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THE SOLDIER BY RUPERT BROOKE SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS

➥ “THE SOLDIER” – RUPERT BROOKE


About the Author

Rupert Brooke’s (1887–1915) most evocative and poignant poems—and an example of the dangers of romanticizing World War I, comforting the survivors but downplaying the grim reality. Written in 1914, the lines are still used in military memorials today. Rupert Brooke had traveled, written, fallen in and out of love, joined great literary movements, and recovered from a mental collapse all before the declaration of war, when he volunteered for the Royal Naval Division. He saw combat action in the fight for Antwerp in 1914, as well as a retreat. As he awaited a new deployment, he wrote the short set of five 1914 War Sonnets, which concluded with one called The Soldier. Soon after he was sent to the Dardanelles, where he refused an offer to be moved away from the front lines—an offer sent because his poetry was so well-loved and good for recruiting—but died on April 23rd, 1915 of blood poisoning from an insect bite that weakened a body already ravaged by dysentery.


Summary of the Text 


From Brooke’s War Sonnets, which were about the start of World War I, “The Soldier”was the last piece. As Brooke neared the end of his series, he turned to what happened when the man died in battle while he was away from home. A lot of the time when “The Soldier”was written, soldiers’ bodies were buried close to where they died instead of being brought back to their home country. During World War I, this led to huge cemeteries for British troops in “foreign fields.” Brooke uses these graves to show a part of the world that will always be England. Brooke predicted in his writings at the start of the war that many soldiers’ bodies would stay buried and unknown because of how the war was fought. Their bodies had been torn apart or buried by shellfire.


The country wanted to make the senseless deaths of its troops something that could be dealt with and even celebrated. Brooke’s poem became a key part of the process of remembering and is still used a lot today. People have said, and they have a point, that it idealizes and romanticizes war. It is very different from the poems of Wilfred Owen (1893–1918). In the second part of “The Soldier,” religion is very important. It shows that the soldier will wake up in heaven as a way to make up for dying in battle.


The poem also uses a lot of patriotic language. The man who died is a “English” soldier, because it was written at a time when being English was seen as the best thing in the world. The soldier in the song is thinking about his own death, but he isn’t scared or sad about it. Instead, faith, patriotism, and romance are what keep him from focusing. Some people think that Brooke’s poem was one of the last great ideas before the world realized how horrible modern mechanized warfare really is. But Brooke had seen action and knew that English soldiers had been dying on adventures in other countries for hundreds of years when he wrote it.


Critical Analysis

One way to describe the beginning of the song is as a feeling of dread. If anything, this should point out how dishonest the poem is, since it pretty much supports death in war instead of condemning it. That saying by General Patton that “the subject of war is not to die for the nation you love but to have the opposing bastard die for his” seems to go against this. The first line of the poem sets the mood. It almost sounds like the author is confessing something in a writing or notebook.


After his second and third lines, the narrator quickly turns the fact that he is going to die into a good thing. Unfortunately, there were no jobs for women in the service when the First World War started, so it seems likely that the narrator is a man. Since he talks about dying in an alien field, this is possibly a battlefield.


In the fifth line, the poet builds on the picture of dust by talking about how England made and shaped that dust. He wants to get across the idea that he is the very essence of England. However, what he really means is that every person who gives their life for their country is comparable. that troops spread Englishness like seeds because they are “shaped”by England when they die abroad.


The last three lines of the Octave are full of patriotic ideas. They really do a great job of making England look good. Using the natural world to do this works. When we talk about rivers, flowers, and the air, they all make England seem like a beautiful place to live.The storyteller says that if a soldier did that, he or she could help bring the exact parts that made that beauty to another country. If this ever happened, it would definitely be a very honorable thing to do.


A lot of the time, the second line of a sonnet brings up a new idea. In this case, the first line makes it sound like the speaker is adding another thought, while “and think this” makes it sound like he has had a revelation.


These four lines are the last ones in the song. Speaking highly of English society again. Invoking the senses gives this a deep emotional connection. It’s not enough to just like how England looks; people also like how it sounds. Because of these explanations, the claims in the first stanza are pretty much justified.


“Look, this is what you’d be dying for, isn’t it great?” asks the second stanza to back up the first stanza’s claim that it is okay to die in war if it helps your country. That last line is very smart. It uses very positive language to get across the idea that death on the battlefield leads to peace.


He thinks that just his blood will be the right gift because of all the wonderful things his dear country has given him and how she has made him who he is. For the soldier who speaks in the poem, making a sacrifice in defense of the country is his way of finding forgiveness.


The movie “The Soldier” looks at the bond between a British soldier who loves his country and himself. Through this soldier’s passionate description of his ties to England, the song suggests that people are shaped by their home cultures and environments and that their country is something worth protecting with their lives. It praised the bravery of fighters and the good things people have done. The Soldier keeps using this theme.


It refers to the heart, which is connected to infinity and has no bias or bad feelings. And it will keep existing, enjoying the wonderful memories that the English country gave him. So, the beauty and meaning of the sonnet come from a sense of belonging to England.


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