MUSE OF FIRE World War I As Seen Through the Lives of the Soldier Poets

Rupert Brooke, Alan Seeger, Isaac Rosenberg, Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Graves, and Wilfred Owen were arguably the greatest poets writing in English during WWI. Malcolm Hillgartner delivers Michael Korda's biographies of them, telling the story of how the attitudes of poetry--and to a lesser extent of the British public--shifted as the war went on. From Brooke's glorification of warfare to Owen's realistic depictions of life in the trenches, each poet's work was shaped by his life and experience in the war. Hillgartner's performance is strong and steady, for the most part. The only flaw is that his readings of the many poems could capture more of their passion and structure. D.M.H. © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine [Published: MAY 2024]