Owen and Sassoon

Siegfried Sassoon was an officer decorated for bravery who publicly protested the war in 1917, risking court-martial. Instead, he was sent to Craiglockhart War Hospital, where he met Wilfred Owen and became his mentor. Owen's earlier poetry was conventional and romantic. Under Sassoon's influence he developed his signature style: visceral physical detail, half-rhymes that create unease, and a controlled fury that refuses to let readers look away from what war does to bodies and minds.