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Amazon.co.uk Review
Sassoon, who lived through Word War One and who died in 1967, was, as the introduction to this book tells us, irritated in his later years at always being thought of as a "war poet". Understandable perhaps from the point of view of the poet: readers on the other hand might wish to demur. The poems gathered here and chronologically ordered, thereby tracing the course of the war, are an extraordinary testimony to the almost unimaginable experiences of a combatant in that bitter conflict. Moving from the patriotic optimism of the first few poems (" ... fighting for our freedom, we are free") to the anguish and anger of the later work (where "hope, with furtive eyes and grappling fists / Flounders in mud ... "), there comes a point when the reality of trench-warfare and its aftershocks move beyond comprehension: Sassoon knows this, and it becomes a powerful element in his art. As a book, the images have a cumulative relentlessness that make it almost impossible to read more than a few poems in one sitting.
Unlike the avant-garde experiments developing in Europe in the first decades of this century, Sassoon's verse is formally conservative--but this was perhaps necessary, for as one reads the poems, one feels that the form, the classically inflected tropes, the metre and rhyme, apart from ironising the rhetoric of glory and battle were necessary techniques for containing the emotion (and indeed, a tone of barely controlled irony may have been the only means by which these angry observations would have been considered publishable at the time). When Sassoon's line begins to fragment, as it does in several of the later poems, it is under the extreme pressure to express the inexpressible. Compassion and sympathy are omnipresent here, in their full etymological sense of suffering with or alongside others--something the higher echelons of command (those " ... old men who died / Slow, natural deaths--old men with ugly souls") were never able or willing to contemplate. But Sassoon intuited the future of warfare, could sense that this was not "the war to end all wars": the mock-religious invocation of the final poem prefigures the vicious euphemisms of more recent conflicts: "Grant us the power to prove, by poison gases, / The needlessness of shedding human blood." Sassoon's bile-black irony signals a deep-felt pessimism: it was with good reason. --Burhan Tufail --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
"In later years, when Siegfried Sassoon had written much else in prose and verse, he was annoyed at always being referred to simply as a war poet, but it was the Great War that turned him into a poet of international fame, and I feel sure that his ghost will forgive me for thus bringing together these magnificently scarifying poems."--Rupert Hart-Davis, from his Introduction
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
14 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I did not care for the items we had to read at school that is until I came across Siegfried Sassoon. He explains clearly with passion and experance what WAR truely is. In an age of mass media and what appears to be new wars every other day, he so the true cost of war not in pound or dollors.
To read his work even one at two of his poems will show you the horrors of war better than any Hollywood movie.
Reading his work is like talking to the man, and he has given you excess to every private though in him . He is a true great.
To read his work even one at two of his poems will show you the horrors of war better than any Hollywood movie.
Reading his work is like talking to the man, and he has given you excess to every private though in him . He is a true great.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I enjoyed reading this book, despite not generally reading much poetry unless forced. I also liked the footnotes which gave brief autobiographical notes, giving an insight into the timing and mood of the author.
What particulary stood out for me was the parallels to the modern experience of soldiers and attitudes to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Not only did the poems tell of the true horrors of war, they also reflected the cold indifference and misunderstanding of civilians back home. My favorite is "Hero" which encapsulates a number of these themes.
I think it a good book - the 4 stars reflects only that, in this genre, I prefer Owen and Brooke.
What particulary stood out for me was the parallels to the modern experience of soldiers and attitudes to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Not only did the poems tell of the true horrors of war, they also reflected the cold indifference and misunderstanding of civilians back home. My favorite is "Hero" which encapsulates a number of these themes.
I think it a good book - the 4 stars reflects only that, in this genre, I prefer Owen and Brooke.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Sassoon's war poems from WW1 through to the 1930's. Includes dates & some short footnotes based on original publication information or the authors papers and manuscripts. An adequate low cost collection for the enthusiast or student of Siegfried Sassoon's war poetry.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
The truth about war
It maybe that there are better WW1 poets, but Sassoon is for me the most modern, the one who speaks most clearly to us. Read more
Published 14 months ago by J. Rae-smith
the war poems
the horrors of ww1 as seen thru the poems of siegfried sassoon. also recommended for reading are the poems of wilfred owen.
Published on 7 Jan 2010 by road nomad
My Favourite War Poet
Siegfried Sassoon was a gentleman of leisure who wanted to be a poet, and indeed he did have a limited success before the outbreak of World War 1. Read more
Published on 29 Dec 2009 by M. Dowden
good for exams(GCSEs)
this book gave an understanding of Sassoon it helped me a lot as i was doing about him for my GSCE coursework, on war poetry
Published on 23 Jan 2000
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