WWI poems and information :: World War 1 I One

Siegfried SassoonBiographyWith fight on the horizon, a young Englishman whose life had heretofore been consumedwith the protocol of fox-hunting, utter goodbye to his idyllic life and rode off on his bicycleto join the Army. Siegfried Sassoon was perhaps the most innocent of the war poets. JohnHildebidle has called Sassoon the "accidental hero." Born into a wealthy Jewish family in1886, Sassoon lived the pastoral life of a young squire fox-hunting, playing cricket,golfing and writing romantic verses. Being an innocent, Sassoons reaction to the realities of the war were all the more bitterand violent -- both his reaction through his poetry and his reaction on the battlefield(where, after the death of fellow officeholder David Thomas and his brother Hamo at Gallipoli,Sassoon earned the nickname "Mad Jack" for his near-suicidal exploits against the Germanlines -- in the early manifestation of his grief, when he still believed that the Germans wereentirely to blame). A s said "now he unleashed a talent for irony and satire and contumelythat had been sleeping all during his pastoral youth." Sassoon also showed his innocenceby divergence public with his (as he grew to see that insensitive political leadership was thegreater enemy than the Germans). Luckily, his friend and fellow poet Robert Gravesconvinced the review board that Sassoon was execrable from shell-shock and he was sentinstead to the military hospital at where he met and influenced .Sassoon is a key figure in the study of the poetry of the Great struggle he brought with him tothe war the idyllic pastoral background he began by writing war poetry reminiscent of hemingled with such war poets as Robert Graves and Edmund Blunden he spoke outpublicly against the war (and yet returned to it) he influenced and mentored the thenunknown he spent thirty years reflecting on the war through his memoirs and at last hefound peace in his religious faith. Some critics found his later poetry lacking in comparisonto his war poems. Sassoon, identifying with Herbert and Vaughan, recognized andunderstood this "my development has been entirely consistent and in character" heanswered, "almost all of them have ignored the occurrence that I am a religious poet." SurvivorsNo doubt theyll soon get well the shock and strainHave caused their stammering, disconnected talk.Of course theyre longing to go out again, -These boys with old, scared faces, learning to walk.Theyll so forget their haunted nights their cowedSubjection to the ghosts of friends who died, -Their dreams that drip with murder and theyll be proud