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Review
'An admirable balance is struck between accessibility and scholarly detail.' --Anthony Radice, Contemporary Review
'Movingly blends selections of poetry with commentary and documents' --Boyd Tonkin, The Independent
'A fascinating look at the subject and pity of war... The accompanying photographs are compelling, the letters and diary excerpts very poignant.' --Good Book Guide
'Movingly blends selections of poetry with commentary and documents' --Boyd Tonkin, The Independent
'A fascinating look at the subject and pity of war... The accompanying photographs are compelling, the letters and diary excerpts very poignant.' --Good Book Guide
Robert McCrum, Guardian, November 9, 2002
'Tells again the story of young Britons whose response to their experience on the Western Front has become a crucial part of our 'myth' of the Great War.'
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
23 of 24 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This is an excellent introduction to the lives and work of twelve poets of WWI, many of whom were killed in action. The book was produced to accompany an exhibition at the Imperial War Museum and is illustrated with many photographs and original manuscripts. The famous are here - Owen and Sassoon- but there are also less well-known names - David Jones and Francis Ledwidge - whose work deserves recognition. I've read some of these poems many times, and I never fail to be moved by "Dulce et decorum est" (Owen), "Anthem for doomed youth" (Owen) and "When you see millions of the mouthless dead" (Sorley). The savagery and sarcasm of "The General" (Sassoon) and the grim humour of "Break of day" (Rosenberg), a meditation on a rat moving between the German and British lines, are also moving. Stallworthy tells the stories of their (mostly) brief lives sparingly, concentrating on the poetry and offering some interesting criticisms and insights. This poetry has influenced our imagery of the Great War so profoundly that it is worthwhile to go back and revisit the lives of the young men who had the ability to make us see the horror of the trenches.
14 of 17 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I rather disagreed with the ethics of the publisher in his decision to place Rupert Brooke first in his haphazard order; the fact that each poet was accompanied by a full-page photograph of himself suggested to me that Brooke's pride of place was due mainly to his status as everybody's favourite pin-up poet. For this admittedly rather superficial reason, I recoiled upon initially opening the book, and was quite prepared to flick disdainfully through the remainder before discarding it as a commercialist re-dredging of the nation's favourite war poets.
Not so. The poems are carefully selected, the short biographies thorough and sensitive. In this book, the dedicated fan will be delighted to find images of the poets' original manuscripts and scribbled corrections. Particularly charming is an early draft of Owen's untouchable classic, 'Anthem For Doomed Youth', complete with Sassoon's pencilled corrections. One can almost see the two of them battling over the paper, Owen submitting reverently to Sassoon's 'lordly dictums about poetry'.
And such is the nature of this book; the poets seem almost to step out of the pages, living reminders of those dreadful days that are 'too terrible to remember, too important to forget'. The famous faces are there - and this quite literally; the discerning female reader cannot help but catch her breath over the Byronically devastating photographs of such aesthetic giants as Brooke and Sassoon, sympathetically shot in a chiaroscuro of shadow and light. But then, there are the others: Rosenburg, Sorley; equally splendid poets who have, for some reason, not flourished in their fame in the same way that Sassoon, Owen and Brooke have done.
The book may begin with Brooke, the idealistic, almost-a-soldier-poet whose patriotic whimsy contrasts so fiercely with Sassoon's harsh realism, but it leads us into a No Man's Land of men who do not deserve to be forgotten, 'the legions that have suffered and are dust.'
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
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1 review
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Remembering the Forgotten
27 Jun 2006
Format:Hardcover
Anthem for Doomed Youth, by Jon Stallworthy, has the subtitle "Twelve Soldier Poets of the First World War." The subtitle accurately describes the contents, but does not even begin to hint at the richness of the book itself.
This is a lush book, a historic treasure, replete with stories and photos and images of the original handwritten copies of the poems, as well as final edited versions. The poems provide a window into the historical events and the lives of the poets. The book is richer in history than in poetry, and the poems (while fascinating and emotional) are not necessarily of the highest quality. They do provide deep insight into the lives of soldiers then and now, and are worthy of preservation and remembrance for that if not for themselves.
The poets were, of course, soldiers in the war. Most of them died during the war. Each of the twelve poets has a chapter devoted to them. In addition to the poems, the chapters include images of the poet and their environment, biographies, how and why they became a soldier, and how being a soldier changed them (as witnessed through the poems). These are not dry biographies stuffed with facts and dates, but personable tales, rambling and rollicking, describing the character and uniqueness of the young men -- whether they were stalwart or troublemakers, clever or quiet, a womanizer or a loner, spiritual or intellectual.
The author takes the poems selected and delicately extracts details and themes that correspond with the life of the poet, that lead to the significance of that poem for its author. There are not very many poems given, so the book is primarily focused on the historical events, but each poem is read deeply and serves as a model for how to read a poem.
Overall, this is a worthy and challenging book that deserves more attention than it has garnered.
This is a lush book, a historic treasure, replete with stories and photos and images of the original handwritten copies of the poems, as well as final edited versions. The poems provide a window into the historical events and the lives of the poets. The book is richer in history than in poetry, and the poems (while fascinating and emotional) are not necessarily of the highest quality. They do provide deep insight into the lives of soldiers then and now, and are worthy of preservation and remembrance for that if not for themselves.
The poets were, of course, soldiers in the war. Most of them died during the war. Each of the twelve poets has a chapter devoted to them. In addition to the poems, the chapters include images of the poet and their environment, biographies, how and why they became a soldier, and how being a soldier changed them (as witnessed through the poems). These are not dry biographies stuffed with facts and dates, but personable tales, rambling and rollicking, describing the character and uniqueness of the young men -- whether they were stalwart or troublemakers, clever or quiet, a womanizer or a loner, spiritual or intellectual.
The author takes the poems selected and delicately extracts details and themes that correspond with the life of the poet, that lead to the significance of that poem for its author. There are not very many poems given, so the book is primarily focused on the historical events, but each poem is read deeply and serves as a model for how to read a poem.
Overall, this is a worthy and challenging book that deserves more attention than it has garnered.
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