1Blythewood
I'm reading this excellent book - Muse of Fire: World War I as seen through the Eyes of its Soldier Poets, by Michael Korda. I was passingly familiar with the war poetry of Rupert Brooke, Robert Graves, Siegried Sassoon, and Wilfred Owen, but this book brought these stars to brighter life for me. There is also a fair bit in this book about Alan Sieger and Isaac Rosenberg, two poets of whom I knew nothing.
If one can get past Korda's seeming fascination with the sex lives of his subjects and the editorial lapses (several misspellings and factual missteps), this book makes a great addition to one's understanding of the Great War as it was seen by contemporaries. Striking for me was how palpably Korda traces the view of the war from the jingoistic patriotism of Brooke, to the noble resignation of Sieger and Rosenberg, to the disillusionment of Graves, finally to the bitterness of Sassoon and Owen.
I pray you will never know
The Hell where youth and laughter go.
If one can get past Korda's seeming fascination with the sex lives of his subjects and the editorial lapses (several misspellings and factual missteps), this book makes a great addition to one's understanding of the Great War as it was seen by contemporaries. Striking for me was how palpably Korda traces the view of the war from the jingoistic patriotism of Brooke, to the noble resignation of Sieger and Rosenberg, to the disillusionment of Graves, finally to the bitterness of Sassoon and Owen.
I pray you will never know
The Hell where youth and laughter go.
