Rupert Brooke

Rupert Brooke was born in 1887 and died on April 23 1915 in Greece, a soldier in the First World War.
He was from a wealthy family, handsome and gifted.

Brooke attended the prestigious public school, Rugby, where he excelled academically and at sport. He studied at King’s College, Cambridge, graduating in 1906. He was a prominent member of the Socialist Fabian Society. A popular young man, his favourite pastime was rambling in the countryside around the village of Grantchester, which he praised in his poem ‘The Old Vicarage, Grantchester’ (1912). A public house in the village is named after him today.

His Poems were published in 1911. He spent a year travelling in the United States and Canada, but with the outbreak of World War I, he received a commission in the Royal Navy. After taking part in a disastrous expedition to Antwerp that ended in retreat, he sailed for the Dardanelles, which he never reached. He died of septicemia on a hospital ship off Skyros and was buried on that island.

Brooke’s ‘Wartime Sonnets’ published in 1915 were instantly successful and brought him fame. They express idealism in the face of war that is in strong contrast to other World War One poets and their response to trench warfare.