FRAGMENTS OF PEACE & WAR - BOOK V - AMBIVALENTIA The Poetry of WILFRED OWEN and SEXUALITY: OR LINES HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT OR WITNESSES TO A NATURE REPRESSED AND SUPPRESSED

Originally published only as a much slimmer eBook, this is now truly a monumental book in its augmented form, also as an eBook in this augmented form - and now perhaps the first of its kind; with numerous photographs from the author’s collection. It is the 5th, and final, volume in the series of books - Fragments of Peace & War – ‘A Monograph on the Poetry of Wilfred Owen and Some Aspects of his Life’.. It appears under the subtitle ‘BOOK THE FIFTH - AMBIVALENTIA - The Poetry of WILFRED OWEN and SEXUALITY’. It could be called ‘The Secret Book’ of this Monograph – The Secret Book Now Opened’ - in ‘modern parlance’ this is the GAY book of this 5 book Monograph. It deals with the vexed question of how the Arts are impacted by the influences of, and on, sexuality, particularly as such operated during the decades just before the First World War; and how the War impacted on this complex issue. It seems clear that, during the several years of his creative output, Wilfred Owen was exploring his homosexuality and reflected such in his Poetry, howbeit, in many instances, such were camouflaged and secretive in expression. He became acquainted with poetic expressions of homoerotica, which acquaintanceship was probably impulsed by the writings of Oscar Wilde and certain French Poets. Further, during the last 18 months of his life, he was involved in deepening relationships with Poets, writers, and those of their acquaintance, many of whom were homosexual or, at the very least, homo-affectionalist. The most influential of these was Robbie Ross, Oscar Wilde’s literary executor. Robbie Ross was the active mentor of many involved in the Arts. He was publicly known as homosexual. His honest, and open, homosexuality brought many persecutions upon him. He mentored, and became a close friend of, Wilfred Owen. As will be seen, there are extraordinary complexities implicit here in respect of the question of sexuality and the Arts - particularly within the context of the deepening war-paranoid prejudices of the time, as such were also overlaid and exaggerated by its inherited societal mores; and as such mores of prejudice had evolved within society over the millennia since the beginning of the Christian Era. All which is of particular importance in the extremely conflicting circumstances of Owen’s in-depth religious and tract-studying upbringing; and bearing in mind that so much of his Poetry is, directly and indirectly, grounded upon, and influenced by, the content and textual presentation of the King James Version of The Bible. So, it is then, that, in all these considerations, there is a strange ambivalence, to which, amongst other things, this book seeks to bring some illumination. It is submitted that this Fragments of Peace & War Monograph study of Wilfred Owen, his work and his times would have been incomplete without the endeavour of study of as to how his sexuality impacted on his life and creative work. With this, the whole Monograph, Fragments of Peace & War, ends.