by Max Egremont
‘Isn’t it luck’: ibid., p. 245.
‘the happiest I have’: Charlton and Charlton, Putting Poetry First, p. 39.
‘Honestly & bar all rotting’: G. Harbord to Sassoon, 15 December 1914, Imperial War Museum.
1915
‘We don’t seem’: Sorley, Letters, p. 225.
‘rough … good’: Brooke, Collected Poems, p. cxxxvi.
‘I’ve never been quite’: ibid., p. cxxxviii.
‘I am thinking’: Rosenberg, Collected Works, p. 216.
‘I do now most intensely’: Owen, Collected Letters, p. 341.
‘a little ugliness’: ibid.
‘Do you know’: ibid., p. 367.
‘I seem without a footing’: ibid., p. 320.
‘A young writer’: Hassall, Brooke, p. 502.
‘Mind you take care’: ibid., p. 496.
‘knightly presence’: Sir Ian Hamilton, Gallipoli Diary, vol. I (London 1920), p. 71.
‘unperceptive’: Hassall, Brooke, p. 501.
‘happy force’: ibid., p. 503.
‘very incomparable’: Brooke, Collected Poems, p. clviii.
‘like madness’: Hassall, Brooke, p. 516.
‘far too obsessed’: Sorley, Letters, p. 263.
‘romanticism he so hated’: Hassall, Brooke, p. 520.
‘inspired by romantic thoughts’: P. N. Furbank, E. M. Forster: A Life, vol. II: Polycrates’ Ring (London 1978), p. 19.
‘I got Brooke’s poems’; Grenfell, Letters and Diaries, p. 267.
‘to disguise the Cavalry Corps’: ibid., p. 270.
‘You should have seen’: Mosley, Julian Grenfell, p. 247.
‘I wish they’d let me’: ibid.
‘a very hot day’: ibid., p. 252.
‘although I like’: ibid.
‘petrified’: ibid.
‘divine’: ibid., p. 253.
‘wonderful sunny’: ibid., p. 256.
‘Wrote poem’: ibid.
‘You once gave me’: ibid., p. 260.
‘practically wiped out’: ibid.
‘the most radiant smile’: ibid., p. 265.
‘extraordinarily living’: ibid., p. 266.
‘did not look’: ibid., p. 214.
‘it is like a picnic’: Sorley, Letters, p. 268.
‘in England never’: ibid., p. 275.
‘we have seen’: ibid., p. 281.
‘The thought, the aspiration’: Hollis, Now All Roads, p. 227.
‘enlisted or fought’: ibid.
‘curious’: Egremont, Sassoon, p. 71.
‘Walked into Bethune’: Siegfried Sassoon, Diary 1915–1918, ed. Rupert Hart-Davis (London 1983), p. 21.
‘I was not anxious’: Edmund Blunden, Undertones of War (London 1983 edn), p. 3.
‘the vital spot’: J. C. Dunn, The War the Infantry Knew (London 1994 edn), p. 161.
‘raw enthusiasts’: ibid.
‘mismanagement at the top’: ibid., p. 163.
‘on the eve’: Sorley, Letters, p. 311.
‘exaltation’: Robert Nichols (ed.), Anthology of War Poetry 1914–1918 (London 1943), p. 34.
‘sheer foolery’: Charlton and Charlton, Putting Poetry First, p. 46.
‘very hard fighting’: ibid., p. 51.
‘your heart was’: ibid.
‘I cannot remember’: Ivor Gurney, War Letters, ed. R. K. R. Thornton (London 1984), pp. 45–6.
‘Rupert Brooke soaked’: Hurd, The Ordeal, p. 56.
‘Have you read’: Gurney, War Letters, p. 27.
‘so well’: Hollis, Now All Roads, p. 251.
‘a criminal thing’: Rosenberg, Collected Works, p. 216.
‘I thought if I’d join’: ibid., p. 227.
1916
‘a stupid rightness’: Wells, Mr Britling, p. 296.
‘very fine country’: Cambridge University Library Add 9454/3/583.
‘It seems ridiculous’: Egremont, Sassoon, p. 80.
‘since they shot Tommy’: Sassoon, Diary 1915–1918, p. 52.
‘These six months’: Egremont, Sassoon, p. 91.
‘I think S.S.’s verses’: ibid., p. 85.
‘hate’: Sassoon, Diary 1915–1918, p. 52.
‘O yes, this is’: Egremont, Sassoon, pp. 88–9.
‘it gave me’: Hurd, The Ordeal, p. 54.
‘nowhere could I’: ibid.
‘I am not greatly’: ibid., p. 60.
‘We go tomorrow’: ibid., p. 63.
‘curious names’: ibid., p. 64.
‘This kind of life’: Rosenberg, Selected Poems and Letters, p. 146.
‘Believe me the army’: Rosenberg, Collected Works, p. 230.
‘my being a Jew’: Rosenberg, Selected Poems and Letters, p. 141.
‘not quite certain’: Jean Moorcroft Wilson, Isaac Rosenberg: The Making of a Great War Poet (London 2008), p. 281.
‘some weeks before’: Graves, Complete Poems, vol. I (Manchester 1995), pp. 39–40.
‘a pointless feat’: Graves, Goodbye to All That, p. 188.
‘Won’t they leave us’: Egremont, Sassoon, p. 106.
‘never had shells’: Blunden, Undertones of War, p. 104.
‘as Lazarus was’: ibid., p. 95.
‘feat of arms’: ibid., p. 103.
‘the Somme raised’: Charles Edmonds (Charles Carrington), A Subaltern’s War (London 1929), pp. 35 and 19.
‘Phoebus Apollo’: Lady Desborough, Pages from a Family Journal 1888–1915 (Eton 1916), p. 556.
‘It’s a toss up’: Moorcroft Wilson, Rosenberg, p. 325.
‘Now began three months’: F. E. Whitton, The History of the 40th Division (Aldershot 1926), p. 42.
‘budding genius’: Moorcroft Wilson, Rosenberg, p. 331.
‘we have pups’: Rosenberg, Selected Poems and Letters, p. 146.
‘the happiest for years’: Gurney, War Letters, p. 75.
‘Floreat Gloucestriensis’: ibid.
‘my dear lady’: ibid.
‘the Army is an awful life’: ibid., p. 70.
‘a delight of rolling country’: ibid., p. 82.
‘We suffer pain’: ibid., p. 113.
‘how physically unsophisticated’: Harold Owen, Journey from Obscurity, vol. III (Oxford 1965), p. 134.
‘animal sports’: Owen, Collected Letters, pp. 392–3.
‘always humorous’: Thomas, The Annotated Collected Poems, p. 282.
‘the most depressed man’: ibid.
‘I don’t believe’: Hollis, Now All Roads, p. 294.
‘run risks’: ibid., p. 295.
1917
‘the wholesale slaughter’: David Jones, In Parenthesis (London 2010 edn), p. ix.
‘There is a fine’: Owen, Collected Letters, p. 421.
‘Have no anxiety’: ibid., p. 427.
‘I suppose I can’: ibid., pp. 431–2.
‘remember that’: Helen Thomas, Under Storm’s Wing (Manchester 1988), p. 172.
‘Am I to stay’: Edward Thomas, The Childhood of Edward Thomas (London 1983 edn), p. 164.
‘It was just another’: Hollis, Now All Roads, p. 327.
‘I haven’t met’: Egremont, Sassoon, p. 123.
‘I never understood’: Thomas, The Childhood of Edward Thomas, p. 176.
‘capable of the most suicidal exploits’: Egremont, Sassoon, p. 131.
‘and give my afternoons’: Owen, Collected Letters, p. 446.
‘going over the top’: ibid., p. 458.
‘for twelve days’: ibid., p. 452.
‘shaky and tremulous’: Dominic Hibberd, Wilfred Owen (London 2002), p. 242.
‘completely hopeless’: Moorcroft Wilson, Rosenberg, p. 281.
‘the severance of all’: ibid., p. 360.
‘elemental’: Rosenberg, Selected Poems and Letters, p. 35.
‘more boisterously happy’: Moorcroft Wilson, Rosenberg, p. 369.
‘I cannot keep out’: Hurd, The Ordeal, p. 97.
‘a garden to dig in’: ibid., p. 98.
‘
precious little of value’: Gurney, War Letters, p. 159.
‘a great loss’: ibid., p. 158.
‘very interesting’: ibid., p. 178.
‘hardly any’: ibid.
‘It is good news’: ibid., p. 180.
‘a darling land’: ibid., p. 186.
‘I hope you will send’: ibid., p. 187.
‘aggression and conquest’: for the statement see Sassoon, Diaries 1915–1918, p. 173.
‘completely mad’: Egremont, Sassoon, p. 152.
‘we should all die’: Blunden, Undertones, p. 165.
‘aim in war’: Owen, Collected Letters, p. 467.
‘a great child’: ibid., p. 482.
‘I have just been’: ibid., pp. 484–5.
‘modest and ingratiating’: Siegfried Sassoon, Siegfried’s Journey (London 1945), p. 58.
‘talks as badly’: Owen, Collected Letters, p. 487.
‘cut capers’: ibid., p. 489.
‘I hate washy pacifists’: ibid., p. 498.
‘damn fine’: Jon Stallworthy, Wilfred Owen (London 1974), p. 229.
‘Captain Graves’: Owen, Collected Letters, p. 499.
‘I go out of’: ibid., p. 521.
‘almost a laughing matter’: Blunden, Undertones, p. 165.
‘the general grossness’: ibid.
‘mournful passion’: Ann Thwaite, Edmund Gosse (London 1984), p. 471.
‘Nichols, Graves and Sassoon’: Robert Graves, In Broken Images: Selected Letters 1914–1946, ed. Paul O’Prey (London 1982), p. 74.
‘When Rupert Brooke’: Gurney, War Letters, p. 232.
‘I don’t think R.G.’: Sassoon, Diaries 1915–1918, p. 195.
‘an incomprehensible look’: Owen, Collected Letters, p. 521.
‘an attempt to show’: Egremont, Sassoon, p. 175.
the new Rupert Brooke: Harry Ricketts, Strange Meetings: The Poets of the Great War (London 2010), p. 129.
‘offensive to come back’: Cynthia Asquith, Diaries 1915–1918 (London 1968), p. 381.
‘raved and screamed’: Charlton and Charlton, Putting Poetry First, p. 71.
‘Sassoon has power’: Rosenberg, Collected Works, p. 267.
‘I am back in the trenches’: ibid.
1918
‘quiet little person’: Hibberd, Owen, p. 298.
‘the immense desire’: Ernst Jünger, Storm of Steel (London 2003 edn), p. 232.
‘We will become’: Rosenberg, Selected Poems and Letters, p. 175.
‘How small a thing’: Rosenberg, Collected Works, p. 298.
‘With our backs’: for this see Duff Cooper, Haig, vol. II (London 1936), p. 275.
‘I knew I should’: Vera Brittain, Testament of Youth (London 1933), p. 420.
‘my little friend’: Notes for Siegfried’s Journey, Sassoon collection, Cambridge University Library.
‘have done just’: ibid.
‘the best poet’: Egremont, Sassoon, p. 196.
‘damned hankering’: ibid., p. 205.
‘a portrait of war’: ibid., p. 204.
‘safe smugness’: ibid., p. 206.
‘what would he’: Times Literary Supplement, 8 August 1918.
‘a disgraceful sloppy’: Virginia Woolf, Diary, vol. I: 1915–1919, ed. Anne Olivier Bell (London 1977), p. 171.
‘piece’ of England: Owen, Collected Letters, p. 570.
‘When I go’: ibid., p. 430.
‘I lost all’: ibid., p. 580.
‘every word, every figure’: Collected Letters, p. 510.
‘I came out’: ibid., p. 580.
‘It is a great’: ibid., p. 591.
‘a loathsome ending’: Sassoon, Diaries 1915–1918, p. 282.
‘the tall Shelley-like’: Webb, Blunden, p. 56.
‘I am glad’: Gurney, War Letters, p. 261.
‘you’ll have to’: Graves, The Assault Heroic, p. 198.
‘cursing and sobbing’: Graves, Goodbye to All That, p. 248.
‘icebergs’: Charlton and Charlton, Putting Poetry First, p. 86.
‘very much I think’: ibid., p. 87.
AFTERMATH
‘youth, charm, genius’: manuscript at Rugby School.
‘ablest of men’: Virginia Woolf, Letters, vol. III, ed. Nigel Nicolson (London 1977), p. 178.
‘A great pamphlet’: Nation, 6 December 1919.
‘mere journalism’: London Mercury, December 1919.
‘every word, every figure’: Owen, Collected Letters, p. 510.
‘I don’t want’: see Wilfred Owen, The Complete Poems and Fragments, ed. Jon Stallworthy, 2 vols (London 2013 edn), vol. I, p. 193.
‘wonderfully normal’: Hurd, The Ordeal, p. 132.
‘detested mere cleverness’: Edward Thomas, Collected Poems (London 1920), p. v.
‘It was wireless’: Hurd, The Ordeal, p. 168.
‘It is too late’: ibid., p. 169.
‘I hope it may’: Edward Marsh (ed.), Georgian Poetry 1918–19 (London 1919), prefatory note.
‘Taste. Good taste’: H. G. Wells, Men Like Gods (London 1923), p. 29.
‘concerned with Nature’: Richard Perceval Graves, Robert Graves: The Years with Laura Riding 1926–40 (London paperback edn 1995), p. 44.
‘Did we believe’: Virginia Woolf, Diary, vol. II: 1920–1924, ed. Anne Olivier Bell (London 1978), p. 297.
‘Of the many young poets’: Isaac Rosenberg, Poems, ed. Gordon Bottomley (London 1922), p. 1.
‘windy’: Moorcroft Wilson, Rosenberg, p. 378.
‘a fruitful fusion’: Rosenberg, Poems, p. ix.
‘poor little Isaac’: Edward Marsh and Christopher Hassall, Ambrosia and Small Beer: The Record of a Correspondence between Edward Marsh and Christopher Hassall, arranged by Christopher Hassall (London 1964), p. 53.
‘a trumpet call’: the Earl of Lytton, Antony (Viscount Knebworth): A Record of Youth (London 1935), p. 568.
‘It’s what Sassoon’: John Middleton Murry, Letters of John Middleton Murry to Katherine Mansfield, ed. C. A. Hankin (London 1983), p. 234.
‘profound humanity’: Egremont, Sassoon, p. 257.
‘one of the few’: ‘The Real War’, Athenaeum, 10 December 1920.
‘the industrial towns’: Stephen Spender, The Destructive Element (London 1935), pp. 220–1.
‘the Rupert Brooke’: Stephen Spender, The Thirties and After (London 1978), p. 17.
‘unworthy of the poets’ corner’: Jon Stallworthy, ‘Yeats as Anthologist’, in A. Norman Jeffares and K. G. W. Cross (eds), In Excited Reverie: A Centenary Tribute to W. B. Yeats (London 1965), p. 190.
‘unreadable, vague’: ibid., p. 183.
‘and always with loud’: W. B. Yeats (ed.), The Oxford Book of Modern Verse (Oxford 1936), p. xxxv.
‘the old men’: Christopher Isherwood, Diaries, vol. I: 1939–60, ed. Katherine Bucknell (London 1996), p. 5.
‘in an ecstasy’: Samuel Hynes, The Auden Generation (London 1976), p. 21.
‘If I can be’: Robert Graves, But It Still Goes On (London 1930), p. 155.
‘the truth by a condensation’: Graves, The Assault Heroic, p. 288.
‘Do you know how’: Graves, But It Still Goes On, p. 245.
‘strike a responsive chord’: Edmonds, A Subaltern’s War, pp. 8–9.
‘all we can do’: Graves, Goodbye to All That, p. 275.
‘a terrific comet’: Ritchie, Strange Meetings, p. 212.
‘mad’: Charlton and Charlton, Putting Poetry First, pp. 95–6.
‘the great love’: ibid., p. 214.
‘the sound of my’: Marsh and Hassall, Ambrosia and Small Beer, p. 213.
‘you’ll find a tea cake’: Nichols (ed.), Anthology of War Poetry, p. 17.
‘acceptance rather than’: Alan Ross, Blindfold Games (London 1986), p. 239.
‘symbolic poetry’: Egremont, Sassoon, p. 483.
‘I destroyed them’: Robert Graves, Conversations with Robert Graves, ed. Frank L. Kersnowski (Jackson, Miss., and London 1989), p. 96.
‘Sassoon’s idealism’: Robert Graves and Spike Milligan, Dear Robert, Dear Spike: The Graves–Milligan Correspondence, ed. Pauline Scudamore (Stroud 1991), p. 94.
‘How right dear Robbie’: Egremont, Sassoon, p. 478.
‘the most unspeakably horrible’: George A. Panichas (ed.), Promise of Greatness (London 1968), p. 8.
‘given me not only’: ibid., p. 11.
‘People like reading’: Graves, But It Still Goes On, p. 15.
‘many thoughts and mentions’: Sassoon and Blunden, Selected Letters, vol. III, p. 315.
‘complete’: Jack, General Jack’s Diary, pp. 306–7.
Bibliography
EDITIONS OF POETS USED
Blunden, Edmund. Poems of Many Years (London 1957).
_______ Overtones of War: Poems of the First World War, ed. Martin Taylor (London 1996).
Brooke, Rupert. Collected Poems, with a Memoir, ed. Edward Marsh (London 1918).
Graves, Robert. Complete Poems, 3 vols, ed. Beryl Graves and Dunstan Ward (Manchester 1995–9 edn).
Grenfell, Julian. Manuscripts in the Cowper/Grenfell papers in the Hertfordshire Archives, ref. DE/X789/F23.
Gurney, Ivor. Collected Poems, ed. P. J. Kavanagh (Manchester 2004 edn).
Nichols, Robert. Ardours and Endurances (London 1917).
_______ Aurelia and Other Poems (London 1920).
Owen, Wilfred. The Complete Poems and Fragments, ed. Jon Stallworthy, 2 vols (London 2013 edn).
Rosenberg, Isaac. The Poems and Plays of Isaac Rosenberg, ed. Vivian Noakes (Oxford 2004).
Sassoon, Siegfried. Collected Poems 1908–1956 (London 1961).
_______ The War Poems ed. Rupert Hart-Davis (London 1983).
Sorley, Charles. Marlborough and Other Poems (Cambridge 1916).
Thomas, Edward. The Annotated Collected Poems, ed. Edna Longley (Tarset 2008).
OTHER WORKS
Asquith, Cynthia. Diaries 1915–1918 (London 1968).
Barnett, Correlli. The Collapse of British Power (London 1972).
Beckett, Ian F. W. The First World War 1914–1918 (Harlow 2001).
_______ The Making of the First World War (London and New Haven 2012).
Bergonzi, Bernard. Wartime and Aftermath (Oxford 1993).
_______ Heroes’ Twilight (Manchester 1996 edn).
Blunden, Edmund. Cricket Country (London 1945).
_______ Undertones of War (London Penguin edn 2000).
Boden, Anthony (ed.). Stars on a Dark Night: Letters of Ivor Gurney to the Chapman Family (Stroud 2004 edn).
Bond, Brian. A Victory Worse than Defeat? British Interpretations of the First World War (London 1997).