Since his death in the First World War, Brooke has been identified with a romantic myth of a lost world where church clocks stood still and there was eternal honey for tea. But, as this book shows, the truth about Brooke was both more shocking and a lot more interesting. Drawing on a mass of documentation, much of it unpublished, this new biography brings out the full story behind one of the century's most enduring literary legends. This book conclusively demolishes the myth of the untarnished golden boy of English poetry. Using original documentation - much from Rupert Brooke's own hand - this biography shows that the poet hailed by Churchill as one of "England's noblest sons" was in reality sexually ambivalent, paranoiac, misogynistic, anti-Semitic, and sometimes plain mad. He was also one of the most gifted spirits of his age who charmed (almost) all who met him. Overturning the carefully crafted image erected by his friends, this is a biography that will change forever one of our most cherished national legends.
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"A breath of fresh air...Brooke is sharply perceived, his inner corrosion convincingly described and analyzed." -- THE TIMES
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From the Publisher
As well-tended legend has it, Rupert brooke was the quintessential romantic Englishman: handsome, charming, a soldier-poet who died young on his way to the battlefields of World War I. Now, in this immensely readable volume, the myth of thc golden boy of English letters is skillfully dispelled. Deconstructing the carefully crafted image promoted by his friends, this well-documented biography reveals a charismatic but deeply flawed human being--anti-Semitic, rampantly misogynistic, tormented by sexual ambivalence, jealousy, and paranoia. In "Rupert Brooke: Life, Death and Myth," Nigel Jones gives us a clear-eyed, admirably thorough account of one of England's most cherished cultural icons.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A fascinating look at a deeply troubled man,
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This review is from: Rupert Brooke (Paperback)
Brooke was most famous in his own time for writing what now look like overblown, sentimental poems and--in the run-up to World War II--romanticized patriotic verse. But he was also known in his own time for being, as some had it, the most beautiful man in England. In many ways and for many years he lived a charmed life. He was educated at an excellent school and then in Cambridge University, where he was the lively, charismatic leader of a group of appealing friends who admired him, visited him, protected him, and stripped off and went swimming in the river. (The fact that the rather repressed Virginia Woolf was one of those who did so, and the fact that upper-class women he was attracted to were willing to pose naked for photographs for him, suggests just how appealing he could be.)
And when things were going his way, it was a golden life. But Brooke had no capacity for living comfortably if he wasn't the center of all of his friends' lives. Insisting that none of them fall in love or marry but instead remain perpetually in a Peter Pan-like sexless company was doomed to failure, and it simply never seemed to occur to him that the women whose admiration he rejoiced in might come to know him well and determine that he was too demanding, too unwilling to give, and incapable of romancing one woman at a time (while becoming livid with rage if the young ladies found other men). The most beautiful man in England spewed out astonishingly vile abuse when he was crossed in any way; the diatribes and hatefulness in some of his letters is jaw-dropping. What he seemed to want was not communion with another, or even just plain sex; what he wanted was to be adored and write overblown words of praise to one woman while chasing others, and switching back and forth between withering hatred and statements of love in the same paragraph, or indeed the same sentence. Brooke finally seems to be a child who threw tantrums at any point when he could not get his own way. Since his charisma, class, beauty and modest talent opened many doors for him, and he felt that praise and adoration was his due, he had no resources other than slashing others when they loved elsewhere or wouldn't fall in with his plans and the roles he had mapped out for him. He's an unappealing figure, ultimately; a beautiful man, but a narcissist full of hatred who had a tremendous power to hurt others and little capacity to love. What Rupert wanted was everything; others were not supposed to have autonomy. It's a very sad story of a man who burnt his bridges and caused great pain, despite all of his gifts. And it's a tremendously good read; Jones has done strong research and pulls no punches. We get to see a 360 degree view of Rupert Brooke and, by the end, know him far better than he knew himself.
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