{"id":1562,"date":"2025-12-03T16:45:22","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T16:45:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/litgreatwarf25.themanger.net\/?p=1562"},"modified":"2025-12-03T20:04:37","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T20:04:37","slug":"the-soldier-by-rupert-brooke-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/litgreatwarf25.themanger.net\/?p=1562","title":{"rendered":"Michael&#8217;s selection of Rupert Brooke&#8217;s poem &#8220;The Soldier.&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"RUPERTFINAL\" width=\"584\" height=\"329\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ZDBueJSqePc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;The Soldier&#8221; by Rupert Brooke is a sonnet that&nbsp;expresses patriotic idealism, suggesting that if a soldier dies in battle in a foreign land and is buried where he fell, that place will become \u201cEnglish\u201d forever because his English body lies there.&nbsp; The poem argues that the soldier&#8217;s body, formed by England, will enrich the land and that in death, his heart will be cleansed, and his thoughts will become part of a peaceful, eternal mind filled with happy English memories.&nbsp;It portrays an uplifting and romantic view of the sacrifice of a soldier for his country which is in stark contrast to the gruesome realities of war that emerged later.&nbsp; It is important to remember that Brooke died very early in the war and as a result, most of his work is in keeping with portraying war as \u201ca glorious cause\u201d where British patriotism is as high a virtue as bravery and sacrifice.&nbsp; Specifically:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Physical sacrifice.\u00a0 The speaker in the poem believes that if he dies, his body will become &#8220;a richer dust&#8221; in a foreign field.\u00a0This dust is inextricably linked to England because the land has given him his very being; his body, his love for flowers, his ability to roam, and his breath.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>England immortalized.\u00a0 By burying the soldier&#8217;s body, a piece of foreign land is transformed into a small part of England, with his English &#8220;dust&#8221; now a permanent part of it.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Spiritual and mental legacy.\u00a0 The second stanza suggests a transcendent transformation.\u00a0His heart, purged of evil, will pulse with thoughts and memories of England; its sights, sounds, laughter with friends, and the gentleness of peace.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Patriotism and identity.\u00a0 The poem presents an idealistic and romantic view of patriotism where a soldier&#8217;s identity is so completely bound to England that even in death, he carries England with him and returns a part of it to the earth.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><u>Why this poem?<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Any soldier who has ever been in combat overseas has time to think about death; death in general and what will happen if death is \u2018personal\u2019.&nbsp; Combat is not training in your home country where it sometimes can be viewed as a game; in combat there is a very real possibility that you could die\u2026 then what?&nbsp; What happens to you?&nbsp; Today, there is a commitment that a soldier will not be left behind on a field of battle and given the improvements in miliary capabilities, soldiers have confidence that their earthly remains will be identified taken back home for burial.&nbsp; This was not the case in the First World War where soldiers were buried near where they fell \u2013 provided their bodies were found and properly identified.&nbsp; Every soldier in combat during the First World War had time to think about the terrible possibilities of death: what would be the effects of their death on the loved ones back home? Will your body be found?&nbsp; Where will your mortal remains end up?&nbsp; Will those you care about be able to find you?&nbsp; What will death be like?&nbsp; Not to be melodramatic, but in my previous career, I thought about the same things, and I took solace in the belief, like Brooke, that wherever it happened, there would be a little piece of America to be found if I fell.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><u>About the Poet Rupert Brooke<\/u><\/strong>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Rupert Brooke joined the Royal Navy&nbsp;after the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914, and was commissioned into the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve&nbsp;as a temporary lieutenant&nbsp;shortly after his 27th birthday.&nbsp;Brooke was assigned to the Royal Naval Division, an infantry division consisting of Royal Navy\/Royal Marine personnel not needed at sea, and took part in the Siege of Antwerp in October 1914.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Brooke sailed with the British Mediterranean Expeditionary Force on February 28, 1915 but developed severe gastroenteritis while stationed in Egypt.&nbsp; Not long afterwards, Brooke and his unit embarked on a ship bound for the landings at Gallipoli, T\u00fcrkiye and while under way, contracted streptococcal sepsis from a mosquito bite which became infected. Surgeons aboard a French hospital ship anchored off the island Skyros, in the Aegean Sea, carried out two operations to drain the abscess, but he died of septicemia on April 23, 1915.&nbsp; Brooke had just turned 27 at the time of his death.&nbsp; As the expeditionary force had orders to depart immediately, Brooke was buried in an olive grove on Skyros.&nbsp; Friends of Brooke assisted at his hastily organized funeral and his final resting place remains on the island along with a monument erected by those same friends.&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Note 1<\/strong>.&nbsp; Sonnet. &nbsp;A sonnet is&nbsp;a fourteen-line poem written in iambic pentameter, employing one of several rhyme schemes, and adhering to a tightly structured thematic organization. The name is taken from the Italian <em>sonetto<\/em>, which means \u201ca little sound or song.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Note 2<\/strong>. &nbsp;Iambic Pentameter.&nbsp; Iambic pentameter is&nbsp;a poetic rhythm with ten syllables per line, arranged in five pairs called \u201ciambs.\u201d&nbsp;Each iamb consists of one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed syllable (da-DUM).&nbsp;This creates a ten-syllable line with five beats, similar to the rhythm of natural human speech.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;The Soldier&#8221; by Rupert Brooke is a sonnet that&nbsp;expresses patriotic idealism, suggesting that if a soldier dies in battle in a foreign land and is buried where he fell, that place will become \u201cEnglish\u201d forever because his English body lies &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/litgreatwarf25.themanger.net\/?p=1562\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[451,442,449,448,444,447,446,403,443,445,450,312],"class_list":["post-1562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-100-years","tag-afghanistan","tag-death","tag-duty","tag-england","tag-for-love-of-country","tag-honor","tag-poetry-project","tag-rupert-brooke","tag-selfless-service","tag-soil","tag-the-great-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/litgreatwarf25.themanger.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/litgreatwarf25.themanger.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/litgreatwarf25.themanger.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/litgreatwarf25.themanger.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/litgreatwarf25.themanger.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1562"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/litgreatwarf25.themanger.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1562\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1585,"href":"https:\/\/litgreatwarf25.themanger.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1562\/revisions\/1585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/litgreatwarf25.themanger.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/litgreatwarf25.themanger.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/litgreatwarf25.themanger.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}