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Siegfried Loraine Sassoon CBE MC (Clare 1905), 1886–1967, was a poet and author, famous for his verse written from the Front during the First World War.
Motivated by patriotism, he joined the British army in 1914 and was sent to France in November 1915 where he met fellow poet Robert Graves. He soon became horrified by the realities of war. Details such as rotting corpses, mangled limbs, filth, cowardice and suicide are all trademarks of his work at this time, and this philosophy of ‘no truth unfitting’ had a significant effect on the movement towards Modernist poetry.
An exceptionally brave soldier, he was awarded the Military Cross on 27 July 1916 for conspicuous gallantry during a raid on enemy trenches. Yet despite his decoration and reputation, he decided in 1917 to make a stand against the conduct of the war, sending a letter to his commanding officer which became known as ‘A Solider’s Declaration’. Escaping prosecution for treason, he was declared unfit for service and sent for treatment for ‘shell shock’. While in hospital he met Wilfred Owen, whose work he later championed. Sassoon returned to the front in 1918 and served until the end of the war.
He continued to publish poetry, novels and volumes of autobiography. He was elected to an Honorary Fellowship of Clare College in 1953. On Armistice Day 1985, he was among sixteen Great War poets commemorated on a slate stone unveiled in Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey.