The poet usually is the best reporter, for he is an observer not merely accurate but imaginative, self-trained to see subtle suggestions, relations and similarities. This magnificent bit of description was written by Rupert Brooke as one of the letters sent to the Westminster Gazette describing his trip in the United States and Canada in 1913. It...More
Rupert Chawner Brooke (3 August 1887 – 23 April 1915) was an English poet known for his idealistic war sonnets written during the First World War, especially The Soldier. He was also known for his boyish good looks, which were said to have prompted the Irish poet W. B. Yeats to describe him as "the handsomest young man in England".
Rupert Chawner Brooke (3 August 1887 – 23 April 1915) was an English poet known for his idealistic war sonnets written during the First World War, especially The Soldier. He was also known for his boyish good looks, which were said to have prompted the Irish poet W. B. Yeats to describe him as "the handsomest young man in England".
Book Summary
The poet usually is the best reporter, for he is an observer not merely accurate but imaginative, self-trained to see subtle suggestions, relations and similarities. This magnificent bit of description was written by Rupert Brooke as one of the letters sent to the Westminster Gazette describing his trip in the United States and Canada in 1913. It is included in the volume Letters from America to which Henry James contributed so affectionate and desperately unintelligible a preface—one of the last things James wrote. Brooke's notes on America are well worth reading: they are full of delightful and lively comments, though sometimes much (oh, very much!) too condescending. The last paragraph in this essay is interesting in view of subsequent history.
Brooke was born in 1887, son of a master at Rugby School; was at King's College, Cambridge; died of blood-poisoning in the Ægean, April 23, 1915.
- Christopher Morley
Rupert Brooke
