Siegfried Sassoon

Siegfried Sassoon was an English soldier whose contributions to literature were inspired by his experiences on the Western Front during World War One. Though remembered primarily as a poet, he also penned works in prose, such as the semi-autobiographical Sherston Trilogy (composed of Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man, Memoirs of an Infantry Officer and Sherston's Progress).

---

Associated tropes

• A Father to His Men: served as Second Lieutenant during WWI and was known as a brave and charismatic leader, respected by his troops.
• Alliterative Name
• Author Avatar: George Sherston, the hero of the Sherston Trilogy.
• Badass Bookworm
• Badass Gay: when not writing anti-war poetry, Sassoon was crawling on patrols into No Man's Land. He also once single-handedly captured a German trench in the Hildenburg Line; an account of this episode is given in Memoirs of an Infantry Officer.
• Named After Somebody Famous: specifically, after one of the main characters of The Ring of the Nibelung.
• Deadpan Snarker: if his autobiography is anything to judge by.
• War Is Hell: famous for his strong anti-war stance, Sassoon detailed the horrors of trench warfare, satirized the complacency of civilians and condemned the patriotic pretensions of those who wielded the power to end the war. This attitude to war was coupled with...
  • ...WarIsGlorious: Sassoon never undermined the bravery of the troops. As he states in the Memoirs of an Infantry Officer, "against the background of the war and its brutal stupidity those men had stood glorified by the thing which sought to destroy them".
• Warrior Poet