LIT PAPER 1 POETRY: ‘The Kiss’ by Siegfried Sassoon

Sassoon was decorated for bravery on the Western Front and was nicknamed 'Mad Jack' by his men for his near-suicidal exploits. In 1917, he rebelled against the conduct of the war in a letter to his commanding officer and was sent to Craiglockhart War Hospital, where he was officially treated for shell shock. He returned to the Front but was wounded in 1918 when he was shot in the head by a fellow British soldier who had mistaken him for a German. He survived. Sassoon wrote ‘The Kiss’ in training shortly before the Battle of the Somme.