Biography of Rupert Brooke

Rupert Brooke, considered by many scholars to be one of the most divisive poets of the twentieth century, was born on August 3, 1887, in Warwickshire, England. As a child, Brooke attended a prestigious boarding school where he studied Latin and Greek and began to write poetry. In 1906, Brooke won a scholarship to attend King’s College, Cambridge, and was elected president of the Cambridge University Fabian Society, a club that provided a voice for the values of social democracy and socialism. He was also one of the founders of the Marlowe Society drama club and acted in many plays at Cambridge. Following his graduation, Brooke spent most of his time writing poems and touring the world. Described as a neo-pagan because of his fondness towards nature, he often bathed nude in local streams and slept on the ground with his friends. In 1912, Brooke suffered an emotional crisis and confusion about homosexual impulses when he broke up with a woman whom he was in love with, Katherine Cox. He had to spend several months in rehabilitation where he could not write any poetry. Returning to England in 1914 from Tahiti, Brooke, like many other young Englishmen at that time, voluntarily enlisted in World War One. Brooke’s most notable poetry was written during that first year of the Great War, including his famous sonnets, “the Dead” and “The Soldier,” wherein he expressed his devotion to his beloved home country. However, less than a year into the war, Brooke was bitten by a mosquito. The wound became infected, and he eventually died of, sepsis, or blood poisoning. His death was felt throughout Great Britain, prompting even future prime minister Winston Churchill to elegize him, describing Brooke as “all that that one would wish England’s nobl...

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... which appeals to the reader’s sense of patriotism and national pride. Combined with “vivid imagery,” Brooke protrays the sudden deaths with a sense of romanticism or unrealistic feelings, comparing death to the natural world. His use of romanticism is prevalent because he “caught the optimism of the opening months of the war with his wartime poems, published after his death, which expressed an idealism about war that contrasts strongly with poetry published later in the conflict” (“Rupert Brooke (1887-1915)”). Brooke was unable to capture the actual scenes of World War One and only lived one year into the war. His naivety causes him to write unrealistically about death and incorperates this into his frequent theme of death with honor. Brooke, like many pre World War One Georgian poets, utilizes sentimentality and romanticism to appeal to the audience’s emotions.