Rupert+Brooke+and+his+War+Sonnets

==__Rupert Brooke and his War Sonnets By: Kelsie Silver__==

Early History
Rupert Brooke was born on August 3rd 1887 to an upperclass family. His father was the House Master. In his youth he studied at a preparatory school and a main school. His parents expected much academic sucess. Rupert studied at Rugby school, and Kings College in Cambridge in 1906. At the university he broadened his activities to acting and socialism while becoming president of the Fabian society. His first book of poems was titled Poems 1911.

At an early age in Rugby he was creating poetry and made a new style known as Georgian. Rupert came to be in a social group with many great writers such as Maynards Keynes, Virginia Woolf, and Edward Thomas. He came to know many political, social, and literary figures before the war.

Writing Career
By 1911 he traveled to Germany and learned the language. His life soon changed when he had an engagement to Noel Olivier, but still had affection for Ka Cox. He had such trouble with these relationships that he began traveling restlessly. He went such places as England, Germany, and Cannes. By 1912 Rupert was back on his feet and was back to really writing. He then befriended people from old King's and came into a new social circle with people such as Henry James, WB Yeats, Bernard Shaw, Cathleen Nesbit, which he felt very close to, and Violet Asquith.

In 1913 Rupert Brooke was back to travleing and went to the United States were he wrote letters and formal articles, while rounded out his trip with islands down to New Zealand and ending in Tahiti. Tahiti is were much of his acclaimed work was created. There he met another beautiful woman but his funds ran out and he headed back to England in July of 1914. No sooer was he home in England that World War 1 broke out. In 1914 Rupert was applying to a commision in the Royal Naval Division. His friend Marsh was a big influence to get him in. By October of 1914 Rupert had seen some action in the defence of Antwerp and a marchig retreat through a devestated landscape before reaching Bruges. This was really the only combat the he ever got to experience. When he was waiting in Britain for redeployment he came down with the flu. During this period of time he wrote five war poems. They wer titled //Peace//, //Safety, The Dead,// a second //The Dead,// and //The Soldier.// This Poem is //The Soldier://

[|If I should die, think only this of me:] [|That there's some corner of a foreign field] [|That is for ever England. There shall be] [|In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;] A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware, [|Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,] [|A body of England's, breathing English air,] [|Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.] [|And think, this heart, all evil shed away,] [|A pulse in the eternal mind, no less] [|Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;] [|Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;] [|And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,] [|In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.] [|Rupert Brooke, 1914]

Rupert in WW1
By 1915 Rupert's poems were becoming very popular in Britain. He was even given an oppertunity to leave his unit and the front lines but he decided to stay. By April his ship was moving again and he developed blood poisening. He than dies on April 23rd 1915 aboard a hospital ship. His friends buried him under a stone in Skryos. His poems were published into a book and sold incredibly well. Though many of his poems were not considered great //The Soldier// is still read at military tributes and ceremonies today.

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