The Redoubt opened a new
exhibition on 14 June celebrating the life and work of Edmund Blunden 1896-1974.
Blunden was a poet, teacher, writer of prose and soldier in the Royal Sussex
Regiment during the First World War.
Though not the best known of the
war poets, Blunden actually served on the Frontline longer than any others from
this group and recorded his life during this time in many stunning pieces of
work.
Throughout his working career
Blunden was haunted by his experiences during the war, with his final ‘War
Poems’ being written towards the end of his career in the
1960’s.
In 1971, just before his death
Blunden said “My experiences in the First World War have haunted me all my life
and for many days I have, it seemed, lived in that world rather than in
this.”
From his life in the trenches he
also produced one of the best known pieces of war prose, in the book ‘Undertones
of War’ that has remained in print ever since being published in
1928.
This exhibition also explores
Edmund Blunden’s interests, for example his love of the British Countryside,
pastoral values and above all cricket. These things influenced his writing and
are illustrated in the exhibition.
However insular these influences
sound, Blunden was anything but in his outlook on life, spending many years in
Japan and the Far East as
well as in the more conventionally traditional yet scholarly colleges of
Oxford
Blunden wrote many books including
works on other poets including Keats and Wilfred Owen but is probably most
fondly remembered for his reflections on his most beloved sport in ‘Cricket
Country’.
The exhibition will tell his story
primarily in his own words and in those of the people that knew him best using
sound and moving images as well as his texts that need little enhancing.
The exhibition runs from 14 June –
16 November 2014 and normal entry fees apply. For more information please go to
www.eastbournemuseums.co.uk
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