Record Number: 29820

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Reading Experience:

Evidence:

'During this period my indebtedness to an eighteenth-century poet became enormous. At every spare moment I read Young’s “Night Thoughts on Life, Death and Immortality”, and I felt the benefit of this grave and intellectual voice speaking out of a profound eighteenth–century calm, often in metaphor which came home to one even in a pillbox. The mere amusement of discovering lines applicable to our crisis kept me from despair.'

Century:

1900-1945

Date:

Between 1 Sep 1917 and 31 Sep 1917

Country:

Belgium

Time

n/a

Place:

city: Near Ypres
West Flanders
other location: unspecified trenches

Type of Experience
(Reader):
 

silent aloud unknown
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

Type of Experience
(Listener):
 

solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

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Reader / Listener / Reading Group:

Reader:

Edmund Blunden

Age:

Adult (18-100+)

Gender:

Male

Date of Birth:

1 Nov 1896

Socio-Economic Group:

Professional / academic / merchant / farmer

Occupation:

Army Officer and Poet

Religion:

Christian (Anglican)

Country of Origin:

England

Country of Experience:

Belgium

Listeners present if any:
e.g family, servants, friends

n/a

Additional Comments:

n/a

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Text Being Read:

Author:

Edward Young

Title:

The Complaint: or, Night Thoughts, on Life, Death, and Immortality. [Followed by] A paraphrase on part of the book of Job. With the life of the author [signed G.W.].

Genre:

Other religious, Poetry

Form of Text:

Print: Book

Publication Details

unknown, possibly a newer edition since the reader's 1815 edition was lost at Cuinchy in 1916

Provenance

owned

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Source Information:

Record ID:

29820

Source:

Print

Author:

Edmund Blunden

Editor:

n/a

Title:

Undertones of War

Place of Publication:

Harmondsworth (Penguin Modern Classics edn.)

Date of Publication:

1982 (1928, 1937)

Vol:

n/a

Page:

217

Additional Comments:

n/a

Citation:

Edmund Blunden, Undertones of War, (Harmondsworth (Penguin Modern Classics edn.), 1982 (1928, 1937)), p. 217, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=29820, accessed: 30 December 2024

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Additional Comments:

See also ID 29806 and 29816 for further references to this work.