Rupert Brooke was one of the early poets in the war. He felt privileged like many to fight for their country. He died of illness in 1915 before having seen any action. He wrote in a romantic style of optimists towards war. He is remembered as a "war poet" who inspired patriotism in the early months of the Great War. He was good at poetry but had not seen the fear of the war. He would have been shocked to see what became of the war. His view towards war would have changed if he had.
             If I should die, think only this of me:
             That there's some corner of a foreign field
             That is forever England. There shall be
             In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
             A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
             Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
             A body of England's breathing English air,
             Washed by the rivers, blest by the suns of home.
             And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
             A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
             Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
             He sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
             And laughter learnt of friends: and gentleness,
             In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.
             He was proud that he was part of history of helping England, the country that had given him life and joy. He hadn't and was never going to see the dreadfulness of the war.
             Mc Crae wrote about Flanders Fields in 1915. It is the most famous poem. Mc Crae didn't see the worst of the war. In one year 60 000 English men were going to die in one day. This was written after the first major battle in Belgium. His poems show a change of attitude, unlike the Soldier Flanders Fields talks about guns. It uses poignant irony (emotional power) to explain how he is feeling. It is a bittersweet poem. It does not contempate death in a future sense like The Soldier but talks about the past. It is sad but still jingoistic Through the sense of tragedy there is something brighter. The value is that war is tragic, but
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