Siegfried Sassoon

Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967). Photo by George Charles Beresford (1874-1938), 1915. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Siegfried Sassoon
Born	September 8 1886(1886-Template:MONTHNUMBER-08) Matfield, Kent, England
Died	September 1 1967(1967-Template:MONTHNUMBER-01) (aged 80) Heytesbury, Wiltshire
Occupation	Poet, Diarist, Memoirist
Nationality	British
Period	Early 20th century
Genres	Poetry, Fiction, Biography
Notable work(s)	Complete Memoirs of George Sherston
Influences E.M. Forster, Henry Vaughan
Influenced Wilfred Owen, Edmund Blunden, Robert Graves]
Signature	File:Siegfried Sassoon signature.svg

Siegfried Loraine Sassoon CBE MC (8 September 1886 – 1 September 1967) was an English poet and prose author, and a soldier in the First World War.

Life

Overview

Decorated for bravery on the Western Front, Sassoon became a leading war poet. His poetry both described the horrors of the trenches, and satirised the patriotic pretensions of those who, in Sassoon's view, were responsible for a pointless war. He later won acclaim for his prose work, notably his 3-volume fictionalised autobiography, collectively known as the "Sherston Trilogy".

Family

Sassoon was born and grew up in the neo-gothic mansion "Weirleigh", in Matfield, Kent, to a Jewish father and an Anglo-Catholic mother. His father, Alfred Ezra Sassoon (1861–1895), son of Sassoon David Sassoon, was a member of the wealthy Baghdadi Sephardic Jewish Sassoon merchant family. For marrying outside the faith, he was disinherited. His mother, Theresa, belonged to the Thornycroft family, sculptors responsible for many of the best-known statues in London — her brother was Sir Hamo Thornycroft. There was no German ancestry in Siegfried's family; his mother named him Siegfried because of her love of Richard Wagner's operas. His middle name, Loraine, was the surname of a clergyman with whom she was friendly.

Youth and education

Seigfried was the 2nd of 3 sons, the others being Michael and Hamo. When he was 4 years old his parents separated. During his father's weekly visits to the boys, Theresa locked herself in the drawing room. In 1895 Alfred Sassoon died of tuberculosis.

Sassoon was educated at The New Beacon Preparatory School, Sevenoaks, Kent; at Marlborough College, Marlborough, Wiltshire (where he was a member of Cotton House).

He then went to Clare College, Cambridge, where from 1905 to 1907 he read history. He went down from Cambridge without a degree.

He spent the next few years hunting, playing cricket, and writing verse: some he published privately. Since his father had been disinherited from the Sassoon fortune for marrying a non-Jew, Siegfried had only a small private fortune that allowed him to live modestly without having to earn a living (however, he would later be left a generous legacy by an aunt, Rachel Beer, allowing him to buy the great estate of Heytesbury House in Wiltshire).

His earliest published success, The Daffodil Murderer (1913), was a parody of John Masefielld's The Everlasting Mercy. Robert Graves, in Goodbye to All That describes it as a "parody of Masefield which, midway through, had forgotten to be a parody and turned into rather good Masefield."

Sassoon expressed his opinions on the political situation before the onset of the war—"France was a lady, Russia was a bear, and performing in the county cricket team was much more important than either of them". Sassoon wanted to play for Kent County Cricket Club; Kent Captain Frank Marchant was a neighbour of Sassoon. Siegfried often turned out for Bluehouses at the Nevill Ground, where he sometimes played alongside Arthur Conan Doyle. He also played cricket for his house at Marlborough College, once taking 7 wickets for 18 runs. Although an enthusiast, Sassoon was not good enough to play for Kent, but he played cricket for Matfield, and later for the Downside Abbey team, continuing into his 70s.

War service

Motivated by patriotism, Sassoon joined the British Army just as the threat of World War I was realised, and was in service with the Sussex Yeomanry on the day the United Kingdom declared war (4 August 1914). He broke his arm badly in a riding accident and was put out of action before even leaving England, spending the spring of 1915 convalescing. At around this time his younger brother Hamo was killed in the Gallipoli Campaign. (Rupert Brooke, whom Siegfried had briefly met, died on the way there.) Hamo's death hit Siegfried very hard.

He was commissioned into 3rd Battalion (Special Reserve), Royal Welch Fusiliers as a 2nd lieutenant on 29 May 1915, and in November was sent to the 1st Battalion in France. There he met Robert Graves and they became close friends. United by their poetic vocation, they often read and discussed each other's work. Though this did not have much perceptible influence on Graves's poetry, his views on what may be called 'gritty realism' profoundly affected Sassoon's concept of what constituted poetry. He soon became horrified by the realities of war, and the tone of his writing changed completely: where his early poems exhibit a Romantic, dilettantish sweetness, his war poetry moves to an increasingly discordant music, intended to convey the ugly truths of the trenches to an audience hitherto lulled by patriotic propaganda. Details such as rotting corpses, mangled limbs, filth, cowardice and suicide are all trademarks of his work at this time, and this philosophy of 'no truth unfitting' had a significant effect on the movement towards Modernist poetry.

Sassoon's periods of duty on the Western Front were marked by exceptionally brave actions, including the single-handed, but vainglorious, capture of a German trench in the Hindenburg Line. Armed with grenades he scattered 60 German soldiers::

He went over with bombs in daylight, under covering fire from a couple of rifles, and scared away the occupants. A pointless feat, since instead of signalling for reinforcements, he sat down in the German trench and began reading a book of poems which he had brought with him. When he went back he did not even report. Colonel Stockwell, then in command, raged at him. The attack on Mametz wood had been delayed for two hours because British patrols were still reported to be out. 'British patrols' were Siegfried and his book of poems. 'I'd have got you a D.S.O., if you'd only shown more sense,' stormed Stockwell.

Sassoon's bravery was so inspiring that soldiers of his company said that they felt confident only when they were accompanied by him. He often went out on night-raids and bombing patrols and demonstrated ruthless efficiency as a company commander. Deepening depression at the horror and misery the soldiers were forced to endure produced in Sassoon a paradoxically manic courage, and he was nicknamed "Mad Jack" by his men for his near-suicidal exploits. On 27 July 1916 he was awarded the Military Cross; the citation read:

2nd Lt. Siegfried Lorraine [sic] Sassoon, 3rd (attd. 1st) Bn., R. W. Fus.

For conspicuous gallantry during a raid on the enemy's trenches. He remained for 1½ hours under rifle and bomb fire collecting and bringing in our wounded. Owing to his courage and determination all the killed and wounded were brought in.

Robert Graves described Sassoon as engaging in suicidal feats of bravery. Sassoon was also later (unsuccessfully) recommended for the Victoria Cross.

Despite his decoration and reputation, he decided in 1917 to make a stand against the conduct of the war. One of the reasons for his violent anti-war feeling was the death of his friend, David Cuthbert Thomas (called "Dick Tiltwood" in the Sherston trilogy). He would spend years trying to overcome his grief.

At the end of a spell of convalescent leave, Sassoon declined to return to duty; instead, encouraged by pacifist friends such as Bertrand Russell and Lady Ottoline Morrell, he sent a letter to his commanding officer, titled Finished with the War: A Soldier’s Declaration. Forwarded to the press and read out in Parliament by a sympathetic MP, the letter was seen by some as treasonous ("I am making this statement as an act of wilful defiance of military authority") or at best condemnatory of the war government's motives ("I believe that the war upon which I entered as a war of defence and liberation has now become a war of aggression and conquest").

Rather than court-martial Sassoon, the Under-Secretary of State for War, Ian Macpherson decided that he was unfit for service and had him sent to Craiglockhart War Hospital near Edinburgh, where he was officially treated for neurasthenia ("shell shock"). Before declining to return to active service he had thrown the ribbon from his Military Cross into the river Mersey. W.H.R. Rivers, the psychiatrist responsible for Sassoon's treatment, became a kind of surrogate father to the troubled young man, and his sudden death in 1922 was a major blow to Sassoon.

At Craiglockhart, Sassoon met Wilfred Owen, a fellow poet who would eventually exceed him in fame. It was thanks to Sassoon that Owen persevered in his ambition to write better poetry. A manuscript copy of Owen's Anthem for Doomed Youth containing Sassoon's handwritten amendments survives as testimony to the extent of his influence and is currently on display at London's Imperial War Museum. To all intents and purposes, Sassoon became to Owen "Keats and Christ and Elijah"; surviving documents demonstrate clearly the depth of Owen's love and admiration for him. Both men returned to active service in France, but Owen was killed in 1918. Sassoon, despite all this, was promoted to lieutenant, and having spent some time out of danger in Palestine, eventually returned to the Front.

On 13 July 1918, Sassoon was almost immediately wounded again—by friendly fire after he was shot in the head by a fellow British soldier who had mistaken him for a German near Arras, France. As a result, he spent the remainder of the war in Britain. By this time he had been promoted acting captain. He relinquished his commission on health grounds on 12 March 1919, but was allowed to retain the rank of captain. After the war, Sassoon was instrumental in bringing Owen's work to the attention of a wider audience. Their friendship is the subject of Stephen MacDonald's play, Not About Heroes.

Post-war

Postwar Sassoon lived for a period at Oxford, where he spent more time visiting literary friends than studying. While at Oxford he was introduced to the young William Walton, whose friend and patron he became. Walton later dedicated his Portsmouth Point overture to Sassoon in recognition of his financial assistance and moral support.

The war had brought Sassoon into contact with men from less advantaged backgrounds, and he dabbled briefly in the politics of the Labour movement. In 1919 he took up a post as literary editor of the socialist Daily Herald. During his period at the Herald, Sassoon was responsible for employing several eminent names as reviewers, including E.M. Forster and Charlotte Mew, and commissioned original material from "names" like Arnold Bennett and Osbert Sitwell. His artistic interests extended to music.

Sassoon later embarked on a lecture tour of the United States, as well as travelling in Europe and throughout Britain. He acquired a car, a gift from the publisher Frankie Schuster, and became renowned among his friends for his lack of driving skill, but this did not prevent him making full use of the mobility it gave him.

Meanwhile, he was beginning to express his homosexuality more openly, embarking on an affair with artist Gabriel Atkin, to whom he had been introduced by mutual friends. During his U.S. tour, he met a young actor who treated him callously. Nevertheless, he was adored by female audiences, including at Vassar College.(Citation needed)Template:Dubious

Sassoon was a great admirer of Welsh poet Henry Vaughan. On a visit to Wales in 1923, he paid a pilgrimage to Vaughan's grave at Llansanffraid, Powys, and there wrote one of his best-known peacetime poems, At the Grave of Henry Vaughan. The deaths of three of his closest friends, Edmund Gosse, Thomas Hardy and Frankie Schuster (the publisher), within a short space of time, came as another serious setback to his personal happiness.

At the same time, Sassoon was preparing to take a new direction. While in America, he had experimented with a novel. In 1928, he branched out into prose, with Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man, the anonymously-published 1st volume of a fictionalised autobiography, which was almost immediately accepted as a classic, bringing its author new fame as a humorous writer. Sassoon followed it with Memoirs of an Infantry Officer (1930) and Sherston's Progress (1936). In later years, he revisited his youth and early manhood with 3 volumes of genuine autobiography, which were also widely acclaimed. These were The Old Century, The Weald of Youth and Siegfried's Journey.

File:SiegfriedSassoonGraveMells(GrahamAllard)May2006.jpg

Siegfried Sassoon's gravestone in Mells churchyard

Sassoon, having matured greatly as a result of his military service, continued to seek emotional fulfilment, initially in a succession of love affairs with men, including actor Ivor Novello; Novello's former lover, actor Glen Byam Shaw; German aristocrat Prince Philipp of Hesse; writer Beverley Nichols; and an effete aristocrat, Hon. Stephen Tennant. Only the last of these made a permanent impression, though Shaw remained his close friend throughout his life.

In September 1931, Sassoon rented and began to live at Fitz House, Teffont Magna, Wiltshire. In December 1933, to many people's surprise, he married Hester Gatty, who was many years his junior; this led to the birth of a child, something which he had long craved. This child, their only child, George (1936-2006) became a scientist, linguist and author, and was adored by Siegfried, who wrote several poems addressed to him. However, the marriage broke down after World War II, Sassoon apparently unable to find a compromise between the solitude he enjoyed and the companionship he craved.

Separated from his wife in 1945, Sassoon lived in seclusion at Heytesbury in Wiltshire, although he maintained contact with a circle which included E.M. Forster and J.R. Ackerley. A close friends was young cricketer Dennis Silk. He formed a close friendship with Vivien Hancock, headmistress of Greenways School at Ashton Gifford, which his son George attended. The relationship provoked Hester to make some strong accusations against Vivien Hancock, who responded with the threat of legal action.

Towards the end of his life, Sasoon converted to Roman Catholicism, and was admitted to the faith at Downside Abbey, close to his home. He also paid regular visits to the nuns at Stanbrook Abbey, and the abbey press printed commemorative editions of some of his poems. During this time he also became interested in the supernatural, and joined the Ghost Club.

Sassoon died a week before his 81st birthday, of stomach cancer, and is buried at St Andrew's Church, Mells, Somerset, close to Ronald Knox, a Roman Catholic priest and writer whom he admired.

Sassoon's only child, George Sassoon, died of cancer in 2006. George had 3 children, 2 of whom were killed in a car crash in 1996. His daughter by his 1st marriage, Kendall Sassoon, has 2 children of her own with her boyfriend, Stewart Reeves. They are Oliver Thornycroft Reeves-Sassoon and Logan Thea Reeves-Sassoon. Kendall is Patron-in-Chief of the Siegfried Sassoon Fellowship, and a Lady Associate Royal Welch Fusilier.

Recognition

Sassoon's novel, Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man, won the 1928 James Tait Black Award for fiction.

Sassoon was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1951 New Year Honours.

On 11 November 1985, Sassoon was among 16 Great War poets commemorated on a slate stone unveiled in Westminster Abbey's Poet's Corner. The inscription on the stone was written by friend and fellow War poet Wilfred Owen. It reads: "My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity."

In May 2007 Sassoon's Military Cross was put up for sale by his family. It was bought by the Royal Welch Fusiliers for display at their museum in Caernarfon.

Cambridge archives

In June 2009, the University of Cambridge announced plans to purchase a valuable archive of Sassoon's papers from his family. The intention was to add these to the university library's existing Sassoon collection. On 4 November 2009 it was reported that this purchase would be supported by £550,000 from the National Heritage Memorial Fund, meaning that the University still needed to raise a further £110,000 on top of the money already received in order to meet the full £1.25 million asking price. The funds were successfully raised, and in December 2009 it was announced that the University had received the papers. Included in the collection are war diaries kept by Sassoon while he served on the Western Front and in Palestine, a draft of "A Soldier’s Declaration" (1917), notebooks from his schooldays, and post-war journals. Other items in the collection include love letters to his wife Hester, and photographs and letters from other writers. Sassoon was an undergraduate at the university, as well as being made an honorary fellow of Clare College, and the collection will be housed at the Cambridge University Library. As well as private individuals, funding came from the Monument Trust, the JP Getty Jr Trust, and Sir Siegmund Warburg's Voluntary Settlement.

In 2010, Dream Voices: Siegfried Sassoon, Memory and War, a major exhibition of Sassoon's life and archive, was held at Cambridge University.

In popular culture

Several of Sassoon's poems have been set to music, some during his lifetime, notably by Cyril Rootham.

The novel Regeneration, by Pat Barker, is a fictionalized account of Sassoon's hospitalization, and was made into a film starring James Wilby as Sassoon and Jonathan Pryce as W.H.R. Rivers, the psychiatrist responsible for Sassoon's treatment.

Publications

Poetry

Anonymous or pseudonymous

• Poems. privately printed, 1906.
• Orpheus in Diloeryium. J.E. Francis, 1908.
• Sonnets. privately printed, 1909.
• Sonnets and Verses. privately printed, 1909.
• Melodies. privately printed, 1912.
• The Daffodil Murderer, being the Chantrey Prize Poem (as "Saul Kain"). John Richmond, 1913.
• Morning Glory. privately printed, 1916.
• Poems (as "Pinchbeck Lyre"). Duckworth, 1931.
• An Adjustment (as "S.S."; foreword by Philip Gosse). Golden Head Press, 1955.

as Siegfried Sassoon

• Twelve Sonnets. privately printed, 1911.
• Poems. privately printed, 1911.
• An Ode for Music. privately printed, 1912.
• Hyacinth: An idyll. privately printed, 1912.
• Amyntas. privately printed, 1913.
• Discoveries. privately printed, 1915.
• The Redeemer. W. Heffer, 1916.
• To Any Dead Officer. Severs, 1917.
• The Old Huntsman, and other poems. London: Heinemann, 1917; New York: Dutton, 1918.
• Counter-Attack, and other poems (introduction by Robert Nichols). New York: Dutton, 1918.
• Four Poems. Severs, 1918.
• The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon. London: Heinemann, 1919.
• Picture Show. privately printed, 1919; New York: Dutton, 1920.
  • enlarged edition. New York: Dutton, 1920.
• Recreations. privately printed, 1923.
• Lingual Exercises for Advanced Vocabularians. privately printed, 1925.
• Selected Poems. London: Heinemann, 1925.
• Satirical Poems. New York: Viking, 1926
  • enlarged edition. London: Heinemann, 1933.
• Siegfried Sassoon. London: Benn, 1926.
• Nativity (designs by Paul Nash). Rudge, 1927.
• The Heart's Journey. Crosby Gaige, 1927.
• To My Mother (illustrated by Stephen Tennant). London: Faber & Gwyer, 1928.
• On Chatterton: A Sonnet. privately printed, 1930.
• In Sicily (illustrations by Stephen Tennant).London: Faber, 1930.
• To the Red Rose (illustrated by Stephen Tennant). London: Faber, 1931.
• Prehistoric Burials (illustrated by Witold Gordon). New York: Knopf, 1932.
• The Road to Ruin. London: Faber, 1933.
• Vigils. Douglas Cleverdon, 1934
  • enlarged edition. London: Heinemann, 1935; New York: Viking, 1936.
• Rhymed Ruminations. Chiswick Press, 1939
  • enlarged edition. London: Faber, 1940; New York: Viking, 1941.
• Poems Newly Selected, 1916-1935. London: Faber, 1940.
• Early Morning Long Ago. Chiswick Press, 1941.
• Selected Poems. Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1943.
• Collected Poems. London: Faber, 1947; New York: Viking, 1949.
• Common Chords. Mill House Press, 1950.
• Emblems of Experience. Rampant Lions Press, 1951.
• The Tasking. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1954.
• Faith Unfaithful. Stanbrook Abbey, [1954?]
• Renewals. Stanbrook Abbey, 1954.
• Sequences. London: Faber, 1956; New York: Viking, 1957.
• Poems (selected by Dennis Silk). Marlborough College Press, 1958.
• Lenten Illuminations and Sight Sufficient. privately printed, 1958; Downside Review, 1959.
• The Path to Peace: Selected poems. Stanbrook Abbey Press, 1960.
• Arbor Vitae and Unfoldment. Stanbrook Abbey Press, 1960.
• Awaitment. Stanbrook Abbey Press, 1960.
• A Prayer at Pentecost. Stanbrook Abbey Press, 1960.
• Collected Poems, 1908-1956. Faber, 1961.
• Something about Myself (illustrated by Margaret Adams). Stanbrook Abbey Press, 1966.
• An Octave: 8 September 1966. Arts Council of Great Britain, 1966.
• Selected Poems. London: Faber, 1968.
• A Poet's Pilgrimage (edited by Felicitas Corrigan). London: Gollancz, 1973.
• Libby Larsen? Everyone sang. US: E.C. Schirmer, 1983.

Novels

Anonymous or pseudonymous

• Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man. London: Faber & Gwyer, 1928; Coward, 1929; new edition, London: Faber, 1954.
• Memoirs of an Infantry Officer. London: Faber, 1930
  • (published as Siegfried Sassoon). Coward-McCann, 1930; (with illustrations by Barnett Freedman), London: Faber, 1966; Collier, 1969.

as Siegfried Sassoon

• Sherston's Progress (novel). Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran, 1936.
• The Memoirs of George Sherston (contains Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man, Memoirs of an Infantry Officer, and Sherston's Progress. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran, 1937
  • published in UK as The Complete Memoirs of George Sherston. London: Faber, 1937.

Non-fiction

• The Old Century / Seven More Years (autobiography). London: Faber, 1938; New York: Viking, 1939
  • reprinted (with introduction by Michael Thorpe). London: Faber, 1968.
• On Poetry: Arthur Skemp Memorial Lecture. Bristol, UK: University of Bristol, 1939.
• The Flower Show Match, and other pieces. London: Faber, 1941.
• The Weald of Youth (autobiography). New York: Viking, 1942.
• Siegfried's Journey, 1916-1920 (autobiography). London: Faber, 1945; New York: Viking, 1946.
• Meredith: A biography. New York: Viking, 1948.
• Introduction to Isaac Rosenberg, Collected Poems. London: Chatto & Windus, 1962.

Letters and diaries

• Letters to a Critic (introduction & notes by Michael Thorpe). Kent Editions, 1976.
• Siegfried Sassoon Diaries, 1915-1918 (edited by Rupert Hart-Davis). London: Faber, 1981.
• Siegfried Sassoon Diaries, 1920-1922(edited by Rupert Hart-Davis). London: Faber, 1983.
• Siegfried Sassoon Diaries, 1923-1925. London & Boston: Faber & Faber, 1985.
• Siegfried Sassoon Letters to Max Beerbohm: With a Few Answers. London & Boston: Faber & Faber, 1986.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy the Poetry Foundation.

Attack by Siegfried Sassoon- Read by Gemma Arterton - Remembering World War 1 - More 4

See also

Aftermath by Siegfried Sassoon read by Jeremy Irons

• English World War I poets
• List of British poets

References

• Felicitas Corrigan Siegfried Sassoon: Poet's Pilgrimage (1973) ISBN 0-575-01721-X (A collection of Sassoon's diary-entries and correspondence marking his gradual spiritual development towards Roman Catholicism.)
• Jean Moorcroft Wilson Siegfried Sassoon: The Making of a War Poet (1998) ISBN 0-7156-2822-4
• Jean Moorcroft Wilson Siegfried Sassoon: The Journey from the Trenches (2003) ISBN 0-7156-2971-9
• John Stuart Roberts Siegfried Sassoon (1999) ISBN 1-86066-151-3
• Max Egremont Siegfried Sassoon (2005) ISBN 0-330-37526-1
• Siegfried's Journal: The journal of the Siegfried Sassoon Fellowship

Fonds

• Archival material relating to Siegfried Sassoon listed at the UK National Register of Archives
• Online catalogue of Sassoon's archive of personal and working papers (held at Cambridge University Library)
• BBC Audio slideshow. Sassoon's papers at Cambridge University Library
• Elizabeth Whitcomb Houghton Collection, Sassoon archive

External links

Poems

• "How to Die"
• Sassoon, Siegfried (1886-1967) at Representative Poetry Online
• Siegfried Sassoon 1886-1967 at the Poetry Foundation
• Siegfried Sassoon Poetry Page
• Siegfried Sassoon at PoemHunter (169 poems)

Books

• Works by Siegfried Sassoon at Project Gutenberg
• Siegfried Sassoon at Amazon.com
• Siegfried Sassoon: His life and illustrated bibliography at Sassoon.co.uk

Audio / video

• Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967) at The Poetry Archive (biography and poems written and audio)
• Siegfried Sassoon at Amazon.com
• BBC: In our time. (Audio discussion 45 mins) with bibliography and links. BBC interview 1 January 1967 (Audio, 7 mins)
• WGBH Forum Network lecture given by Sassoon biographer Max Egremont (Audio and video, 1hr)

About

• Siegfried Sassoon in the Encyclopædia Britannica
• Siegfried Sassoon at Spartacus Educational
• Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967) at BBC History
• Siegfried Sassoon at NNDB
• Siegfried Sassoon at Biography Online
• Siegfried Sassoon at the First World War Digital Poetry Archive

Etc.

• The Siegfried Sassoon Fellowship