Mind Map Gallery The Soldier by Rupert Brooke
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The Soldier by Rupert Brooke
Annotations about the poem: 'The Soldier' By Rupert Brooke
Edited at 2021-06-04 13:43:32
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The Soldier by Rupert Brooke
Other
"Richer Dust"
When dead and buried
Bones decompose
"A dust whom England bore"
'A dust' refers to a soldier
'England bore'
Extreme Patriotism/Jingoism
England gave birth to the soldiers
"laughter, learnt of friends: and gentleness"
Shows the unity of the soldiers
What Brooke thought war would be like
Good Qoutes
"If I should die, think only this of me:"
':' represent pause/stop to think
He anticipates his own death
If he was to die during battle, he wants people to think highly of him
"That there's some corner of a foreign field"
Alliteration
'T' in That and there's
'F' in foreign and field
Foreign field refers to France and Belgium
"blest by suns of home"
Relgious connection; "Blest"
"Blest" - refers to England blessing him
"And think, this heart, all evil shed away"
Shows that a soldier would have sacrifieced himself
If he was to die, he is to die with a pure heart full of goodness
"A pulse in the eternal mind"
Poet will always think/remember England
Poet will never forget England
Jingoism; extreme patrisom
England/English is repeated throughout the whole poem
The poet personificates England by calling it as; HER
"England bore" - gave birth to him
England has given the poet many great gifts
"English heaven" - tries to comfort himself and other that if he dies in the war he would be dying for England and that he will go to an English Heaven
"sights and sounds; happy dreams" - idealist view of England
Context
Brooke was a British soldier who died in 1915 - not due to war
Sub Topic
This poem was originally called 'The Recruit' as it was used as a recruitment method
It was written in the beginning of WW1 which lasted from 1914 - 1918
Poem is called a sonnet (love poem) - it's an unusual example of a love poem
Structure
Sonnet
Divided into an octave/octet and sestet
Octet presents us with the problem
Discusses the soldier's death
Important role England played in the soldiers formation
Sestet resolves the problem which we have been presented with
In the first line of the Sestet (Verse 9) there is a 'volta'
Imagines what Heaven in will be like