ENGL 2200: The First World War

An audio slideshow presentation.

Poet Ian McMillan asks if Wilfred Owen's poems are an accurate, or distorted, view of the war.

Actor Samuel West, appearing on the BBC's Today program, reads the uncensored version of the poem.

An audio discussion which includes Jean Moorcroft Wilson, Lecturer in English at Birkbeck, University of London and a biographer of Sassoon; Fran Brearton, Reader in English and Assistant Director of the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry at the University of Belfast; Max Egremont, a biographer of Siegfried Sassoon. 41:39 minutes.

The animation is by Aslan Livingstone-Ra. The poem is read by actor David Harewood.

Texts of his most famous poems; video presentations by Jeremy Paxman; and audio files of the poems being read by
Samuel Barnett.

"Dr. Santanu Das considers how the examination of war poetry has changed and looks beyond typical British trench lyric to explore the variety of poetic responses."

Scroll down to find the recordings near the bottom of the page.

Digitized copy of poems by J.L. Crommelin Brown.

This 2013 article from the Guardian (UK) discusses cuts made to the poem to allow its publication during a time of intense patriotism.

A documentary by Tim Kendall on Ivor Gurney's war experience and poetry (58 min.)

Commemorating King George V's visit to war
cemeteries in France in 1922.

Dedicated to promoting the life and work of Rudyard Kipling, Britain's poet of patriotism and Empire.

Digitized archive of important political and literary magazines, many published during the years of the First World War.

An early anthology of poems written in the field by British soldiers serving in the First World War.

Patriotic poems from the first years of the war.

Search for poems and biographies of WWI poets.

A discussion of WWI poetry with poet Alfred Corn.

Poems, audio clips, and articles.

Digitized versions of Sassoon's handwritten war journals, courtesy of Cambridge University.

A collection of poems by British soldiers.

A website dedicated to the life and poetry of one of the most important English war poets. He was killed in action one week before the war ended.

A digitized version of the satirical newspaper published by British soldiers on the front lines in Ypres, France, from 1916-1918.

A concise study of poetry written from the perspective of British women munition-workers.

Several poems on war themes.