Concetti Chiave
- Rupert Brooke, known for his charming looks and idealistic nature, became a romantic symbol due to his early death and poetic contributions.
- Brooke's enthusiasm for World War I is evident in his early works, though his perspective might have matured with time.
- His poem "The Soldier" embodies the patriotic sentiment and romantic idealism prevalent among Englishmen during the autumn of 1914.
- The poem avoids detailing the horrors of war, instead offering an abstract and idealized portrayal of sacrifice and glory.
- Brooke's untimely death on the Greek island of Skyros further enhanced his legacy as a soldier-poet.
Rupert Brooke (1887-1915)
Endowed with a sunny personality and strikingly good-looking, made even more famous by his Byronic death on a Greek island, in his early poems he welcomed the coming of a war that he would have certainly described with less romantic enthusiasm and more mature disillusionment had he lived longer. Born at Rugby, Rupert Brooke studied at King's College, Cambridge. He published his first volume, Poems, in 1911 in the style of the Georgian School. At the outbreak of the war, full of enthusiasm he enlisted at once as an officer, joined the Dardanelles expedition and died of blood poisoning, on the island of Skyros, on April 23rd, 1915.
He was strikingly handsome and good-looking which, together with his fervent idealism and legendary death, turned him into a romantic symbol of soldier-poet.
The Soldier
If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever 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.
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.
The poem expresses what Englishmen generally felt in the autumn of 1914, a sense of patriotism in face of the enemy and in defense of their country, and the idealization of those who died in battle. It does not describe anything precise, but only presents a vague generalization of the "war, sacrifice, glory" equation, which so deeply affected the young people of those first years.
The form itself reflects an abstract view of the war, with no hint at actual horrors por at death, except for the death of the poet himself who, in his romantic idealization, pretends that the earth of the "foreign field" where he lies will be "for ever England".
Domande da interrogazione
- ¿Qué aspectos de la vida de Rupert Brooke contribuyeron a su imagen de símbolo romántico?
- ¿Cómo refleja el poema "The Soldier" el sentimiento patriótico de los ingleses durante la guerra?
- ¿Qué visión de la guerra presenta Rupert Brooke en sus primeros poemas?
Su personalidad soleada, su atractivo físico, su ferviente idealismo y su muerte legendaria en una isla griega contribuyeron a su imagen de símbolo romántico de soldado-poeta.
El poema expresa el sentido de patriotismo y la idealización de aquellos que murieron en batalla, presentando una visión abstracta de la guerra sin mencionar sus horrores, lo que resonó profundamente en los jóvenes de la época.
En sus primeros poemas, Rupert Brooke presenta una visión romántica y entusiasta de la guerra, que probablemente habría cambiado a una perspectiva más desilusionada y madura si hubiera vivido más tiempo.
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