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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.
November 15, 2014
Parapet Productions, BBC Arts
13 people
Michael Sheen
Narrator (voice)
Acting
Peter Barton
Himself - First World War Historian
Production
Max Egremont
Himself - Biographer, Siegfried Sassoon
Acting
Christophe Fricker
Himself - Literary Historian
Acting
John Garth
Himself - Author, Tolkien and the Great War
Acting
William Graves
Himself - Son of Robert Graves
Acting
Jean Moorcroft Wilson
Herself - Biographer, Siegfried Sassoon
Acting
Paul O'Prey
Himself - Editor, Selected Poems: Robert Graves
Acting
Jonathon Riley
Himself - Royal Welch Fusiliers
Acting
Jon Stallworthy
Himself - Editor, The Oxford Book of War Poetry
Acting
Nigel Steel
Himself - Principal Historian, Imperial War Museums
Acting
Michael Symmons Roberts
Himself - Poet
Writing
2019
2025
2023
1932
2014
2014
2018
2001
2008
2014
1946
2004
1927
2017
2010
2024
1995
2020
2013
1954
2017
2014
1969
1930
2020
1963
1942
1956
1945
1932
2026
2014
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1955
1954
1956
2025
2022
1939