Scarica Rupert Brooke - The soldier e più Appunti in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! APPUNTI RUPERT BROOKE – THE SOLDIER RUPERT BROOKE - Rupert Brooke was born in 1887. - He was a good student and an athlete. - He joined up at the beginning of the conflict but saw little combat since he contracted blood poisoning and died in April 1915 and later buried in a Greek island. - Brooke’s reputation as a war poet is linked to the five sonnets 1914, in which he expressed the idea that war is clean and cleansing. He expressed his idea about the conflict: the only thing that can suffer is the body and that even death is seen as a reward. - His poems show a sentimental attitude. - The publication of Brooke’s poem coincided with his death and made him very popular. - He became the symbol of the “young romantic hero” who inspired patriotism in the early months of the Great War. THE SOLDIER The poem If I should die, think only this of me: That there’s some corner of a foreign field That is for ever England. There shall be In 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 less Gives 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. Paraphrase If I were to die, the only thing I want you to think about me is that there is a part of a foreign land that will be England forever. In that rich land there will be a richer dust concealed; a dust that England generated, shaped, educated, to which she once gave her flowers to love, her roads to roam. A body of England’s, breathing English air, washed by English rivers, blessed by English sun. Think that this heart, now died and free from all evil, is a pulse in the eternal spirit. It totally gives back somewhere else the thoughts given by England; English sights and sounds; the happy dreams that he had when in England; and the laughter he had had with his friends; the gentleness of hearts in peace under the English sky. Analysis It was written few months after the outbreak of the war (wrote in 1914 and published in 1915). It is a typical Petrarchan sonnet: the rhyme scheme is ABAB CDCD EFG EFG, it contains two quatrains (they make an octave) and two triplets (they make a sestet) while the Shakespearian sonnet contains three quatrains and a final rhyming couple, the rhyme scheme is ABBA CDDC EFFE GG. The dust is a reference to the death corpses of the soldiers: “From dust you came, from dust you shall return” (Biblical allusion from Genesis). The heart of the soldier will bring his Englishness elsewhere. The sonnet is a love poem to England. It is highly patriotic. The original title was “The Recruit” (reclutamento) because this is a recruiting poem to gather English guys to fight in WWI. Notes
