War of Words: Soldier-Poets of the Somme

Overview

The 1916 Battle of the Somme remains the most famous battle of World War I, remembered for its bloodshed and its limited territorial gains. What is often overlooked, however, is the literary importance of the Somme: more writers and poets fought in it than in any other battle in history. Narrated by Michael Sheen, War of Words: Soldier-Poets of the Somme details the experiences of the poets and writers who served in the battle. The work of Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Graves, David Jones, Isaac Rosenberg and JRR Tolkien (who arrived at the Western Front with ambitions to be a poet) was informed and transformed by the battle. Taken together, their experiences allow us to see this dreadful historical event through multiple points of view. The film uses animation, documentary accounts, surviving artefacts, battalion war diaries and the landscape itself to reconnect this literature to the events that inspired it.

Cast

Michael Sheen

Narrator (voice)

N/A

Peter Barton

Himself - First World War Historian

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Max Egremont

Himself - Biographer, Siegfried Sassoon

N/A

Christophe Fricker

Himself - Literary Historian

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John Garth

Himself - Author, Tolkien and the Great War

N/A

William Graves

Himself - Son of Robert Graves

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Jean Moorcroft Wilson

Herself - Biographer, Siegfried Sassoon

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Paul O'Prey

Himself - Editor, Selected Poems: Robert Graves

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Jonathon Riley

Himself - Royal Welch Fusiliers

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Jon Stallworthy

Himself - Editor, The Oxford Book of War Poetry

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Nigel Steel

Himself - Principal Historian, Imperial War Museums

N/A

Michael Symmons Roberts

Himself - Poet