WORLD WAR ONE AND HOMOEROTICISM, WILFRED, SIEGFRIED, AND THE MERGER OF SADISM AND MASOCHISM

There is no doubt that the World War One had a huge influence on the human psyche.Being involved directly in the horrors and pains caused by The Great War and observed and absorbed the violence of the frontlines and the human cost of war, both Wilfred Edward Salter Owen (1893-1918) and Siegfried Loraine Sassoon (1886-1967) were able to report repetitively the fears and agonies of The First World War. Living in the trenches with other fellows and facing a huge pressure of witnessing the human losses, fatalities, great pains and sufferings of soldiers and their intimate relationships as comrades and close friends in battle zone, both of them were drastically wounded. In this paper I would like to discuss briefly concepts such as, masochism, moral masochism, sadism, sadomasochism, homoeroticism, and finally the kind of intimate relationship among comrades such as the above mentioned poets during the Great War. I would like to indicate that as all individuals who were involved directly in the frontlines were men who were sharing many horrendous experiences as well as some common goals, however, developing some kind of intimacy and affection among them is natural. Indeed, both Sassoon and Owen have in common a noticeable vulnerability to the dynamic of masochism, sadism, sadomasochism, and homoeroticism which is regarded as the interceding proxy for these predominant principles and the prevailing representative of the substantial Great War Poets.