Who is Edmund Blunden

Edmund Charles Blunden (1 November 1896 – 20 January 1974) was an English poet, author, and critic. Like his friend Siegfried Sassoon, he wrote of his experiences in World War I in both verse and prose. For most of his career, Blunden was also a reviewer for English publications and an academic in Tokyo and later Hong Kong. He ended his career as Professor of Poetry at the University of Oxford. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature six times.

Early years

Born in London, Blunden was the eldest of the nine children of Charles Edmund Blunden (1871–1951) and his wife, Georgina Margaret née Tyler, who were joint-headteachers of Yalding school. Blunden was educated at Christ's Hospital and The Queen's College, Oxford.

World War I

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Edmund Blunden Poems

  • Premature Rejoicing
    What's that over there?
    Thiepval Wood.

    ...
  • The Giant Puff-ball
    From what sad star I know not, but I found
    Myself new-born below the coppice rail,
    No bigger than the dewdrops and as round,
    In a soft sward, no cattle might assail. ...
  • First Rhymes
    In the meadow by the mill
    I'd make my ballad,
    Tunes to that would whistle shrill
    And beat the blackbird's ringing bill.â?? ...
  • Almswomen
    At Quincey's moat the squandering village ends,
    And there in the almshouse dwell the dearest friends
    Of all the village, two old dames that cling
    As close as any trueloves in the spring. ...
  • April Byeway
    Friend whom I never saw, yet dearest friend,
    Be with me travelling on the byeway now
    In April's month and mood: our steps shall bend
    By the shut smithy with its penthouse brow ...
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Top 10 most used topics by Edmund Blunden

Death 8 Light 7 Never 6 Bright 6 Earth 6 Long 6 Green 6 Church 5 Poor 5 Away 5


Edmund Blunden Quotes

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Comments about Edmund Blunden

Welfordwrites: edmund blunden, a 20th century british poet.
War_poets: 1 march 1942 keith douglas writes to edmund blunden describing how he accidentally killed an arab in cairo who ran out from behind a lorry into the truck douglas was driving.
War_poets: 22 february 1918 edmund blunden departs for the uk for six months rest.
War_poets: 14 february 1918 edmund blunden is temporarily appointed battalion adjutant.
War_poets: 3 february 1917 edmund blunden reports ‘quiet on our front today, but a great deal of shelling heard on n. of salient. enemy plane albatross type flew to and fro 200 yards up, over our front lines. our men fired frequently on it without result.’
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Poem of the day

Ernest Dowson Poem
The Sea-Change
 by Ernest Dowson

Where river and ocean meet in a great tempestuous
frown,
Beyond the bar, where on the dunes the white-
capped rollers break;
Above, one windmill stands forlorn on the arid,
grassy down:
I will set my sail on a stormy day and cross the
bar and seek
...

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