 Hello fellow followers of Christ and welcome to the show that introduces you to the men and women behind history's greatest works of literature. Come along every week as we explore these renowned authors, the times and genre in which they wrote, why scholars praise their writing and how we as Catholics should read and understand their works. I'm Joseph Pearce and this is The Authority. Hello, welcome to The Authority. I'm your host Joseph Pearce where we continue our tour through some of the great authors of Western Civilization and we're in the 20th century now and we're going to look at one of the great war poets and also a literary convert to the Catholic faith Siegfried Sassoon. So Siegfried Sassoon was born into great wealth. He is part of the famous Sassoon family who are sometimes known as the Rothschilds of the East. I'll give you some idea. So they are a Jewish family, Baghdad, Sephardic Jewish family made their money through banking and also through the opium trade. So in the days when trading an opium was not illegal or even particularly frowned upon so they made an awful lot of money from it. So in some sense I suppose that Siegfried Sassoon's family income, family wealth is rooted on what we would now call the drug trade. So he's born into this opulence. His mother, his father was Jewish from this family, but his mother was a Christian and in fact an actual fact that his father was disinherited from the family fortune. So although the Sassoon still had a great deal of opulence in his background, not as much opulence as he would have done if his father had not married his mother, but then if his father had not married his mother he wouldn't have been born so it would have been somewhat irrelevant anyway. So he'd already made something of a name for himself as a poet prior to World War One, but it was very much as a war poet as one of the poets that documented in verse the horrors of World War One that he's best known. So we think perhaps of poets such as Rupert Broek and Rupert Broek is sometimes the early part of World War One is known as the Rupert Broek period because of the optimism, the blithe, the optimistic tone and jingoistic tone if you like of Rupert Broek's poetry is all about marching off to war and the glories of war. The horrors of the trenches have not yet happened and in fact Rupert Broek was killed in the very early stages of the war so before the disillusionment with the war set in so that was the Rupert Broek period. Perhaps he's best known for the lines, if I should die, think only this of me, that there's a corner of a foreign field that is forever England. Another poem we should poet we should mention and perhaps we'll feature him in the authority some stage in the future is David Jones, a London-born Welsh poet also a convert to the faith who wrote a long difficult modernist poem in this manner or inspired by TS Eliot and influenced by TS Eliot called In Parenthesis about his experience during World War One and he also wrote a very long poem called The Anathema Tub which is a defense of Catholicism. Again these are very difficult poems that may be even impenetrable but I enjoy them even if I'm not sure I completely understand them. I'm not completely sure that even David Jones completely understood them and perhaps the other the other war poet we should mention is Joyce Kilmer because you know he's on this side of the pond he obviously served in the US Army during World War One and was killed. He'd already had a reputation prior to going off to war as a poet and as a Catholic convert and great things were expected of him but obviously as is the case of so many other during World War One that the promise was cut short by being killed by being a victim of the war itself. The two best known war poets and their names are often mentioned side by side are Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon and what we see about these poets is that there's a bitterness towards the war, a bitterness particularly to the way that the war is being directed by politicians and by the generals field marshals that are overseeing the war effort and so this new spirit of I would say cynicism though certainly in Wilfred Owen's verse there's an element of cynicism but certainly a very angry response to the horrific reality of being in the trenches bogged down in the trenches in trench warfare with all this this hideous weapons of mass destruction which have been recently invented tanks, aeroplanes, barbed wire, heavy artillery far exceeding anything that the previous generations and wars had experienced it was the first great war of the machines we might say where men were when mere pawns being blown to pieces by the machines so this this this comes out in the poetry of Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon we'll look at Siegfried Sassoon's poetry soon so the two men Owen and Sassoon met when they were both recovering from shell shock probably would be called post climatic stress syndrome today in Craiglock Heart Hospital in Scotland although Owen I think was suffering from from shock in this way this trauma Siegfried Sassoon was actually sent there because he was a dissident and he could have been shot in fact so for instance he wrote a letter that was published and read out in Parliament in discussions attacking the the way that the war was being conducted and the way that the people back home had no idea of the real horrors on the ground and he in protest through the George Medal that he was awarded into the River Mersey in Liverpool as a protest now these public acts of disobedience during time of war could easily have led led to his being executed for for for for basically desertion or even treason but rather than doing that what what the government did was to declare him to be mad the same sort of approach that Soviet Union did towards dissidents and put him in a psychological institution but those suffering from shell shock so that's where he met Wilfred Owen so soon was over is older than Owen already established poet Wilfred Owen is unknown so we see it still Siegfried Sassoon took Owen under his wing and inspired Owen to continue with his poetry and Wilfred Owen is truly a great poet and perhaps we might even look at his poetry in another episode but of course the our focus in this episode is Siegfried Sassoon Wilfred Owen by the way died in the in the last days of the war whereas Sassoon on the other hand lived a very long life born in 1886 and not die until 1967 so when he when he's 80 or 81 years old one thing I want to say by the way just in case you know the one thing we needed about so soon he was not a coward and you know some people might have a jingoistic attitude to war and think anybody who criticizes the war effort is somehow a traitor or a coward in fact he had a nickname which was mad Jack and he earned that nickname because of his fearlessness in battle and there's a story I don't know how true it is but the story that was certainly told of Sassoon who's an officer in the army taking a German machine gun post single-handedly ahead of his men and that when the rest of his unit arrived they saw dead Germans lying around the place and Sassoon sitting there calmly reading a book of poetry now I don't know if that's true but the point is that as Oscar Wilde said someone said to Oscar Wilde is it true Oscar that you walked down the strand with a lily in your hand and Wilde responded to have done it was nothing but to make people believe he had done it was everything so of course Wilde builds up this legend about himself as being this esteemed this lover of beauty so people make up stories so that whether or not the story about Siegfried Sassoon taking the machine gun post single-handedly and then calmly reading of one in the poetry having done so is true or not the fact that people could tell that story about him the fact he has a nickname such as mad Jack shows that he was no coward in the trenches he was not concerned for his own safety but for the injustice of the way the war was being conducted and the naivete and ignorance of the people back home had no idea about the horrors of the war being played out so Sassoon is a literary convert and I treat him amongst the other literary converts in my book of that title but it's not actually received into the church till 1957 when he's 70 years old and he spends the last 10 years of his life from 1957 to 1967 as a Catholic some of his finest poetry is religious verse we'll look at some of that before before we conclude but it seems to me although he wasn't receiving the church until he was an old man the whole of his life seemed to be a pilgrimage towards Christ and his church you look at the development the evolution of his poetry the things that interest him the tone of his voice the the direction of his philosophical musings you can see this is a man who's deeply mystical who has a his haunted by Christ in the Flannery Akana famously said that talked about that the Christ haunted south that the south southern states of the USA are Christ haunted haunted by Christ we can certainly say Siegfried Sassoon was Christ haunted haunted by Christ even his early verse during World War one there's all sorts of imagery to Christ to the passion of Christ as a poem called stand to Good Friday morning there's yeah and other poems with with specifically Christian indeed Catholic imagery so this stayed with him so his reception the church in 1957 was anything the consummation of a lifelong love affair so this being so I had had long since for going back for a long while wanted to write a biography of Siegfried Sassoon so I made my own name as a writer initially by writing full-length biographies of writers so I write about writers specifically Catholic writers and specifically Catholic convert writers I've written books on Chesterton and Belock and Oscar Wilde and White Campbell etc so I wanted I wanted to add Siegfried Sassoon to this list and there were various obstacles to that not least of which was a lack of cooperation from from his son George Sassoon who was alive at this time of the 1990s so this this project never did come to fruition but I also came to realize that his life is actually best told if anything in his own words specifically in the words of his own poetry now he did write some some some volumes of crazy autobiographical memoirs the memoirs of George Sherston such as memoirs of a fox hunting man which were very well received so you could certainly combine this prose autobiographical material with his poetry but his life is best told in his poetry so eventually what I did actually I'm gonna use this as the basis of the remainder of this episode was it inspired me to write I don't even know what to call it because it sort of defies genre it's that the book published of it the title is death comes for the war poets a verse tapestry woven for dramatic and narrative effect by Joseph Pierce featuring the work of C. Fritz Sassoon and Wilfred Owen if you think that's a long-winded title that's just the that's the abbreviated version on the cover they actually go to the title page and you see there's a whole page for there that's the title in its fullness but it's also a description of what it is so I'm gonna read this as a means of showing what this project was so the full title is death comes to the war poets a verse tapestry being a dramatic presentation of the poetry of C. Fritz Sassoon and Wilfred Owen with cameo appearances by Thomas Gray Gerard Manny Hopkins, T. S. Eliot, G. K. Chesterton, Rupert Brooke, Edith Sitwell and Joseph Pierce woven for dramatic and narrative effect by Joseph Pierce so what it is it's in some senses a drama and it was actually performed produced off Broadway in New York a few years ago five or six years ago to my great surprise to positive critical acclaim so what I do is just only three characters C. Fritz Sassoon and Wilfred Owen and the third character is a female character death so death is the female character hence death comes for the war poetry and the story basically is about two conversions it's the conversion it's the story of the conversion of C. Fritz Sassoon but it's also the story of the conversion of death because the point is of course how does death seem to the agnostic or the atheist or the nihilist to the non-believer that's obviously something more like perhaps the weird sisters in Macbeth right something threatening and and and malicious and possibly sadistic and deadly obviously whereas we see in in in this dramatic presentation of the life of Sassoon death herself is converted and by the time following Sassoon's conversion she becomes almost like a guardian angel or a blessed Virgin Mary figure so this that's the metaphysical dimension of the of this so I want to read the introduction to it which is actually called setting the scene and certainly in the opening night I actually stood on the stage and read this before the actors took over but this also serves I think as a good overview of who Sassoon was and why Sassoon is so popular. The following verse tapestry being a dramatic presentation of the poetry of C. Fritz Sassoon, Wilfred Owen and others has been woven in commemoration and celebration of five anniversaries that fall in this year of 2017. First we commemorate the centenary in April 2017 of the entry of the United States into World War one. Second we commemorate in July 2017 the centenary of the publication of C. Fritz Sassoon's soldiers declaration. Third we celebrate the centenary later the same year of the meeting of Sassoon with his fellow war poet Wilfred Owen at Craig Lockhart Hospital War Hospital. Fourth we commemorate the 60th anniversary of Sassoon's reception into the Catholic Church in September 1957 and finally we commemorate the 50th anniversary of Sassoon's death in September 1967. Like most of the great poets C. Fritz Sassoon is not as well known today as he ought to be. This first tapestry is therefore intended as a timely tribute to a writer who deserves to be more widely known not only for the acerbic gravitas of the war poetry for which he is best known but also for the poetry and prose that he wrote after the war. Born in Kent in southeast England in 1886 Sassoon's experience of the trenches of World War one embittered him. Although he fought with great courage being awarded the military cross for gallantry in battle he was angered by the conduct of the war and the whole South slaughter that it unleashed. In a barrage of bitter invective expressed in satirical verse which became very popular as the initial enthusiasm for the war began to wane he vented his spleen against the politicians, journalists and senior military officers whom he believed responsible for inflaming and prolonging the carnage. Typical of the astringent verse is suicide in the trenches so this will be the one example of Sassoon's war poetry which we'll be looking at. A newer simple soldier boy who grinned at life in empty joy slept soundly through the lonesome dark and whistled early with the lark. In winter trenches culled and glum with crumps and lice and lack of rum he put a bullet through his brain. No one spoke of him again. You smug-faced crowd with kindling eye who cheer when soldier lads march by sneak home and pray you'll never know the hell where youth and laughter go. In more prosaic fashion his soldiers declaration addressed ostensibly to his commanding officer but published or quoted in several newspapers was quote an act of rawful defiance of military authority end quote condemning those in power for prolonging quote the suffering of the troops for ends which I believe to be evil and unjust end quote. Having experienced the unspeakable horrors of trench warfare Sassoon's declaration also complained about the quote the callous complacence with which the majority of those at home regard the continuance of the agonies which they do not share and have not sufficient imagination to realize end quote. In a further gesture of defiance Sassoon threw his military cross into the River Mersey and his notoriety reached new heights when his declaration was read in the House of Commons. Faced with this open and very public defiance of the war effort Sassoon was declared mentally over wrought and therefore not responsible for his actions. In true Orwellian fashion he was confined to a military hospital in Scotland until he recovered his senses. It was here that he met and befriended Wilfred Owen a poet who shared his anger at the war and who expressed it the same vitriolic fervor. Owen would be killed in action on November the 4th 1918 only a week before the armistice while the final victims of the dying embers of the war a slaughtered lamb butchered before his gifts could be developed. Sassoon on the other hand would live to a ripe old age. After the war Sassoon's reputation as a writer of first-rate prose as well as well as poetry was sealed with the publication of the three-volume semi-fictitious autobiography The Complete Memoirs of George Shurston published in 1937. In 1945 at the end of the second of the world wars which the century of progress had wrought Sassoon's skepticism towards modernity and its vacuous promises was expressed with razor sharp eloquence in litany of the lost in breaking of belief in human good enslaved them of mankind to the machine in havoc of hideous tyranny withstood and terror of atomic doom foreseen deliver us from ourselves chain to the wheel of progress uncontrolled world master us with a foolish frightened face loudspeakers leaderless and skeptic sold aeroplane angels crashed from glory and grace deliver us from ourselves in blood and bone contentiousness of nations and commerce's competitive restart armed with our marvelous monkey innovations and unregenerate still in head and heart deliver us from ourselves as the world stumbled from world war to cold war Sassoon befriended father Ronald Knox whose god and the atom had expressed the same post-traumatic stress in the wake of the dropping of the atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki as had Sassoon's litany of the lost Knox died in August 1957 and a month later Sassoon was received into the catholic church a few weeks after his 71st birthday and a full 40 years after Knox's own conversion following his conversion Sassoon the war poet became a poet of peace a fact expressed in the title of the first volume of poetry he published as a catholic the path to peace published in 1960 was essentially an autobiography in verse ranging from the earliest sonnets of his youth to the religious poetry of his last years of the latter the long meditative poem lent an illuminations written during his first length as a catholic is surely one of the finest christian poems of the 20th century inviting comparisons with TS Eliot's ash wednesday which had also been written shortly after the poet's conversion it is a monologue which the poet addresses to the ghost of his pre-convert self musing on their life and how it had led him to his knees in a church i quote just one stands from this poem while you were in your purgatorial time he used to say that though creation's god remained so lost such eons away somehow he would reveal himself to you someday for him the living god your soul and flesh could only cry aloud in watches of the night when world event with devildom went dark you implored illumination but never being bowed obedient never conceived an aureal instance an assuring spark part of the brilliance of the poetry in its own right shining forth as a visible witness to the good the true and the beautiful there is also more prosaic and practical relevance to so soon as life and work having lived through two fratricidal world wars fighting courageously in the first and having become utterly disillusioned with the lifeless coldness of modern secular progress with which the world with devildom had gone dark he had finally found the peace beyond all understanding which has ediott had discovered was the only authentic escape from the wasteland of worldliness there is no better way to end a discussion of the greatness of seek for its as soon and to summarize the wisdom that he had gained after a life of suffering than in his own words has poured forth in praise in a prayer in old age bring no expectance of heaven unearned no hunger for beatitude to be until the lesson of my life is learned through what thou didsts for me bring no assurance of redeemed rest no intimation of awarded grace only contrition cleavingly confessed to thy forgiving face i ask one world of everlasting loss in all i am the other world to win my nothingness must kneel below thy cross there let new life begin i'm actually going to conclude i said i would i my my hope was to write an autobiography of of uh seek for its as soon well i did see in my own volume of poetry uh defining divinity there's a poem called dante de la tante which is basically an autobiography of seek for its as soon in verse and with this will conclude hope spring is eternal on new year's day 1914 and all sing old langzine but hell sings infernal songs who hears pray to aya sees gangrene my boys aya sees gangrene and i will have you hear my boys where aya sees gangrene thus the red thus the red rose burns and has for thee the subtle stench of blasphemy and bell's chime is hell's crime and the bell tolls for thee a virgin child so weak and wild a lamb to the slaughter blinking blind fumbling find and kiss the devil's daughter a debutante de la tante into hell to follow dante and dance the deadly dance and so soon so soon so soon you join the necromance and not in fear no inferno story worries you bland see no evil speak no evil inferno evil glory hurries you blind so they cheered as you march to war a jingo jangled cavalier but sneered the sign above the door a bad and hope who enters here and so soon so soon in nightmare you're awake with senseless insomniacs marniacs lamonsiacs a sight fair for awake but the soldier is a mystic foiling foolish fashion and redeemed and realistic perceives poetic passion and see freed freed from Wagnerian curses with sacred seed despair disperses up surge surgery open heart perjury puts perjury to flight and purgatorial seeking falsehood forsaking finds paradismal light and so soon so soon so soon you lurch triumphant and find the key to liberty from the search circumferent and as you turn the key you learn to see that in that it unlocks the paradox of paradise the charge to cease life's labor's test he grants you peace ita missa est thank you as always for joining me on your authority please do join me next week and until next week goodbye god bless and good reading this has been an episode of the authority with joseph pierce brought to you by tan for updates on new episodes and to support the authority and other great free content visit the authority podcast dot com to subscribe and use coupon code authority 25 to get 25 percent off your next order including books audio books and video courses by joseph pierce on literary giants such as Tolkien cheserton louis shakespeare and bellach as well as tans extensive catalog of content from the saints and great spiritual masters to strengthen your faith and interior life to follow joseph and support his work check out his blog and sign up for email updates and exclusive content at jpears.co and thanks for listening