Preview

"The Soldier" by Rupert Brooke.

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
579 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
"The Soldier" by Rupert Brooke.
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:

These are the first four lines of Rupert Brooke's poignant sonnet, "The Soldier". "The Soldier" is a poem about death in war. This does not glorify war, but only shows that dying in war is a proud thing to do for your country. It is a message from Rupert Brooke and possibly all the young men at war to their loved ones. Brooke's purpose seems to be bequeathing his spirit even though his body may be in another country. As you can see in this picture, (**show picture of Rupert Brooke**) Rupert Brooke looks quite determined and young and so this is a sad, depressing poem but it is also quite reflective. In this sense, the poem is typical of the early part of World War 1.

"The Soldier" is a poem with many techniques since Rupert Brooke seems to be well educated and is quite formal with his writing. It includes the use of repetition, metaphors and visual imagery. The poem goes at a moderate pace so therefore it is easily seen that the poem is natural and harmonious.

Brooke uses many devices to send his message of dying in war. In the body of "The Soldier", he uses visual imagery "Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home", to create a very peaceful picture of English life that will survive his death. This makes the reader feel serene when thinking about English life. So, even though he says that he may die, by calling himself a dust, he makes his death more pleasant than reality.

Another device he used was metaphor, "And think, this heart, all evil shed away, A pulse in the eternal mind, no less" to describe his death. It also refers to the eternal mind as the cycle of humanity. This metaphor shows the goodness of dying instead of thinking the normal view of death, which is sad, and depressing.

This poem has fourteen lines and a distinct rhyme pattern, and therefore it is recognizable as a

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    The beginning of the poem starts out very depressing, the soldier talks as if they are old men on their death beds. ""Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge"(2), this line implies how miserable the soldier 's are, their sick, weak, and enduring unbearable conditions. They are walking toward their camp, which the poem tells us is quite a distance away. But they are so tired they are sleeping as they walk toward the camp. These men don 't even have sufficient clothing, some have lost their boots and most are covered in blood. "Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots / Of tried, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind"(6-7). This line tells us that these men are so exhausted they have become numb to the war and blood-shed around them. The soldier 's have become numb to the 5.9 inch caliber shells flying by their heads, the bombs bursting behind them, and their fallen comrades body 's lying next to them.…

    • 569 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ by Wilfred Owen and ‘The Soldier’ by Rupert Brooke are poems about war which treat their subjects differently. Both poems are examples of the authors’ perceptions of war; Owen’s being about its bitter reality and Brooke’s about the glory of dying for one’s country. The poets express their sentiments on the subject matter in terms of language, tone, rhyme, rhythm and structure. ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ has very effective language by using diverse methods such as alliteration, onomatopoeia and diction. The tone is unyielding and vivid imagery is used to reinforce it, primarily by means of compelling metaphors and enduring similes. The rhyme scheme is regular with very little change and helps establish the rhythm. The poem is divided into four stanzas, the first two of which set and develop the scene, while the third and fourth convey the abiding memory and offer a commentary on what has preceded. ‘The Soldier’ is a Petrarchan sonnet divided into two stanzas. The initial octave lays out Brooke’s thoughts and feelings regarding his subject, with the sestet offering a definitive final comment. The tone along with the rhyme is very regular, helping to convey the poet’s attitude. It has a continually lilting rhythm which reinforces the latter.…

    • 3089 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Owen portrays the soldiers in both poems in ways that are very unlike the glorified image of a young soldier presented by the society of the day. In mental cases they are mentally ruined, their minds destroyed by the sight, sound and memories of the battlefield. Owen suggests that war has changed these young men. They now “leer” with “jaws that slob” unable to control their facial expressions, stripping them of their youth and making them seem like aged characters with no life in them due to their wartime experiences.…

    • 942 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Strong use of imagery is characteristic of both poems to position readers to accept their attitude. “The Soldier” conjures a pleasant scene of the English countryside to evoke a patriotic feeling, that fighting for England is expected of a man. Brookes speaks of the glory and honour of war and of the nobility of fighting and dying for England: “In…

    • 899 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the poem by Ruper Brooke "The soldier", the author presents war and death in a heavly patriotic way: English soldiers are…

    • 420 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Owen wrote this poem to express the damage done through war towards the humanity of the soldiers and men involved; he evokes empathy in the readers using techniques such as war imagery and personification.…

    • 658 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    War Poetry Analysis

    • 880 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The government tried conscriptions, which backfired on them greatly. Protests started and the people were standing up against the war. The battles may have been fought by soldiers, but the war was played by politicians. This war showed that it didn’t bring disgrace to your family if you didn’t fight, but rather showed your ability to keep up what the politicians were spouting; and in some cases if you went to war people would disrespect you for that choice. The history behind these two poems are overwhelmed with war and all its horrors.…

    • 880 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “The Soldier” by Brooke is written in 1914, before he actually participated in war, where he presents war as an event of potential glory. Brooke’s limited war experiences allowed him to compose an image of what he imagines war to be like. As he did not know about the horrors of war, his view of war is innocent and naïve. He believes that the death of a soldier – if it happens – will be a sweet and honourable death, one to be admired and hoped for. This view is demonstrated vividly throughout the poem in several ways.…

    • 1035 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The conscription of young men to battle during WWI was typically celebrated. Committed soldiers were glorified as heroes of the national cause. In Britain, churchmen justified such human sacrifice in the name of war, by claiming God was on Britain's side. Religious services and anthems were sung, praising the patriotic departure of troops even though it culminated in great human loss. Owen's poem, 'Anthem for Doomed Youth', criticises Britain's actions and their ignorant exaltation of them. Owen ironically undermines the concept of an anthem by emphasising that there is nothing to celebrate but 'Doomed Youth'. This refers to the young men having their lives brutally cut short. Owen establishes the theme of his sonnet with the rhetorical question "What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?" This refers to the inhumane slaughter of soldiers, shifting the audience's vision of an honourable and pride-worthy death to the unprecedented and shameful mass killings of the Great War. Throughout the poem, Owen juxtaposes the musical quality of an anthem with the harsh sounds of war. This concept is first raised at the end of the first quatrain with the noisy onomatopoeia of the "rifles' rapid rattle". The use of the adjective 'rapid' and the assonance on 'a' quickens the pace and indicates the fashion in which the dead are buried in war.…

    • 908 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Battle Of Thermopylae

    • 591 Words
    • 3 Pages

    This poem has been written to showcase the bravery that a soldier must have to become involved in a war and it is written to people who view war as an honourable sacrifice. The language used in this poem has been specifically chosen to keep the idea of honour and pride for one’s country in the forefront of the reader’s mind. The language used in line 21-22 shows how even though the soldier knew he would more than likely die if he fought that he fought anyway. This…

    • 591 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Rosetti Echo

    • 972 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The rhyme pattern is simple, and, like rhyme generally, it may be thought of as a pattern of echoes. Each stanza contains four lines of alternating rhymes concluded by a couplet: a b a b c c. There are nine separate rhymes throughout the poem, three in each stanza. Only two words are used for each rhyme; no rhyme is used twice. Of the eighteen rhyming words, sixteen — almost all — are of one syllable. The remaining two words consist of two and three syllables. With such a great number of single-syllable words, the rhymes are all rising ones, on the accented halves of iambic feet, and the end-of-line emphasis is on simple words.…

    • 972 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the poem, it shows the pain and suffering the soldiers went through along with the mothers, whose sons are in battle. Don’t send a mother’s son, just to go die in a war; The soldiers’ injury caused the other to look in agony; the speed of a bullet can cause death instantly, just with a hit on a soldier’s body; The canon can instantly kill many people; Don’t pay attention to the injured or dying soldiers, just keep going; You (soldier) know the drill, don’t be…

    • 352 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Wwi Era Poetry

    • 607 Words
    • 3 Pages

    And home we brought you shoulder-high.”From the first stanza in “To an Athlete Dying Young” there is a dark over shadowing and reference to death. The stark, sad comparison of a race winner being hoisted and cheered and a dead soldier being carried shoulder high in a casket is striking. The era of World War 1 was a dark and gloomy one. There was fighting and turmoil all over the world. People didn’t know where the fighting would spread to next. Would their homes be destroyed? Would their loved ones make it back? The outcome for most on the front lines was not very good. Between horrible trench conditions, weather, battles that dragged on for months and injuries so devastatingly traumatic, the odds of the enlisted coming home were bleak. Poetry seemed to reflect all this negative, sad overcast of the world. In “The Soldier”, Brooke writes about an Englishman dying abroad, thus making that part of the earth, forever England. “If I should die, think only this of me: That there's some corner of a foreign field That is for ever England.” This is bleak yet somehow comforting at the same time. That bit of comfort seems to directly reflect that this poem was personal to Brooke as he was a soldier and ended up dying on a ship of dysentery. The sadness is compounded that he couldn’t have even died as he wrote, in a somewhat dramatic and romantic fashion, leaving part of England in the soil. The injuries from World War 1 were often completely disabling or fatal, due to conditions, artillery blowing people apart and the obvious lack of advanced medical care. Amputees were just that. They were wheelchair bound, lucky to have survived at all considering blood loss in the middle of a mud trench. Owen writes, “Smiling they wrote his lie; aged nineteen years.…

    • 607 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    One instance of this is onomatopoeia, it is effectively used in this poem as it clearly and cohesively assists in portraying the reality of war. Words like “guttering” and “choking” raises the reader’s emotions so they can begin to understand the great height of terror that it instills in response to that loss of life. Another technique used is strong imagery, while the reader paints an alternate world of wretched death and futility, the images show the grief and overwhelming exhaustion of the soldiers. The scenes that can be pictured of the soldier…

    • 1177 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Wildred Owen

    • 2328 Words
    • 10 Pages

    The poem is made up of one stanza consisting of fourteen lines all of which deal with the agonies of the soldiers after…

    • 2328 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Powerful Essays