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the experience of reading in Britain, from 1450 to 1945...

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Listings for Reader:  

Wilfred Owen

 

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Edmund Spenser : Faerie Queene, The

'He was certainly a keen student of literature, as can be seen from some 1907-8 exercise books which show him working on the "Faerie Queene", at least ten Shakespeare plays and many other texts that were to be of use to him later'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen      Print: Book

  

William Shakespeare : [plays]

'He was certainly a keen student of literature, as can be seen from some 1907-8 exercise books which show him working on the "Faerie Queene", at least ten Shakespeare plays and many other texts that were to be of use to him later'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen      Print: Book

  

John Keats : Endymion

'He marked personal details in Colvin's biography of Keats, particularly when they seemed to coincide with his own, noticing that Keats's mind was "naturally unapt for dogma", that Keats and Hunt were given to "luxuriating" over "deliciousness", and that Reynolds came from Shrewsbury and "lacked health and energy". He involved himself similarly in the poems. "Endymion" and 'Lamia' kept his pencil especially busy as he underlined rich vocabulary and marked lush descriptions, including that of the sleeping Adonis. A bookmarker in "Endymion", embroidered with the text "create in me a clean heart O God", seems to have prayed in vain among sensuous passages in which he evidently delighted, but perhaps guilt overcame him after reading 'Lamia', because four pages of erotic description have been carefully stuck together'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen      Print: Book

  

John Keats : 'Lamia'

'He marked personal details in Colvin's biography of Keats, particularly when they seemed to coincide with his own, noticing that Keats's mind was "naturally unapt for dogma", that Keats and Hunt were given to "luxuriating" over "deliciousness", and that Reynolds came from Shrewsbury and "lacked health and energy". He involved himself similarly in the poems. "Endymion" and 'Lamia' kept his pencil especially busy as he underlined rich vocabulary and marked lush descriptions, including that of the sleeping Adonis. A bookmarker in "Endymion", embroidered with the text "create in me a clean heart O God", seems to have prayed in vain among sensuous passages in which he evidently delighted, but perhaps guilt overcame him after reading 'Lamia', because four pages of erotic description have been carefully stuck together'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen      Print: Book

  

Sidney Colvin : Life Of John Keats

'He marked personal details in Colvin's biography of Keats, particularly when they seemed to coincide with his own, noticing that Keats's mind was "naturally unapt for dogma", that Keats and Hunt were given to "luxuriating" over "deliciousness", and that Reynolds came from Shrewsbury and "lacked health and energy". He involved himself similarly in the poems. "Endymion" and 'Lamia' kept his pencil especially busy as he underlined rich vocabulary and marked lush descriptions, including that of the sleeping Adonis. A bookmarker in "Endymion", embroidered with the text "create in me a clean heart O God", seems to have prayed in vain among sensuous passages in which he evidently delighted, but perhaps guilt overcame him after reading 'Lamia', because four pages of erotic description have been carefully stuck together'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen      Print: Book

  

Charles Dickens : 

'His books, over three hundred of which are preserved as he left them in 1918, show the range - and limitations - of his interests at school and later. Shakespeare, Scott, Keats and Dickens predominate, but he also worked on Milton, several eighteenth-century authors, and some Elizabethan and late Medieval poets. About two thirds of his library can be classified as "English literature", including biographies of at least twenty authors [explanatory sentence about dominance of biography not criticism in those days]. There are also nearly fifty books in or about French, a high proportion for someone of Owen's respectable but ordinary educational background. the rest are mostly botany, history and classics. The imprints are often those of the popular "libraries" of the time - Everyman's Library, the People's Books, the Home University Library, Penny Poets - cheap editions aimed at the growing market of young people like himself who were keen on self-improvement'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen      Print: Book

  

John Milton : 

'His books, over three hundred of which are preserved as he left them in 1918, show the range - and limitations - of his interests at school and later. Shakespeare, Scott, Keats and Dickens predominate, but he also worked on Milton, several eighteenth-century authors, and some Elizabethan and late Medieval poets. About two thirds of his library can be classified as "English literature", including biographies of at least twenty authors [explanatory sentence about dominance of biography not criticism in those days]. There are also nearly fifty books in or about French, a high proportion for someone of Owen's respectable but ordinary educational background. the rest are mostly botany, history and classics. The imprints are often those of the popular "libraries" of the time - Everyman's Library, the People's Books, the Home University Library, Penny Poets - cheap editions aimed at the growing market of young people like himself who were keen on self-improvement'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen      Print: Book

  

Walter Scott : 

'His books, over three hundred of which are preserved as he left them in 1918, show the range - and limitations - of his interests at school and later. Shakespeare, Scott, Keats and Dickens predominate, but he also worked on Milton, several eighteenth-century authors, and some Elizabethan and late Medieval poets. About two thirds of his library can be classified as "English literature", including biographies of at least twenty authors [explanatory sentence about dominance of biography not criticism in those days]. There are also nearly fifty books in or about French, a high proportion for someone of Owen's respectable but ordinary educational background. the rest are mostly botany, history and classics. The imprints are often those of the popular "libraries" of the time - Everyman's Library, the People's Books, the Home University Library, Penny Poets - cheap editions aimed at the growing market of young people like himself who were keen on self-improvement'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen      Print: Book

  

 : [Elizabethan and Medieval Poetry]

'His books, over three hundred of which are preserved as he left them in 1918, show the range - and limitations - of his interests at school and later. Shakespeare, Scott, Keats and Dickens predominate, but he also worked on Milton, several eighteenth-century authors, and some Elizabethan and late Medieval poets. About two thirds of his library can be classified as "English literature", including biographies of at least twenty authors [explanatory sentence about dominance of biography not criticism in those days]. There are also nearly fifty books in or about French, a high proportion for someone of Owen's respectable but ordinary educational background. the rest are mostly botany, history and classics. The imprints are often those of the popular "libraries" of the time - Everyman's Library, the People's Books, the Home University Library, Penny Poets - cheap editions aimed at the growing market of young people like himself who were keen on self-improvement'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen      Print: Book

  

 : [literary biographies]

'His books, over three hundred of which are preserved as he left them in 1918, show the range - and limitations - of his interests at school and later. Shakespeare, Scott, Keats and Dickens predominate, but he also worked on Milton, several eighteenth-century authors, and some Elizabethan and late Medieval poets. About two thirds of his library can be classified as "English literature", including biographies of at least twenty authors [explanatory sentence about dominance of biography not criticism in those days]. There are also nearly fifty books in or about French, a high proportion for someone of Owen's respectable but ordinary educational background. the rest are mostly botany, history and classics. The imprints are often those of the popular "libraries" of the time - Everyman's Library, the People's Books, the Home University Library, Penny Poets - cheap editions aimed at the growing market of young people like himself who were keen on self-improvement'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen      Print: Book

  

 : [French books and books about French]

'His books, over three hundred of which are preserved as he left them in 1918, show the range - and limitations - of his interests at school and later. Shakespeare, Scott, Keats and Dickens predominate, but he also worked on Milton, several eighteenth-century authors, and some Elizabethan and late Medieval poets. About two thirds of his library can be classified as "English literature", including biographies of at least twenty authors [explanatory sentence about dominance of biography not criticism in those days]. There are also nearly fifty books in or about French, a high proportion for someone of Owen's respectable but ordinary educational background. the rest are mostly botany, history and classics. The imprints are often those of the popular "libraries" of the time - Everyman's Library, the People's Books, the Home University Library, Penny Poets - cheap editions aimed at the growing market of young people like himself who were keen on self-improvement'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen      Print: Book

  

 : [books on history, classics and botany]

'His books, over three hundred of which are preserved as he left them in 1918, show the range - and limitations - of his interests at school and later. Shakespeare, Scott, Keats and Dickens predominate, but he also worked on Milton, several eighteenth-century authors, and some Elizabethan and late Medieval poets. About two thirds of his library can be classified as "English literature", including biographies of at least twenty authors [explanatory sentence about dominance of biography not criticism in those days]. There are also nearly fifty books in or about French, a high proportion for someone of Owen's respectable but ordinary educational background. the rest are mostly botany, history and classics. The imprints are often those of the popular "libraries" of the time - Everyman's Library, the People's Books, the Home University Library, Penny Poets - cheap editions aimed at the growing market of young people like himself who were keen on self-improvement'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen      Print: Book

  

 : Bible

'the first books in his library are Bibles. The largest is his mother's, who perhaps put it there. Brought up as a devout Evangelical herself, she reared him in her faith; he fully shared it at first, reading a Bible passage every day with the aid of scripture Union notes and piuosly including texts and sermon topics in his early letters'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen      Print: Book

  

 : [Scripture Union notes on the Bible]

'the first books in his library are Bibles. The largest is his mother's, who perhaps put it there. Brought up as a devout Evangelical herself, she reared him in her faith; he fully shared it at first, reading a Bible passage every day with the aid of scripture Union notes and piuosly including texts and sermon topics in his early letters'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen      Print: Unknown

  

 : [texts on science / religion debate]

'Owen turned to his third main interest, the earth sciences, doing his earnest but unscholarly best to tackle the Victorian debate between science and religion. He was soon "reading analysing, collecting, sifting and classifying Evidence" and "grappling as I never did before with the problem of Evolution". He read a statement of the Christian answer to Darwinism but contemptuously wrote "Shallow!" against its discussion of art. His conclusion was probably summed up in a comment he had marked in Keats's letters, "Nothing in this world is proveable"; when he met these words again in W.M. Rossetti's life of Keats, he added, "at least [italics] proved [end italics] W.O.".'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen      Print: Book

  

 : [a Christian response to Darwinism]

'Owen turned to his third main interest, the earth sciences, doing his earnest but unscholarly best to tackle the Victorian debate between science and religion. He was soon "reading analysing, collecting, sifting and classifying Evidence" and "grappling as I never did before with the problem of Evolution". He read a statement of the Christian answer to Darwinism but contemptuously wrote "Shallow!" against its discussion of art. His conclusion was probably summed up in a comment he had marked in Keats's letters, "Nothing in this world is proveable"; when he met these words again in W.M. Rossetti's life of Keats, he added, "at least [italics] proved [end italics] W.O.".'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen      Print: Book

  

John Keats : Letters

'Owen turned to his third main interest, the earth sciences, doing his earnest but unscholarly best to tackle the Victorian debate between science and religion. He was soon "reading analysing, collecting, sifting and classifying Evidence" and "grappling as I never did before with the problem of Evolution". He read a statement of the Christian answer to Darwinism but contemptuously wrote "Shallow!" against its discussion of art. His conclusion was probably summed up in a comment he had marked in Keats's letters, "Nothing in this world is proveable"; when he met these words again in W.M. Rossetti's life of Keats, he added, "at least [italics] proved [end italics] W.O.".'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen      Print: Book

  

William Michael Rossetti : Life of John Keats

'Owen turned to his third main interest, the earth sciences, doing his earnest but unscholarly best to tackle the Victorian debate between science and religion. He was soon "reading analysing, collecting, sifting and classifying Evidence" and "grappling as I never did before with the problem of Evolution". He read a statement of the Christian answer to Darwinism but contemptuously wrote "Shallow!" against its discussion of art. His conclusion was probably summed up in a comment he had marked in Keats's letters, "Nothing in this world is proveable"; when he met these words again in W.M. Rossetti's life of Keats, he added, "at least [italics] proved [end italics] W.O.".'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen      Print: Book

  

Percy Bysshe Shelley : Revolt of Islam, The

'He became especially interested in Shelley [and felt he could hear his 'music' in the Dunsden area] The "music" which he heard must have been that of "The Revolt of Islam", for he discovered in January 1912 from a biography of Shelley that "The Revolt" had been composed in a boat "under the beech groves" not far away. This poem was to remain in his mind for the rest of his life, providing him with the theme and title of 'Strange Meeting' in 1918'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen      Print: Book

  

 : [biography of Shelley]

'He became especially interested in Shelley [and felt he could hear his 'music' in the Dunsden area] The "music" which he heard must have been that of "The Revolt of Islam", for he discovered in January 1912 from a biography of Shelley that "The Revolt" had been composed in a boat "under the beech groves" not far away. This poem was to remain in his mind for the rest of his life, providing him with the theme and title of 'Strange Meeting' in 1918'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen      Print: Book

  

Harold Monro : Before Dawn: Poems and Impressions

'Another, much less predictable [than that of Shelley] influence on Owen's thinking at Dunsden and much later began in October 1911 when he happened to buy a book of new poems by "A modern aspirant (Unknown to me)... I am idly-busy trying to discover the talent of our own days, and the requirements of the public". This book was undoubtedly "Before Dawn: Poems and Impressions" by Harold Monro. Owen read it carefully and could still quote from it two months later'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen      Print: Book

  

William Michael Rossetti : Life of John Keats

'Reading W.M. Rossetti's biography [of Keats] in 1912, he was overcome by its account of Keats's death: "Rossetti guided my groping hand right into the wound, and I touched, for one moment, the incandescent Heart of Keats".'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen      Print: Book

  

Laurent Tailhade : Poemes elegiaques

'[Laurent Tailhade] must have lent him one of his two volumes of collected poems because Owen soon started a translation of a [italics] ballade elegiaque [end italics] from it'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen      Print: Book

  

Alfred de Vigny : Chatterton

'In his copy of Vigny's "Chatterton" he marked the sentence, "En toi la reverie continuelle a tue l'action", and in Renan he marked a comment that the Celts knew how to plunge their hands into a man's entrails and bring out secrets of the infinite. What he always thought of as his Celtic strain would have been fascinated by "La Tentation de St Antoine", in which Flaubert meticulously describes the saint's visions of strange and dreadful beings. Owen read the book with care, underlining frequently. Tailhade had also marked it, writing "cretin!" against a criticism by the editor of the novel's "grands defauts". Evidently agreing with Tailhade, Owen went on to read at least two more of Flaubert's novels, "Madame Bovary" and "Salammbo". "Flaubert has my vote for novel-writing!", he exclaimed to Gunston in July 1915, and he told his mother that he was reading "Salammbo" "with more interest than the Communiques".'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen      Print: Book

  

Ernest Renan : Souvenirs d'enfance et de jeunesse

'In his copy of Vigny's "Chatterton" he marked the sentence, "En toi la reverie continuelle a tue l'action", and in Renan he marked a comment that the Celts knew how to plunge their hands into a man's entrails and bring out secrets of the infinite. What he always thought of as his Celtic strain would have been fascinated by "La Tentation de St Antoine", in which Flaubert meticulously describes the saint's visions of strange and dreadful beings. Owen read the book with care, underlining frequently. Tailhade had also marked it, writing "cretin!" against a criticism by the editor of the novel's "grands defauts". Evidently agreing with Tailhade, Owen went on to read at least two more of Flaubert's novels, "Madame Bovary" and "Salammbo". "Flaubert has my vote for novel-writing!", he exclaimed to Gunston in July 1915, and he told his mother that he was reading "Salammbo" "with more interest than the Communiques".'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen      Print: Book

  

Gustave Flaubert : La Tentation de saint Antoine

'In his copy of Vigny's "Chatterton" he marked the sentence, "En toi la reverie continuelle a tue l'action", and in Renan he marked a comment that the Celts knew how to plunge their hands into a man's entrails and bring out secrets of the infinite. What he always thought of as his Celtic strain would have been fascinated by "La Tentation de St Antoine", in which Flaubert meticulously describes the saint's visions of strange and dreadful beings. Owen read the book with care, underlining frequently. Tailhade had also marked it, writing "cretin!" against a criticism by the editor of the novel's "grands defauts". Evidently agreing with Tailhade, Owen went on to read at least two more of Flaubert's novels, "Madame Bovary" and "Salammbo". "Flaubert has my vote for novel-writing!", he exclaimed to Gunston in July 1915, and he told his mother that he was reading "Salammbo" "with more interest than the Communiques".'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen      Print: Book

  

Gustave Flaubert : Madame Bovary

'In his copy of Vigny's "Chatterton" he marked the sentence, "En toi la reverie continuelle a tue l'action", and in Renan he marked a comment that the Celts knew how to plunge their hands into a man's entrails and bring out secrets of the infinite. What he always thought of as his Celtic strain would have been fascinated by "La Tentation de St Antoine", in which Flaubert meticulously describes the saint's visions of strange and dreadful beings. Owen read the book with care, underlining frequently. Tailhade had also marked it, writing "cretin!" against a criticism by the editor of the novel's "grands defauts". Evidently agreing with Tailhade, Owen went on to read at least two more of Flaubert's novels, "Madame Bovary" and "Salammbo". "Flaubert has my vote for novel-writing!", he exclaimed to Gunston in July 1915, and he told his mother that he was reading "Salammbo" "with more interest than the Communiques".'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen      Print: Book

  

Gustave Flaubert : Salammbo

'In his copy of Vigny's "Chatterton" he marked the sentence, "En toi la reverie continuelle a tue l'action", and in Renan he marked a comment that the Celts knew how to plunge their hands into a man's entrails and bring out secrets of the infinite. What he always thought of as his Celtic strain would have been fascinated by "La Tentation de St Antoine", in which Flaubert meticulously describes the saint's visions of strange and dreadful beings. Owen read the book with care, underlining frequently. Tailhade had also marked it, writing "cretin!" against a criticism by the editor of the novel's "grands defauts". Evidently agreing with Tailhade, Owen went on to read at least two more of Flaubert's novels, "Madame Bovary" and "Salammbo". "Flaubert has my vote for novel-writing!", he exclaimed to Gunston in July 1915, and he told his mother that he was reading "Salammbo" "with more interest than the Communiques".'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen      Print: Book

  

Paul Verlaine : 'Mon Reve Familier'

'He is likely to have read a good deal of French verse as well as prose during the winter of 1914-15; there are several relevant books in his library, including a few marked anthologies, and a 1914 transcription of Verlaine's sonnet 'Mon reve familier'.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen      Print: Unknown

  

 : [anthologies of French poetry]

'He is likely to have read a good deal of French verse as well as prose during the winter of 1914-15; there are several relevant books in his library, including a few marked anthologies, and a 1914 transcription of Verlaine's sonnet 'Mon reve familier'.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen      Print: Book

  

Algernon Charles Swinburne : Poems and Ballads

'Owen seems to have started reading Swinburne in earnest in 1916. When he returned to the front in 1918, knowing that he would kill and probably be killed, he took volumes of both Shelley and Swinburne with him, but after he had been in action he sent the Shelley back to Shrewsbury, keeping only Swinburne's "Poems and Ballads", the one book of poetry still in his kit at his death'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen      Print: Book

  

Percy Bysshe Shelley : [Poems]

'Owen seems to have started reading Swinburne in earnest in 1916. When he returned to the front in 1918, knowing that he would kill and probably be killed, he took volumes of both Shelley and Swinburne with him, but after he had been in action he sent the Shelley back to Shrewsbury, keeping only Swinburne's "Poems and Ballads", the one book of poetry still in his kit at his death'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen      Print: Book

  

Harold Monro : Children of Love

'[Owen] bought [Harold] Monro's latest book, "Children of Love", and became a familiar visitor [at the Poetry Bookshop]. He was impressed by the war poems in "Children of Love"

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen      Print: Book

  

William Butler Yeats : 

'Monro gave [Owen] access to new work that was to be invaluable to him in 1917-18 and may have drawn his attention to several established writers whom he had hitherto neglected (Yeats, Housman and Tagore, for instance, are mentioned in 1916 letters for the first time)'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen      Print: Book

  

Rabindranath Tagore : 

'Monro gave [Owen] access to new work that was to be invaluable to him in 1917-18 and may have drawn his attention to several established writers whom he had hitherto neglected (Yeats, Housman and Tagore, for instance, are mentioned in 1916 letters for the first time)'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen      Print: Book

  

Alfred Edward Housman : 

'Monro gave [Owen] access to new work that was to be invaluable to him in 1917-18 and may have drawn his attention to several established writers whom he had hitherto neglected (Yeats, Housman and Tagore, for instance, are mentioned in 1916 letters for the first time)'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen      Print: Book

  

Thomas Hardy : 

'the two poets [Owen and Sassoon] probably talked more about literature than anything else. Owen found that they had been "following parallel trenches all our lives" and "had more friends in common, authors I mean, than most people can boast of in a lifetime". By chance, Sassoon was reading a small volume of Keats which Lady Ottoline [Morrel] had sent him. He shared Owen's interest in the late-Victorian poets, including Housman, whose influence is often apparent in his war poems, but Owen was surprised to discover that he admired Hardy "more than anybody living". No doubt Sassoon persuaded him to start reading Hardy's poems. In return, Owen showed him Tailhade's book'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen      Print: Book

  

Harold Monro : Strange Meetings

'He [Owen] bought Monro's latest collection "Strange Meetings" (1917), with its interesting title, and "Georgian Poetry 1916-1917". This new volume of the anthology, published by the Bookshop in November, included work by Sassoon, Graves, Monro, Robert Nichols, John Masefield, W.W. Gibson, Walter de la Mare and John Drinkwater. Owen eventually possessed at least fifteen volumes by these Georgians and their original leader, Brooke; this was by far the largest representation of modern verse in his shelves, and most of it was bought and read in November-December 1917.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen      Print: Book

  

 : Georgian Poetry 1916-1917

'He [Owen] bought Monro's latest collection "Strange Meetings" (1917), with its interesting title, and "Georgian Poetry 1916-1917". This new volume of the anthology, published by the Bookshop in November, included work by Sassoon, Graves, Monro, Robert Nichols, John Masefield, W.W. Gibson, Walter de la Mare and John Drinkwater. Owen eventually possessed at least fifteen volumes by these Georgians and their original leader, Brooke; this was by far the largest representation of modern verse in his shelves, and most of it was bought and read in November-December 1917.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen      Print: Book

  

Rupert Brooke : 

'He [Owen] bought Monro's latest collection "Strange Meetings" (1917), with its interesting title, and "Georgian Poetry 1916-1917". This new volume of the anthology, published by the Bookshop in November, included work by Sassoon, Graves, Monro, Robert Nichols, John Masefield, W.W. Gibson, Walter de la Mare and John Drinkwater. Owen eventually possessed at least fifteen volumes by these Georgians and their original leader, Brooke; this was by far the largest representation of modern verse in his shelves, and most of it was bought and read in November-December 1917.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen      Print: Book

  

John Oxenham [pseud.] : Vision Splendid, The

'[that civilians could believe soldiers were happy in the trenches] is evident from plenty of civilian verse, including, for example, a poem in John Oxenham's "The Vision Splendid" (1917), a book Owen had read at Craiglockhart'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen      Print: Book

  

W.W. Gibson : Battle

'[another of Owen's poetic influences was] Brooke's friend W.W. Gibson, whose "Battle" (1915) Owen read in December [1915]'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen      Print: Book

  

Henri Barbusse : Under Fire

'Nothing before "Le Feu" had given such an appallingly vivid description of trench warfare or combined it with such passionate political conviction. The English translation, "Under Fire", appeared in June 1917 and Sassoon was reading it by mid-August; he lent it to Owen, who seems to have read it at Craiglockhart and again in December'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen      Print: Book

  

Herbert George Wells : 

'Owen met H.G. Wells in November, one of the leading writers about the war and its politics, an advocate of internationalism, efficiency, the defeat of militarism by military means. Owen read at least two of his books in December'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen      Print: Book

  

Bion of Smyrna : 'Epitaph on Adonis'

'In December he read Lang's translation of the elegies by Bion and Moschus that had been Shelley's model for "Adonais".'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen      Print: Book

  

Moschus : 'Epitaph on Bion'

'In December he read Lang's translation of the elegies by Bion and Moschus that had been Shelley's model for "Adonais".'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen      Print: Book

 

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