Description

Rupert Chawner/Chaucer Brooke (1887-1915), who also wrote under the pseudonym R. C. B., was an English poet known for his idealistic war sonnets written during the First World War especially The Soldier; however, he never experienced combat at first hand. He was also known for his boyish good looks, which prompted the Irish poet William Butler Yeats to describe him as "The handsomest young man in England". He attended Hillbrow Prep School before being educated at Rugby School. While travelling in Europe, he prepared a thesis entitled John Webster and the Elizabethan Drama, which won him a scholarship to King's College, Cambridge, where he became a member of the Cambridge Apostles, helped found the Marlowe Society drama club and acted in plays including the Cambridge Greek Play. Brooke toured the United States and Canada to write travel diaries for the Westminster Gazette. Amongst his other works are: The Bastille (1905), Poems (1911), The South Seas (1914), 1914 and Other Poems (1915), Lithuania (1915), The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke (1915/1918) and Letters from America (1916).