The Penguin Book of First World War Poetry. Edited and With an Introduction by Jon Silkin

SILKIN, Jon (ed)

ISBN 10: 0713910917 / ISBN 13: 9780713910919

Published by Allen Lane (Penguin Books), 1980

About this Item

Dustwrapper slightly rubbed but unfaded and unclipped. Robust packaging. Tracking is always added to USA orders. It can be added to other overseas orders on request. Used books are exempt from USA tariffs. 2nd impression. No ownership marks. Size: vi, 258pp.

Seller Inventory # ZZ7197

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Penguin Book of First World War Poetry. Edited and With an Introduction by Jon Silkin
• Publisher: Allen Lane (Penguin Books)
• Publication Date: 1980
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0713910917
• ISBN 13: 9780713910919
• Binding: Binding sound, text unmarked
• Condition: Near Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine
• Signed: No ownership marks
• Seller catalogs:
  • Literature & Fiction: General

About this title

Synopsis

This volume aims at being comprehensive within the confines of excellence. it does not attempt a picture, in verse, of the War; nor does it aim at representing all those who wrote verse. It offers the best work by the best poets. It therefore includes a few poets such as Hardy, Kipling and Flint who were not combatants, but who yet wrote good poetry concerned, in the main, directly with the War. Most of the poets however were combatants and some, like Sorley, did not survive long enough to do more than hint at their potential. Others, like Edward Thomas, did not survive long enough for the experience of combat to enter into their work, although the War is certainly present.

The principal poets, such as Rosenberg and Owen, are of course well represented. But there is also Herbert Read, Sassoon, Blunden and, difficult though he is to represent, David Jones (In Parenthesis). The analogy also contains a sample from the work (in translation) of German, French, and Italian 'War' poetry. As far as English poetry is concerned the period is still, and will remain, crucial to the development of modern poetry, besides providing some of the finest poetry of the twentieth century. The period also offers an alternate route to that provided by Eliot and Pound, and one in which experience and value come painfully together.