The Red Sweet Wine Of Youth

by Nicholas Murray

The poetry that emerged from the trenches of WWI is a remarkable body of work, at once political manifesto and literary beacon for the twentieth century. In this passionate recreation of the lives of the greatest poets to come out of the conflict, Nicholas Murray brilliantly reveals the men themselves as well as the struggle of the artist to live fully and to bear witness in the annihilating squalor of battle.

Bringing into sharp focus the human detail of each life, using journals, letters and literary archives, Murray brings to life the men's indissoluble comradeship, their complex sexual mores and their extraordinary courage. Poignant, vivid and unfailingly intelligent, Nicholas Murray's study offers new and finely tuned insight into the - often devastatingly brief - lives of a remarkable generation of men.

Genres: History, Poetry, Biography, World War I, Nonfiction

350 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2011

About the author

Nicholas Murray is an English biographer, poet and journalist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nichola...


Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent overview of a dozen of the poets who fought in WWI. Each section covers details of their lives before the war, their experiences of the war itself and their attitudes towards it. Sometimes their attitudes shifted as the war rumbled on but they all continued their efforts in one way or another. The book gives analysis of their poetical output rather than just specific poems and does not include poems in full, and it puts them in perspective with their peers and their place in the poetry world at that time.

An interesting range of views and expressions from the war years and/ or afterwards, for of course some of these poets / writers had time to distill their thoughts in the years following, often to great effect, whilst others work stopped with their death in battle.

Well worth reading, particularly if you have a good anthology to hand at the same time.

[Christine Parker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not quite what I expected. I was interested in the biographical details but not the dissection of poetry...could well have done without that, it put the book into another category completely.

[Becky · Rating 5 out of 5]

A biography and exploration of the poets of the Great War, The well known poets are covered (Blake, Owen, Sassoon) as well as some of the less well known poets such as Rosenberg and Graves. The only area which is not covered is that of Female poets of the era, an omission that the author accepts and explains as due to the fact that these are the poets who took part in the fighting. The myth of all Great War poetry as being anti war is explored and exploded... with the point being made that all of the poets included chose to fight and to keep fighting. A very interesting book.

[Victoria Roe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not quite what I was expecting but very interesting nonetheless. The lives of the war poets are thoughtfully discussed and compared, the analysis on their poetical style and attitudes to war interwoven with stories about their lives. I was expecting a bit more of their poetry to actually be included - the bits that were included were very helpful in illustrating literary observations but just a shame that hardly any poems were reproduced in full. I guess I'll have to buy more anthologies.