Some Desperate Glory: The First World War the Poets Knew

Paperback / softback

Main Details

Title Some Desperate Glory: The First World War the Poets Knew
Authors and Contributors      By (author) Max Egremont
Physical Properties
Format:Paperback / softback
Pages:352
Dimensions(mm): Height 203,Width 127
Category/GenrePoetry anthologies
Literary studies - from c 1900 -
Literary studies - poetry and poets
First world war
ISBN/Barcode 9781447242000
ClassificationsDewey:821.912080358
Audience
General

Publishing Details

Publisher Pan Macmillan
Imprint Picador
Publication Date 12 March 2015
Publication Country United Kingdom

Description

2014 marks the hundredth anniversary of the outbreak of what many believed would be the war to end all wars. And while the First World War devastated Europe, it inspired profound poetry - words in which the atmosphere and landscape of battle are evoked perhaps more vividly than anywhere else. The poets - many of whom were killed - show not only the war's tragedy but the hopes and disappointments of a generation of men. In Some Desperate Glory, historian and biographer Max Egremont gives us a transfiguring look at the life and work of this assemblage of poets. Wilfred Owen with his flaring genius; the intense, compassionate Siegfried Sassoon; the composer Ivor Gurney; Robert Graves who would later spurn his war poems; the nature-loving Edward Thomas; the glamorous Fabian Socialist Rupert Brooke; and the shell-shocked Robert Nichols all fought in the war, and their poetry is a bold act of creativity in the face of unprecedented destruction. Some Desperate Glory will include a chronological anthology of their poems, with linking commentary, telling the story of the war through their art. This unique volume unites the poetry and the history of the war, so often treated separately, granting readers the pride, strife, and sorrow of the individual soldier's experience coupled with a panoramic view of the war's toll on an entire nation.

Author Biography

Max Egremont was born in 1948 and studied Modern History at Oxford University. As well as four novels, he is the author of The Cousins and Balfour: A Life of Arthur James Balfour. His acclaimed biography of Siegfried Sassoon was published in 2005 and his most recent work is Forgotten Land: Journeys Among the Ghosts of East Prussia.