{\b Rupert Brooke}.

{\b Date of Birth}.: 3 August 1887

{\b Date of Death}.: 23 April 1915

{\b Works}.

English poet. His two best-known poems are The Old Vicarage, Grantchester 
(1912), published in Georgian Poetry 1911-1912 by his friend, Edward Marsh,  
and The Soldier (1914), a war-inspired sonnet. Other fine poems he wrote 
include Retrospect (1913) and Tiare Tahiti (1913). He also wrote a one-act 
play, Lithuania (1915), and Letters from America, for which Henry James wrote 
a preface in 1916. As a war poet, his work is more idealistic than those of 
other war poets such as Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon.

{\b Featured Works}.

'The Soldier', 'Clouds', 'The Hill', 'Heaven', 'The Dead', 'The Treasure', 
'Sonnet', 'The Great Lover', 'The Little Dog's Day', 'The Fish', 'Sonnet: 
"Now, God Be Thanked Who Has Matched Us With His Hour"'.

{\b General Comment}.

A man of great physical beauty by reputation, Rupert Brooke was born in Rugby, 
Warwickshire where he attended the local school. He then gained entry into 
King's College, Cambridge (1905-11) where he became a Fellow in 1912. He 
travelled extensively and wrote many travel letters for the 'Westminster 
Gazette', London (1912-13). At the start of the First World War in 1914, he 
was assigned to the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. He saw action at Antwerp 
which inspired the writing of five passionately patriotic sonnets, the last of 
them being The Soldier. He was at the height of his fame when he died during 
the war aged twenty-seven. He had been on his way to serve in the Dardanelles 
when he died of blood poisoning at Scyros and was buried there.