The Life and Poetry of Rupert Brooke

“If I should die, think only this of me: that there’s some corner of a foreign field that is for ever England.”

Rupert Brooke was born in 1887.

He studied at the University of Cambridge, and was closely connected to artists and writers like Gwen Raverat, Duncan Grant, and Virginia Woolf.

Brooke is best known as a war poet, and one of his sonnets, The Soldier, is often included in anthologies of WWI poetry:

Shortly after being published, The Soldier was read out at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London.

It quickly became a national rallying call - an anthem that encouraged young men to take up arms and make the ultimate sacrifice for their country.

With its idyllic depiction of England as an arcadia - a heavenly land of gently flowing rivers, wildflowers, and laughter - The Soldier mirrors the utopian imagery in some of Brooke’s earlier poems.

For example, the opening lines of The Old Vicarage, Grantchester portray his home as a haven surrounded by radiant flowers.

Brooke was charismatic, theatrical, and strikingly attractive (WB Yeats once described him as ‘the handsomest young man in England’).

At heart, he was also a romantic, and expressed that aspect of his character through some of his poems.

One of the most touching examples of this is Tiare Tahiti - which he wrote after falling in love with a young Tahitian woman during a trip to the South Pacific.

But when you read Brooke’s personal letters it soon becomes apparent that there was a very different side to his personality.

He was insecure, self-centred, petulant, and prone to childish tantrums.

He also had a tendency to become obsessed with particular women, and, at his worst, could be arrogant, controlling, jealous, and vindictive.

A classic example of this was when, convinced that members of the Bloomsbury Group were interfering in his romantic affairs, he cut off all contact with them.

Unlike the critics who now regard Brooke as an egotistical fraud, and see his poetry as wildly overrated, it would be a mistake to dismiss his work completely.

Some of his poems are dull and unmemorable, but others (especially those written towards the very end of his life) are expressive and powerful.

For example, I really love how he portrays his experience of travelling by train in The Night Journey.

Interestingly, Brooke also had the making of a brilliant travel writer.

The way he described his experience of travelling off the coast of Andalusia is particularly poignant.

By the time he wrote this letter, WWI had begun and Brooke was a naval officer.

He was sailing in a convoy of boats headed towards the Dardanelles during the early stages of the Gallipoli Campaign.

Only a few weeks later, he contracted acute septicaemia from an infected mosquito bite, and, at the age of just twenty-seven, died, and was buried in a peaceful olive grove on the Greek island of Skyros.

“If I should die, think only this of me: that there’s some corner of a foreign field that is for ever England.”

It’s difficult to imagine a more fitting burial place.

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