Sassoon, Siegfried Loraine, 1886-1967 (poet and author)
Dates
- Existence: 1886 - 1967
Biography
Poet and writer Siegfried Loraine Sassoon was born on 8 September 1886 at Weirleigh, near Matfield in Kent. His mother, Georgiana Theresa Thornycroft, was from a prominent family of sculptors and artists, while his father, Alfred Ezra Sassoon, came from a wealthy Jewish merchant family. His father left home when he was seven and died soon after, so Siegfried and his brothers, Michael and Hamo, were raised solely by their mother.
Educated at Marlborough College (1902-4), Sassoon read law at Clare College, Cambridge (1905-6) but left before taking a degree, choosing instead to live the life of a country gentleman, fox-hunting, cricketing, playing golf, and reading and writing poetry. His early poems were printed privately and distributed chiefly among family and friends.
It was the onset of the Great War that propelled Sassoon from a life of relative idleness and luxury into his role as soldier-poet and vitriolic critic of the War. In 1914, Sassoon enlisted as a trooper in the Sussex Yeomanry. The following year, he was commissioned in the Royal Welch Fusiliers and sent to France, where his bravery earned him the nickname 'Mad Jack'. In June 1916 he was awarded the Military Cross for gallantry in action. In April 1917, however, he was wounded in the shoulder, and while recuperating in England wrote his 'Soldier's Declaration', a statement in protest against the continuation of the War, calling for a negotiated peace. Sensitive to the needless suffering of his men, affected by the deaths of close friend, David Thomas, and of his younger brother Hamo (killed at Gallipoli in November 1915), and enraged with a sense that the conflict was being needlessly prolonged by those who had the power to end it, Sassoon had become increasingly disillusioned with the politics of the War. His protest statement was read out in the House of Commons and printed in 'The Times' in July 1917. Sassoon expected a court-martial; instead, due partly to the intervention of his friend Robert Graves, he was declared to be suffering from 'shellshock' and sent to Craiglockhart Military Hospital in Edinburgh. There he met the poet Wilfred Owen and became his friend and mentor. He also formed a friendship with psychologist and anthropologist William H. R. Rivers, who eventually helped persuade Sassoon to return to the front. In February 1918 he was posted to Palestine, but was sent back to France in May where he received a head wound which ended his direct involvement in the War.
During his time at the front, Sassoon wrote many of the war poems which were to establish his reputation as a poet. Caustic, bitter, moving and compassionate, his poems reflected the savage reality of war. These were published in a series of volumes entitled 'The Old Huntsman and Other Poems' (1917), 'Counter-Attack and Other Poems' (1918), 'Picture Show' (1919), and 'War Poems' (1919).
Throughout his life Sassoon continued to write and publish poetry. He also kept copious diaries, many of which later formed the basis of his prose work: the Sherston novels, a thinly veiled autobiographical trilogy based around the fictitious character George Sherston, beginning with 'Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man' (1928), and a second trilogy of true autobiography, beginning with 'The Old Century and Seven More Years' (1938). In 1948 he also published 'Meredith', his biography of the novelist and poet George Meredith. He remains best known, however, as a war poet.
Sassoon married Hester Gatty in 1933 and purchased Heytesbury House in Wiltshire. His marriage followed a series of homosexual relationships, most notably with artist Gabriel Atkin and socialite Stephen Tennant. His only son George was born in 1936, and his marriage dissolved a few years later. In 1957 Sassoon converted to Catholicism. He died in 1967 at the age of eighty.
In his lifetime Sassoon was honoured with a number of awards. In 1928 he received the Hawthornden Prize and the James Tait Black Prize for his book 'Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man'. In 1951 he was appointed CBE, while in 1957 he was awarded the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry. He received honorary degrees from the Universities of Liverpool (1931) and Oxford (1965), and was made an honorary fellow of Clare College, Cambridge in 1953. He is among sixteen Great War Poets commemorated in Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey.
Found in 86 Collections and/or Records:
Siegfried Sassoon: Letters to Haro Hodson
Sassoon met Hodson in June 1948 and began a correspondence which continued until his death in 1967. The collection consists of 38 letters from Sassoon to Hodson, with some additional enclosures.
Siegfried Sassoon: Letters to him from McFarlin, Rev. Mother Margaret Mary, Superior of the Convent of the Assumption, and nuns of Stanbrook Abbey, c.1930s-1960s
In January 1957, Sassoon began corresponding with McFarlin, Rev. Mother Margaret Mary (McFarlin) of the Convent of the Assumption, a correspondence which led directly to his being received into the Roman Catholic Church in August of that year. The collection consists of 570 letters.
Siegfried Sassoon, 'Merciless music', March 1921?
Review of a piano recital by Ferruccio Busoni.
Siegfried Sassoon: Papers Accumulated by Sir Rupert Hart-Davis
These notebooks, loose drafts, letters and diaries of Siegfried Sassoon were purchased by Cambridge University Library in March 2006 from Roy Davids Ltd, acting on behalf of their owner George Sassoon, son of Siegfried Sassoon. They had formerly been in the possession of Sir Rupert Hart-Davis, who accumulated them in the process of editing Sassoon's diaries, letters and poems for publication.
Siegfried Sassoon: Wonted Themes
A collection of 14 poems, handwritten by Sassoon and bearing his monogram. Fair copy with occasional corrections. Poems: 'Apologia', 'The Tasking', 'Another Spring', 'An Epitome', 'The Best of It', 'The Worst of It', 'The Half Century', 'Neighbours', 'A Reunion', 'Not Guilty', 'Human Bondage', 'Can it be...', 'The Offering' and 'Two Twinklings'. With a related letter from Sassoon to 'Tommy' [H.M. Tomlinson], Heytesbury, 1 Jan. 1953.
Siegfried Sassoon's poem 'Vigils' (transcript by G. Keynes), 1934
Siegfried Sassoon's 'The Tasking'
Sir Geoffrey Keynes, correspondence about the printing of Siegfried Sassoon's poem 'Rhymed Ruminations', 1939
Includes letters from Sassoon, Laurence Whistler, and publishers; with set of proofs of title page.
Three letters from Sir Geoffrey Keynes to Dennis Silk, with a printed obituary of Keynes, 1968-1982
25: Brinkley, 30 April 1968; 26: no place, 24 December 1969 (card); 27: Brinkley, 7 March 1979; 28: The Times obituary of Keynes, 1982.
Transcript of 'The Tasking' by Sir Geoffrey Keynes, 1954
'W H R Rivers and the Hazards of Interpretation' by C. S. Breathnach, 199307
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