Special Collections: Sassoon poem returns

An original Siegfried Sassoon poem returns to our special collections.

Last month, an original poem written by Siegfried Sassoon was donated to the War Poets Collections based at Edinburgh Napier University Craiglockhart Campus. It was written at that location, more than 100 years ago. Titled Glory of Women, it was given to fellow patient and poet Wilfred Owen in 1917. Since then the poem has gone through different owners but has now returned to Craiglockhart through the kind donation of Scottish Playwright Stewart Conn.

Our curator, Laura Cooijmans-Keizer, said of the poem “Glory of Women” is a poignant poem that demonstrates the conflicting pressures faced by men fighting in the trenches. The idealised expectations of glory and heroism that women at home, both in Britain and Germany, projected onto soldiers was often in direct competition with war’s stark, and often decidedly unheroic realities. The kind donation of this important manuscript poem by Siegfried Sassoon will offer a unique opportunity for it to be studied, appreciated, and debated at the place where it was first composed.”

We want to thank Stewart again for his generous donation.