"'..[Lady Cynthia Asquith's] diary records several occasions when, in the family circle or with a romantic companion, [Rupert] Brooke's poems were read aloud; 12 June and 19 Sept. 1915.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Asquith Family Print: Book
'Bernard Kops, the son of an immigrant leather worker, had a special understanding of the transition from from autodidact culture to Bohemia to youth culture, because he experienced all three. He grew up in the ferment of the Jewish East End... read "The Tempest" at school, and cried over "The Forsaken Merman". At fifteen he became a cook at a hotel, where the staff gave him Karl Marx, Henry Miller and "Ten Days that Shook the World". A neighbor presented him with the poems of Rupert Brooke, and "Grantchester" so resonated with the Jewish slum boy that he went to the library to find another volume from the same publisher, Faber and Faber. Thus he stumbled upon T.S. Eliot. "This book changed my life", he remembered. "It struck me straight in the eye like a bolt of lightning... I had no preconceived ideas about poetry and read 'The Waste Land' and 'Prufrock' as if they were the most acceptable and common forms in existence. The poems spoke to me directly, for they were bound up with the wasteland of the East End, and the desolation and lonelines of people and landscape. Accidentally I had entered the mainstream of literature".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Bernard Kops Print: Book
'To her father she wrote about her term work, the poetry she was reading and with details about new publications. "Do", she urged him, "try to get hold of 'The London Mercury', a new periodical edited by J.C. Squire. The first number has just appeared and is quite excellent, - but I don't suppose it will keep it up. There are hitherto unpublished poems by Rupert Brooke and Thomas Hardy".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Rosamond Lehmann Print: Serial / periodical
Henry James to Edward Marsh, 28 March 1915: 'I take it very kindly indeed of you to have found thought and time to send me the publication with the five brave sonnets [by Rupert Brooke]. The circumstances that have conduced to them [...] have caused me to read them with an emotion that somehow precludes the critical measure [...] and makes me just want [...] to be moved by them and to "like" and admire them [...] this evening, alone by my lamp, I have been reading them over and over to myself aloud'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James Print: Unknown
'Monday, 8th March,
Heavy day. Discussed the famous Parkin speech on Welsh sportsmanship, and the Glamorgan president?s reply. I think that such generalisations as that Nation is unsporting are merely vulgar exhibitions of sloppy thinking.
Read ? ?Poems? (Rupert Brook)'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gerald Moore Print: Book
'Those famous sonnets, brought into prominence by the poet's death on the eve of the Dardanelles campaign, were then only just beginning to take the world's breath away, and I asked our tutor if she would read us one or two.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Vera Brittain Print: Book
'He [Owen] bought Monro's latest collection "Strange Meetings" (1917), with its interesting title, and "Georgian Poetry 1916-1917". This new volume of the anthology, published by the Bookshop in November, included work by Sassoon, Graves, Monro, Robert Nichols, John Masefield, W.W. Gibson, Walter de la Mare and John Drinkwater. Owen eventually possessed at least fifteen volumes by these Georgians and their original leader, Brooke; this was by far the largest representation of modern verse in his shelves, and most of it was bought and read in November-December 1917.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Wilfred Owen Print: Book
'At 8pm, there is a very good St George's Day concert by D-Block. They read extracts from the works of Shakespeare, Rupert Brooke and Kipling, as well as Noel Coward's "Cavalcade". It is very inspiring; it ends with "God Save The King".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: prisoners of war Print: Book
'I have been trying to think how far I and my like, middle class schoolboys at the end of our pre-war education, were unquestioning patriots ready to respond to heroics. I think it is true that we were. We were reading now, or having read to us by our English master, the newly published sonnets of Rupert Brooke: 'Now, God be thanked who has matched us with His hour / And caught our youth, and wakened us from sleep.' 'Blow out, you bugles, over the rich Dead.' and 'Honour has come back, as a king, to earth.' 'If I should die, think only this of me: / That there's some corner of a foreign field / That is for ever England.' We had been prepared for these heights: conditioned may be the right word. Tennyson and Browning (besides Shakespeare, of course) we read in the English lessons and learnt by heart; and it cannot be by chance that there comes to my mind unbidden 'Ulysses' - 'To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield' and the well-known 'Epilogue to Asolando':
One who never turned his back but marched breast forward,
Never doubted clouds would break,
Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph,
Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better,
Sleep to wake.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Harold Edward Leslie Mellersh and schoolmates Print: Book
'I have been trying to think how far I and my like, middle class schoolboys at the end of our pre-war education, were unquestioning patriots ready to respond to heroics. I think it is true that we were. We were reading now, or having read to us by our English master, the newly published sonnets of Rupert Brooke: 'Now, God be thanked who has matched us with His hour / And caught our youth, and wakened us from sleep.' 'Blow out, you bugles, over the rich Dead.' and 'Honour has come back, as a king, to earth.' 'If I should die, think only this of me: / That there's some corner of a foreign field / That is for ever England.' We had been prepared for these heights: conditioned may be the right word. Tennyson and Browning (besides Shakespeare, of course) we read in the English lessons and learnt by heart; and it cannot be by chance that there comes to my mind unbidden 'Ulysses' - 'To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield' and the well-known 'Epilogue to Asolando':
One who never turned his back but marched breast forward,
Never doubted clouds would break,
Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph,
Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better,
Sleep to wake.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Harold Edward Leslie Mellersh and schoolmates Print: Book
'I have been trying to think how far I and my like, middle class schoolboys at the end of our pre-war education, were unquestioning patriots ready to respond to heroics. I think it is true that we were. We were reading now, or having read to us by our English master, the newly published sonnets of Rupert Brooke: 'Now, God be thanked who has matched us with His hour / And caught our youth, and wakened us from sleep.' 'Blow out, you bugles, over the rich Dead.' and 'Honour has come back, as a king, to earth.' 'If I should die, think only this of me: / That there's some corner of a foreign field / That is for ever England.' We had been prepared for these heights: conditioned may be the right word. Tennyson and Browning (besides Shakespeare, of course) we read in the English lessons and learnt by heart; and it cannot be by chance that there comes to my mind unbidden 'Ulysses' - 'To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield' and the well-known 'Epilogue to Asolando':
One who never turned his back but marched breast forward,
Never doubted clouds would break,
Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph,
Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better,
Sleep to wake.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Harold Edward Leslie Mellersh and schoolmates Print: Book
'The evening was then given up to the consideration of three modern poets.
Alfred Noyes. A paper by Mrs Unwin with readings from his works.
Henry Newbolt. A paper by C.E. Stansfield with readings
Clifton Chapel C.I. Evans
Vitai Lampada H.M. Wallis
A Ballad of John Nicholson A. Rawlings
The Vigil Mrs Robson
& two songs. Drake's Drum & the Old Superb Mr Unwin.
(3) Rupert Brooke a paper by R.H. Robson
with readings by Mrs Rawlings
Mrs Evans
Mrs Robson & R.H. Robson'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Helen Rawlings Print: Book
'The evening was then given up to the consideration of three modern poets.
Alfred Noyes. A paper by Mrs Unwin with readings from his works.
Henry Newbolt. A paper by C.E. Stansfield with readings
Clifton Chapel C.I. Evans
Vitai Lampada H.M. Wallis
A Ballad of John Nicholson A. Rawlings
The Vigil Mrs Robson
& two songs. Drake's Drum & the Old Superb Mr Unwin.
(3) Rupert Brooke a paper by R.H. Robson
with readings by Mrs Rawlings
Mrs Evans
Mrs Robson & R.H. Robson'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Katherine Evans Print: Book
'The evening was then given up to the consideration of three modern poets.
Alfred Noyes. A paper by Mrs Unwin with readings from his works.
Henry Newbolt. A paper by C.E. Stansfield with readings
Clifton Chapel C.I. Evans
Vitai Lampada H.M. Wallis
A Ballad of John Nicholson A. Rawlings
The Vigil Mrs Robson
& two songs. Drake's Drum & the Old Superb Mr Unwin.
(3) Rupert Brooke a paper by R.H. Robson
with readings by Mrs Rawlings
Mrs Evans
Mrs Robson & R.H. Robson'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Robson Print: Book
'The evening was then given up to the consideration of three modern poets.
Alfred Noyes. A paper by Mrs Unwin with readings from his works.
Henry Newbolt. A paper by C.E. Stansfield with readings
Clifton Chapel C.I. Evans
Vitai Lampada H.M. Wallis
A Ballad of John Nicholson A. Rawlings
The Vigil Mrs Robson
& two songs. Drake's Drum & the Old Superb Mr Unwin.
(3) Rupert Brooke a paper by R.H. Robson
with readings by Mrs Rawlings
Mrs Evans
Mrs Robson & R.H. Robson'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Reginald Robson Print: Book
'The evening was then given up to the consideration of three modern poets.
Alfred Noyes. A paper by Mrs Unwin with readings from his works.
Henry Newbolt. A paper by C.E. Stansfield with readings
Clifton Chapel C.I. Evans
Vitai Lampada H.M. Wallis
A Ballad of John Nicholson A. Rawlings
The Vigil Mrs Robson
& two songs. Drake's Drum & the Old Superb Mr Unwin.
(3) Rupert Brooke a paper by R.H. Robson
with readings by Mrs Rawlings
Mrs Evans
Mrs Robson & R.H. Robson'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Reginald Robson Print: Book
'The Club then listened to a variety of readings from modern poets as follows:
A Rawlings Extracts from "The Art of Poetry"
T.C. Eliott from Chesterton's "Lepanto"
Mrs Evans some verses by Colin D. B. Ellis
R. H. Robson from J. C. Squires "Birds"
D. Brain from Noyes' "Torch Bearers"
C. I. Evans from Thos Hardy
G. Burrow poems by his brother
F. E. Pollard from Siegfried Sassoon
Mrs Pollard from W. Watson's "Lakeland"
C. E. Stansfield from Rupert Brooke
A. Rawlings from E. V. Lucas & Lang Jones'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Stansfield Print: Book
' I haven't quite finished Mrs Wharton. It's very good and readable as she always is I think. It was a great solace to me on the way. Also I had a volume of poems by Rupert Brooke which interested me. The man's a poet and sometimes touches a searching string. It was nice to wake up this morning and see the sun shining on the olive trees.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Bell Print: Book
'What I've thought of most to-day, and it has been running in my mind all the time, for we had to learn it by heart, is Rupert Brooke's The Soldier. I cannot feel like that. I do not want my body to rot away under this field, with its yellow earth and thin, pale grass. Perhaps Brooke could feel like that because he'd had something in this world. He'd been to Berlin, and he'd had lovely warm afternoons in Cambridgeshire ... and he's had time to enjoy things. I have never had time to think. I have had nothing, nothing ... Rupert Brooke had longer than I've had to see things and enjoy them. He was ten years older than I am now.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Reginald Hugh Kiernan Print: Book
‘J. E. Patterson has written a book around Minehead, perhaps "Fishers of
the Sea", or no—"Love Like the Sea"; which I liked. Perhaps you might. He
has power, but an amateurish trick of underlining his points which is
irritating … The Sonnet of R. B. you sent me, I do not like. It seems to me
that Rupert Brooke would not have improved with age, would not have
broadened, his manner has become a mannerism, both in ryme and diction.
I do not like it.’
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ivor Bertie Gurney Print: Unknown
‘Here I am, sitting on my bed, half-reading Carlyle, little soaking through to
my dull mind, when I become aware that a boxing match is being arranged
… I am not altogether in agreement with the Russian attitude to suffering.
It is too passive. In a review of Rupert Brooke’s "Letters from America", I
found that Henry James had written to this effect, in the preface. “I admire
the British soldier. His mind seems to contain a moral hospitality to all the
vagaries of fortune” … So it does. He grins nearly all the time that one
might expect him to have little reason for doing so … We are 14 miles away
from Salisbury, near Tidworth. If we stay for any time I mean to visit
Stonehenge.’
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ivor Bertie Gurney Print: Book
‘We are on a long march and I’m writing this on the chance of getting it off;
so you should know I received your papers and also your letter … The
Poetry Review you sent is good—the articles are too breathless, and want
more packing, I think. The poems by the soldier are vigorous but, I feel a bit
commonplace. I did not like Rupert Brooke’s begloried sonnets for the same
reason. What I mean is second hand phrases “lambent fires” etc takes from
its reality and strength. It should be approached in a colder way, more
abstract, with less of the million feelings everybody feels … Walt Whitman in
“Beat, drums, beat”, has said the noblest thing on war.’
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Isaac Rosenberg Print: Book, Newspaper, Serial / periodical
‘Your Georgian B. has arrived at last; many many thanks. I pounced on King
Lear’s Wife, and though it was not more than I expected, it was not less.
The only fault I can find is the diction. It has the aspect of talking to
children, in some places. Goneril is marvellously drawn. Lear is a bit
shadowy, perhaps, but altogether as a poetic drama, it is of the very
highest kind … Rupert Brooke’s poem on Clouds is marvellous; his style
offends me; it is gaudy and reminiscent … I also received your packet of
papers which I’ve had no time yet to look into.’
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Isaac Rosenberg Print: Book
‘I saw Rupert Brooke’s death in the "Morning Post". The "Morning Post",
which has always hitherto disapproved of him, is now loud in its praises
because he has conformed to their stupid axiom of literary criticism that the
only stuff of poetry is violent physical experience, by dying on active service.
I think Brooke’s earlier poems—especially notably "The Fish" and
"Grantchester", which you can find in Georgian Poetry—are his best. That
last sonnet-sequence of his, of which you sent me the review in Times Lit.
Sup. … I find … overpraised. He is far too obsessed with his own sacrifice,
regarding the going to war of himself (and others) as a highly intense,
remarkable and sacrificial exploit, whereas it is merely the conduct
demanded of him (and others) by the turn of circumstances.’
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Hamilton Sorley Print: Book
