Brooke, Rupert. (1887 - 1915).
L i f e
- travelled extensively in Europe, USA, Canada, and the South Seas
- enlisted (winter 1914) and began producing his ‘war sonnets’
- died of blood poisoning on a troopship in the Mediterranean, buried on a Greek Island
- strikingly handsome, athletic, intelligent, and witty
=> his death symbolic of the death of a whole young generation of brilliant and beautiful patriotic Englishmen
W o r k
- author of essays and poetry
- pre-war poems: jesting, often colloquially nostalgic
- war sonnets: youthfully enthusiastic => immediate popular impact
Poems (1911):
- criticized by reviewers for their blunt diction
“The Old Vicarage, Grantchester”:
- a cleverly urbane pre-war poem
1914 and Other Poems (1915, posthumously):
- criticized for not responding to the horrors of war x but: died too soon to could have done so
“The Soldier”:
- praised posthumously by Winston Churchill as an example for soldiers
Quote
"If I should die, think only this of me;
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England."
From "The Soldier".
Basics
(Photo: Wikimedia Commons).
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Author
Rupert Chawner Brooke. (1887 - 1915). British. -
Work
Poet. Author of "The Soldier".
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Genre
War poetry. Sonnets.
Literature
Abrams, Meyer Howard, ed. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. New York: W. W. Norton, 1993.
Barnard, Robert. Stručné dějiny anglické literatury. Praha: Brána, 1997.
Baugh, Albert C. ed. A Literary History of England. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1967.
Coote, Stephen. The Penguin Short History of English Literature. London: Penguin, 1993.
Sampson, George. The Concise Cambridge History of English Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1946.
Sanders, Andrew. The Short Oxford History of English Literature. New York: Clarendon Press, 1994.