The work of Charles Hamilton Sorley

Saul T R (L6)

Charles Hamilton Sorley was a young Scottish poet, killed in action during World War I at the age of just 20. Despite his short life and brief career as a poet, Sorley’s work is regarded as being profoundly influential and has been universally celebrated in the years since his death. His poetry is notable for its combination of traditional poetic form and modernist experimentation, themes of war and loss, and powerful use of language and imagery.

Sorley was born in Aberdeen, Scotland in 1895, and spent much of his childhood in Germany, where his father was a professor of philosophy. His secondary education took place at Marlborough College, and his higher education at Oxford University, where he was a contemporary of many other distinguished British poets of the time, including Robert Graves and Siegfried Sassoon. It was during his time at Oxford that Sorley began to deepen his poetic voice and style, experimenting with traditional forms and structures while also incorporating modernist techniques and ideas.

Sorley’s poetry is often characterised by its strong and vivid imagery and attention to the natural world, as shown in Rooks. His language is precise and carefully crafted, with a strong emphasis on rhythm and sound. While many of his poems are set in the landscape of his childhood, with its rolling hills, forests, and rivers, his own experiences in World War I are also often reflected, particularly with clarity, precision, and emotional depth.

One of Sorley’s most famous works, When You See Millions of the Mouthless Dead, exemplifies many of these qualities. The poem is a powerful indictment of war and its senseless destruction and is notable for its striking use of metaphor and symbolism. Sorley compares the dead to “shadows” and “phantoms”, emphasising their insubstantiality and the sense of loss and absence they leave behind. The image of “millions of the mouthless dead” is particularly powerful, evoking the horror of war’s mass slaughter and the sense of speechlessness and powerlessness it engenders.

Another eminent aspect of Sorley’s poetry is his engagement with traditional poetic forms and structures. Many of his poems use rhyme and meter and are constructed according to strict formal rules. However, Sorley also incorporates modernist techniques such as fragmentation, free verse, and stream of consciousness into his work, giving his poetry a sense of innovation and experimentation. This combination of traditional and modernist elements is evident in poems such as All the Hills and Vales Along, which uses traditional ballad meter and rhyme, but also incorporates fragmented and disjointed imagery and a sense of uncertainty and disorientation.

Sorley’s poetry is also notable for its focus on war and its impact on individuals and society. Many of his poems were written during the early years of World War I when he himself was serving in the British army. Sorley’s experiences as a soldier are evident in his poetry, which frequently deals with themes of death, loss, and the brutal realities of warfare. His anti-war sentiments are also clear in his work, as he frequently critiques the idea of heroic sacrifice and emphasises the senselessness and tragedy of war.

A good example of this is in one of Sorley’s most famous war poems, To Germany, which was written shortly before his death in 1915. The poem is addressed to the German people and is a powerful critique of the nationalist rhetoric and propaganda that had fuelled the war on both sides. Sorley emphasises the humanity and commonality of all people, regardless of nationality, and argues that war only serves to dehumanise and destroy. The poem’s closing lines, in which Sorley writes “We’ll grasp firm hands and laugh at the old pain / When it is peace. But until peace, the storm / The darkness and the thunder and the rain” are a powerful reminder of the human cost of war and the need for empathy and understanding in the face of conflict.