This is an essay about the poet Rupert Brooke in relation with the First World War, also know as the Great War. The Great War caused devastating effects on twentieth-century literature. <<Rupert Brooke lived between 1887-1915. He belonged to an Academic family and he was educated in a College, in Cambridge . Brooke was familiar in literary circles before the war and he saw little combat during the war. He died because he contracted blood-poisoning from a small neglected injury. Brooke assumed a symbolic role that eventually turned into the myth of a young and beautiful fallen warrior, such as on the five war sonnets of 1914, the myth of the fallen “golden warrior”.>>

( http://www.english.emory.edu/LostPoets/ThePoets.html )

<<Rupert Brooke's war sonnets were written in the first flush of patriotism and enthusiasm as a generation unused to war rushed to defend king and country. During the years of the Great War the readers sought ways to justify the loss of their loved ones and their great sacrifices at home and on the front.>>

( http://www.english.emory.edu/LostPoets/Sonnets.html )

<<“ War sonnets ” are a whole history and revelation of Rupert Brooke. He is remembered as a “war poet” who inspired patriotism in the early months of the Great War. And England at that time needed a focal point for its griefs, ideas and aspirations. In his early poetry he wrote: “ Fish ”, “ Helen and Menelaus ” and “ Heaven ”. They show an enthusiasm that most soldiers and poets eventually lost. >>

( http://www.english.emory.edu/LostPoets/ThePoets.html).

The poem “Peace” belongs to a group of five poems called “War Sonnets” , printed in 1914. Therefore, he wrote the poem near to the end of his life, but he still was a young man when he died, in 1915. This poem shows how Brooke feels because of the war. The First World War caused a lot of disasters and the people were very frightened about it. Brooke shows us that he was sad but he contrasts this sadness {negative words appear, such as: “grown old and cold and weary” (line 5), “dirty” and “dreary” (line 7), “agony” (line 13) and “worst friend and enemy” (line 14)} with enthusiasm and patriotism { “God be thanked” (line 1) “wakened us from sleeping” (line 2) “hand made sure, clear eye ” (line 3) “ Glad” (line 5) “we have found release” (line 9)}, it was a revelation of him. In the poem appears oppositions, there are a lot of sad and negative word because of the war, but there are other words that try to encourage people to live with the war, to make people feel a little bit fine. The poet is always talking about society who suffers the effects of the war, because they lost their loved ones and their great sacrifices at home and on the front. The war has “ caught our youth and wakened us from sleeping” (line 2), because before the war society was living happily, with a good ideals, but now people can not live free. The war has a “ sharpened power” (line 3) that takes away the freedom. Brooke thinks people live in “a world grown old and cold and weary” (line 5), this is a pessimistic point of view, and it contrasts with the enthusiasm that he usually expresses in his poems.

Brooke uses a rhyme formed by: (a, b, a, b; c, d, c, d; e, f, g, e, f, g) such as it is showed in the poem which is at the end of this essay.

1 Now, God be thanked Who has matched us with His hour , (a)
And caught our youth, and wakened us from s leeping , (b)
With hand made sure, clear eye, and sharpened p ower , (a)
To turn, as swimmers into cleanness leaping , (b)
5 Glad from a world grown old and cold and w eary , (c)
Leave the sick hearts that honour could not m ove , (d)
And half-men, and their dirty songs and dr eary , (c)
And all the little emptiness of l ove ! (d)

Oh! we, who have known shame, we have found release there , (e)

10 Where there's no ill, no grief, but sleep has m ending , (f)
Naught broken save this body, lost but br eath ; (g)
Nothing to shake the laughing heart's long peace there (e)
But only agony, and that has ending ; (f)
And the worst friend and enemy is but D eath . (g)

From The War Sonnets (1914)

 

•  http://www.english.emory.edu/LostPoets/Menelaus.html