Poetry - The Soldier Flashcards
Who wrote The Soldier
Rupert Brooke
The soldier context
Written in 1914, by Rupert Brooke.
Sonnets are usually love poems addressed to a person this is a love poem addressed to a country.
Did not go to war in person but had second hand experience - sailed with the British Mediterranean Expeditionary Force in early 1915, which was heading to Gallipoli in Turkey, but he developed sepsis from an infected mosquito bite.
It is read regularly at services for fallen soldiers and commemorative ceremonies for soldiers who died in the First World War.
It is very patriotic and passionate, but also completely sincere.
The soldier form
Sonnet – love and devotion for one’s country.
If I should die
Personal pronoun ‘I’ of the poem is the soldier.
Calmly addresses the possibility of death, which is a reality most people prefer not to face.
think only this of me:
Imperative verb - instructing us to think of his death in a very particular way.
It will not be a tragedy but instead, a way of giving back to England what has she has given him.
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England.
This line introduces England, which will reappear many, many times.
Alliteration of ‘foreign field’ emphasises the difference between a foreign country and England.
He welcomes death because it will make a small spot into a part of England.
There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
Biblical reference - he says he will be ‘a richer dust’ because he is English. This was typical of the poetry of the time.
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Personification - England deified as a mother which has given birth to him, shaped him and made him conscious.
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
Floral imagery reflects the beauty of nature.
The mother figure, England, has given him natural beauty to appreciate.
A body of England’s, breathing English air,
Repetition of England/English accentuates the central importance of his love for his country.
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.
These are also images taken from nature, but also have religious connotations.
Metaphor - ‘Washed’ could be a reference to baptism, while the sun is blessing him, which is another religious concept.
And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
There is a change of stanza.
Heart is purified and becomes like a heartbeat in the ‘eternal mind’ of God.
‘Pulse’ is a metaphor for life continuing in a spiritual sense.
Shows change to the afterlife.
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Death is not a tragedy, but a calm opportunity to give back what has been given by the motherly figure of England.
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.
Asyndetic triadic - describes beautiful sights and sounds through sensory language.
Vowel sounds and sibilance emphasise peacefulness of the after-life.
Image of peace, not war.
Even the after-life is English, and in Brooke’s eyes, therefore superior.
The soldier structure
It is a sonnet, that is, a poem of fourteen lines.
Written in iambic pentameter.
