Rupert Brooke

Rupert Brooke had many lady-loves but he was married to none. He was engaged to Noel Olivier once. After her he had brief relationships with Bloomsbury group-member Virginia Woolf, a Tahitian woman named Taatamata and actress Cathleen Nesbitt.

He died of sepsis on 23 April 1915, at the age of 27.

Rupert Brooke was born on August 3, 1887 in Rugby, Warwickshire to William Parker Brooke and Ruth Mary Brooke. He had two brothers, one elder and one younger.

He received his schooling from Hillbrow School and Rugby School. He then won a scholarship to King’s college, Cambridge. Handsome and charming, he also excelled in sports and studies and became quite a popular character in the college.

In college he became a visible figure in English intellectual circles and established friendships with E M Forster, Virginia Woolf and the likes. He was the president of the Cambridge University Fabian Society and helped found the Marlowe Society drama club.

In 1910, he replaced his recently deceased father at Rugby School for a term before coming back to Cambridge. For the next three years, he travelled and wrote poems extensively.

After Cambridge, Rupert Brooke moved to Grantchester to work on his thesis and poems. His first book was titled ‘Poems’ and it was released in 1911. As a tribute to this city he penned the poem ‘The Old Vicarage, Grantchester’, in 1912.

Through his writings he along with several other poets of that era, shunned Victorianism in favor of realism, as they believed it was more descriptive and painted a better portrait of real-life incidents.

He was a member of the Dymock Poets, along with Robert Frost, Edward Thomas, Wifrid Gibson, John Drinkwater and Lascelles Abercrombie. The group lived near the village of Dymock in Gloucestershire in the time period between 1911 and 1914.

In 1912, he along with Edward Marsh, Walter Mare, John Masefield, and others compiled an anthology of the works of his peers titled ‘Georgian Poetry, 1911-1912’.

The year 1912 ended on a turbulent note as his mind was preoccupied with sexual confusion, followed by the rejection of his lady-love. He suffered a nervous breakdown and spent several months in rehabilitation trips to Germany.

Rupert Brooke’s most famous works are the five war-sonnets titled ‘1914 & Other Poems’. In the sonnets he tries to convey to his readers how this oncoming war is a good sign for the changes to come, which wouldn’t be possible without it. He believes the people who live to see the days after the war would be very fortunate as they would see the birth of a new generation; but the ones who might not be so lucky have nothing to fear as the war would bring an end to their ever-prevailing sufferings and conditions. Further on he goes to the extent of imagining his own death but isn’t sad about dying for his country and thinks of it as a noble sacrifice for his brethren.