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A review by dqan
Some Desperate Glory: The First World War the Poets Knew by Max Egremont
4.0
For the centenary of WWI, Max Egremont has given us a fine survey of WWI poets and poetry. More specifically, it covers British poets who actually participated in the war. "Some Desperate Glory" approaches the topic from several angles: history, biography, and the poetic works themselves.
The book is, essentially, arranged in six sections: one for each year of the war as well as one chapter covering the post war years. Each section contains biographical material about the poets, references to their part in the war, along with the poems mentioned. There are 80+ poems here - a healthy selection.
Since the material is presented chronologically, we get some sense of the growth and changes that marked out each artist's path. We get the bellicosity and confidence of the early years, the hopelessness of the interminable middle years, the relief of victory, and the many years of pondering that followed.
The book will be of most use to those whose primary interest has been in the military, political, and social history of WWI and who want to know more about the fighting British poets. Such readers will have a good framework in which to place the biographical and poetic elements to be found in this book.
While there is some historical context presented here, many readers would do well to pick up a general history of WWI or one that focuses on the daily lives of soldiers. The biographical information here is very interesting, but individual biographies would be more satisfying to some. Interested readers will also want to pick up additional collections that include poets of other nationalities (and viewpoints), WWI era poets who saw military action in prior wars, etc. There will be some overlap of course, but it will mostly be the cream of the crop - material worth revisiting multiple times.
I'm glad I took the time to read this book. I plan to revisit it. I've always struggled with poetry, but found this to be a palatable and interesting way to approach it. It was certainly a welcome bit of variety to add to my WWI studies.
I received this book at no cost through the Goodreads First Reads program.
The book is, essentially, arranged in six sections: one for each year of the war as well as one chapter covering the post war years. Each section contains biographical material about the poets, references to their part in the war, along with the poems mentioned. There are 80+ poems here - a healthy selection.
Since the material is presented chronologically, we get some sense of the growth and changes that marked out each artist's path. We get the bellicosity and confidence of the early years, the hopelessness of the interminable middle years, the relief of victory, and the many years of pondering that followed.
The book will be of most use to those whose primary interest has been in the military, political, and social history of WWI and who want to know more about the fighting British poets. Such readers will have a good framework in which to place the biographical and poetic elements to be found in this book.
While there is some historical context presented here, many readers would do well to pick up a general history of WWI or one that focuses on the daily lives of soldiers. The biographical information here is very interesting, but individual biographies would be more satisfying to some. Interested readers will also want to pick up additional collections that include poets of other nationalities (and viewpoints), WWI era poets who saw military action in prior wars, etc. There will be some overlap of course, but it will mostly be the cream of the crop - material worth revisiting multiple times.
I'm glad I took the time to read this book. I plan to revisit it. I've always struggled with poetry, but found this to be a palatable and interesting way to approach it. It was certainly a welcome bit of variety to add to my WWI studies.
I received this book at no cost through the Goodreads First Reads program.