Siegfried Sassoon: Making of a War Poet v.1: A Biography: Making of a War Poet Vol 1

by JeanMoorcroftWilson (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  1998

  $11.79

  The first of two volumes, this biography of Siegfried Sassoon covers his life up to the end of World War I. A descendant from a dynasty of merchant princes and a line of famous artists, he was a Jew turned Catholic, a husband and father who enjoyed close relationships with members of his own sex (Stephen Tennant among others). Celebrated as the author of some of the most moving war poems and of the Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man , Sassoon's inner feelings have nonetheless remained imprisoned in his diaries, only a proportion of which it has been deemed appropriate to publish thus far. With Wilfred Owen and Robert Graves, Sassoon struggled with his sexuality, a story he wanted to capture himself to bridge the raging (or lethargic) river of intolerance which divides creatures of my temperament from a free and unsecretive existence among their fellow men . Prevented from doing so by the law, however, he died in 1967, the year in which homosexuality was legalised. This biography is the result of seven years of research. In this first volume the author traces Sassoon's life as one of the Gilded Youth of the Great War generation and the first modern figure of the 20th century. A friend to everyone worth knowing, ranging from the Sitwells to Sir Winston Churchill, Sassoon was forced to come to terms with the banality of a war, at the same time as dealing with changes in his own identity.

• Used

  Paperback
  1999

  $4.38

  Celebrated as the author of some of the most moving war poems and of the Memoirs of a Fox Hunting Man , Sassoon's inner feelings have nonetheless remained imprisoned in his diaries. Using many of his private letters and papers, this first volume of Sassoon's biography traces his life as one of the Gilded Youth of the Great War generation and the first modern figure of our century.

• Used

  Hardcover
  2003

  $3.24

  Where most veterans of the Great War returned home traumatised by the carnage in the trenches, Siegfried Sassoon had received recognition for his superbly vivid poetry and the bravery both on the battle field and back home. In rapid succession, he had numerous homosexual affairs: none of them ultimately satisfying. Yet he also started on his great trilogy of anti-hero novels, Memoirs of a Fox Hunting Man , Memoirs of an Infantry Officer and Sherston's Progress . This volume of Sassoon's biography continues to show how a homosexual poet came to define heroism not only during the war, but even more so after the war.