Tag: Edmund Blunden

Robert Graves

Written by Lawrance, W on 24th July, 2012. Posted in Poet Biographies.

Robert Von Ranke Graves was born in Wimbledon on 24th July 1895, the third of five children born to Alfred Perceval Graves and his second wife, Amalie Elizabeth Von Ranke. Graves was educated at Charterhouse School, where he was befriended and influenced by one of the masters, mountaineer, George Mallory. In 1914, Graves has just won a scholarship to St John’s College, Oxford, when the First World War began, so he put his studies to one side and enlisted, being commissioned into the Royal Welch Fusiliers. Although not a popular officer, Graves formed one important friendship early in the war, with fellow Fusilier, Siegfried Sassoon. He also wrote and published war poetry, the first volume of which was entitled Over the Brazier.

On July 20th 1916, during the Battle of the Somme, Graves was caught in shellfire and badly wounded in the chest and thigh. The battalion doctor, Captain J. C. Dunn, believed that nothing could be done to save Graves’ life, so he was left on a stretcher until the following day, when it was discovered that he was still alive. He was immediately transferred to hospital at Heilly, although the casualty list had already been prepared and a letter of condolence had been dispatched to his parents.

By the time this letter was received, Graves had arrived at Rouen, where he scribbled a hasty note to his parents. Upon receipt of this, the grief-stricken Graves family were thrown into confusion and it was not until 30th July that they received official confirmation that Robert was alive and would soon be arriving in England. In the meantime, however, The Times had printed Graves’ name among the casualties and were obliged to publish a retraction on August 5th.

Graves recovered fairly quickly from his wounds and was passed fit by a medical board on November 17th, returning to France in January 1917. However, the damage caused to his lungs was more serious than anticipated and he succumbed to pneumonia. He was sent to Osborne House on the Isle of Wight to recuperate.

In July 1917, Siegfried Sassoon made his Declaration against the continuation of the war and upon hearing of this, Graves travelled to London, where he met with Edward Marsh and Robbie Ross, both of whom were equally concerned for Sassoon’s future. Graves then travelled on to the regimental headquarters at Litherland, where he persuaded Sassoon that the authorities would never court-martial him, as Sassoon hoped, but would have him declared insane. Sassoon agreed to appear before a medical board, which pronounced him as suffering from neurosis and he was sent to Craiglockhart Military Hospital in Edinburgh.

January 1918 saw Graves’ marriage to Nancy Nicholson, with their first child Jenny being born a year later. In October 1919, Graves resumed his education at Oxford, although he would be forced to postpone this as financial and health problems beset him. Nancy gave birth of a second child, David, in March 1920, followed by a daughter, Catherine two years later and finally Sam in January 1924. As the family grew, so did the financial problems and Graves, now studying again, borrowed money from family and friends, including Sassoon.

Graves finally completed his degree in 1925 and accepted the post of English Professor at Cairo University, so the whole family embarked for Egypt, together with the American poet Laura Riding, with whom Graves was collaborating on several projects. However, the position in Cairo proved disappointing and within six months they had all returned to Oxfordshire, where Graves and Laura Riding became lovers.

By September 1929, Graves had finished his autobiography Goodbye To All That, whereupon he and Laura moved to Majorca, leaving many sad and angry friends and relations behind, upset by both their lifestyle and the content of Graves’ book. Both Edward Marsh and Siegfried Sassoon took action against Graves’ publishers, forcing changes to be made prior to publication.

In Majorca, Graves began working on his historical novel, I Claudius, while Laura, who believed herself to be a Goddess, manipulated the emotions of everyone around her. In 1936, the Spanish Civil War forced the couple to abandon Majorca and they settled in Northern France with an old friend, Alan Hodge and his new wife Beryl. The outbreak of the Second World War saw all four of them heading for America, where Laura began an affair with critic Schuyler Jackson. Graves returned to England, followed by Beryl Hodge, who had become very attached to him. While Alan Hodge agreed to an amicable divorce, Nancy would not relent, so Graves and Beryl moved in together and their son, William was born in September 1940.

Graves’ children from his first marriage all served in the armed forces during the Second World War, except for Sam, who was exempted on account of his deafness. Jenny and Catherine enlisted in the WAAF’s while David served, like his father, with the Royal Welch Fusiliers, fighting in Burma, where he was shot and killed in April 1943.

Beryl had two more children during the war: Lucia in 1943 and Juan in 1944, then after the conflict was over, the family moved back to Majorca. In 1949, Nancy finally agreed to a divorce, enabling Graves and Beryl to marry in May 1950.

Over the remaining years of his life, Graves had relationships with several “muses”, some more serious than others. In January 1953, Beryl gave birth to her final child, Tomas, and remained loyal to Graves, despite his behaviour with other women and the divisions this caused in their marriage.

In 1961, Graves was elected Professor of Poetry at Oxford University, which position he held until 1966, when he stepped down and was replaced by Edmund Blunden. 1964 brought tragedy, when Graves’ oldest child, Jenny died suddenly, although Graves did not attend her funeral.

By the early 1970s, Graves’ memory and eyesight were beginning to fail and over the next fifteen years, despite Beryl’s loyal and unwavering care, his health slowly deteriorated until his death on December 7th 1985, at the age of 90.

Edmund Blunden

Written by Lawrance, W on 1st November, 2011. Posted in Poet Biographies.

Edmund Charles Blunden was born on London on November 1st 1896, the oldest child of headmaster Charles Blunden and his wife, Margaret (née Georgina Margaret Tyler). After the arrival of two more children, the Blundens moved to Yalding in Kent, where Charles became headmaster of the local village school. Edmund passed a very happy childhood here and a further six children were born to Margaret, to whom Edmund was devoted.

Blunden began his senior education at Cleaves Grammar School in 1907, before winning a place at Christ’s Hospital in Horsham, West Sussex, which he attended as a boarder from 1909. Although homesick, Blunden was desperately keen to succeed, and worked hard, publishing his first poem in the school magazine in 1913.

When the First World War began, Blunden completed his final year at school, gaining a scholarship to Queen’s College Oxford, which he duly postponed in favour of a commission in the Royal Sussex Regiment. Following his training, Blunden embarked for France in the spring of 1916, where his battalion saw action on or around the Somme battlefields during that summer. In November, just as the battle was coming to a close, Blunden was awarded the Military Cross for his part in a reconnaissance mission, the citation for which read as follows:

“For conspicuous gallantry in action. He displayed great courage and determination when in charge of a carrying party under heavy fire. He has previously done fine work.”

Blunden also saw action at Passchendaele in 1917 and then in 1918 was posted to a training camp near Stowmarket in Suffolk.

Despite Blunden’s feelings of guilt over this “safe” posting, he found some compensations: namely a whirlwind romance with blacksmith’s daughter Mary Daines, whom he married in June 1918. By the time Blunden returned to France, the war was actually over and Mary was also pregnant, so he was pleased to be demobilised in February 1919. Blunden’s place at Oxford still awaited and to fill the time until October, he focused on his poetry. In May he wrote, enclosing some poems, to Siegfried Sassoon, newly appointed literary editor of the Daily Herald. Sassoon responded favourably, the two men met and a lifelong friendship began, out of which Blunden was introduced to many other literary figures.

In July 1919, Mary gave birth to a daughter named Joy, who sadly died when only a few weeks old. Both parents were devastated and Blunden threw himself into his work, going up to Oxford as planned in October, where he met Robert Graves, John Masefield, and Robert Nichols. His time at Oxford was cut short, however, when Mary became pregnant again and he had to find work, editing the journal Athenaeum. Another daughter, Clare, was born in October 1920, followed by a son, John two years later, but by now Blunden’s marriage was under severe strain. When Blunden was offered the position of Professor of English at Tokyo University in 1924, he accepted, leaving Mary and his children behind.

While in Japan, Blunden began writing his memoir Undertones of War and also had an affair with his secretary, Aki Hayashi, who returned with him to England at the end of his contract in 1927, although by then their affair had ended. Mary, however, had also met someone else and, upon Blunden’s return, she announced her intention to leave him.

Blunden, again, threw himself into his work, completing Undertones of War and two volumes of poetry, his stretched finances assisted by a gift of £50.00 per month, given to him by Siegfried Sassoon. Blunden’s divorce from Mary was finalised in 1931, after which he began teaching English at Merton College, Oxford. He also compiled the poems of Wilfred Owen and wrote a biography to accompany them for publication, bringing Owen’s work to the attention of the general public.

While at Oxford, Blunden met and married writer Sylva Norman in 1933 and in 1936 he was appointed as an advisor to the Imperial War Graves Commission. At the beginning of the Second World War, Sylva joined the forces and, in her absence, Blunden began a romance with an undergraduate named Claire Poynting. When Sylva heard about this affair, she returned to Oxford, proposing an uneasy compromise, whereby she would remain Blunden’s wife, but allow him to continue seeing Claire. The strain of this situation soon became too much and eventually Blunden and Sylva were divorced and he married Claire in May 1945, by which time he had left Oxford to work at the Times Literary Supplement.

In 1946, Claire gave birth to the first of four daughters, named Margaret, and the following year, Blunden accepted a Foreign Office position in Japan, where the family lived for the next three years and where two further daughters – Lucy and Frances – were born. Upon their return to England, Blunden was awarded the CBE in 1951 and resumed his work at the TLS. In 1953, Blunden collaborated with composer Gerald Finzi to produce a collection of poems by Ivor Gurney, whom both men greatly admired.

The next eleven years were spent as Head of English at the University of Hong Kong, where Blunden’s final daughter, Catherine, was born. When they returned to England in 1964, the family settled at Long Melford in Suffolk. Two years later, Blunden was elected Professor of Poetry at Oxford University, although he was forced to resign from this position after two years due to ill health, following which he became a virtual recluse. Blunden died peacefully in bed on 20th January 1974. At his funeral, Private A F Beeney, a runner from Blunden’s battalion, dropped a wreath of poppies onto the coffin.

Edmund Blunden is generally acknowledged to have spent more time in the trenches than any other major poet of the First World War. He remained deeply troubled by his experiences during the conflict but his words, both poetry and prose, often reflect a more positive perspective. While Blunden may not have been keen to go, he nonetheless tried to focus on nature and the countryside and, above all, the comradeship of those with whom he felt privileged to have served.