Audiobooks by Charles Sorley

Browse audiobooks by Charles Sorley, listen to samples and when you're ready head over to Audiobooks.com where you can get 3 FREE audiobooks on us

The Poetry of Charles Sorley

Charles Hamilton Sorley was born on May 19th, 1895 in Aberdeen. His family moved to Cambridge when Sorley was five and his education later continued at Marlborough College, 1908-1913, where he became an excellent debater. His favourite past time however was cross-country running in the rain.From here he won a scholarship to Oxford but decided to go in January 1914 to spend a year in Germany beforehand to study. It was a fateful decision. War clouds had gathered over Europe and when war was declared Sorley was interned for a few hours, and then instructed to leave Germany.Sorley returned to England and immediately signed up to serve as a 2nd Lieutenant with the Suffolk Regiment. He arrived in France in May, 1915 and, by the same August, had been promoted to Captain.His poems are small in number but large in influence. 'Such, Such is Death' and 'Millions of the Mouthless Dead' evocatively capture the horror, carnage and waste of the War.He did however also manage to write other verse which succinctly captures the human feelings and the nature of what the eye falls upon and the heart understands.On October 13th 1915, near Hulluch, at the Battle of Loos, Charles Hamilton Sorley was killed by a sniper's bullet to the head at the tender age of 20.His last poem was recovered from his kit after his death, and hauntingly reads:?When you see millions of the mouthless deadAcross your dreams in pale battalions go........On November 11th 1985, Sorley was among 16 Great War poets commemorated on a slate stone unveiled in Westminster Abbey's Poet's Corner.This volume comes to you from Portable Poetry, a specialized imprint from Deadtree Publishing. Our range is large and growing and covers single poets, themes, and many compilations.

Charles Sorley (Author), Ghizela Rowe, Gideon Wagner, Richard Mitchley (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Poetry of World War I - Volume I - An Anthology

In the War a great volume of poetry was written, produced and published in books, periodicals, newspapers or letters back to home. We often think of War as a necessity. We fight for a more just and better world. We often fail. But in our poets we gain a truth and a morality that shocks us, consoles us and holds our values to the light. In this volume we hear poems from the front, from home, from soldiers, from auxiliaries, from friend and from foe.War and poetry seem somehow alien to each other. How can the horror and slaughter of war become any more real and terrifying, visceral and tender in the words of poets?The Great War, World War I, the War to End All Wars, was a stain on humanity and the nations who fought in it. Millions killed or wounded for aims and principles that, for many, are difficult to accept in the modern age.The poet as a soldier has happened throughout history but not to the level of the men in this volume. Today we are used to 'embedded journalists' who report direct from the frontline. Here we have 'embedded poets' who report from the frontline in a unique and inspiring way. Their words, often raw, emotional, angry, despairing yet eloquent, moving, suffused with a hope that we are all capable of more despite the futility and carnage around them. These poets including Wilfred Owen, Rupert Brooke, John McCrae, Edward Thomas and several others, including the German Alfred Lichtenstein, lost their lives in the years of war on which they had so eloquently and intensely written. Their lost lives adding to the toll that war makes us all less whole, less worthy of attaining what we should raise ourselves to be.

Charles Sorley, Edward Thomas, Ethel Lina White, Paul Gallico, Wilfred Owen (Author), Dorothy Mcguire, Gary Cooper, Ghizela Rowe, Gideon Wagner, Richard Mitchley (Narrator)

Audiobook