Poems Of The Great War

Published to commemorate the eightieth anniversary of Armistice, this collection is intended to be an introduction to the great wealth of First World War Poetry. The sequence of poems is random - making it ideal for dipping into - and drawn from a number of sources, mixing both well-known and less familiar poetry.

The life and work of C.S. Lewis after his conversion in 1931 is well known and his reputation shows no signs of diminishing. His earlier years have not been so well studied, particularly between the ages of 16 and 22 when he studied privately and at Oxford, served in the British army, was wounded in France, entered into his affair with Janie Moore, and wrote and published his first book of poems. To correct and augment the limited accounts of this period, Lewis’s life is presented with the general and specific background which makes it more meaningful, particularly as it throws light on his character. The romantic myth of him as a "soldier-poet" is dispelled, largely through an extensive review of the poems in "Spirits in Bondage" and the self-centered life that produced them. A valuable comparison—not to the advantage of Lewis—is drawn with two undoubted soldier-poets, Robert Graves and Siegfried Sassoon. The purpose is not to disparage or belittle Lewis but to show what had to be overcome in his limited and unpleasant early moral character in order to produce the devoted Christian of later years.

The horrors of the First World War released a great outburst of emotional poetry from the soldiers who fought in it as well as many other giants of world literature. Wilfred Owen, Rupert Brooke and W B Yeats are just some of the poets whose work is featured in this anthology. The raw emotion unleashed in these poems still has the power to move readers today. As well as poems detailing the miseries of war there are poems on themes of bravery, friendship and loyalty, and this collection shows how even in the depths of despair the human spirit can still triumph.

A study of the ways in which British poets of the First World War used classical literature, culture, and history as a source of images, ideas, and even phrases for their own poetry. Elizabeth Vandiver offers a new perspective on that poetry and on the history of classics in British culture.

A wonderfully illustrated collection of critical analysis of poetry from World War I commemorates the great poetic voices produced by this terrible conflict, including such noted writers as Rupert Brooke, Wilfred Owe, Siegfried Sassoon, Edmund Blunden, Charles Hamilton Sorley, Robert Graves, Julian Grenfell, and other notables.

DIVRich selection of powerful, moving verse includes Brooke's "The Soldier," Owen's "Anthem for Doomed Youth," "In Flanders Fields," by Lieut. Col. McCrae, more by Hardy, Kipling, many others. /div