Both Sassoon and Owen wrote war poetry to inform people of the realities of war. Sassoon's efforts to publicly decry the war were stunted when the military announced he suffered from shell-shock and sent him to a hospital to recover. His poetry became the means of sharing his opinion that the war had "become a war of aggression and conquest," from Norton 1832. He wanted to share with the public the true cost of war. His poem "They" reflects the common assumptions of the people at home about what the soldiers will be like when they come home. He wipes away all the illusions and shows that "you'll not find/A chap who's served that hasn't found some change" these are lines 9-10. In the poem, the soldiers don't return better and brighter. Instead, Sassoon shows how they return less whole by describing their injuries.
Sassoon met Owen while both were in the hospital recovering. Both men's greatest achievements as poets dealt with the war. Sassoon's poems about the war were, "deliberately written to disturb complacency," said in the New York Times. He called them "trench-sketches" and wrote about what he witnessed while fighting with detail and honesty. Many of his war poems are highly satirical.
While Sassoon wrote war poetry to express his anger about the war, Owen's main influence on his writing was not just a desire to show what war was actually like, but also an expression of the horrors he saw in many aspects of life. His poetry was heavily influenced by nightmares he experienced since his childhood which were only worsened by his experiences in battle. While in the hospital, Sassoon helped Owen with his writing. At first, Owen used many of the same "shock tactics" used by Sassoon, but he eventually found his own voice. After helping Owen with final editing process of "Anthem for Doomed Youth," Sassoon wrote that he, "realized that his verse, with its sumptuous epithets and large-scale imagery, its noble naturalness and the depth of meaning.
Owen's poems, such as "Anthem for Doomed Youth" and "Apologia pro Poemate Meo" were not just inspired by war or dreams, but were also written as replies to other authors, the latter in response to a remark by Robert Graves. Owen was not only powerful in his subject matter, but also technically, which is why Sassoon, Graves, and other poets admired his work. His use of para-rhyme added greatly to his poetry because it, "produces effects of dissonance, failure, and unfulfilment that subtly reinforces his themes,"
Both poets wanted to express their views and feelings about the war. Their experiences in battle, although horrible, inspired them to write better poetry than they did before the war, and in Sassoon's case, even after the war. Owen seems to be a more psychologically complex person. His poems are often melancholy and reach people on a deeply emotional level. Sassoon's poems also affect people, but they do not leave a lasting impression. Sassoon's goal as a war poet is to shock, while Owen's goal is to make people experience deep emotion. It is obvious from Sassoon's own remarks about Owen that even he felt the extreme emotional and lyrical power of Owen's poems. The work of each poet serves as a reminder of the awfulness of war and the effect war has on people's lives.
Where did Owen actually receive his inspiration While recovering at Craiglockhart War Hospital he met Siegfried Sassoon. Owen showed Sassoon his poetry who advised and encouraged him. So also did another writer at the hospital, Robert Graves. Sassoon suggested that Owen should write in a more direct, colloquial style. Over the next few months Owen wrote a series of poems, including Anthem for Doomed Youth, Disabled, Dulce et Decorum Est and Strange Meeting.
Sassoon introduced Owen to H. G. Wells and Arnold Bennett and helped him get some of his poems published in The Nation. Owen also had talks with William Heinemann about the publication of a collection of his poems.
During Sassoon's time at the Western Front, Sassoon became friendly with two men who were formative influences on his life. One was the younger poet, Robert Graves, who encouraged Siegfried to look with new eyes on his surroundings. The other was David Thomas, who was tragically killed in 1916. This death, combined with the loss of his brother Hamo in a naval action, caused Sassoon great emotional turmoil. While recovering from trench fever at a convalescent hospital in Oxford, Siegfried became friendly with Lady Ottoline Morrell and her circle, including intellectuals and pacifists such as Bertrand Russell. Russell is credited by some with having been the catalyst leading to the issue of the Soldier’s Declaration, which was sent to the papers and read out in the House of Commons in May, 1917. Sassoon, in the grip of a "neurosis", had by now thrown his Military Cross into the River Mersey and refused to report for duty. His glittering military record ensured that the authorities declined to court-martial him. Instead, he was sent for treatment to Craiglockhart Military Hospital in Edinburgh, where he met Owen.
Even though the motive and the awareness both the authors were trying to express were the same, there is still a big difference in the way they are expressing these physical and mental emotions. I personally feel that no author in this world is comparable with another, there is always one thing that a author has over the other. In this case both Owen and Sassoon were close, and shared a “brotherly love” we can say, but the way of writing is different with every sense of emotion expressed by each author in each line in each word in each letter.
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