes sense. For example Henry V when Fluellen says "Kill the poys and the luggage", that would be, because you can't kill luggage.
In this case you can fight both for glory and for a shilling a day, so it is not syllepsis but just plain zeugma.
Similarly the example "she was carried away in a flood of tears and a sedan chair" is not syllepsis as it is possible to for "carried away" to apply to both nouns and make sense. Another example would be from Pope's The Rape of the Lock, "or stain her honour, or her new brocade". All of these are examples of zeugma but not syllepsis. You are right about the effect of it though, it is jarring and uncomfortable.
Can you correct me if I'm wrong? Thanks.