Question

Point out the refrain in the poem After Blenheim. What effect does it have on the reader?
(The part of a poem that is repeated at the end of each verse is called refrain.)
I know the first part of the answer-it is "It was a famous victory". I need the second part of the answer.

Answer 1

this adds irony to the poem bc the victory was anything but famous. People died and there was immense damage and destruction caused. Old Kaspar repeated this lines again and again because thats what the outcome of this war had been carefully crafted in his head ( ppl kept saying so) and he was influenced by it . the reader reads through the lines and realises the way war ruins so many innocent lives

Answer 2

The effect is that it's like an irony. Though it was a famous victory there is no use in this as the land was wasted. Whenever kaspar says this sentence we could remind the horrors of war in which many a chiding mother and new born were killed, thousands of people died.