Revisiting the Sites of Trauma: The War Poetry of Siegfried Sassoon, Edmund Blunden, and Richard Hugo

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Michael Sarnowski
Keyword(s):  
War Poetry ◽  
Siegfried Sassoon

scholarly journals From Soldier-Poet to Veteran Memoirist: Siegfried Sassoon, The Complete Memoirs of George Sherston, and the Limits of Life-Writing in Prose

2021 ◽  
Vol 74 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean A. McPhail
Keyword(s):  
Life Writing ◽  
Great War ◽  
Front Line ◽  
War Poetry ◽  
Siegfried Sassoon ◽  
Complete Account

The Complete Memoirs of George Sherston is a key text supporting Siegfried Sassoon’s reputation as Britain’s pre-eminent Great War-writer. Critics have nevertheless reached no consensus as to whether these lightly fictionalised “memoirs” represent true accounts of Sherston’s/ Sassoon’s war or fictional constructions. They have also yet to account for the differences between the Memoirs and Sassoon’s war-poetry, and between Sherston’s stated commemorative goals and his complete account. This article dissects the Memoirs’ adaptation of Sassoon’s front-line poetics of commemoration: it reads their new application of this poetics via his compositional difficulties, his dependence upon his own wartime writings, and life-writing’s uneasy relationship to truth. As I show, Sherston has more in common with his author than Sassoon intended, but differences remain; still, his memoirs have as much right to that appellation as any other text in the language.

scholarly journals Il nazionalismo della letteratura britannica prima della Grande Guerra e l’esperienza dei War Poets

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-86
Author(s):  
Angelo Giunta
Keyword(s):  
War Poetry ◽  
Siegfried Sassoon ◽  
Rupert Brooke ◽  
Wilfred Owen

L’immagine di un Regno Unito visto come Eden inconsapevole della tragedia che sta per lacerarlo è diffusa, ma piuttosto falsa. L’apparente serenità nasconde una violenza latente e gravi questioni interne e la guerra, quindi, non fa altro che accelerare un processo già in atto. Di tutta la letteratura inglese del Ventesimo secolo, la poesia di guerra sembra, sotto molti punti di vista, una “parentesi” all’interno del panorama letterario. La war poetry è il prodotto di un determinato periodo storico, sociale e culturale venutosi a formare nella Prima guerra mondiale. Tra i migliori poeti della Grande Guerra troviamo Rupert Brooke, Wilfred Owen e Siegfried Sassoon. Il fatto che molti poeti siano ufficiali – ma non alti ufficiali – permette loro di essere in contatto, a livello socio-culturale, con i ranghi elevati dell’esercito e, fisicamente, con i soldati semplici. In questo modo hanno una visione più ampia della realtà in trincea.

Siegfried Sassoon: a study of the war poetry

1999 ◽  
Vol 36 (10) ◽  
pp. 36-5508-36-5508
Keyword(s):  
War Poetry ◽  
Siegfried Sassoon

scholarly journals A United Voice

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dallin Higham
Keyword(s):  
Great War ◽  
Comprehensive Understanding ◽  
War Poetry ◽  
Traditional Methods ◽  
Historical Legacy ◽  
Siegfried Sassoon ◽  
Trench Warfare ◽  
The Great War ◽  
Rupert Brooke

In this article, I consider three influential poets of the Great War: Siegfried Sassoon, Charles Hamilton Sorley and Rupert Brooke. Since the birth of the modernist movement, the historical legacy of Great War poetry has tended to focus on the differing levels of “disenchantment” expressed in the works of these three poets when considered separately, applauding Sassoon and Sorley and criticizing Brooke. While I recognize a separation of the works of Brooke from those of Sorley and Sassoon in terms of modernist disillusionment, I argue that analysing instead the literary elements which unify the works of all three poets offers a comprehensive understanding of the experience of trench warfare experience, unavailable through traditional methods of evaluating Great War poetry.

Shell-Shocked Walt Whitmans

2021 ◽  
pp. 27-54
Author(s):  
Lauren Arrington
Keyword(s):  
War Poetry ◽  
Dinner Party ◽  
Siegfried Sassoon

Chapter 2 begins with a dinner party at which W.B. and George Yeats, Richard Aldington, and Brigit Patmore were present. Closely reading Aldington’s poetry as well as his novel, Death of a Hero (much of which was written in Rapallo), this chapter considers Yeats’s attitude to the postwar poets whom he derided as “shell-shocked Walt Whitmans.” The chapter also looks at connections between Aldington’s poem The Eaten Heart and Pound’s The Spirit of Romance, and their surprising relationship to W.B. Yeats’s poem “Parnell’s Funeral.” The chapter concludes with Yeats’s address of “war poetry” in The Oxford Book of Modern Verse and his inclusion there of another of Rapallo’s visitors: Siegfried Sassoon.

Sassoon, Siegfried (1886–1967)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Von Cannon
Keyword(s):  
Life Purpose ◽  
World War ◽  
World War One ◽  
War Poetry ◽  
Commanding Officer ◽  
Siegfried Sassoon ◽  
Enlisted Men

Siegfried Sassoon was a poet, memoirist, novelist, and World War One soldier. His pre-war poetry, heavily influenced by Edward Marsh and the Georgian school of poets, was often criticized for derivative thought and emotional ambiguity. In 1914, Sassoon enlisted as a trooper, desiring to be one of the enlisted men. However, less than a year later, he earned his commission as a second lieutenant in the Royal Welch Fusiliers. During his convalescence from injuries incurred in the Battle of Arras (1917), Sassoon began developing objections to the war. He sent Finished with the War: A Soldier’s Declaration to his commanding officer; it was also read in Parliament. Just as war and protest gave Sassoon’s life purpose, they also improved the satirical power and emotional unity of his poetry. He is best known, though, for his fictionalized autobiographical trilogy, (Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man [1928], Memoirs of an Infantry Officer [1930], and Sherston’s Progress [1936]).

«The Forties, Fateful…» in David Samoylov’s Poetry: a Lingvo-stylistic Analysis of Three Poems about War (To the 100th Anniversary of the Birth)

2020 ◽  
Vol 81 (3) ◽  
pp. 63-69
Author(s):  
E. A. Frolova
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
100Th Anniversary ◽  
Stylistic Analysis ◽  
Creative Work ◽  
Creative Activity ◽  
War Poetry ◽  
Artistic Manner ◽  
Different Levels ◽  
Linguistic Means

The article presents an analysis of three poems about war («The Tale of Our Lady and Russian Soldiers» («Slovo o Bogoroditse i Russkih Soldatah»), «The Attack» («Ataka»), «The Forties» («Sorokovye»)) written by D. Samoylov in different periods of his creative activity. On the basis of the existing research of the creative work of the famous poet of the 20th century, a multilevel characteristic of his war lyrics is given. The aim of the article is to characterize the specific features of the poetic language of such an original author by means of a lingvo-stylistic analysis of D. Samoilov’s poems, to reveal the richness and diversity of his artistic manner. The following research methods were used: analytical reading, comparative analysis, ontological method, a multilevel analysis of poetry. The author accentuates reminiscences in D. Samoilov’s war poetry, the contrast and contrast means, repetition as an artistic device, paronomasia in the stylistic mixture of linguistic means belonging to different levels. A multidimensional poet’s approach to the theme of the war is the conclusion of the article.

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