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Donald Sassoon Biography & Facts

Siegfried Loraine Sassoon (8 September 1886 – 1 September 1967) was an English war poet, writer, and soldier. Decorated for bravery on the Western Front, he became one of the leading poets of the First World War. His poetry both described the horrors of the trenches and satirized the patriotic pretensions of those who, in Sassoon's view, were responsible for a jingoism-fuelled war. Sassoon became a focal point for dissent within the armed forces when he made a lone protest against the continuation of the war with his "Soldier's Declaration" of July 1917, which resulted in his being sent to the Craiglockhart War Hospital. During this period he met and formed a friendship with Wilfred Owen, who was greatly influenced by him. Sassoon later won acclaim for his prose work, notably his three-volume, fictionalised autobiography, collectively known as the Sherston trilogy. Early life Siegfried Sassoon was born to a Jewish father and an Anglo-Catholic mother, and grew up in the neo-gothic mansion named Weirleigh (after its builder Harrison Weir) in Matfield, Kent. His father, Alfred Ezra Sassoon (1861–1895), son of Sassoon David Sassoon, was a member of the wealthy Baghdadi Jewish Sassoon merchant family. For marrying outside the Jewish faith, Alfred was disinherited. Siegfried's mother, Theresa, belonged to the Thornycroft family, sculptors responsible for many of the best-known statues in London—her brother was Sir Hamo Thornycroft. There was no German ancestry in Sassoon's family; his mother named him Siegfried because of her love of Wagner's operas. His middle name, Loraine, was the surname of a clergyman she respected. Siegfried was the second of three sons, the others being Michael and Hamo. When he was four years old his parents separated. During his father's weekly visits to the boys, Theresa locked herself in the drawing-room. In 1895 Alfred Sassoon died of tuberculosis. Sassoon was educated at the New Beacon School, Sevenoaks, Kent; at Marlborough College, Wiltshire; and at Clare College, Cambridge, where from 1905 to 1907 he read history. He left Cambridge without a degree and spent the years after 1907 hunting, playing cricket and writing verse, some of which he published privately. Although his father had been disinherited from the Sassoon fortune for marrying outside of the Jewish faith, Siegfried had a small private income that allowed him to live modestly without having to earn a living. Later, he was left a large legacy by an aunt, Rachel Beer, allowing him to buy the great estate of Heytesbury House in Wiltshire. His first published success, "The Daffodil Murderer" (1913), was a parody of John Masefield's The Everlasting Mercy. Robert Graves, in Good-Bye to All That, describes it as a "parody of Masefield which, midway through, had forgotten to be a parody and turned into rather good Masefield." Cricket Sassoon played for his village cricket team at a young age, and his brothers and three of his tutors were cricket enthusiasts. The Marchant family were neighbouring landowners, and Frank Marchant was captain of the county side between 1890 and 1897. Sassoon played for his house at Marlborough, once taking 7 wickets for 18 runs, and during this time he contributed three poems to Cricket magazine. For some years around 1910 he often played for Bluemantles Cricket Club, at the Nevill Ground, in Tunbridge Wells, sometimes alongside Arthur Conan Doyle. He later played for a Downside Abbey team called "The Ravens", continuing playing well into his seventies. War service The Western Front: Military Cross Sassoon joined the Army just as the threat of a new European war was recognized, and was in service with the Sussex Yeomanry on 4 August 1914, the day the United Kingdom declared war on Germany. He broke his arm badly in a riding accident and was put out of action before leaving England, spending the spring of 1915 convalescing. He was commissioned into the 3rd Battalion (Special Reserve), Royal Welch Fusiliers, as a second lieutenant on 29 May 1915. On 1 November, his younger brother Hamo was killed in the Gallipoli Campaign, dying on board the ship Kildonan Castle after having had his leg amputated. In the same month, Siegfried was sent to the 1st Battalion, Royal Welch Fusiliers, in France, where he met Robert Graves, and they became close friends. United by their poetic vocation, they often read and discussed each other's work. Though this did not have much perceptible influence on Graves' poetry, his views on what may be called "gritty realism" profoundly affected Sassoon's concept of what constituted poetry. He soon became horrified by the realities of war, and the tone of his writing changed completely: where his early poems exhibit a Romantic, dilettantish sweetness, his war poetry moves to an increasingly discordant music, intended to convey the ugly truths of the trenches to an audience hitherto lulled by patriotic propaganda. 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. Sassoon's periods of duty on the Western Front were marked by exceptionally brave actions, including the single-handed capture of a German trench. Armed with grenades, he scattered sixty German soldiers:He went over with bombs in daylight, under covering fire from a couple of rifles, and scared away the occupants. A pointless feat, since instead of signalling for reinforcements, he sat down in the German trench and began reading a book of poems which he had brought with him. When he went back he did not even report. Colonel Stockwell, then in command, raged at him. The attack on Mametz Wood had been delayed for two hours because British patrols were still reported to be out. "British patrols" were Siegfried and his book of poems. "I'd have got you a DSO, if you'd only shown more sense," stormed Stockwell.Sassoon's bravery was so inspiring that soldiers of his company said that they felt confident only when they were accompanied by him. He often went out on night raids and bombing patrols, and demonstrated ruthless efficiency as a company commander. Deepening depression at the horror and misery the soldiers were forced to endure produced in Sassoon a paradoxically manic courage, and he was nicknamed "Mad Jack" by his men for his near-suicidal exploits. On 27 July 1916 he was awarded the Military Cross; the citation read: 2nd Lt. Siegfried Lorraine [sic] Sassoon, 3rd (attd. 1st) Bn., R. W. Fus. For conspicuous gallantry during a raid on the enemy's trenches. He remained for 1½ hours under rifle and bomb fire collecting and bringing in our wounded. Owing to his courage and determination all the killed and wounded were brought in. Robert Graves described Sassoon as engaging in suicidal feats of bravery. Sassoon was also later recommended for the Victoria Cross. War opposition and Craiglockhart D.... Discover the Donald Sassoon popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Donald Sassoon books.