RUPERT BROOKE, POET – A GENTLE SOUL

Hello Readers:

I would like to introduce you to Rupert Brooke, an English poet.  Born Aug. 3, 1887, Rugby, Warwickshire, Eng. and died April 23, 1915, Skyros, Greece.  He was a well born, gifted, handsome youth whose early death in World War I contributed to his idealised image in the interwar period.

Brooke died in 1915, before seeing further action. En route to Gallipoli a mosquito bite on his lip became infected and he died of blood poisoning. He died on St George’s Day, Shakespeare’s birthday, and was buried in a remarkable ceremony on the Greek island of Skyros.

His poetry, with its unabashed patriotism and graceful lyricism, was revered in a country that was yet to feel the devastating effects of two world wars. Brooke’s early death only solidified his image as “a golden-haired, blue-eyed English Adonis,” as Doris L. Eder notes in the Dictionary of Literary Biography, and among those who lauded him after his death were writers Virginia Woolf and Henry James and British statesman, Winston Churchill.

In the decades after World War I, however, critics reacted against the Brooke legend by calling his verse foolishly naive and sentimental. Despite such extreme opinions, most contemporary observers agree that Brooke—though only a minor poet—occupies a secure place in English literature as a representative of the mood and character of England before World War I.

I would like you to read about his life, to  get to know him, and to read some of his poetry.

‘The Soldier’, is a well known poem, see first verse.  It’s magical!

If I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is forever 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.

I hope you will enjoy my poetry book, ‘Waking Up To Beauty’.  See my Author’s page for information.     https://www.austinmacauley.com/book/waking-beauty

I would appreciate it, if you could write a review of my book.  Just a sentence or two would be nice.  This helps other readers to consider buying my book or ePub version.

Best wishes,

Anne

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