Siegfried Sassoon
born Sept. 8, 1886, Brenchley, Kent, Eng.
died Sept. 1, 1967, Heytesbury, Wiltshire
English poet and novelist, known for his
antiwar poetry and for his fictionalized
autobiographies, praised for their evocation
of English country life.
Sassoon enlisted in World War I and was
twice wounded seriously while serving as an
officer in France. It was his antiwar
poetry, such as The Old Huntsman (1917) and
Counterattack (1918), and his public
affirmation of pacifism, after he had won
the Military Cross and was still in the
army, that made him widely known. His
antiwar protests were at first attributed to
shell shock, and he was confined for a time
in a sanatorium, where he met and influenced
another pacifist soldier-poet, Wilfred Owen,
whose works he published after Owen was
killed at the front. His autobiographical
works include The Memoirs of George Sherston,
3 vol. (1928–36), and Siegfried’s Journey, 3
vol. (1945), and more of his poems were
published as Collected Poems (1947) and The
Path to Peace (1960). His later poetry was
increasingly devotional.
