In the third part of our series on Somerville’s LGBTQ+ history, Harry Stewart Dilley (2023, History) explores the lives and work of three First World War poets: Robert Graves, Siegfried Sassoon, and Wilfred Owen. Harry used archival material to write this long-read piece, which he introduces here.
By Spring 1916, the First World War was approaching its second full year. The promise that it would be over by Christmas – so eagerly received by a generation – had proved a cruel and horrific lie. Every day, thousands died in the quagmires of France, and all to move the trenches just a few metres.
Back in Oxford, the University had mobilised for the war effort. The War Office used Wadham, Hertford, Keble and Trinity as training centres for military officers. Pembroke, Brasenose, Christ Church and Lincoln provided accommodation for training pilots at the Oxford School of Military Aeronautics. New College and Exam Schools became military hospitals and, in March 1915, Somerville became one too. Its students were sent over to Oriel – and confined in St Mary Hall quadrangle away from the men – while the College became a space for wounded officers to convalesce.
Siegfried Sassoon by George Charles Beresford (1915)
In 1916 and 1917, two of England’s most famous war poets – Robert Graves and Siegfried Sassoon – each spent time recuperating in Somerville’s warm embrace. After the fields of France, it was an almost surreal reprieve. In his diary, Graves wrote: “I enjoyed being at Somerville. It was warm weather, and the discipline of the hospital was easy.” Later, he would describe walking down St. Giles’ for a cup of coffee in his pyjamas and a dressing gown. Sassoon described the serenity of a “little, white-walled room, looking through [a] window onto [the] college lawn”; the sight of a chestnut tree and the sound of a piano reminded him of his mother. He summarised it rather simply: it was “very much like paradise.”
Sassoon stayed at Somerville for two short weeks in August 1916. Graves had a longer stay in the spring of 1917. Finding out Graves had been sent to Somerville, Sassoon quipped: “How unlike you to crib my idea of going to the Ladies’ College at Oxford.” The pair had met at the Front in late 1915 and immediately formed a close bond. They chose pet-names for one another and, when transferred, their letters malign fate for keeping them apart. By May 1916, Sassoon was writing intimate poetry for Graves:
“Robert, when I drowse tonight,
Skirting lawns of sleep to chase
Shifting dreams in mazy light,
Somewhere then I’ll see your face…”
Both poets had a complex relationship with their sexuality. By the end of the War, Graves had disavowed any homosexual feelings he’d ever possessed. Nonetheless, during the War – amongst the shells and the corpses – the two poets found each other. Their love – however much it defies a simple label – is palpable through their letters, diaries and the poetry they addressed to one another.
Therefore, this LGBTQ+ History month I sought to recover the wartime experience of two of England’s greatest queer poets. I sought to understand how Somerville impacted their self-identification and, in turn, how their identities shaped their poetry. This is of no small significance. Our memory of the First World War – perhaps more than any other modern conflict – is shaped by its poetry; hence, to centre Graves and Sassoon’s sexualities is to place queer history at the very heart of its narrative and memory.
Harry with the plaque for Robert Graves and Siegfried Sassoon outside Somerville
Trawling through their memoirs, letters, diaries, poetry and the testimony of others, I sought to understand how the relationship between Graves and Sassoon – and their same-sex relationships with others – influenced their poetry and thus our memory of the ‘War to End All Wars’. In the process, their story became inextricable from that of another queer wartime poet: Wilfred Owen. He met Graves and Sassoon while recovering at Craiglockhart psychiatric hospital in Edinburgh.
It is the complex and interwoven story of these three men – their relationships, their identities, their poetry and our historical memory – that I have sought to piece together. It is a story of love and loss. To read their story is to read of romance, devotion and trust; but also of persecution, repression and heartbreak. Wilfred Owen would not survive to see the Armistice whilst neither Graves nor Sassoon would be able to separate their romantic life from the traumas of the war. This is not to say Graves and Sassoon were destined to be together, nor that they would inevitably have married men if given the choice. However, it is to say that their lives would have been less self-conscious, freer and less painful had times been different.
Theirs is a story, then, which reminds us of the preciousness and the fragility of our liberties. It is one which has made me incredibly grateful for the freedom, the love and the hope of Somerville College – a refuge for these queer men a century ago, and still a sanctuary for love, youth, hope, and much more besides. These men are part of Somerville’s vibrant queer history.
Nonetheless their story ends on a note of foreboding. Theirs was an age of ‘Great Powers’, of nationalism, of rapid technological and economic change. It was an age which, in many ways, ‘stumbled’ into the war of 1914. Christopher Clark entitled his 2014 book on the First World War The Sleepwalkers. The story of these queer poets serves to ask an important question: Are we awake, or are we asleep too?
The story of Robert Graves, Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen is one which shows the fragility of the rights, the privileges and the liberties that we take for granted. It is a story which illustrates that – in an age of populism, authoritarianism and retrogression – these are liberties for which we must fight.
I hope you enjoy the essay.
– Harry Stewart Dilley, February 2025.
* With thanks to Matthew Roper of Somerville College Library for his direction on Sassoon and Graves’ diaries, and to Rosslyn Johnston of St John’s College Library for her direction on Graves’ correspondence and for allowing me to examine his letters at such short notice. Any errors are my own.