RUPERT BROOKE 1887-1915

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RUPERT BROOKE 1887-1915
Rupert Brooke is born in 1877. He is a war poet but he never reached the battle-field, actually, he died of blood poisoning before going to fight. One of the famous five sonnets he wrote before dyeing, is "The Soldier", that became, in 1915, one of the most popular war's poem, because the poet saw the war, not as a cruel experience, but as a way, for a soldier, to become an hero and to demonstrate the patriotism. Besides, death in war is not a tragic, but a noble end. The sonnet was successful because it celebrated the patriotic and idealistic mood of the war, before the British people's discovering of the horrors of the war.

"THE SOLDIER"

"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 the 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."

It's like a Petrarcan sonnet, because it's composed by two quatrains and two tercets (Shakespearean sonnet was composed by three quatrains and a couplet).

FIRST QUATRAIN
Lines 1-2-3: if he'll dies and if he'll be buried in a foreign country, there will be a piece of that country that will be forever England, because it will contain his body which is English.
Lines 3-4: in that piece of earth there will be a richer dust (dust=himself)

SECOND QUATTRAIN
Lines 5-6: England is seen as a other, actually, she bore him, she gave him a shape, she made him know, she gave him her flowers to love and her paths to explore.
Lines 7-8: His body is an English body and breaths English air→where he'll be buried will be forever England.

FIRST TERCET
Lines 9-10-11: When he'll die and his body will be buried, his mind will always think about all what he has received by England.

SECOND TERCET
Lines 12-13-14: he says all the things his mother-country has given to him.

SOUND DEVICES
Regular rhyme scheme ABAB CDCD ABC ABC. The poem is a traditional genre, a Petrarchan sonnet.

FIGURES OF SPEECH
Personification: England is seen like a mother, his mother-country. This emphasise the love of the poet for England.

LANGUAGE
The language used by the poet is high-flown, not down-to-earth, it's emphatic (many words to express a single concept)

THEMES
-Patriotism→ the war is a way to demonstrate your patriotism and to become immortal.
-Death → a way to become immortal and a hero
-Idealistic poem→ how noble is to die for your mother-country

CORRESPONDANCE BETWEEN High flown language
Conventional and traditional theme
Conventional and traditional genre