WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.600 Welcome back to the deep dive. If you are joining 00:00:02.600 --> 00:00:05.379 us today, you are exactly who we make this show 00:00:05.379 --> 00:00:08.699 for. You are the learner. Exactly. You are someone 00:00:08.699 --> 00:00:11.480 who is, you know, intensely curious about the 00:00:11.480 --> 00:00:14.439 world, who loves those sudden aha moments. And 00:00:14.439 --> 00:00:16.640 who wants the real story without drowning in 00:00:16.640 --> 00:00:19.679 just an ocean of disorganized information. Right. 00:00:19.679 --> 00:00:22.239 And our mission today is to do exactly that. 00:00:22.600 --> 00:00:25.559 We are exploring a massive, incredibly detailed 00:00:25.559 --> 00:00:28.480 compilation of historical research regarding 00:00:28.480 --> 00:00:32.020 the life, the enduring myth, and the truly surprising 00:00:32.020 --> 00:00:34.979 reality of the English poet Rupert Brooke. It 00:00:34.979 --> 00:00:36.820 is a privilege to be doing this with you. We 00:00:36.820 --> 00:00:39.240 are looking at a historical figure who has basically 00:00:39.240 --> 00:00:41.399 been frozen in amber. Yeah, that's a great way 00:00:41.399 --> 00:00:43.280 to put it. Whenever the cultural conversation 00:00:43.280 --> 00:00:45.600 turns to the First World War, Rupert Brooke is 00:00:45.600 --> 00:00:48.100 almost always presented as this flawless marble 00:00:48.100 --> 00:00:51.280 statue of patriotism and tragic sacrifice. Right. 00:00:51.439 --> 00:00:53.439 But as we unpack the historical documentation 00:00:53.439 --> 00:00:55.539 today, we're going to see that the actual human 00:00:55.539 --> 00:00:58.799 being walking around Edwardian England was wonderfully 00:00:58.799 --> 00:01:02.439 and often painfully complex. To really understand 00:01:02.439 --> 00:01:04.799 this, I want to paint a picture for you. Imagine 00:01:04.799 --> 00:01:08.680 a man who genuinely seemed to have it all. Oh, 00:01:08.799 --> 00:01:11.239 he really did. He was so charismatic and physically 00:01:11.239 --> 00:01:14.760 striking that the legendary Irish poet W .B. 00:01:15.000 --> 00:01:18.099 Yeats literally went on record describing him 00:01:18.099 --> 00:01:20.480 as the handsomest young man in England. Which 00:01:20.480 --> 00:01:24.219 is high praise from Yeats. Seriously. And he 00:01:24.219 --> 00:01:26.689 penned the soldier. which stands as arguably 00:01:26.689 --> 00:01:29.209 one of the most famous idealistic war sonnets 00:01:29.209 --> 00:01:31.849 of the entire First World War. Absolutely. So 00:01:31.849 --> 00:01:33.909 when you hear a resume like that, you naturally 00:01:33.909 --> 00:01:36.670 assume this guy meets his end in some dramatic 00:01:36.670 --> 00:01:39.849 blaze of battlefield glory. But, and here's the 00:01:39.849 --> 00:01:42.609 hook, he didn't. No, he didn't. He died from 00:01:42.609 --> 00:01:44.870 a mosquito bite on a French hospital ship. It 00:01:44.870 --> 00:01:46.989 really is one of the great tragic historical 00:01:46.989 --> 00:01:49.269 ironies of that era, and what's fascinating here 00:01:49.269 --> 00:01:53.629 is how quickly A messy, vibrant, incredibly restless 00:01:53.629 --> 00:01:57.269 life gets sanitized into a convenient two -dimensional 00:01:57.269 --> 00:01:59.670 symbol for a grieving nation. Right, they just 00:01:59.670 --> 00:02:02.750 smoothed out all the rough edges. Exactly. The 00:02:02.750 --> 00:02:05.230 goal of our deep dive today is to completely 00:02:05.230 --> 00:02:08.250 dismantle that golden boy myth. We need to look 00:02:08.250 --> 00:02:11.650 at the deeply complex, surprisingly modern, and 00:02:11.650 --> 00:02:14.969 undeniably flawed human being underneath the 00:02:14.969 --> 00:02:17.409 famous poetry. Because when we strip away the 00:02:17.409 --> 00:02:20.199 mythology and look at his actual life, it makes 00:02:20.199 --> 00:02:22.539 him infinitely more interesting than the legend. 00:02:22.939 --> 00:02:24.979 Far more interesting. Okay, let's unpack this. 00:02:25.719 --> 00:02:28.300 To understand how he became this ultimate symbol 00:02:28.300 --> 00:02:31.020 of English patriotism, we have to look at where 00:02:31.020 --> 00:02:33.930 he came from. Mm. Did he have a typical upper 00:02:33.930 --> 00:02:36.469 -class upbringing? Very much so, but with a twist 00:02:36.469 --> 00:02:38.409 that put him right in the pressure cooker of 00:02:38.409 --> 00:02:40.629 the British educational system from day one. 00:02:40.770 --> 00:02:43.810 How so? Well, Rupert Chonabrook was born in 1887 00:02:43.810 --> 00:02:46.949 into a fiercely academic family. His parents, 00:02:47.210 --> 00:02:49.310 William and Ruth, actually met while working 00:02:49.310 --> 00:02:51.870 at Fetz College in Edinburgh. OK. But because 00:02:51.870 --> 00:02:53.830 that school didn't have accommodation for married 00:02:53.830 --> 00:02:56.349 schoolmasters, his father had to resign. Wow, 00:02:56.389 --> 00:02:58.340 that's harsh. It was the reality of the time. 00:02:58.520 --> 00:03:00.919 So they moved to rugby in Warwickshire, where 00:03:00.919 --> 00:03:03.219 his father eventually became a housemaster at 00:03:03.219 --> 00:03:05.500 the famous rugby school. Ah, so Brooke didn't 00:03:05.500 --> 00:03:08.159 just attend an elite school. No, he literally 00:03:08.159 --> 00:03:11.900 grew up inside of one. That has to create a unique 00:03:11.900 --> 00:03:13.960 kind of pressure. You aren't just a student. 00:03:14.060 --> 00:03:16.719 You are the house master's son living in a glass 00:03:16.719 --> 00:03:19.180 house. Exactly. You are constantly observed. 00:03:19.340 --> 00:03:21.259 And there's a fascinating little detail in his 00:03:21.259 --> 00:03:23.860 family tree, too. He was named after his maternal 00:03:23.860 --> 00:03:26.819 great -grandfather, a distinguished doctor who's 00:03:26.819 --> 00:03:29.500 actually descended from a regicide. Yes. His 00:03:29.500 --> 00:03:32.479 ancestor, the man named Thomas Challener, actually 00:03:32.479 --> 00:03:35.240 signed the death warrant for King Charles I. 00:03:35.530 --> 00:03:38.509 So he has this undercurrent of rebellion deep 00:03:38.509 --> 00:03:40.969 in his pedigree. That is a brilliant detail to 00:03:40.969 --> 00:03:43.629 keep in mind, especially as we see how he navigates 00:03:43.629 --> 00:03:46.270 the very rigid social structures of his time. 00:03:46.689 --> 00:03:48.530 Right. He went to prep school locally, then attended 00:03:48.530 --> 00:03:51.090 rugby school. He had an older brother, Dick. 00:03:51.310 --> 00:03:53.370 and a younger brother, William Alford, who is 00:03:53.370 --> 00:03:55.449 affectionately known as Podge. Podge, I love 00:03:55.449 --> 00:03:58.830 that. But where the charisma factor really explodes 00:03:58.830 --> 00:04:00.949 and he starts becoming this larger than life 00:04:00.949 --> 00:04:03.569 figure is when he goes up to King's College, 00:04:03.569 --> 00:04:06.930 Cambridge in October 1906 to study classics. 00:04:07.229 --> 00:04:09.930 Because from the records, it sounds like he wasn't 00:04:09.930 --> 00:04:12.090 just a student in Cambridge. He was a force of 00:04:12.090 --> 00:04:14.580 nature. Oh, entirely. He was everywhere all at 00:04:14.580 --> 00:04:16.660 once. He absolutely was. He didn't just join 00:04:16.660 --> 00:04:19.339 clubs. He ran them. He was elected president 00:04:19.339 --> 00:04:22.300 of the University Fabian Society. Which is crucial, 00:04:22.300 --> 00:04:26.060 right? Very. It shows he was leaning into prominent 00:04:26.060 --> 00:04:29.680 socialist political thought, not just traditional 00:04:29.680 --> 00:04:32.160 conservative ideals. Right, he's pushing boundaries. 00:04:32.319 --> 00:04:34.699 Then he became a member of the Cambridge Apostles, 00:04:34.699 --> 00:04:38.600 which was an incredibly exclusive, highly intellectual 00:04:38.600 --> 00:04:41.360 secret society. The elite of the elite. Exactly. 00:04:41.680 --> 00:04:45.480 On top of that, he helped found the Marlowe Society 00:04:45.480 --> 00:04:48.379 Drama Club and acted in the Cambridge Greek play. 00:04:49.240 --> 00:04:51.959 He systematically placed himself at the absolute 00:04:51.959 --> 00:04:54.319 center of Cambridge's cultural and intellectual 00:04:54.319 --> 00:04:57.199 life. And it wasn't just resume building. People 00:04:57.199 --> 00:04:59.620 were genuinely drawn to him. He seemed to cast 00:04:59.620 --> 00:05:02.120 a spell over almost everyone he met. He really 00:05:02.120 --> 00:05:04.519 did. There's a detail from the historical accounts 00:05:04.519 --> 00:05:07.079 about George Mallory, the famous mountaineer 00:05:07.079 --> 00:05:09.930 who would later disappear on Mount Everest. completely 00:05:09.930 --> 00:05:12.329 falling under Brooke's spell. Yes, Mallory was 00:05:12.329 --> 00:05:15.670 captivated by him. But I have to say, my absolute 00:05:15.670 --> 00:05:18.430 favorite anecdote from this period completely 00:05:18.430 --> 00:05:21.689 shatters this stuffy, buttoned -up image we have. 00:05:21.879 --> 00:05:24.060 of a Dorian England. I think I know which one 00:05:24.060 --> 00:05:26.240 you're going to mention. Virginia Woolf later 00:05:26.240 --> 00:05:28.720 told the writer Vita Sackville West that she 00:05:28.720 --> 00:05:30.800 and Brooke had gone skinny dipping together in 00:05:30.800 --> 00:05:33.379 a moonlit pool during their Cambridge days. It 00:05:33.379 --> 00:05:35.660 is a fantastic image, isn't it? It's amazing. 00:05:35.819 --> 00:05:39.000 It completely undercuts the black and white rigid 00:05:39.000 --> 00:05:41.399 historical footage we usually associate with 00:05:41.399 --> 00:05:42.860 that era. Right. It makes them feel like real 00:05:42.860 --> 00:05:46.100 people. Exactly. And if we connect this to the 00:05:46.100 --> 00:05:49.279 bigger picture. Brooke represented the ultimate 00:05:49.279 --> 00:05:52.939 Edwardian ideal. He embodied youth, intellect, 00:05:53.180 --> 00:05:56.259 and physical beauty in this golden age just before 00:05:56.259 --> 00:05:58.319 the devastation of the First World War changed 00:05:58.319 --> 00:06:00.720 the world forever. The poster boy for an era. 00:06:00.980 --> 00:06:03.459 Yes, he was the poster boy for a generation that 00:06:03.459 --> 00:06:05.500 didn't yet know it was standing on the edge of 00:06:05.500 --> 00:06:07.639 a cliff. But even within that so -called golden 00:06:07.639 --> 00:06:11.100 age, things weren't perfect for him. In 1907, 00:06:11.579 --> 00:06:14.019 his older brother Dick died of pneumonia at just 00:06:14.019 --> 00:06:17.279 26 years old. A terrible tragedy. Brook actually 00:06:17.279 --> 00:06:19.759 wanted to put his studies on hold to help his 00:06:19.759 --> 00:06:22.240 parents grieve, which seems like a totally natural 00:06:22.240 --> 00:06:25.639 response, but his parents absolutely insisted 00:06:25.639 --> 00:06:27.779 he go back to university. That reaction from 00:06:27.779 --> 00:06:30.300 his parents tells you so much about the emotional 00:06:30.300 --> 00:06:32.399 repression of the time. Stiff upper lip and all 00:06:32.399 --> 00:06:35.860 that. The expectation was to carry on, to maintain 00:06:35.860 --> 00:06:39.259 the projectory. So he went back and he started 00:06:39.259 --> 00:06:41.959 putting down serious roots in these legendary 00:06:41.959 --> 00:06:44.740 literary circles. Earning a fellowship at King's 00:06:44.740 --> 00:06:49.279 College in 1913. Yes, for a thesis on John Webster 00:06:49.279 --> 00:06:52.439 and the Elizabethan drama. He became associated 00:06:52.439 --> 00:06:55.160 with the Georgian poets, specifically the Dymac 00:06:55.160 --> 00:06:57.600 poets in Gloucestershire. Rubbing shoulders with 00:06:57.600 --> 00:06:59.839 literary heavyweights like Robert Frost and Edward 00:06:59.839 --> 00:07:02.519 Thomas. Exactly. He even lived at the old Vicarage 00:07:02.519 --> 00:07:04.420 in Grantchester, which inspired one of his best 00:07:04.420 --> 00:07:06.699 -known poems. Looking at that timeline, it seems 00:07:06.699 --> 00:07:09.379 like a continuous, effortless upward trajectory. 00:07:10.319 --> 00:07:12.180 But when you look at his personal life, it is 00:07:12.180 --> 00:07:13.920 a completely different story. Oh, completely. 00:07:14.199 --> 00:07:16.779 The historical narrative often remembers him 00:07:16.779 --> 00:07:20.720 as this stoic, traditional, patriotic soldier. 00:07:21.160 --> 00:07:25.319 But his romantic life was incredibly fluid, passionate, 00:07:26.000 --> 00:07:28.620 and painfully complicated. Yes, the private brook 00:07:28.620 --> 00:07:31.199 is very different from the public monument. His 00:07:31.199 --> 00:07:33.720 romantic life was deeply complex. Tell us about 00:07:33.720 --> 00:07:37.459 that. We see intense romantic involvements with 00:07:37.459 --> 00:07:40.839 fellow male pupils from his time at rugby including 00:07:40.839 --> 00:07:43.660 Charles LaSalle's Denham Russell Smith and Michael 00:07:43.660 --> 00:07:46.579 Sadler. Okay. He also had an older mentor named 00:07:46.579 --> 00:07:49.240 st. John Lucas He was searching for connection 00:07:49.240 --> 00:07:52.500 across a very wide spectrum and his relationships 00:07:52.500 --> 00:07:55.819 with women were just as intense and layered He 00:07:55.819 --> 00:07:57.819 was involved with an artist named Phyllis Gardner, 00:07:58.100 --> 00:08:00.399 the actress Kathleen Nesbitt, and he was even 00:08:00.399 --> 00:08:02.759 engaged at one point to Noelle Olivier. Who he 00:08:02.759 --> 00:08:04.639 met at a progressive school when she was just 00:08:04.639 --> 00:08:07.500 15. Right. Then there was Elizabeth van Rosselberg, 00:08:07.720 --> 00:08:09.600 the daughter of a painter he met in Munich in 00:08:09.600 --> 00:08:12.620 1911. Yes. The documentation notes that this 00:08:12.620 --> 00:08:14.980 affair came the closest to being fully consummated 00:08:14.980 --> 00:08:17.199 of any he'd had up to that point, and they may 00:08:17.199 --> 00:08:19.139 have actually become lovers in a complete sense 00:08:19.139 --> 00:08:21.750 a couple years later. When you look at all these 00:08:21.750 --> 00:08:24.250 relationships collectively, it paints a picture 00:08:24.250 --> 00:08:27.230 of a man who is incredibly restless. Yeah, always 00:08:27.230 --> 00:08:29.370 searching. He had this massive gravitational 00:08:29.370 --> 00:08:31.410 pull. So many people were deeply in love with 00:08:31.410 --> 00:08:34.809 him. But being the center of everyone's emotional 00:08:34.809 --> 00:08:37.750 universe takes a huge psychological toll. Wait, 00:08:37.789 --> 00:08:40.169 I want to pause on that because on the surface, 00:08:40.649 --> 00:08:43.320 being young. brilliant and desired by everyone 00:08:43.320 --> 00:08:45.799 sounds incredibly glamorous. But wasn't that 00:08:45.799 --> 00:08:47.759 exhausting for him? It was entirely exhausting, 00:08:47.799 --> 00:08:51.200 and it eventually broke him. In 1912, that golden 00:08:51.200 --> 00:08:54.220 boy facade completely shatters. Right. He suffered 00:08:54.220 --> 00:08:56.700 a severe emotional crisis, essentially a nervous 00:08:56.700 --> 00:08:59.840 breakdown. And the epicenter of this crisis was 00:08:59.840 --> 00:09:02.259 the total collapse of his long -term relationship 00:09:02.259 --> 00:09:04.899 with a woman named Catherine Laird Cox, who is 00:09:04.899 --> 00:09:07.039 usually known as Caw Cox. Here's where it gets 00:09:07.039 --> 00:09:09.399 really interesting. This wasn't just a bad breakup. 00:09:09.480 --> 00:09:12.340 It spiraled into intense Paranoia, right? Exactly. 00:09:12.899 --> 00:09:15.139 He became absolutely convinced that the writer, 00:09:15.279 --> 00:09:18.220 Lytton Strachey, had actively, maliciously schemed 00:09:18.220 --> 00:09:20.940 to destroy his relationship with Cockhawks. By 00:09:20.940 --> 00:09:23.379 encouraging her to see another man, Henry Lamb. 00:09:23.639 --> 00:09:27.179 Yes. Now, whether that was true or just magnified 00:09:27.179 --> 00:09:30.200 by his own fragile mental state, the result was 00:09:30.200 --> 00:09:32.899 devastating. It really was. This paranoia didn't 00:09:32.899 --> 00:09:36.080 just end a romance. It caused a massive falling 00:09:36.080 --> 00:09:38.500 out with his friends in the Bloomsbury group. 00:09:38.840 --> 00:09:41.179 For those who might not know, The Bloomsbury 00:09:41.179 --> 00:09:44.779 Group were basically the ultimate bohemian avant 00:09:44.779 --> 00:09:47.419 -garde intellectuals of London. The center of 00:09:47.419 --> 00:09:49.480 the cultural universe. Right, these were brilliant 00:09:49.480 --> 00:09:51.940 people like Virginia Woolf who were rewriting 00:09:51.940 --> 00:09:54.480 the rules of art, literature, and sexuality. 00:09:54.809 --> 00:09:56.970 They were brilliant, but they were also living 00:09:56.970 --> 00:09:59.190 completely in each other's pockets. I can imagine. 00:09:59.649 --> 00:10:02.269 It was an intense, claustrophobic environment 00:10:02.269 --> 00:10:05.210 where the emotional stakes were incredibly high. 00:10:05.629 --> 00:10:08.450 Brooks' paranoia over the lit and strakey gossip 00:10:08.450 --> 00:10:10.970 basically alienated him from some of the brightest 00:10:10.970 --> 00:10:13.149 minds in London. He just burned his bridges. 00:10:13.309 --> 00:10:15.590 He burned his bridges and suffered a total collapse. 00:10:16.009 --> 00:10:18.950 So how do you recover from a social and emotional 00:10:18.950 --> 00:10:21.190 collapse of that magnitude when you were one 00:10:21.190 --> 00:10:23.570 of the most famous young men in England? By running 00:10:23.570 --> 00:10:26.570 as far away as geographically possible. He went 00:10:26.570 --> 00:10:29.269 to Germany initially for rehabilitation, but 00:10:29.269 --> 00:10:31.750 that wasn't enough. He ended up taking a massive 00:10:31.750 --> 00:10:34.350 global tour. Just left everything behind. He 00:10:34.350 --> 00:10:36.509 traveled across the United States and Canada, 00:10:37.009 --> 00:10:39.389 writing travel diaries to fund the trip, sending 00:10:39.389 --> 00:10:41.830 dispatches back to the Westminster Gazette. Okay. 00:10:42.009 --> 00:10:44.230 And then he took the long way home across the 00:10:44.230 --> 00:10:47.490 Pacific, spending in the South Seas. You're telling 00:10:47.490 --> 00:10:51.230 me this quintessential British intellectual basically 00:10:51.230 --> 00:10:55.049 abandoned high society and ran away to the tropics. 00:10:55.090 --> 00:10:57.830 He did. And it was exactly what he needed. The 00:10:57.830 --> 00:11:00.610 contrast between the stuffy, gossip -filled drawing 00:11:00.610 --> 00:11:03.149 rooms of London and the freedom of the South 00:11:03.149 --> 00:11:06.370 Seas was profound. I bet. It's in Tahiti that 00:11:06.370 --> 00:11:09.049 he seems to finally find some genuine peace. 00:11:09.250 --> 00:11:11.210 Yeah. There is a fascinating detail that came 00:11:11.210 --> 00:11:14.440 to light much later. Brooke may have fathered 00:11:14.440 --> 00:11:16.779 a daughter with a Tahitian woman named Tata Mata. 00:11:17.320 --> 00:11:19.360 Yes. Crucially, historical records suggest that 00:11:19.360 --> 00:11:22.000 he enjoyed his most complete emotional relationship 00:11:22.000 --> 00:11:24.799 with her. He literally had to travel to the other 00:11:24.799 --> 00:11:27.039 side of the planet to find a connection he couldn't 00:11:27.039 --> 00:11:30.019 sustain in elite English society. It's a poetic 00:11:30.019 --> 00:11:33.039 in its own way. But history, as it always does, 00:11:33.440 --> 00:11:35.919 catches up with him. He returns to England and 00:11:35.919 --> 00:11:38.820 in August 1914, the First World War breaks out. 00:11:38.940 --> 00:11:42.019 The world changes overnight. By this time, his 00:11:42.019 --> 00:11:45.000 poetry had gained serious traction. He was being 00:11:45.000 --> 00:11:47.580 championed by Edward Mush, a prominent patron 00:11:47.580 --> 00:11:49.879 of the arts, who actually brought Brooke's work 00:11:49.879 --> 00:11:51.960 to the attention of Winston Churchill, who was 00:11:51.960 --> 00:11:54.500 a very powerful figure. And Churchill at the 00:11:54.500 --> 00:11:56.879 time was the first Lord of the Admiralty. Yeah. 00:11:57.200 --> 00:12:00.320 So shortly after turning 27, Brooke was commissioned 00:12:00.320 --> 00:12:03.639 into the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve as a temporary 00:12:03.639 --> 00:12:06.019 sub lieutenant. He was assigned to the Royal 00:12:06.019 --> 00:12:08.360 Naval Division. This was an interesting setup. 00:12:08.519 --> 00:12:10.620 It was essentially an infantry division made 00:12:10.620 --> 00:12:13.360 up of Navy and Marine personnel who weren't needed 00:12:13.360 --> 00:12:16.559 at sea. Right. He actually saw combat early on, 00:12:16.659 --> 00:12:19.340 taking part in the Siege of Antwerp in October 00:12:19.340 --> 00:12:22.620 1914. Wow. But let's be clear, it wasn't his 00:12:22.620 --> 00:12:24.720 military strategy or his combat record that made 00:12:24.720 --> 00:12:27.679 him a legend. It was his pen. Yes, the poetry. 00:12:28.379 --> 00:12:31.440 In March 1915, the Times Literary Supplement 00:12:31.440 --> 00:12:34.080 published two of his sonnets, The Dead and the 00:12:34.080 --> 00:12:36.480 Soldier. Two of his most iconic works. And then 00:12:36.480 --> 00:12:40.899 on Easter Sunday, April 4th, 1915, the soldier 00:12:40.899 --> 00:12:43.320 was read aloud from the pulpit of St. Paul's 00:12:43.320 --> 00:12:46.000 Cathedral in London. I want you to really think 00:12:46.000 --> 00:12:48.039 about the psychological state of Britain at that 00:12:48.039 --> 00:12:50.399 exact moment. Yeah, paint that picture for us. 00:12:50.759 --> 00:12:54.120 The war is new. The horrifying reality of trench 00:12:54.120 --> 00:12:57.559 warfare, the endless slaughter hasn't fully set 00:12:57.559 --> 00:13:00.340 in yet. But the casualty lists are starting to 00:13:00.340 --> 00:13:03.590 grow. Right. The nation is terrified. They desperately 00:13:03.590 --> 00:13:05.970 needed to believe that this sacrifice was beautiful, 00:13:06.269 --> 00:13:08.889 noble, and pure. They needed a reason for the 00:13:08.889 --> 00:13:11.210 pain. And then, from the pulpit of the most famous 00:13:11.210 --> 00:13:13.210 cathedral in the country, they hear Brooke's 00:13:13.210 --> 00:13:16.250 words. This poetry perfectly captured that tragic, 00:13:16.509 --> 00:13:19.429 romantic idealism. It gave the country a language 00:13:19.429 --> 00:13:22.799 to process their fear and their grief. It's hard 00:13:22.799 --> 00:13:25.220 to overstate the platform of St. Paul's Cathedral 00:13:25.220 --> 00:13:27.940 on Easter Sunday. His words were echoing through 00:13:27.940 --> 00:13:30.320 the absolute heart of the British Empire. Exactly. 00:13:30.440 --> 00:13:33.620 But the reality of war is never as clean or romantic 00:13:33.620 --> 00:13:36.399 as a sonnet. And this brings us to the staggering 00:13:36.399 --> 00:13:39.039 irony of his death. He didn't die going over 00:13:39.039 --> 00:13:41.200 the top of a trench, and he didn't go down with 00:13:41.200 --> 00:13:44.460 a ship in a blaze of glory. No, he didn't. In 00:13:44.460 --> 00:13:47.940 February 1915, he sailed with the British Mediterranean 00:13:47.940 --> 00:13:50.820 Expeditionary Force toward the Gallipoli landings. 00:13:51.059 --> 00:13:54.220 Which we know now would become one of the most 00:13:54.220 --> 00:13:56.759 brutal campaigns of the war. Truly horrific. 00:13:57.220 --> 00:13:59.820 But while stationed in Egypt, he developed severe 00:13:59.820 --> 00:14:03.000 gastroenteritis, his immune system was compromised, 00:14:03.120 --> 00:14:06.720 and then he got a simple mosquito bite on his 00:14:06.720 --> 00:14:10.450 lip. A mosquito bite? Yeah. That is just difficult 00:14:10.450 --> 00:14:12.389 to wrap your head around. Yeah. It developed 00:14:12.389 --> 00:14:15.330 into streptococcal sepsis. Yes. He was moved 00:14:15.330 --> 00:14:18.230 to a French hospital ship, the du Guaitron, which 00:14:18.230 --> 00:14:20.970 was moored in a bay off the Greek island of Skyros. 00:14:21.350 --> 00:14:23.409 The medical staff desperately tried to save him. 00:14:23.690 --> 00:14:25.669 French surgeons actually performed two operations 00:14:25.669 --> 00:14:27.970 trying to drain the abscess, but the blood poisoning 00:14:27.970 --> 00:14:30.059 had spread too far. The description we have of 00:14:30.059 --> 00:14:32.740 his final hours is incredibly atmospheric. It's 00:14:32.740 --> 00:14:34.799 haunting. It doesn't sound anything like the 00:14:34.799 --> 00:14:36.460 chaotic horror you picture when you think of 00:14:36.460 --> 00:14:39.460 a First World War military hospital. His close 00:14:39.460 --> 00:14:41.700 friend, William Dennis Brown, who was also a 00:14:41.700 --> 00:14:44.240 musician, sat with him at the end. Brown recorded 00:14:44.240 --> 00:14:47.659 that Brooke died at 4 .46 in the afternoon on 00:14:47.659 --> 00:14:51.879 April 23, 1915. He was just 27 years old. So 00:14:51.879 --> 00:14:54.539 young. Brown noted that the sun was shining all 00:14:54.539 --> 00:14:56.820 around his cabin, a cool sea breeze was glowing 00:14:56.820 --> 00:14:59.480 through the open door, and the air was fragrant 00:14:59.480 --> 00:15:02.139 with the smell of sage and thyme blowing off 00:15:02.139 --> 00:15:04.159 the mountains of the island. It is a profoundly 00:15:04.159 --> 00:15:07.600 peaceful image. But the military machine doesn't 00:15:07.600 --> 00:15:10.740 stop for poetry. what happens next is incredibly 00:15:10.740 --> 00:15:13.220 urgent. Right. The expeditionary force had strict 00:15:13.220 --> 00:15:15.340 orders to depart immediately for the Gallipoli 00:15:15.340 --> 00:15:17.460 Peninsula. They literally could not wait. No 00:15:17.460 --> 00:15:20.259 time to mourn. So they had to bury him that very 00:15:20.259 --> 00:15:23.779 night at 11 p .m. in an olive grove on Skyros. 00:15:24.320 --> 00:15:27.100 Another friend and fellow war poet, Patrick Shaw 00:15:27.100 --> 00:15:29.840 Stewart, had to help conduct this hurried moonlit 00:15:29.840 --> 00:15:31.899 funeral before they sailed off to battle. And 00:15:31.899 --> 00:15:34.200 if you want a detail that perfectly encapsulates 00:15:34.200 --> 00:15:36.600 the staggering, relentless loss of that entire 00:15:36.600 --> 00:15:39.480 generation, just weeks later, Brooke's surviving 00:15:39.480 --> 00:15:42.379 younger brother, William Alfred. Poch. Yes, Poch 00:15:42.379 --> 00:15:45.580 fell in action on the Western Front in June 1915. 00:15:45.919 --> 00:15:47.879 He had only been in France on active service 00:15:47.879 --> 00:15:51.240 for 19 days. That is just staggering. Within 00:15:51.240 --> 00:15:53.860 a matter of weeks, The Brook family loses two 00:15:53.860 --> 00:15:57.080 sons. Unimaginable grief. It really underscores 00:15:57.080 --> 00:15:59.559 that behind these marble monuments and massive 00:15:59.559 --> 00:16:03.080 book sales, there were real families being absolutely 00:16:03.080 --> 00:16:05.700 hollowed out by this conflict. It's a vital perspective 00:16:05.700 --> 00:16:08.539 to hold on to because while his family was quietly 00:16:08.539 --> 00:16:11.929 grieving this unimaginable double loss. Brooks' 00:16:12.090 --> 00:16:15.570 public popularity absolutely exploded. Right. 00:16:15.610 --> 00:16:18.429 It transitioned from literary fame into a full 00:16:18.429 --> 00:16:22.370 -blown global phenomenon. His collection, 1914 00:16:22.370 --> 00:16:25.110 and other poems, was published just a month after 00:16:25.110 --> 00:16:27.549 he died in the Mediterranean. And the sales were 00:16:27.549 --> 00:16:30.009 insane. To give you a sense of the sheer demand, 00:16:30.049 --> 00:16:33.009 it ran to 11 impressions in that first year alone. 00:16:33.389 --> 00:16:36.370 By June 1918, it was on its 24th impression. 00:16:36.570 --> 00:16:38.789 The emotional impact his work had on the public 00:16:38.789 --> 00:16:40.950 and even on the hardened military leadership. 00:16:40.909 --> 00:16:43.870 is hard to fathom today. It really is. There's 00:16:43.870 --> 00:16:46.049 an incredibly touching anecdote from the historical 00:16:46.049 --> 00:16:49.549 account set in 1917. Field Marshal Edmund Allenby, 00:16:49.690 --> 00:16:52.070 one of the most senior British commanders, received 00:16:52.070 --> 00:16:54.529 news that his own son Michael had been killed 00:16:54.529 --> 00:16:57.149 in action. This hardened general actually broke 00:16:57.149 --> 00:17:00.169 down in tears in public while reciting a poem 00:17:00.169 --> 00:17:03.539 by Rupert Brooke. It proves that Brooke's words 00:17:03.539 --> 00:17:06.400 had literally become the emotional language for 00:17:06.400 --> 00:17:08.859 a grieving nation. His influence crossed oceans 00:17:08.859 --> 00:17:11.380 too. The Canadian fighter pilot John Gillespie 00:17:11.380 --> 00:17:14.640 McGee Jr., who wrote the incredibly famous aviator 00:17:14.640 --> 00:17:17.680 poem, High Flight, explicitly cited Brooke as 00:17:17.680 --> 00:17:20.240 an inspiration. He even wrote a sonnet to Rupert 00:17:20.240 --> 00:17:23.410 Brooke in 1938. He did. But I think it's important 00:17:23.410 --> 00:17:25.769 we don't just print the legend here. Not everyone 00:17:25.769 --> 00:17:27.809 was swept up in the Brooke mythology. That is 00:17:27.809 --> 00:17:30.230 a very important point. As a critical counterbalance, 00:17:30.230 --> 00:17:32.230 we have to look at how other writers reacted 00:17:32.230 --> 00:17:35.049 to this monumentalizing of his work. Right. The 00:17:35.049 --> 00:17:37.329 writer Lord Alfred Douglas, for example, issued 00:17:37.329 --> 00:17:40.569 a scathing critique in 1919. Douglas wrote that 00:17:40.569 --> 00:17:43.210 the massive enthusiasm over what he called Brooke's 00:17:43.210 --> 00:17:46.430 puerile crudities meant that true poetry was 00:17:46.430 --> 00:17:48.710 despised and dishonored and that same criticism 00:17:48.710 --> 00:17:51.609 is dead or moribund. Wow. He didn't hold back. 00:17:51.759 --> 00:17:54.859 Not at all. So there was absolutely a fierce 00:17:54.859 --> 00:17:57.299 backlash against turning his poetry into sacred, 00:17:57.599 --> 00:18:00.740 untouchable text. Despite the critics, the commemorations 00:18:00.740 --> 00:18:03.420 went ahead and cemented his legacy in stone, 00:18:03.680 --> 00:18:05.579 quite literally. Yes, they did. The original 00:18:05.579 --> 00:18:07.740 wooden cross from his hurried grave on Skyrose 00:18:07.740 --> 00:18:09.980 was eventually brought back to rugby by his mother. 00:18:10.799 --> 00:18:12.859 Today, there are memorials to him everywhere. 00:18:13.049 --> 00:18:16.049 The first stanza of his poem, The Dead, is inscribed 00:18:16.049 --> 00:18:18.650 on the Royal Naval Division War Memorial in London. 00:18:18.970 --> 00:18:21.170 Lines from his poetry are carved into the pediment 00:18:21.170 --> 00:18:23.769 of the Cenotaph in Wellington, New Zealand. There's 00:18:23.769 --> 00:18:26.170 a statue of him in his army uniform standing 00:18:26.170 --> 00:18:28.710 in his front garden in Grantchester. And another 00:18:28.710 --> 00:18:31.589 statue by Ivor Roberts Jones in his birth town 00:18:31.589 --> 00:18:34.630 of Rugby. They physically carved him into the 00:18:34.630 --> 00:18:38.569 foundation of British literary history. In 1985, 00:18:38.809 --> 00:18:42.670 he was one of 16 First World War poets commemorated 00:18:42.670 --> 00:18:45.269 on a slate monument in Poets Corner in Westminster 00:18:45.269 --> 00:18:48.309 Abbey. Right. But there is a profound irony in 00:18:48.309 --> 00:18:50.910 that specific memorial. The inscription they 00:18:50.910 --> 00:18:53.349 chose to engrave on that monument in Poets Corner 00:18:53.349 --> 00:18:56.349 actually comes from Wilfred Owen. Who wrote, 00:18:56.710 --> 00:18:59.670 my subject is war and the pity of war. The poetry 00:18:59.670 --> 00:19:02.460 is in the pity. Exactly. Wilfred Owen's poetry 00:19:02.460 --> 00:19:05.559 was gritty, angry, and deeply disillusioned. 00:19:05.680 --> 00:19:08.460 The exact opposite of Brooks' romantic idealism. 00:19:08.859 --> 00:19:11.059 Placing them together is a subtle reminder of 00:19:11.059 --> 00:19:14.940 the profound tragedy of all these lost, contrasting 00:19:14.940 --> 00:19:17.859 voices. So what does this all mean? We started 00:19:17.859 --> 00:19:20.579 this deep dive with the image of the handsomest 00:19:20.579 --> 00:19:22.960 young man in England, the golden boy who rode 00:19:22.960 --> 00:19:25.819 the soldier. Yes. But what we actually found 00:19:25.819 --> 00:19:28.299 in the historical records was a man who went 00:19:28.299 --> 00:19:30.339 skinny dipping in the moonlight with Virginia 00:19:30.339 --> 00:19:33.940 Woolf, who navigated incredibly fluid and complicated 00:19:33.940 --> 00:19:36.319 romances. Who suffered paranoid breakdowns over 00:19:36.319 --> 00:19:39.019 literary gossip. Right, and who finally found 00:19:39.019 --> 00:19:42.099 his most complete emotional connection on a beach 00:19:42.099 --> 00:19:45.759 in Tahiti. He was transformed into a tragic symbol 00:19:45.759 --> 00:19:49.460 of a lost generation, but his actual messy, vibrant 00:19:49.460 --> 00:19:52.099 life makes him far more fascinating than any 00:19:52.099 --> 00:19:54.759 marble statue ever could. The myth is powerful, 00:19:54.799 --> 00:19:57.200 but the man is real. And this raises an important 00:19:57.200 --> 00:19:59.380 question sparked by two incredibly evocative 00:19:59.380 --> 00:20:00.920 details from a research that we haven't touched 00:20:00.920 --> 00:20:03.000 on yet. Oh, lay it on us. The records mention 00:20:03.000 --> 00:20:05.460 that right after Brooke died on that hospital 00:20:05.460 --> 00:20:08.559 ship, his friend Frederick Septimus Kelly took 00:20:08.559 --> 00:20:11.039 Brooks personal notebooks, which contained important 00:20:11.039 --> 00:20:13.779 late poems for safekeeping to return them to 00:20:13.779 --> 00:20:17.420 England. OK. It also mentions a recent 2023 painting 00:20:17.420 --> 00:20:19.960 of Brooke by the artist Stephen Hopper, which 00:20:19.960 --> 00:20:22.279 specifically features a blank sheet of paper 00:20:22.279 --> 00:20:25.559 symbolized work unfulfilled. A blank sheet of 00:20:25.559 --> 00:20:27.819 paper. That is haunting. I want you to ponder 00:20:27.819 --> 00:20:30.539 that blank sheet of paper for a moment. If a 00:20:30.539 --> 00:20:33.460 single infected mosquito bite hadn't ended his 00:20:33.460 --> 00:20:36.660 life at 27, how would those unfulfilled late 00:20:36.660 --> 00:20:39.319 poems in that notebook have evolved? Yeah. If 00:20:39.319 --> 00:20:41.339 he had survived the horrors of the Gallipoli 00:20:41.339 --> 00:20:43.660 campaign, would he have returned to England stripped 00:20:43.660 --> 00:20:46.180 of his Edwardian idealism? Would he have started 00:20:46.180 --> 00:20:49.180 writing the gritty, disillusioned, angry poetry 00:20:49.180 --> 00:20:51.619 of Wilfred Owen or Siegfried Sassoon? Or would 00:20:51.619 --> 00:20:54.009 he have stubbed maintained his romanticism to 00:20:54.009 --> 00:20:56.569 the bitter end. Exactly. It really makes you 00:20:56.569 --> 00:20:59.130 wonder how much of our literary canon and the 00:20:59.130 --> 00:21:02.029 very way we remember historical eras is dictated 00:21:02.029 --> 00:21:04.690 by something as random and fragile as the biology 00:21:04.690 --> 00:21:07.269 of a mosquito bite. That is an incredible thought 00:21:07.269 --> 00:21:10.309 to leave on. The absolute fragility of history. 00:21:11.049 --> 00:21:12.930 Thank you so much for joining us on this deep 00:21:12.930 --> 00:21:15.509 dive. Keep questioning the myths behind the history, 00:21:15.710 --> 00:21:17.910 keep looking for the messy realities, and we 00:21:17.910 --> 00:21:18.750 will see you next time.