Siegfried Sassoon

Biography of Siegfried Sassoon (1886 – 1967)

Siegfried Sassoon
Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967)

Siegfried Loraine Sassoon (September 8, 1886 – September 1, 1967) was an English poet and author. He became known as a writer of satirical anti-war verse during World War I, but later won acclaim for his prose work.

Sassoon was born in Matfield, Kent, to a Jewish father and English mother. His father, Alfred, one of the wealthy Sassoon merchant family, was disinherited for marrying outside the faith. His mother, Teresa, belonged to the Thornycroft family, sculptors responsible for many of the best-known statues in London — her brother was Sir Hamo Thornycroft. There was no German blood in Siegfried’s family; he owed his unusual first name to his mother’s predilection for the operas of Wagner. His middle name was taken from the surname of a clergyman with whom she was friendly.

Sassoon was educated at Marlborough College in Wiltshire, and at Clare College, Cambridge, where he studied both law and history from 1905 to 1907. However, he dropped out of university without a degree, and spent the next few years hunting, playing cricket, and privately publishing a few volumes of not very highly acclaimed poetry. His income was just enough to prevent his having to seek work, but not enough to live extravagantly. His first real success was The Daffodil Murderer, a parody of a work by John Masefield.

Biography By: This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License and uses material adapted in whole or in part from the Wikipedia article on Siegfried Sassoon.

Poems By Siegfried Sassoon

Miscellaneous

‘In the Pink’ (No Comments »)
‘They’ (No Comments »)
A Child’s Prayer (No Comments »)
A Letter Home (No Comments »)
A Mystic As Soldier (No Comments »)
A Poplar and the Moon (No Comments »)
A Subaltern (No Comments »)
A Wanderer (No Comments »)
A Whispered Tale (No Comments »)
A Working Party (No Comments »)
Aftermath (No Comments »)
Alone (No Comments »)
An Old French Poet (No Comments »)
Ancestors (No Comments »)
Ancient History (No Comments »)
Arcady Unheeding (No Comments »)
Arms and the Man (No Comments »)
At Carnoy (No Comments »)
At Daybreak (No Comments »)
Attack (No Comments »)
Autumn (No Comments »)
Banishment (No Comments »)
Base Details (No Comments »)
Battalion-Relief (No Comments »)
Before Day (No Comments »)
Before the Battle (No Comments »)
Blighters (No Comments »)
Blind (No Comments »)
Bombardment (No Comments »)
Break of Day (No Comments »)
Butterflies (No Comments »)
Companions (No Comments »)
Concert Party (No Comments »)
Conscripts (No Comments »)
Counter-Attack (No Comments »)
David Cleek (No Comments »)
Dead Musicians (No Comments »)
Devotion to Duty (No Comments »)
Died of Wounds (No Comments »)
Does It Matter? (No Comments »)
Dream-Forest (No Comments »)
Dreamers (No Comments »)
Dryads (No Comments »)
Editorial Impressions (No Comments »)
Elegy (No Comments »)
Enemies (No Comments »)
Everyone Sang (No Comments »)
Falling Asleep (No Comments »)
Fancy Dress (No Comments »)
Fight to a Finish (No Comments »)
France (No Comments »)
Glory Of Women (No Comments »)
Goblin Revel (No Comments »)
Golgotha (No Comments »)
Haunted (No Comments »)
Hero (No Comments »)
How to Die (No Comments »)
I Stood With the Dead (No Comments »)
Idyll (No Comments »)
In Barracks (No Comments »)
In Me, Past, Present, Future meet (No Comments »)
Invocation (No Comments »)
Joy-Bells (No Comments »)
Lamentations (No Comments »)
Limitations (No Comments »)
Lovers (No Comments »)
Memorial Tablet (No Comments »)
Memory (No Comments »)
Middle-Ages (No Comments »)
Miracles (No Comments »)
Morning Express (No Comments »)
Morning-Glory (No Comments »)
Morning-Land (No Comments »)
Night on the Convoy (No Comments »)
Night-Piece (No Comments »)
Nimrod in September (No Comments »)
Noah (No Comments »)
October (No Comments »)
Parted (No Comments »)
Picture-Show (No Comments »)
Prelude to an Unwritten Masterpiece (No Comments »)
Reconciliation (No Comments »)
Remorse (No Comments »)
Repression of War Experience (No Comments »)
Secret Music (No Comments »)
Sick Leave (No Comments »)
Slumber-Song (No Comments »)
Song-Books of the War (No Comments »)
South Wind (No Comments »)
Stand-To: Good Friday Morning (No Comments »)
Storm and Sunlight (No Comments »)
Stretcher Case (No Comments »)
Suicide In The Trenches (No Comments »)
Survivors (No Comments »)
The Choral Union (No Comments »)
The Dark House (No Comments »)
The Death-Bed (No Comments »)
The Dream (No Comments »)
The Dreamers (No Comments »)
The Dug-Out (No Comments »)
The Effect (No Comments »)
The Fathers (No Comments »)
The General (No Comments »)
The Hawthorn Tree (No Comments »)
The Heritage (No Comments »)
The Imperfect Lover (No Comments »)
The Investiture (No Comments »)
The Kiss (No Comments »)
The Last Meeting (No Comments »)
The Old Huntsman (No Comments »)
The One-Legged Man (No Comments »)
The Poet as Hero (No Comments »)
The Rear-Guard (No Comments »)
The Redeemer (No Comments »)
The Road (No Comments »)
The Tombstone-Maker (No Comments »)
The Troops (No Comments »)
The Working Party (No Comments »)
Their Frailty (No Comments »)
Thrushes (No Comments »)
To a Childless Woman (No Comments »)
To a Very Wise Man (No Comments »)
To Any Dead Officer (No Comments »)
To His Dead Body (No Comments »)
To Leonide Massine in Cleopatra’ (No Comments »)
To My Brother (No Comments »)
To Victory (No Comments »)
Today (No Comments »)
Together (No Comments »)
Tree and Sky (No Comments »)
Trench Duty (No Comments »)
Twelve Months After (No Comments »)
Two Hundred Years After (No Comments »)
Villon (No Comments »)
Vision (No Comments »)
What the Captain Said at the Point-to-Point (No Comments »)
When I’m among a Blaze of Lights (No Comments »)
Wind in the Beechwood (No Comments »)
Wirers (No Comments »)
Wisdom (No Comments »)
Wonderment (No Comments »)
Wraiths (No Comments »)

Picture Show

The Goldsmith (No Comments »)

The Old Huntsman and Other Poems

Absolution (No Comments »)
Daybreak In A Garden (No Comments »)
The Dragon & The Undying (No Comments »)