9. Rupert Brooke
Rupert Brooke was an English poet famed for his poetry that romanticized war and the lives of soldiers. Written at the opening of World War I in 1914, his poem “The Soldier” was very well received by the public. It even came to the attention of Winston Churchill, serving at that time as First Lord of the Admiralty, who drafted Rupert Brooke into the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve as a sub-lieutenant. It is sadly ironic that Brooke’s poetry romanticizing war would lead to his death while drafted on a naval vessel.
Brooke had mental illness as a young man, with his most serious episodes being referred to generally as “nervous collapse,” a term familiar to the era that was applied to any mental illness that interfered with daily living. His paranoia regarding his friends and love interest led to a falling out from the group of fellow poets he had been working with known as the Dymock Poets.
His contemporaries well noted Brooke’s good looks. Irish poet W. B. Yeats was quoted as calling him “the handsomest young man in England.” Sadly he, like many others on this list, died while still in the blossom of youth. Brooke died in 1915 at the age of only 27 from sepsis developed from an infected mosquito bite while on route to the landing at Gallipoli as part of Britain’s World War I naval force.
