Rupert Brooke -'The Soldier' Trivia Quiz

Answer:

Rupert Brooke was born in Rugby, Warwickshire on 3rd August, 1887. He was educated at Rugby school where his father was Master of School Field House and went from there to study classics at Kings College, Cambridge.

At University, he was elected president of the socialist Fabian Society and eventually joined the Bloomsbury group of poets. He became friends with George Mallory, Virginia Woolf and W.B Yeats who once described him as 'the handsomest young man in England'. His work was admired by Winston Churchill, who was then First Lord of the Admiralty. After university, along with Robert Frost, he became one of the Dymock poets who were based in the village of Dymock in Gloucestershire.

In 1912 he suffered a severe emotional crisis and nervous collapse. In an effort to recover he toured the USA and Canada, writing articles for different publications.

He enlisted in August 1914 at the outbreak of World War 1 and joined the Royal Naval Division, which was actually an infantry group and fought in Antwerp. He sailed with the British Mediterranean Expeditionary Force from England on 28th February, 1915 en route to the Gallipoli. After being weakened by severe gastroenteritis in Egypt, he died of septicaemia from an infected mosquito bite and was buried in Skyros, in Greece on 23rd April 1915. The original wooden cross from his grave is preserved at Rugby school.

'The Soldier' was written after his enlistment and he became officially recognised as a war poet in 1915. His most famous collection of poetry, '1914 and Other Poems', was published early in 1915 and was reprinted 11 times that year. By June 1918 the book had been published 24 times, possibly fuelled by posthumous interest. 'The Soldier' was read from the pulpit at St Paul's Cathedral on Easter Sunday in 1915 - just 3 weeks before he died.

In 1985, Rupert Brooke was among 16 World War 1 poets commemorated on a slate monument in Poets Corner in Westminster Abbey. In 2023, Brooke's Memorial plaque sold at auction for £25,200.