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Rupert Brooke – the Soldier. Aim: What does this poem further tell us about early attitudes to war?. After recruiting poems, the trend was to write poems which glorified the British cause in war. Rupert Brooke wrote sonnets to express the chivalry of war:.
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Rupert Brooke – the Soldier Aim: What does this poem further tell us about early attitudes to war?
After recruiting poems, the trend was to write poems which glorified the British cause in war. Rupert Brooke wrote sonnets to express the chivalry of war: Now, God be thanked Who has matched us with his hour, And caught our youth, and wakened us from sleeping, With hand made sure, clear eye, and sharpened power, To turn, as swimmers into cleanness leaping, Glad from a world grown old and cold and weary, Leave the sick hearts that honour could not move, And half-men, and their dirty songs and dreary, And all the little emptiness of love! How can you tell that Brooke had not yet been to war?
Brooke deeply believes that he is on the side of the righteous because that is what he has been told. • A German writer, Remarque, wrote a novel called All Quiet on the Western Front, based on the German experience of World War I. Here is an extract: "I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow. I see how peoples are set against one another, and in silence, unknowingly, foolishly, obediently, innocently slay one another." Chapter 10.
The Soldier (1914) If I should die, think only this of me:That there's some corner of a foreign fieldThat is for ever England. There shall beIn 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 lessGives 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 Rupert Brooke
Do you think the Germans believed they were on the ‘wrong side’ as Brooke suggests they are? • Do you agree with Brooke’s view of war? • Why do you think he wrote such poems before he had even been to the front lines to fight? The remains of a German soldier, November 1916
Key word: • Sonnet: A poem with 14 lines divided into two verses. Sonnets are typically used as love poems. • What is the object of Brooke’s affection? • Rupert Brooke: (3 August 1887 – 23 April 1915). He did not live long enough for his feelings towards the war to turn bitter.
The Soldier (Context and subject) • A sonnet exploring the feelings of patriotism. The Soldier was written to praise the men who went to war to save and defend such a great country: ‘There shall be In that rich earth a richer dust concealed’ • The sonnet continues to praise England and to say that it is worth fighting for so that England will continue to thrive.
Analysing the poem • 1) What feelings would the poem create in the soldiers’ hearts? Explain in one paragraph using at least one quote from the poem. • 2) The poem is propaganda. What image does it present about war and dying. Explain with reference to the poem. • 3) Read through the poem and write down examples of: • -Alliteration (Words beginning with the same sound) • -Personification (Giving an object human characteristics) • -Metaphors: (Saying that something is something else) • -Repetition: (Repeating a word or phrase to make a point) • And explain each one and their effects
