‘They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old’: this is a familiar quotation to many people, but where does it come from? The answer lies in one of the most famous and yet most obscure poems of the First World War. Laurence Binyon’s ‘For the Fallen’ […]
‘The Last Laugh’ is a poem by Wilfred Owen (1893-1918), drafted in February 1918 (as ‘Last Words’) but only first published after Owen’s death in November 1918, one week before the Armistice. Although not his most famous poem by any means, ‘The Last Laugh’ is one of his most stark […]
‘The General’ is one of the most famous poems written by Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967). After Wilfred Owen, Sassoon was probably the most celebrated – and perhaps the most gifted – English poet to write about his experiences in the First World War. But where Owen writes about ‘the pity of […]
Many of the war poems of Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967) take aim at authority figures, older and more powerful men such as generals and majors who hold the fates of the younger generation in their hands. ‘They’, one of Sassoon’s most famous poems, focuses on religious authority, embodied in the poem […]
The best poems of Wilfred Owen selected by Dr Oliver Tearle Previously, we’ve selected ten of the best poems about the First World War; but of all the English poets to write about that conflict, one name towers above the rest: Wilfred Owen (1893-1918). Here’s our pick of Wilfred Owen’s […]