Rupert Brooke and "The Soldier"

Rupert Brooke was born in England August 3rd 1887. He attended Rudby School and later King’s College University of Cambridge. Brooke had a troubled love life and fell heavily in love several times, in both women and men. Brooke left England to travel in France and Germany for several months before he returned to England again. In England he spent his time in both London and Cambridge. After experiencing a mental breakdown in 1913, Brooke traveled again, spending several months in America, Canada, and the South Seas. He returned to England at the outbreak of World War I and later died of blood poisoning from a mosquito bite in 1915.

Rupert Brooke’s poem “The Soldier” was written at the start of World War I. In this poem Brooke expresses his love for England and how he believes it is right to fight and die for his country. Brooke uses repetition of the word England in a very patriotic style, and he also uses personification to describe England as if it were a person, for example, “her sights and sounds, dreams happy as her day”. The poem deals with the two themes death and love which evoke feeling in people. The poem creates an image of a brave man who would do anything for his country. Before Brooke died in 1915 he got to fight in the war, therefore the poem has a very traditional viewpoint. The poem is also very idealistic. Brookes says in his forth line, "In that rich earth a richer dust concealed." This means that if he is to die in a country other than England that the soil would be made better because there would now be a piece of England within it. It also means that his country, England, is superior to any other country. His poem was used to inspire young men to enlist as well as to bring comfort to the families of the victims of war.

I believe that since this poem was written in the very early years of war, the poet has not experienced the truth of war and the extreme brutality that soldiers experience at the end of war, when they get tired and cannot bear to fight in the war any longer. Therefore I think he writes more than he can stand for. But I do believe that this is a very good poem.

http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/181, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Brooke, http://www.ciao.co.uk/Poetry_Analysis__Review_5476922, http://www.azete.com/preview/52719, http://chawedrosin.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/rupert-brooke02.jpg