The Rupert Brooke-James Strachey letters
Abstract
With permission from Jon Stallworthy and Paul Levy, the respective heads of the Brooke and Strachey Trusts, I have edited both sides of the long-suppressed correspondence between Rupert Brooke, the poet, and James Strachey, the psychoanalyst and translator of Freud. I have annotated the entire collection of 222 letters, postcards, and telegrams from Brooke (the most he wrote to anyone aside from his mother) and 178 from Strachey, as well as an additional 13 pieces from Rupert to James's more famous brother, Lytton. The letters are divided by year, with brief biographical summaries prefacing each section. Four introductory chapters provide an overview of Brooke scholarship, a corrective biography of the poet focusing primarily on aspects of his life important to the Strachey letters (and those aspects that have received scant attention in other biographies), an argument for Brooke as a representative man of his time, and a reappraisal of Brooke's poetry in light of the Brooke-Strachey letters and the corrective biography. The Brooke/Strachey letters show Brooke to have been, for the greater part of his life, a Fabian socialist and atheist who despised conservative England and a poet who wrote many of his love poems to young men. The letters restore historical accuracy by providing vivid accounts of Brooke as a member of the Cambridge Conversazione Society (the "Apostles") interacting with James and Lytton Strachey, Maynard Keynes, E. M. Forster, G. E. Moore, and others, and they also shed light on Brooke as president of the Cambridge Fabians--two sides of the poet that have been largely ignored. Finally, they emphasize the disservice done to Brooke by his having been classified a "war poet." He belongs instead to that generation of poets writing prior to the war--a generation preoccupied with debating the arts, socialist politics, feminism, and sexuality.
Degree
Ph.D.
Advisors
Flory, Purdue University.
Subject Area
British and Irish literature|Biographies
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