Comments about Siegfried Sassoon
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PapooseLoose: "...the impassioned pigmy fist
Clenched cloudward and defiant;
The pride that would prevail, the doomed protagonist
Grappling the ghostly giant ..."
-Siegfried Sassoon
PublishersWkly: Soldiers Don't Go Mad, Charles Glass's account of the friendship between WWI poets Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon, is "an immersive look at the healing power of art and a forceful indictment of the inhumanity of war." PW's review:
war_poets: 28 March 1918 After describing a peaceful day exploring the countryside around the camp Siegfried Sassoon writes ‘But as I finish this someone comes into the tent with more ghastly news of the French battle.’
war_poets: 27 March 1916 Siegfried Sassoon writes ‘I shivered & turned chilly, & thought of safety & home & years that might be. And Tommie’s dead.’
war_poets: 27 March 1917 Siegfried Sassoon notes that he has seen the Spectator for March 17th in which Heinemann advertises his book as ‘ready shortly.’ He writes ‘Being about ten days behind the civilised world of London, I suppose I’m published by now!’
treego14: The trench network of WWI stretched 25,000 miles from the English Channel to Switzerland.The area was known as the Western Front. British poet Siegfried Sassoon wrote,“When all is done and said, the war was mainly a matter of holes and ditches.”Provided by
farrisqueer: he's ten years too young (and far too confident) to be siegfried sassoon, but, you know, he's siegfried sassoon.
FXMC1957: 1 September 1967. Siegfried Sassoon, died (aged 80). Decorated for bravery on the Western Front, he became one of the leading poets of the First World War. His poetry described the horrors of the trenches and satirised jingoism.
war_poets: 26 March 1918 Siegfried Sassoon writes of some of his fellow officers ‘Cairo; cocktails; war-shop; etc. Suffocating boredom of the forced intimacy of living with them.’
war_poets: 26 March 1917 Siegfried Sassoon spends the night in Amiens
war_poets: 25 March 1915 Siegfried Sassoon takes the opportunity to travel the 3 or 4 miles to Heilly on the Ancre ‘where we camped for 4 days in July last year’
mmgiovanelli: Looking forward to heading to Rennes in June as a keynote speaker at what looks like a fantastic conference. I’ll be in Atelier 13 (Société de stylistique et d'analyse des discours anglophones) talking about reconstruals of war in Siegfried Sassoon’s prose
war_poets: 25 March 1917 Siegfried Sassoon writes ‘After five weeks in France (and two with Second R.W.F.) I have not yet been within five miles of a German gun. Instead of getting nearer, the war has actually receded’
war_poets: 25 March 1916 Siegfried Sassoon writes in his diary ‘To-morrow I am off to do 6 days in the trenches.’
_rjardon: “In 1917 I was only beginning to learn that life, for the majority of the population, is an unlovely struggle against unfair odds, culminating in a cheap funeral.”
― Siegfried Sassoon, Memoirs of an Infantry Officer
Brushwolf: Not every game has to be Gunther Grass meets Siegfried Sassoon to chat about grayscale morality in war. I also think there IS a place for blowing off steam fighting capital E Evil in games. The devil. The arch lich. The inbred cannibal ogres. Undead especially.
war_poets: 24 March 1918 Siegfried Sassoon awakes feeling ‘”Blighty hunger”. First attack I’ve had.’
WendyESlater: 4 of 5 stars to The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon by Siegfried Sassoon
war_poets: 23 March 1918 Siegfried Sassoon’s Company moves 3 miles to a fresh camp.
war_poets: 22 March 1917 Siegfried Sassoon is sitting in a hospital ambulance in Amiens on his way back to camp near Corbie ‘I suppose one might just as well be sitting here as in a dug-out or that beastly camp.’
elinjjones: This is the most moving extract I have read in years - from Pat Barker’s Regeneration - a novel set in Craiglockhart military psychiatric hospital, where Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen met.
An exploration of how the traumas of war brutalised a generation of young men:
arealmofwonder: • Siegfried Sassoon •
thebrigantes: One the the early 20th centuries most controversial premieres, dubbed “too fabulous for fatheads” by Siegfried Sassoon and a “relentless cacophony” by the Guardian, was Edith Sitwell and William Walton’s ‘Facade’. Come hear what the fuss was about this Saturday at 4pm!
Columba_1: Siegfried Sassoon
BellFoundation: 6. Base Details by Siegfried Sassoon:
war_poets: 21 March 1917 Intending to spend the night in Amiens, Siegfried Sassoon writes ‘Life is reduced to a series of efforts to keep clean, warm, well-nourished and dry.’
war_poets: 20 March 1916 Siegfried Sassoon writes in memory of his friend David Thomas, killed two days earlier ‘For you were glad, and kind, and brave.
njer19683: I've read a lot of war writing, even World War I writing, the British war poetry of Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Graves's memoir 'Goodbye to All That,' and a civilian memoir, 'Testament of Youth,' by Vera Brittain.,George Packer,War, Goodbye, Writing ,
war_poets: 19 March 1916 Siegfried Sassoon on the death of David Thomas ‘they came afterward & told that my little Tommy had been hit by a stray bullet and died last night. … Today I know what it means to find the soul washed pure with tears, & the load of death was lifted from my heart.’
war_poets: 18 March 1916 Siegfried Sassoon’s friend David Thomas is killed
profmarkcollard: In journal club this week we discussed a paper by the English ethnographer and psychologist, WHR Rivers. His story is impressive. His grandfather and great-grandfather were on HMS Victory during the Battle of Trafalgar; he treated Siegfried Sassoon; and he inspired Malinowski.
BeineckeLibrary: My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
Poems by Wilfred Owen; with an introduction by Siegfried Sassoon.
London: Chatto & Windus, 1920
war_poets: 17 March 1916 Siegfried Sassoon writes ‘The Quartermaster’ in his diary
war_poets: 17 March 1918 Siegfried Sassoon’s battalion is in camp and he spends a few hours walking through the countryside ‘This place is not soul-less, not soul-deadening, like France.’
EponymousBreeze: The opening to a book I’m reading: "A Soldier's Declaration" by decorated British Army officer & poet Siegfried Loraine Sassoon (1886-1967). As someone who deployed over the span of a decade, his desire for clear purposes & protest against political errors resonates.
Make_New_Pieces: 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.
Siegfried Sassoon
CurtWedin: TRENCHES OF HELL (1999)
August 1916:
War! After fighting at Flanders, Indy is promoted to corporal and meets poets Robert Graves and Siegfried Sassoon. During the Somme offensive, Remy is wounded, and Indy is captured. Charles de Gaulle helps Indy escape from the German prison.
johntomsett: Siegfried Sassoon and March days like these...
war_poets: 16 March 1916 Siegfried Sassoon writes 'The sentry keeps his watch where no one stirs/But the brown rats, the nimble scavengers'
war_poets: 16 March 1918 Siegfried Sassoon writes ‘I should be very contented with life if it would stop raining. I have a strong feeling of escape. I have slipped away “from fields where glory does not stay”… Here I can start afresh'
britsymphcup: Walton’s Portsmouth Point (1925) was inspired by Rowlandson’s print depicting that part of the town. The overture is dedicated to Siegfried Sassoon. Premiered at ISCM Festival in Zürich in 1926. London premiere a week later with Eugene Goossens in interval of a Diaghilev ballet.
war_poets: 15 March 1918 Siegfried Sassoon and his company spend 7 hours road mending after a ‘silly speech’ from the Brigadier. ‘He addressed the Battalion, praising them for their recent exploits in chasing ‘Johnny Turk’ over the hills and far away’
war_poets: 15 March 1916 Siegfried Sassoon includes a sketch of the church and town roofs at Morlancourt.
Bertrom: In Memoriam acknowledges some of the period’s best-known sources. Ellwood is partly inspired by Siegfried Sassoon, for instance, while the ghosts of the young men Vera Brittain lost never feel far away.
war_poets: 13 March 1918 Siegfried Sassoon explores the area around Ramallah ‘what had seemed a cruel, desolate, unhappy region, was now full of a shy & lovely austerity.’
war_poets: 12 March 1918 Siegfried Sassoon arrives at Ramallah ‘Nothing grim about this front so far. France was grim, even at Rouen.’
war_poets: 12 March 1917 Siegfried Sassoon joins the Second Battalion, Royal Welch Fusiliers at Chipilly.
war_poets: 13 March 1916 Siegfried Sassoon writes ‘And after breakfast I sit halfway between the fire & the sunshine to read the Laureate’s Anthology sipping small doses of Shelley who always makes such effect when one reads him in small extracts.’
RandAlT21: 7: Benediction
Terence Davies uses the life of poet Siegfried Sassoon as a stand in for himself in his latest autobiographical film. A sad and complex portrait of a man looking for comfort from the traumas he can articulate but can never escape.
NYActorsTweetUp: As long as I can go on living a rich inner life,I have no cause for complaint, and I welcome anything which helps me to simplify my life, which seems to be more and more a process of eliminating inessentials! — Siegfried Sassoon
war_poets: 11 March 1917 Siegfried Sassoon has joined the 2nd RWF and writes ‘Everything seems conspiring to lower my spirits’
war_poets: 11 March 1918 Siegfried Sassoon reaches the railhead at Ludd, Egypt ‘Thousands of camels in one camp. A few Old Testament pictures, people & villages.’
garethstack: Trying to remember the name of a poem written about a day in the middle class British countryside right before the outbreak of the Great War. Any ideas?
Asked GPT, but it just made up the title of a bunch of pausible sounding imaginary Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon poems.
CharlesMGlass: And it’s been proved that soldiers don’t go mad
Unless they lose control of ugly thoughts
That drive them out to jabber among the trees.
Siegfried Sassoon, “Repression of War Experience,” 1917
war_poets: 10 March 1918 Siegfried Sassoon travels to Gaza – ’13 officers in a cattle truck.’
war_poets: 9 March 1918 Siegfried Sassoon notes that he will be going ‘up the line’ on the following day.
BeineckeLibrary: Photographs of Siegfried Sassoon, his family, and his associates
war_poets: 8 March 1916 Siegfried Sassoon writes 'A Subaltern'
war_poets: 8 March 1917 Siegfried Sassoon encloses a copy of ‘The Optimist’ in a letter to Robbie Ross.
war_poets: 8 March 1918 Siegfried Sassoon spends a day in Port Said and buys copies of Tolstoy’s War and Peace, Scott’s Antiquary and a pocket edition of Meredith’s poems. ‘Funny books to buy at Port Said of all places in the world!’
BeineckeLibrary: Siegfried Sassoon Correspondence
from William S. Reese Collection of Robert Graves
Includes "Escape" (poem), two drafts, with pen-and-ink illustrations
Images:
marissamutascio: As long as I can go on living a rich inner life,I have no cause for complaint, and I welcome anything which helps me to simplify my life, which seems to be more and more a process of eliminating inessentials! — Siegfried Sassoon
salehibrahiiim: siegfried sassoon
NeilvanderLind1: Via Sharida Mohamedjoesoef: First World War poet Siegfried Sassoon said the following about Passendale: “I died in hell. They called it Passchendaele.”
war_poets: 6 March 1917 Siegfried Sassoon writes ‘It was raining to-night. I went out about 10, leaving the bridge-playing officers in their smoky hut—oh such a dreary lot of people! The pine-trees stood up dark and peaceful, looming against the pale sky where the moon was hid by clouds.’
LouMorgan: Benediction might well be one of the saddest films I’ve ever seen - almost overwhelmingly so - but it’s also striking & theatrical. And Jack Lowden is nuanced and delicate and hauntingly, out-of-this-world good as Siegfried Sassoon. I’m so glad I (finally!) made time to watch it.
BeineckeLibrary: Siegfried Sassoon
photo from Ralph Hodgson papers
OGWBeard: Siegfried Sassoon's diary 4 March 1917.
"The whole business is so monstrously implacable to all human tenderness. We creep about like swarms of insects. And all the while there is the spectacle of Youth being murdered."
war_poets: 4 March 1918 In Egypt, Siegfried Sassoon is posted to the 25th RFW and moves to Yeomanry Base Camp ‘This place is the absolute risible expression of time wasted at the war.’
war_poets: 4 March 1917 Siegfried Sassoon writes ‘The whole business is so monstrously implacable to all human tenderness. We creep about like swarms of insects. And all the while there is the spectacle of Youth being murdered.’
andy_oler: I'm reading a draft from global modernisms in which the student reads a Siegfried Sassoon poem through Mbembe's Necropolitics, and I'm just so happy to see thoughtful analysis that builds on careful attention to detail
1dgrn: Same here, Siegfried Sassoon. Same here.
JordanPfot: I didn't realise Benediction, Terence Davies's Siegfried Sassoon movie, is on Netflix! It's one of the most underrated films of last year and contains much more malicious gay faggotry than you'd expect from a biopic of a war poet. Jack Lowden also very hot. Watch it!
thehistoryguy: "O Christ, I want to go out
And screech at them to stop - I'm going crazy;
I'm going stark, staring mad because of the guns."
Siegfried Sassoon
war_poets: 2 March 1918 Siegfried Sassoon arrives at Base Camp in Kantara and meets an Irish officer who knew Francis Ledwidge who ‘“could imitate birds & call them to him.” A tiny glimpse of “real life” in this arid waste of officer mentality.’
LucyStag: The Chumbawamba cover of. "Hanging on the Old Barbwire" slaps. Siegfried Sassoon would approve.
war_poets: 28 February 1917 Siegfried Sassoon writes the poem ‘The Lift’ in his diary. See it here
war_poets: 28 February 1918 Siegfried Sassoon arrives in Alexandria after 3 days voyage and notes in his diary ‘Good-bye to amiable efforts at nature poems. If I write I’ll write tense and bitter, and proud and pitiful.’
BlogTolkien: There's comparison to melancholic poem of Siegfried Sassoon, whose finest works were written in the trenches of WW1:
"You smug-faced crowds with kindling eyes
Who cheer when soldiers lad walk by,
Sneak home and pray you'll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go." 5/10
BlogTolkien: Despite being a decorated hero, Siegfried Sassoon ended up decrying the horrors of war and satirized the patriotic pretensions of those who, in his view, were responsible for a jingoism-fueled war; going so far as throwing the ribbon of his Military Cross into River Mersey. 6/10
war_poets: 27 February 1915 Siegfried Sassoon sends two poems – ‘Wisdom’ and ‘Storm and Rhapsody’ to Eddie Marsh.
pressgazette: “In December I was reporting from a muddy trench and I felt like I was reporting the Battle of the Somme in World War One, I was thinking about Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen and all those poets of World War One..."
MulberryCoates: In a completely different vein, but also on Netflix: Terence Davies’ Benediction - fascinating character study of Siegfried Sassoon, and recommended for anyone who needs more Jack Lowden after seeing The Gold
war_poets: 26 February 1918 Siegfried Sassoon reveals that he has ‘felt so d---d ill since coming on board.’
LeDocteurNeuf: Perhaps this means I've convalesced enough and am ready for a train to a city- but I still don't fancy it. The oilies sparking cans. Prosecco Princesses screeching. Coughing like Siegfried Sassoon. The tiny, dismal toilets. The criminal prices.
war_poets: 24 February 1917 Siegfried Sassoon writes ‘To-night returning from my twilight walk, among the glooming pines with the young thin moon and a few stars overhead, suddenly I felt an intense craving for simplicity; or even for stupidity.’
war_poets: 24 February 1918 Siegfried Sassoon is on board the liner ‘Kashgar’ in Taranto Gulf. Most of this diary entry is crossed out with the comment ‘Tosh & rot! Feeling ill’
IanMaurice1948: Attack
BY SIEGFRIED SASSOON
At dawn the ridge emerges massed and dun
In the wild purple of the glow'ring sun,
Smouldering through spouts of drifting smoke that shroud
The menacing scarred slope; and, one by one,
Tanks creep and topple forward to the wire.
war_poets: 23 February 1916 Siegfried Sassoon returns to England on leave noting in his diary ‘14 weeks in France’.
war_poets: 23 February 1917 Siegfried Sassoon finds a moment of peace in Rouen ‘it is good to think of spring being near.’
Felix_Randall: Does it Matter? by Siegfried Sassoon extract -
A Briton’s lament on all Brexit has cost:
Does it matter?—losing your sight?...
There’s such splendid work for the blind;
And people will always be kind,
As you sit on the terrace remembering
And turning your face to the light
war_poets: 22 February 1916 Siegfried Sassoon writes ‘On going up with rations tonight I found a great noise of gunfire; coming over the hill from Bray to Citadel the darkness toward Albert & Fricourt was lit with flashes & glare of shells bursting & guns firing’
war_poets: 22 February 1917 Siegfried Sassoon is enduring his fifth night in the No. 25 Stationary Hospital in Rouen and writes ‘the weeks before me seem horrible & agonizing.’
war_poets: 22 February 1918 Finally arrived in Taranto Siegfried Sassoon writes that he will always remember this journey whenever he hears ‘an utterly absurd song which everyone sings, hums, whistles and shouts always “Good bye-ee” etc.’
war_poets: 21 February 1918 Siegfried Sassoon reaches Brindisi and showers in the ablution sheds ‘among fig-trees, vine-pergola & almond blossom, with a group of umbrella pines at one end.’ He also includes ‘Dawn near Brindisi’ in his notebook, later crossed through.
Steven_Woolfe: Siegfried Sassoon one of my favourite poets
"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 lice & lack of rum
put a bullet through his brain"
isidro_li: Siegfried Sassoon
war_poets: 20 February 1918 Siegfried Sassoon includes ‘The Journey’ in his notebook, subsequently crossed through.
Chris_Bounds: 4 of 5 stars to Siegfried Sassoon by Jean Moorcroft Wilson
DebFisher4: Siegfried Sassoon Fellowship: Book Review: Forgotten Heroes - Rediscovered for t...
