British Soldier Poetry Revisited

In this course we will read British soldier poetry of World War I. We will discuss how this poetry expressed and altered existing genres and forms of poetry, for example, elegy and the sonnet. Many poets will be discussed; these will be emphasized: Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen, Isaac Rosenberg, Edward Thomas, Ivor Gurney, and David Jones. We will also review the development of combat trauma psychology from Shell Shock to PTSD and how poetry both expresses and acts as therapy for such trauma

Tim Kendall ed., Poetry of the First World War, Oxford  978-0198703204; and David Jones, In Parenthesis, New York Review Books. 978-1590170366.

​Bob Bunselmeyer has taught often at MSC, beginning in 2007.