The English poet Rupert Brooke (1887-1915) was the poet-patriot hero of World War I. He is the most famous representative of Georgian poetry, a short-lived literary movement of the early 20th century.

Rupert Brooke was born on Aug. 3, 1887, at Rugby, where his father was a master at the school. At Cambridge University, Rupert achieved distinction as a scholar. Remarkably handsome and a superb athlete, he had a romantic disposition, evident in his undergraduate poetry, which ranged from the exuberantly amorous to the fashionably cynical. Like other youthful poets of this period, he vowed a rebellion against Victorianism. Mistrustful of Victorian sentimentalism and the devotion to beauty of the fin de siècle, the new poets dedicated themselves to achieve "realism" or "truth to life." The intent of this rebellion was to produce vigorous and simple poetry which shunned affectedly literary phrasing and relied on a diction appropriate...