Reflecting on the War Years with Siegfried Sassoon (WWI Mini-Series)

In this episode of Beyond the Verse, the official podcast of PoemAnalysis.com and Poetry+, hosts Joe and Maiya conclude their mini-series on the poets of the First World War with an in-depth exploration of Siegfried Sassoon. They discuss his privileged early life, his pre-war poetry as a Georgian Romantic, and his transformation into one of the most outspoken critics of the war. The episode delves into Sassoon’s military service, his wartime bravery, and the pivotal moment when he publicly denounced the war in his 1917 'Soldier’s Declaration.'

Through an analysis of Sassoon’s poetry, Joe and Maiya examine how his work evolved from patriotic beginnings to biting satire and scathing critiques of political leadership. They discuss key poems like 'Suicide in the Trenches' and 'Counter-Attack,' highlighting Sassoon’s stark portrayal of disillusionment, the psychological toll of combat, and his use of structure and sound to intensify the horrors of war. The hosts also explore how Sassoon’s influence extended beyond his own poetry, shaping the legacy of Wilfred Owen through their friendship at Craiglockhart War Hospital.

Finally, the episode reflects on Sassoon’s post-war years, his shifting perspectives, and his role in shaping modern understandings of war literature. Joe and Maiya discuss his influence on later poets, the timeless relevance of his anti-war stance, and the ways in which his poetry continues to resonate in contemporary discussions on conflict and memory.

Poetry+ users can get exclusive access to analysis, content, and PDFs, including the following that relates to this episode:

• First World War Poets PDF Guide
• Siegfried Sassoon PDF Guide
• 'Suicide in the Trenches':
  • Poem PDF Guide
  • Poetry Snapshot PDF
  • Poem Printable PDF
• 'Counter-Attack':
  • Poem PDF Guide
  • Poetry Snapshot PDF
  • Poem Printable PDF

Transcript

Reflecting on the War Years with Siegfried Sassoon (WWI Mini-Series) (Transcript)
===

[00:00:00] 

Joe: Welcome to beyond the verse a poetry podcast brought to you by the team at poemanalysis.com and Poetry+ I'm Joe and I'm here with my co host Maiya and we are delighted to bring you the third and final installment of our mini series on the Poets of the First World War. And today, Maiya and I are going to be talking about the Poet, novelist, and soldier, Siegfried Sassoon. Maiya, can you give us a little bit of a background about Sassoon's life pre war, and give us a chronology?

Maiya: Absolutely. Well, thanks, Joe. To run through a couple of the key dates that are important when we're talking about Sassoon. He was born in 1886. He led a very privileged life growing up. He attended Marlborough College in the UK and then Cambridge, but didn't actually graduate from Cambridge University.

He is generally regarded in this period as a Georgian Romantic Poet. He published a collection called Poems in 1906 and a follow up collection called Sonnets in 1909. And we will see this sonnet form crop up time and time again in some of [00:01:00] his later poems as well. Of course, as we've talked about in our previous two episodes of this mini series, there is definitely a different spin on the sonnet form when we're talking about the war, as compared to what we would usually expect from a sonnet.

A few more key dates. In 1914, when the war broke out, that was when Siegfried Sassoon volunteered. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant in 1915. And in 1916 was awarded the Military Cross for bravery.

But 1917 is when things really change. Sassoon writes an open letter that is published in the London Times, it's read in Parliament, called a Soldier's Declaration. Now in this he is very negative about wartime, and I'm gonna ask Joe kindly to read that for us.

Joe: I am making this statement as an act of willful defiance of military authority, because I believe the war is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it. I am a soldier, convinced that I am acting on behalf of soldiers. I believe this war, upon which I [00:02:00] entered as a war of defense and liberation, has now become a war of aggression and conquest.

I believe that the purposes for which I and my fellow soldiers entered upon this war should have been so clearly stated as to have made it impossible for them to be changed without our knowledge, and that, had this been done, the objects which actuated us would now be attainable by negotiation.

I have seen and endured the sufferings of the troops, and I can no longer be a party to prolonging those sufferings for ends which I believe to be evil and unjust. I am not protesting against the military conduct of the war, but against the political errors and insincerities for which the fighting men are being sacrificed.

On behalf of those who are suffering now, I make this protest against the deception which is being practised on them. Also, I believe it may help destroy the callous complacence with which the majority of those at home regard the continuance of agonies which they do not share, and which they have not sufficient [00:03:00] imagination to realise.

Maiya: Now this is absolutely damning evidence, and this is one of the reasons that when we talk about Sassoon, he is so often regarded as the most prominent critic of the war. As I noted before, this was published in 1917. It would have been general practice to court martial someone who speaks so openly against the war. However, instead, he was diagnosed with shell shock. He was sent to Craiglockhart , Which, as we talked about in our prior episode, is where he met Wilfred Owen and became his mentor. So if you haven't had a chance to listen to our previous episode, please do check that out now. It'll give you a little bit of context around their relationship and how this grew whilst they were both spending time there. In 1918, Sassoon publishes the anti war collection, Counter Attack and Other Poems. A very openly anti war collection. Now this is one of the most prominent and influential collections when it comes to changing attitudes towards the war. So in terms of the poems we'll be focusing on today, [00:04:00] we will of course be focusing primarily on the wartime poems. However, it is worth stating Sassoon lived until he was 80 years old. Obviously, with many of the poets that we've discussed up to this point, we only have a very small amount of work from them, given how young they were by the time they died. However, Sassoon continued to publish for the remainder of his life. He spent the years after the war with the Bloomsbury Group, who we also talked about in our last episode. In 1957, he converted to Catholicism.

His poetry took a slightly more spiritual turn. And by 1967, aged 80, he died. Now, Joe, in terms of key dates, what do you want to pick up on here?

Joe: Well, thanks, Maiya. That's going to be really helpful for listeners to get a really interesting sense of his life because one of the things, I imagine it's going to be a theme of today's episode we're going to talk about is Sassoon is a poet that changes, a poet of transition. And obviously the years after the war allow more time for that transition, you know, time not afforded to the likes of Rupert Brooke or Wilfred Owen.

But even [00:05:00] within the confines of the war, we're going to talk about how Sassoon's attitude, his beliefs, and even the poetry itself alters and changes over the course of those years as a result of new poetic influences But also of course the growing realization of the horrors and the injustice of this war which is typified By the open letter which I read earlier on but actually I'd like to just go back pre war for a moment because I think they really help elucidate one of the themes we've been talking about how this war represents an inflection a sort of a point of no return and This might seem like a trivial instance, but Maiya and I were talking about Sassoon before this episode and one of the things that came up during our research was that Sassoon, sort of, after leaving Cambridge University kind of spent a few years in the wilderness.

As Maiya mentioned, he was quite an affluent gentleman. He was well off, and it sort of feels like he spent those years occasionally writing poetry, not publishing loads of work over what is a six or seven year span, but spending quite a lot of time hunting and playing cricket, and these are themes that he would go on to return to in his post war writing as well.[00:06:00] 

And this might seem like an insignificant detail given everything that happened in the war, but I think it really helps ground this view of what Britain was like in these years pre war. Again, we're talking about a Britain that is still one of the world's primary colonial powers. An incredibly powerful, influential, affluent nation.

And the idea that this upper middle class This gentleman could afford to go to Cambridge and not get his degree and spend years, it seems, living a sort of hedonistic lifestyle, really brings the horrors of the war into focus. The idea that this war shattered those kind of early 20th century notions of what it meant to be a British gentleman, what it meant to be a British member of the middle class. So I think I'd just like to really give listeners that context, about who this guy was going into the war.

He was not somebody that you might think would be A war hero. And yet, as Maiya mentioned, he won the military cross in 1916 and even garnered the nickname Mad Jack for his sort of manic acts of bravery in the early years of the [00:07:00] war. I think the contrast between the horrors of those first two years of the war that he experienced and his sort of incredibly comfortable hedonistic pre war years kind of functions as a symbol for how the war changed the world not only because people died But also because the kind of dreamlike states that people were in pre war could never be returned to afterwards. In terms of the war itself Maiya and I of course have discussed a lot of these key dates over the first two episodes and if you haven't checked out those episodes already I implore you to do so Sassoon is kind of the bridge between those two poets and not only in terms of his poetry Some of Sassoon's early war poetry was more similar to Rupert Brooks in the sense that it Expressed a more patriotic view of the war and kind of a sense of pride in fighting for your country But by the end of the war his poetry is the most satirical, the most biting in its criticism, particularly of the leadership back home, not actually about the horrors of the war itself as [00:08:00] much.

But he's also a literal bridge between these two figures. He met Rupert Brooke, and he met Wilfred Owen, and those two never actually met one another. He was also friends with the war poet and writer Robert Graves, and Sassoon is this kind of centerpiece. He's almost the kind of central figure around which these other poets orbit.

And that's why I think it's lovely to close off the series with him today. Now, Maiya, talking about the poetry itself, we are going to kick off by talking about one of Sassoon's most famous poems. And again, it's one of those late war poems that really sticks in the public's imagination what we now think about.

The horrors of war and it's Suicide in the Trenches. 

Maiya: . Well, for the benefit of listeners, I will do a reading of this poem, so they can really understand how it conveys the horrors of war.

Obviously, when you look at poems such as the ones published by Rupert Brooke, you're exploring a very patriotic, very positive view of war. This is one of these poems that, you know, aside from the title obviously immediately creating that image in your head, [00:09:00] Suicide in the Trenches, it just demonstrates a complete lack of honour and glory in fighting this war.

Of course, yes, lives were lost from the war itself, but here we explore the relationships between soldiers the horror that accompanies just enduring this. So for the benefit of listeners, this is how the poem goes. I knew a simple soldier boy who grinned at life in empty joy. Slept soundly through the lonesome dark and whistled early with the lark.

In winter trenches, cowed and glum, with crumps and lice and lack of rum, He put a bullet through his brain, no one spoke of him again. You smug faced crowds with kindling eye, who cheer when soldier lads march by. Sneak home and pray you'll never know. The hell where youth and laughter go. Now, Joe, I'd love to know your thoughts on this, But I really want to start by focusing on who [00:10:00] this criticism is aimed at.

Because that last stanza is absolutely telling, I think. 

Joe: well. 100 percent and I think this is something that for listeners who aren't familiar with Sassoon's work, they might be surprised to know that this is going to be a theme that runs through a lot of his poetry, is that he is turning his gaze not on the enemy, or the kind of traditionally assumed enemy across the trenches.

He is so often directing his anger, directing his fury home, at crowds, at people who prolong the war, at politicians, at military leadership. There is a really surprising lack of animosity towards the enemy, . He is much more interested in exposing what he believes to be the hypocrisy.

Of the leadership back home And this final stanza shows that really well. As you've said, you smug faced crowds with kindling eye. Well, the use of the direct address straight away creates a sense of, on the one hand, urgency and immediacy, but also universality, because he is, on the one hand, talking to one person in the crowd back home, and yes, of course, he is also talking to every person back home.

And he is laying the [00:11:00] blame at their door. He is saying, this man's death should be on your conscience. You drove him to do this. Now you might not have pulled the trigger and you might not have given him the gun yourself. But he is only at this war because you allow this war to continue. And if you had stopped it, this young man might still be alive. 

Maiya: I 

Couldn't agree more and I think what's really interesting here is that we have that direct contrast between the accusatory you. And the personal I. This opens with an I knew a simple soldier boy. This is not a poem that is generic in any sense. Sassoon, as the speaker, is telling you that he had a friend, a fellow soldier, who he personally witnessed go through this.

Now, of course, in many poems, when we talk about the speaker, it can be assumed in many senses that the speaker isn't the poet himself, but Sassoon goes on post war to write autobiographical poetry, so when we talk about Suicide in the Trenches, I think it is made that much more powerful by the fact that you can [00:12:00] understand that Sassoon In reality, is writing about something he viscerally experienced.

Joe: Definitely. And yeah, I think one of the things about it that I really admire is, even though as you've said, this is being drawn from personal experience, this is fairly autobiographical. What I find really powerful about it is how matter of fact it is, how dispassionate it is. For example, we look at the title, Suicide in the Trenches, which kind of, again slightly wrong foots the reader because what that title suggests to us is that the titular suicide is going to be our primary objective interest in this poem.

And yet the suicide itself is done in a single line. He put a bullet through his brain. There's no frills There's no adjectives. There's no Drawn out metaphors or symbols. There's nothing at all. It's a simple statement of fact followed by another line No one spoke of him again, and then it's done before that.

The boy is alive after that. He is dead There is no sense at all of lingering on the act itself Now partly the nobody spoke of him again thing is of course [00:13:00] an insinuation. That this is something that people ought to be embarrassed by or ashamed by. That suicide was associated with cowardice and all of the things that go with that association.

And yet it's also a reflection of the fact that these things were so normal. That this horrific suicide, this incredibly traumatic thing to witness or be aware of that was happening around you. doesn't even really land with any of these soldiers. They either can't or aren't willing to consider it, talk about it anymore.

To them it's simply another act, we need to move on tomorrow because somebody will die tomorrow and somebody will die the day after that. The dispassionate nature of the death actually serves to elevate its importance, because if the poem dedicated lines and lines to how miserable and sad everybody was about the suicide of this young man, That would perhaps imply that they weren't used to this kind of death, when of course these young men horrifically were exposed to this every day of their lives, virtually.

And I think the subtlety with which he's able to convey that message with so few words is one of the [00:14:00] things that makes this poem so powerful.

Maiya: Absolutely, and what this poem makes me think of is again, that comparison that so many of these poets bring up, which is the trench being hell itself, being a very physical manifestation of hell. Earlier in this mini series we talked about the poem Strange Meeting by Wilfred Owen, in which we have the narrative of a dead soldier who finds himself under the trenches speaking to the enemy. And again, you know, I used the word visceral before, but I do find that this poem just shakes you to your core.

There is this real sense of dread that accompanies it. And it's fascinating to me because, you know, a lot of the time when we talk about poems that have a rhyme scheme like this, where it's written in couplets, you know, boy, joy, dark, lark, you draw these words out and look at them alone, obviously, it's a very regular, paired poem. But, content just makes it so much more disturbing. But Joe, how do you think the rhyme scheme here aids that sense of discomfort? 

Joe: I 

Think it [00:15:00] speaks to that sense of finality that I mentioned earlier on. If we look at the suicide itself, and it's done in that single couplet.

The kind of nice, symmetry of that rhyming couplet serves to say well there's nothing more to say here I think what the couplet served to do is emphasize the fact that these soldiers were forced to continually compartmentalize, deal with something before they have to move on to the next thing.

There was no time to kind of contemplate their own feelings and ultimately. You know, the moment that Sassoon did get a chance to contemplate his feelings, because he was back in the UK in 1917, that's when he wrote a soldier's declaration that I read earlier on. The moment that he began to dwell on the horrors of war, he realized, or he became aware of the fact, or he believed that, the war was unjust.

Maiya: That is why I think it is so important that we bring up a soldier's declaration when we talk about Sassoon's poetry, Because I think it would be very easy to abstract some of his work, , but I think one of Sassoon's real strengths is that more often than not, he writes on behalf of the soldiers. I just want to bring up that line from a [00:16:00] soldier's declaration where he says, I am a soldier, convinced that I am acting on behalf of soldiers.

He uses others stories to really convey the horrors of the war. And one of the poems that I think also speaks to this, in a very similar way to Suicide in the Trenches, is a subaltern, which opens with the lines, He turned to me with his kind, sleepy gaze, and fresh face slowly brightening to the grin.

And this really beautiful descriptor of a fellow soldier, someone who he serves with potentially every day, being contrasted against the trenches which in this poem are Described as being full of squeaking rats across the slime the gray palsied weather Stamping and shivering in the rain. There is a real contrast between the freshness and the youth of these soldiers against the setting of the poem and I think I see this time and time again in Sassoon's poetry that The focus on the other, the subaltern, [00:17:00] the other soldier, really just brings out the depth and the dank nature of being in the trenches.

I absolutely think it's him at his best.

Joe: Yeah, it's an incredible poem. It really is. And I think there's so many layers to this that I'd just love to unpick a couple of them. So first of all, we get that, that completely anachronistic reference to cricket in that opening stanza, which feels so inappropriate.

It feels so divorced from the reality being described in the poem. And that's the point. I think Sassoon himself here is acknowledging that's a different life. That's a different world. A world that ultimately It's unlikely I will ever be able to return to and I don't just mean that in a literal sense Of course Sassoon was facing life and death every day There's every chance that you won't be able to go back because you'll be dead and yet I think what the hint here is That Sassoon knows there will be no return to that regardless of whether I live or die because that world simply does not exist anymore it's not to suggest that people stopped playing cricket after the war that obviously didn't happen, but that sense of [00:18:00] The cricket, the English countryside, the summer afternoon, the lazy way in which time was passed before the war is gone.

It cannot be reclaimed. I also want to quickly look at that second stanza because there's two lines in particular I'd like to talk about. Is that line, my stale philosophies had served him well. And I think what we have to remember here, of course, is that Sassoon himself was an officer.

A junior officer, yes, not one of the kind of high ranking military leadership that he criticized. And yet, to soldiers of lower rank than him, he was still their leader. He was still the person they looked up to. And I think there's this real feeling of guilt here this feeling that he feels complicit in passing on messages that he doesn't believe in That he is leading soldiers just as he himself is being led by people who he doesn't have faith in that stale philosophy That sense of regurgitating language that you know No longer has meaning so that word stale I think is a lovely way that he expresses his Growing disillusionment with the war, but [00:19:00] also he acknowledges that he has ownership of those as well There is a sense that he is reflecting on his own role in leading people to their death and then just to jump forward slightly once again He discusses this other soldier and he says dreaming about his girl had sent his brain blanker than ever she'd no place in hell And Maiya's nodding for listeners who obviously can't see her because I think she wants to talk about this as well and Again what you have here is the sense that the war is almost happening in a different universe a different plane a plane that people Who have not seen it can never enter the idea that once you've witnessed these horrors in the trenches, you can never escape them.

It's like an eternal punishment. Of course, hell is not somewhere you go for a weekend. Hell is somewhere where you are damned for eternity. Even when the war ends These constant references to hell from Sassoon and Owen as well suggest that they are aware of the fact that the war might end, in a sense, but the horrors will remain, and ultimately, they will be eternally damned to relive these [00:20:00] experiences, and those who haven't lived them, their wives, their partners, their friends, their siblings, their parents back home, will always be dislocated from them.

They'll never truly exist in the same world again.

Maiya: Joe's absolutely right. I think it's one of the most powerful lines in this poem that I think is very much overlooked you know, Joe's hit pretty much every point I wanted to talk about there. I also just wanted to kind of extrapolate it a little bit further because, When we talk about World War I, much of the propaganda that surrounded it was concerned with defense, you know, as we read in a soldier's declaration it was about liberty, it was about defense, however, one of the lines that always sticks with me is this one because, war propaganda, it was about returning home to your loved ones, it was about defending them, Your personal relationships were very much leveraged in order to make you want to go to war. However, here, as Joe says, by the time they return, they've endured such horrors, shell shock, PTSD, that they begin to exist very much [00:21:00] mentally on another plane. But I also want to talk about the fact that so many of these soldiers that signed up to fight had to do such barbaric acts that here, what we're talking about as well is the fact that this individual soldier doesn't believe that he has the right to go to heaven. He doesn't believe that the acts that he's done in his lifetime will justify that.

Upon his death, he won't even have the privilege of being reunited with his loved ones in the afterlife, because they haven't done the same things that he's done. He believes in the purity, the innocence of his girl back home. But even after death, he won't be able to be reunited with her.

And I think that, is one of the, you know, most depressing lines in this poem because, if anything, you know, you fight for love, you fight for the right to come home to your loved ones and here, You really get the sense of, being totally alone in this conflict, despite fighting alongside all your other soldiers.

Joe: I think that's a fascinating point, and it's just [00:22:00] something I'd like to pick up on and actually talk about a couple of other poems by Sassoon, because what you've struck upon there about the fact that basically he believes he no longer has the right to enter heaven, there's a sense of real sort of self loathing there, this idea that one doesn't deserve salvation, one doesn't deserve forgiveness, And I think, although of course Sassoon is giving those words to another soldier, I think there's undoubtedly those feelings in his poetry as well with regard to himself.

And I mentioned earlier on that a lot of Sassoon's poetry turns its attacks back home. It talks about the failings of the political class, it talks about the failings of the crowds of people that celebrate soldiers. And I'd just like to Touch upon a couple of moments. I think illustrate this point, but also illustrate perhaps a deeper sense of self loathing Now one of the poems I'd like to talk about is Glory of Women by Siegfried Sassoon, which is this Very odd poem in the sense that Its anger is [00:23:00] directed at the mother's partners girlfriends sisters of the soldiers back home Who sort of greets the returning soldiers and open arms and celebrate them which it which feels like an odd group to direct your anger at because they, you know, they were largely blameless.

And of course, women didn't have the vote at the time, so they're not responsible for the political leadership either., I'd just like to zoom in on a couple of lines in this poem there. So Sassoon writes, You worship decorations.

You believe that chivalry redeems the war's disgrace. And there's a really caustic tone there. What Sassoon is saying is that this belief that you have in the decency and the goodness of this war and our heroism is a lie. And it's a lie that you should have seen through by now. Now that might seem , a very caustic attack against these women back home.

And yet I want to just contrast that against some lines from A much earlier and less well known poem from Sassoon. This is a poem, Absolution, which was written in 1915. And it's really important to understand this because, as we mentioned earlier, Sassoon does change his attitudes, okay. [00:24:00] Brooke Remains steadfast in them and dies relatively early in the war.

Owen's poetry is kind of fairly cynical from the outset. Sassoon is the one who goes on this real journey. So keep those lines in your head, that line in particular when Sassoon says in Glory of Women, You worship decorations, you believe that chivalry redeems the war's disgrace. And just contrast those against these lines from Absolution, in which he writes, The anguish of the earth absolves our eyes till beauty shines in all that we can see So when he says in Glory of Women, how could you possibly believe this?

How could you ever believe this lie? Yes, he's talking about the women but he's also talking to himself Because he believed those same things he believed that the glory of war would absolve would forgive and I think to view the journey that he went on through those lines and to you it becomes possible to Regard almost every instance that's as soon [00:25:00] as criticizing people back home to actually be a criticism of his former self But I mean Maiya, what do you think about that?

Maiya: I think you're absolutely spot on, and it sits really well in contrast to Glory of Women. You know, I'm looking at the follow up line. You listen with delight, by tales of dirt and danger fondly thrilled. You have this real understanding that the way that the war is being communicated back home is not the day to day.

And I think that's one thing that any listener needs to remain kind of critically aware of, is that Is that there is this huge discrepancy between the way stories are being told. I do, however, want to touch on, in Glory of Women, you know, we said in the opening that he often doesn't focus on the enemy as such, or at least the enemy within the war. But here, the closing lines of Glory of Women go, Oh German mother dreaming by the fire.

While you are knitting socks to send your son, his face is trodden deeper in the mud. Now again, [00:26:00] the way this poem closes, it's not arrogant, it's not boastful, it is just stating facts. Sassoon is incredible at really just taking the most simple moment and making it the most devastating line in the poem. He immediately conjures an image, not of the adversary, not of the enemy, but of their mother.

Someone who is creating softness, knitting socks. You have this real sense of warmth and joy. Immediately contrasted against the fact that her son is most likely dead or dying. And that is just an absolutely, heartbreaking way to describe this conflict, you know. Again, I'm going to root back time and time again to a soldier's declaration that this war was pointless.

It was about occupation, not defense. And Sassoon never relents in this, in his later poems. He is so adamantly against this kind of senseless violence. , [00:27:00] Glory of Women is such an interesting one, because it's not often that we talk about the role of women in the war. And as Joe said, women didn't have a vote at this stage. Yes, they were working in munitions factories, but In terms of where blame lays, it's a really fascinating one to explore, because, you know, Joe and I were talking before the podcast, and we discussed the fact that Sassoon really just kind of hates everyone.

He really directs anger towards everyone in this war, because, again, it's, you know, no one person is to blame, it was the amalgamation of every single aspect of this war, culminating in, one of the greatest tragedies of their world at that stage. It is, you know, it's unrelenting.



Maiya: I think that's, that's the word I would always use. Now regular listeners will know that Maiya and I want to get around to every poem out there, but if you can't wait for us to eventually get to the poem that you want to understand, why not purchase the Poetry [00:28:00] 101 workbook available now at poemanalysis.com. Now this is available as an online digital version to our Poetry+ members, so you can sign up for a subscription.

Joe: for a PoetryPlus membership at poemanalysis.com now, but we are delighted to announce that it is also available as a published book. Now, this is the ultimate guide to understanding any poem. We take you through every single aspect of poetic form, meter, language techniques with examples, as well as worksheets for you to fill in.

So if you want to be able to understand any poem from scratch, why not purchase the Poetry 101 workbook available now at poemanalysis.com.



Joe: So just to pick up back in the end of 1917 which as Maiya mentioned earlier on is a really pivotal year for Sassoon as a poet and also for the war as a whole so a soldier's declaration had already been published and read out in the Houses of Parliament and Maiya mentioned that Sassoon was sent to Craiglockhart Hospital.

Now we spoke a lot in our previous episode on Wilfred Owen [00:29:00] because the two met there and Sassoon became an enormous influence. on Owen's work. The following year Sassoon did briefly return to the front lines, but he was shot in the head and had to return back to the UK. And as we mentioned on last episode, Wilfred Owen died just one week before the war's conclusion.

And the relationship between these two men is one of the things that I think really defines our perception of the war poets. This idea of this really close bond, united by circumstance, united by a love of language, but ultimately, of course, destined to end in tragedy and just to kind of give listeners a sense of how important these men were to one another Wilfred Owen wrote in a letter that Sassoon became and I quote Keats and Christ and Elijah to him this sense of how important Sassoon was as a friend but also as a poetic influence and a lot of those poems that we now know as iconic Wilfred Owen compositions would not have been [00:30:00] the same if Sassoon had not been an indirect and a direct influence as we're going to talk about in a moment.

I'd just like to read something Sassoon wrote about Wilfred Owen's death some years later when he reflected that Wilfred's death was an unhealed wound and the ache of it has been with me ever since. When we talk about poetry and we talk about artistic renderings And we talk about big ideas as Maiya and I often do on this podcast.

Sometimes we can lose sight of the human tragedy. These were two young men. Sassoon was 30 years old in 1917. Owen was in his early twenties. They were not meant to be thrown together in these circumstances, and yet they were, and the bonds that they forged in those awful months together really have stood the test of time, and I think it's important to pay tribute to that, and it also allows me to sort of jump into Sassoon and his enduring influence in the years after the war.

As Maiya mentioned, his criticism of the ruling establishment, and particularly the way they were conducting the war on a political level endured after the war itself. And so much of our modern [00:31:00] conception of war is shaped by the poems of, for example, Wilfred Owen.

Sassoon edited that collection, Owen's collection of poems, that was published in 1920. Not only did he edit them, he also wrote the preface to those poems. For any listeners out there who are wondering, you know, why are we dedicating a whole episode to Sassoon?

He's perhaps less famous than Brooke, he's certainly less famous than Owen. It's impossible to understand Owen, and it's impossible to really appreciate Brooke's early poetry without the influence of Sassoon, because his poetic journey kind of bridges the gap between those two men, but also his real life, very practical influence on the publication of Owen's poetry means that we owe him an enormous debt when it comes to remembering the First World War and its horrors.

Maiya: I think it is really important for listeners, to understand Sassoon's influence. And actually their influence on each other. One of the poems that I'm thinking about, you know, just off the back of what you were saying, is Counter Attack. Now, Much of Sassoon's poetry is short, it is written in a sonnet form or similar, but Counter Attack is one of [00:32:00] those that the length of it has always stood out to me.

And I think, if anything, I'd almost call it Owen esque. I think it is inspired by Owen's longer poems. Because, you know, of course, these two were working together, they were reviewing each other's work, they were editing. And I think you can see so much of Owen in Counter Attack.

I'm looking at kind of even small phrases such as blind with smoke, the jolly old rain. You have this sense that these two had an artistic relationship that absolutely cements the other in history. And I think I want to focus on Counter Attack really to kind of close up this episode, because again, it's a very matter of fact poem, it details the process of a counter attack, but most importantly, the final line of this poem ends with the death of a soldier that also constitutes the end of this battle. And it goes, Lost in a blurred confusion of yells and groans Down, and [00:33:00] down, he sank and drowned, bleeding to death, the counter attack had failed. Now, this is one of the most powerful ends to a poem that I've read in a long time. I think it really just cuts through that sense of glory, because again, we're talking about other soldiers here. We're not talking about Sassoon's personal experience. Again, he lived through this war. He had to live with the memory of all of this for so many more years.

And yet, the confusion, the uncertainty, the sense of finality in that death just reminds me of Owen's exposure again.

Joe: yeah, I think I can definitely see Owen's presence in this poem, that kind of ability to delve into sort of sordid detail, the emphasis on the soundscape. I mean, there's a really interesting use of alliteratives and sibilants in this poem that I think is sort of typical of Owen's work.

The thing I find really sort of impressive about it lies in that second stanza And the stanza begins a [00:34:00] yawning soldier knelt at the bank And straight away before we have anything else in that stanza the image of a yawning soldier feels at odds with our perception of the war, right? Because yawn implies, obviously, fatigue, which is perhaps in keeping, but it also suggests sort of a degree of boredom, almost.

And, you know, our perception of this war is rooted in its awful moments. But of course, when you live and die and fight and eat and sleep at the front, All manner of human experience is present. Sometimes you are bored. As crazy as it seems to us that anybody could be bored and not in perpetual terror.

When you live there, and that's your reality, there will be moments where you're simply yawning and he's sort of thinking about other things. If I could just read a few lines later, this stanza closes with the description that follows. He crouched and flinched, dizzy with galloping fear, sick for escape, loathing the strangled horror and butchered frantic gestures of the dead.

The juxtaposition between somebody who was [00:35:00] yawning and kneeling, was perhaps a bit tired or perhaps a bit bored, and the immersive, horrific description that follows at the end of that stanza. These are separated by literally five or six lines. The pace at which life changes, the pace at which somebody could go from something mundane and ordinary and recognisable to the average reader who hasn't experienced war, the act of yawning, to these kind of nightmarish descriptions, which again I think are fairly Owen esque, they're horrible, kind of surreal and sickening renderings of violence and death.

And then as Maiya's mentioned earlier, we go back to that dispassionate voice that closes the poem. The oscillation between, on the one hand, very matter of fact, very simple language, very direct declarations of circumstance, and these really dreamlike, nightmarish sequences captures something about the, Absurdity of war that the [00:36:00] mundane and the Nightmarish sort of coexist or existing such close tandem with one another

Maiya: I think what really adds to that as well is actually the sense of pace in this poem because at a first look, it seems to offer kind of end stop lines, very regular format. However, as you move through the poem and it's really the last stanza I want to focus on, you actually have the addition of caesura, and what this does is slow the poem down. Because the way I read it in my head, the speed is something that is constantly slowed down, then brought back up to speed, slowed down again.

And it goes, Bullets spat, and he remembered his rifle, rapid fire, and started blazing wildly. Then a bang crumpled and spun him sideways, knocked him out to grunt and wriggle none heeded him. He choked and fought the flapping veils of smothering gloom. I mean, even the way that you hear this read aloud, you get this real sense of mechanization.

[00:37:00] Originally, it begins with this slightly confusing action, it's very much slowed down, even the rapid fire, having either side of it, these pauses, gives a sense of uncertainty that the soldier that is in this war has no idea what they're doing, there's no sense of decision here, it's simply a knee jerk reaction, however the following lines just build on this pace, and I love the idea that, you know, Without even knowing the weaponry that's used, or the way in which war is conducted, Sassoon conveys so strongly that war can be these long stretches of waiting, and then sudden bursts of action, and then death. You have effectively a battle condensed into such a short stanza that ends with death. It immediately stops, and the way that he uses punctuation to demonstrate this in the poem is excellent. Absolutely fantastic.

Joe: it captures that thing I was talking about earlier on about the way that a lot of war Especially trench warfare that was sort of defines the first world war was this bizarre [00:38:00] contrast between nothing happening or things happening Kind of in an overwhelming fashion lots of the time at the front was spent Simply sitting in the trench looking over But when things were happening, they were utterly horrific and almost happened without warning I mean people were trying to tunnel under your trench and blow you up And you know, they're doing it because you're trying to do it to the enemy as well But you have no sense of the progress being made when you're in the trench.

You don't know if it's Five meters away. You don't know if it's five minutes away or whether it's not going to happen at all that contrast between the stillness at moments in this poem and the energy, the frenetic pace of other parts, I think, is really typified by that punctuation that you've mentioned and, you know, it would be remiss of me not to talk about that line, bullets spat.

I love that description from Sassoon because again, It comes back to that point I've been making about how He is constantly challenging not necessarily the enemy. This might seem like a poem That's more conventional about people are trying to shoot at us and we're trying to shoot at them and yet the bullets [00:39:00] spat Obviously the act of spitting is something that's incredibly rude incredibly disrespectful I think what he's suggesting there is the soldiers on both sides are being not only wounded and killed, but actually disrespected.

And not disrespected by one another, but disrespected by the people who commands them to continue firing those bullets. This idea that the soldiers are sort of scum, they're sort of lowlifes, that they deserve to be spat on, that they're derided. For me, this is another example of Sassoon actually saying, the person firing the gun at me may be my adversary today, but my real enemy is the person who commands me to shoot back at him.

Maiya: Yeah It's really interesting actually that you bring up the way the soldiers were portrayed because I think a poem like this stands in contrast to one such as The Soldierby Rupert Brooke that we talked about in our first episode in the soldier, he talks about being blessed by sons from home.

You know, you have this sense of brightness, and warmth, and glory. And all of those things kind of combine when we talk about the [00:40:00] soldiers because of the duality between the sun and the sons of war. But here in Counter Attack, I absolutely love this description of the break of dawn. Of course, in much poetry, the breaking of dawn signals new life. It signals the start of a new day. Here, Sassoon writes, Now, aside from this being just an excellent line, And impeccably written.

The way that the sun is portrayed here, the way that the start of the day is portrayed, is almost paralleling to the soldiers that are in the trenches. Pallid, unshaven, and thirsty, blind with smoke. Now of course, blind with smoke, we can assume this is a cloudy day. But there is absolutely no sense of warmth in this line.

Which is one of the things I find really quite disruptive. About this poem. The way [00:41:00] that, you know, I've already talked about the way that Sassoon plays with speed. But here, the way he plays with light and time, and really disrupts what you would expect to be a new day.

They gained their first objective hours before the dawn. And here, you almost build up to what should be. A moment of glory, a moment of togetherness. But dawn broke like a face. You immediately have the image of a soldier's face being split apart. And that is gruesome and gory and just contributes to the sense of dread in this poem, I think.

Joe: completely agree. And the ability to subvert the sun, which is, of course, ordinarily a symbol of regeneration, right? It's a new day and it's a day in which the sun is going to shine brightly again. And yet in this poem, it simply becomes. A microcosm of continuing fatigue, of decline. You know, the [00:42:00] soldier's face is, as Maiya says, exhausted, dirtied by smoke, unshaven.

This sense of deterioration and decline is in sharp contrast to the way that the sun is normally used in literature and film. You know, the sun is meant to be something fresh and new and invigorating and yet Sassoon takes all of those qualities away from it, which again is quite Owen esque in so far as it, it's kind of a reverse pathetic fallacy, you know, pathetic fallacy is a technique in which the weather or the environment reflects or predicts the events of a story or poem.

And yet in Owen's poetry and in this scene. It's actually the horrors of war. It's mankind's ability to destroy things that seem to have an effect on the natural world, that seem to rob nature of its beauty, its vitality, and its ability to be symbols of hope and regeneration.

So as we reflect on sort of the end of this episode and the end of our mini series on The Poets of the First World War, and first of all, you know, we hope listeners have really enjoyed this series. I'm sure some of the subject matter has been difficult at [00:43:00] times, we hope that we've given you A fresh perspective on some of the most important poets of the early 20th century.

And as always, if you have things you'd like us to discuss in future episodes, please do reach out to us We are always keen to hear your thoughts and questions. Maiya. As we reflect on the three poets we've mentioned and the conflict that's defined the poetry we've talked about over these three episodes What are the kind of key takeaways that you think you'd like to focus on 

do these poems and these poets continue to resonate in the modern world? 

Maiya: That is definitely a big question. I think one of the key takeaways is actually something we mentioned really right off the bat, which is so often art and poetry can reflect the mood of a nation, but it can also shape it. Every single poet we've talked about across the series has an incredible ability, even following, you know, their passing.

to really shape reality. And I think, obviously, of course, we love poetry and the [00:44:00] way that we talk about it, we personally believe it's powerful. But when we explore poets that are directly responding to a conflict such as this, and when we explore poets, such as Sassoon, such as Brooke, such as Owen, who were directly responding to a conflict that, you know, shaped the world at that time. It's absolutely critical that we pay attention to what they were saying. I think it's a lesson that we can apply even moving, you know, towards the future, to be perfectly honest. There are so many incredible poets writing now, about the state of the world, that have the power to change. And have the power to shape people's opinion. And, I think if anything, these poets really just stand as a testament to the power of art.

And the power that a single voice can have to speak on behalf of the many. 

And I think it also proves, you know, that poetry like this is timeless. [00:45:00] Of course, they were written at a specific moment, for a specific moment.. You know, we've encountered these poems multiple times throughout our lives. At school, for pure enjoyment, in the research for this episode, and I find something new every time. And I think the power that these poems have to shape even my individual person, even my mind, even my opinions on things, just show that if you can find art, if you can find poetry that speaks to you, you are able to take that with you and carry it with you.

And , that is what these poets have done for millions and millions of people across the world. The reason we think of war, as we do today, is in no small part thanks to these poets. So I think it's important to be grateful for their influence in so many ways.

But I'd love to know what you think.

Joe: Well that was really beautifully expressed and I completely agree and I think it's a reminder as you've said that art doesn't exist in a vacuum, art exists in response to and in dialogue with [00:46:00] the world in which it's created.

As we've mentioned lots of times, this war changes war in general. It changes the way the public perceive it. It changes the way that the political leadership go about embarking on it. It changes everything. You know, unfortunately, as we all know, this was not the end of war in the 20th century or indeed the 21st.

And the Second World War is a very different kind of conflict in the public's imagination. There is a much clearer sense, particularly in retrospect, of the fight against evil. But of course, there have been many other conflicts. You know, the Vietnam War, the Gulf Wars, you know, various civil wars that have plagued the 20th century and beyond. You know, I think it's impossible to conceive of a poet like the US poet Yusef Komunyakaa. Who's a, you know, for listeners who aren't aware, is a remarkable poet who was a soldier in the Vietnam War and some of his work, I think definitely demonstrates the influence of people like Owen and it doesn't always have to be direct influence.

I think that's the important thing to remember is that it's not simply that poets. Who fought in subsequent wars read Wilfred or anybody else and liked their poetry and [00:47:00] thought there are important themes in It's the fact that the messages from these poems have seeped into the public consciousness And that then informs the poets that come after them.

So there is both a direct and an indirect influence and I think You know reading a soldier's declaration in particular in preparation for this episode So many of those themes feel resonant, you know, in the world that we're living in and you know, the 21st century, I mean, a lot of those arguments would have been made, for example, around the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I think there are a great many people who might see the relationship between some of Sassoon's ideas and the war in Ukraine and various other conflicts around the world. So it's a reminder of the immediacy of the poetry, even though it was written more than a century ago.

Maiya: Well, that was a really lovely way to close up the end of our first mini series, Joe. And, of course, our first three episodes of Season 2.

Now, as you mentioned before, it would be amazing to hear your feedback. If you liked this miniseries, if you'd like to see us [00:48:00] do more miniseries, please do send us your feedback, your thoughts, your questions to beyondtheverse@poemanalysis.com. Now, next time, , we're going to be talking about someone we've mentioned on the podcast a few times, but never analyze the poem of, and that is Sylvia Plath and her poem. Daddy, I, for one, cannot wait for that, but for now it's goodbye from me.

Joe: And goodbye from me and the whole team at PoemAnalysis.com, and at Poetry+..