War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon (Dover Books on Literature & Drama) [Paperback]

Siegfried Sassoon (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 10, 2004 | ISBN-10: 0486437159 | ISBN-13: 978-0486437156

At the dawn of World War I, poet Sassoon exchanged his pastoral pursuits of cricket, fox-hunting, and romantic verse for army life amid the muddy trenches of France. This collection of his epigrammatic and satirical poetry conveys the shocking brutality and pointlessness of the Great War and includes "Counter-Attack," "'They," "The General," and "Base Details."

Editorial Reviews

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

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

About the Author

Siegfried Sassoon was born in 1886 and died in 1967. Apart from the War Poems of 1919, he published eight volumes of verse as well as a semi-autobiographical trilogy - Memoirs of a Fox-hunting Man (1928), Memoirs of an Infantry Officer (1930) and Sherston's Progress (1936). --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Dover Publications (September 10, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0486437159
• ISBN-13: 978-0486437156
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.4 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,667,822 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Siegfried Sassoon's War Poems, June 5, 2000

By 

David R. Cook (Menomonie, Wisconsin) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon (Paperback)

I do not read much poetry, but for various reasons I wanted to read some of the British WWI poets because I knew they didn't mince words about the horror of infantry combat. Sassoon does not disappoint. His poems drip with bite, sarcasm, and some bitterness, but at the same time they are elegantly rhymed and the images are powerful. War is nasty business, not glorious, and it is also stupid. WWI was the end of innocence and the poets who wrote of their war experiences brought home the irony of that innocence in the face of the devastation that was wrought. A sample will help.

Stand-to: Good Friday Morning

I'd been on duty from two till four. I went and stared at the dug-out door. Down in the frowst I heard them snore. "Stand to!" Somebody grunted and swore. Dawn was misty; the skies were still' Larks were singing, discordant, shrill; They seemed happy; but I felt ill. Deep in water I splashed my way Up the trench to our bogged front line. Rain had fallen the whole damned night. O Jesus, send me a wound to-day, And I'll believe in Your bread and wine, And get my bloody old sins washed white!

This collection includes the notes that Sassoon added as commentary on some of his poems. On the above poem Sassoon notes: "I haven't shown this to any clergyman. But soldiers say they feel like that sometimes."

This is poetry that grabs you and moves you, but it is a particular genre, not for everyone's taste. If one purpose of poetry is to allow us to see through some of life's darker experiences, then this collection is well worth your reading and reflection.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Base Details of War, March 9, 2007

By 

M. G Watson "Miles Watson" (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon (Paperback)

I admit I am not one much for poetry, but ever since I read Martin Gilbert's THE FIRST WORLD WAR, which was replete with poetry written in the heat of battle, I've learned that verse is one of the most effective ways for a combat veteran to communicate the experiences of war. Siegfried Sassoon's aptly-titled WAR POEMS, compiled by Rupert Hart-Davis, is less a book of poetry than a guided tour through the muck, duckboards and barbed wire of No Man's Land.

Sassoon was a paradox as a human being. A sensitive and cultivated man and a world-famous poet when still in his twenties, he was also a ferocious fighter on the battlefield, dubbed "Mad Jack" by his men and a holder of the prestigious Military Cross. Disenchanted by the wastage and slaughter he had experienced, in 1917 he wrote a denunciation of the war and was promptly shut up in an asylum in Craiglockhart, Britain, where he composed many of the poems that appear in this book. Later he returned to the front and was shot in the head, but survived and enjoyed a prolific and diverse writing career, somewhat annoyed (as Hart-Davis tells us) that he had gone down in history as a "war poet." Reading this book, however, it is easy to see why.

Hart-Davis has arranged the 111 poems in chronological order, so that the reader can follow Sassoon's emotional journey from a naive young subaltern filled with a quasi-religious sense of mission (in 1915) to an embittered, half-delirious veteran driven to the edge of his sanity by relentless horror. And truly his poems run the range of emotions, from the mundanities of trench life ("A Working Party"; "In An Underground Dressing Station") to the moments before the ball went up ("Before the Batlle") to fury of combat itself ("Counter Attack") and its aftermath ("Died of Wounds"). Every aspect of the war is discussed, from war-fever to cowardice, from the bungling and incompetence of generals to the bluster of civilians back in England. Sometimes he's filled with rage and grief; other times with admiration and pathos (as with "Remorse", his paen to German prisoners run through with bayonets after an attack). But always there's the keen intelligence, the gift for words, the startling ability to convey image in just a few syllables, that mark the true genius-writer. See "The General:"

"Good morning, good morning" the general said

When we met him last week on our way to the line

Now the soldiers he smiled at are most of 'em dead

And we're cursing his staff for incompetent swine

"He's a cheery old card," grunted Harry to Jack

As they slogged up to Arras with rifle and pack.

But he did for them both with his plan of attack.

Of course quoting from the best of the WAR POEMS would fill 30 pages, so I'll leave you with the words of "Base Details."

If I were fierce, and bald, and short of breath,

I'd live with scarlet Majors at the Base,

and speed young heroes up the line to death.

You'd see my puffy petulant face,

Guzzling and gulping in the best hotel,

Reading the Roll of Honor, "Poor young chap."

I'd say -- "I used to know his father well;

Yes, we lost heavily in this last scrap."

And when the war is done and youth stone dead,

I'd toddle safely home and die -- in bed.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars You get what you pay for., December 8, 2010

By 

Christian Zimmerman - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon (Kindle Edition)

I vaguely remembered Sassoon's poetry from one of my English Lit courses in college, and at the time, I left m class with the nagging feeling that I should have actually read the guy's poetry instead of slacking off (and not just because it would be on the final exam--my professor made it sound really interesting). So, when I saw that there was a free version available for the Kindle, I saw my chance to set things right, as it were.

However, the results were mixed at best. Sassoon's poetry is indeed powerful, but the power in the Kindle edition is neutered by the bizarre decision to ignore any line breaks. This not only makes the poetry more difficult to read; it makes it more difficult to interpret, since poets are as careful with their meters as they are with their vocabulary.

In other words, shell out the money for a paper edition, which will probably treat Sassoon's work with the respect it deserves.