The Soldier (Rf.: Touched With Fire Pg.

75)

網誌分類：CE - Poetry |
網誌日期：2008-02-13 21:25

The Soldier

If I should die, think only this of me:

That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever 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 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;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

- Rupert Brooke

This poem was written as the First World War broke out in 1914, as
part of a series of sonnets written by Rupert Brooke. Brooke himself,
being predominantly a pre-World War poet, died the year after "The
Soldier" was published. "The Soldier", being the conclusion and the
finale to Brooke's '1914' war sonnet series, deals with the death and
accomplishments of a soldier. Written in fourteen line Petrarchan /
Italian sonnet form, the poem is divided into an opening octave, and
then followed by a concluding sestet. As far as rhyme scheme, the
octave is rhymed after the Shakespearean / Elizabethan (abab cdcd)
form, while the sestet follows the Petrarchan / Italian (cde cde) form.
The volta, the shift or point of dramatic change, occurs after the
fourth line where Brooke goes from describing the death of the
soldier, to his life accomplishments. This sonnet encompasses the
memoirs of a fallen soldier who declares his patriotism to his
homeland by declaring that his sacrifice shall be the eternal
ownership of England, of a small portion of land he has died upon.
The poem appears to not follow the normal purpose of a Petrarchan /
Italian sonnet either. It does not truly go into detail about a
predicament/resolution, as is customary with this form; rather, the
atmosphere remains constantly in the blissful state of the English
soldier.

Brooke observes the sonnet form (14 lines of iambic pentameter,

divided into an octave and sestet), however the octave is rhymed after
the Shakespearean/Elizabethan (ababcdcd) rhyme scheme, while the
sestet follows the Petrarchan/Italian (efgefg). Brooke has also
deviated somewhat from the traditional thematic divisions associated
with the octave and sestet: question/predicament and
resolution/solution, respectively. The octave and sestet both enjoin
the reader to imagine the blissful state of the fallen soldier.

'The Soldier' is the culmination of Brooke's '1914' sonnet sequence.

In 'The Soldier' Brooke invokes the ideas of spiritual cleansing (as
found in 'Peace'), inviolable memories of the dead (as in 'Safety'), a
hero's immortal legacy ('The Dead' III & IV), but now he combines all
these specifically under the overarching framework of English
heritage and personal loyalty to it. Although Dean Inge objected to
the neo-paganism of Brooke's idea of resurrection,

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,

A pulse in the eternal mind[,]

'The Soldier' touched a nerve and inspired imitations. Some were

close and complimentary as they sought a recognizable connection
with Brooke's sonnet. For example 'To My Mother -- 1916' by
Rifleman Donald S. Cox:

If I should fall, grieve not that one so weak

And poor as I
Should die.
Nay! Though thy heart should break
Think only this: that when at dusk they speak
Of sons and brothers of another one,
Then thou canst say--"I too had a son;
He died for England's sake!"

Edward Thomas (who was acquainted with Brooke) was probably

musing on 'The Soldier' when he made up his little ditty to a bugle
call -- 'No One Cares Less than I':

No one cares less than I,

Nobody knows but God,
Whether I am destined to lie
Under a foreign clod,

while Martin Stephen sees a "clear rebuttal" to 'The Soldier' in

Charles Hamilton Sorley's sonnet 'When You See Millions of the
Mouthless Dead':

When you see millions of the mouthless dead

Across your dreams in pale battalions go,
Say not soft things as other men have said,
That you'll remember. For you need not so.

Associated, as it came to be, with the discredited idealistic attitudes of

1914, Rupert Brooke's sonnet 'The Soldier' suffered a similar fate.
However, Stephen finds that "the personal element" in Brooke's
sonnets distinquishes them from propaganda verse: "[w]hatever else
they may be, Brooke's sonnets sum up admirably a mood that was felt
by many people when war broke out."

About the Writter - Rupert Brooke

On April 4, 1915, Dean Inge of St. Paul's Cathedral read a sonnet

from the pulpit as part of his Easter Sunday sermon. The sermon was
published in The Times the next day, and the sonnet therein became,
as George Parfitt describes, "an important document of national
preparation for war." Originally entitled 'The Recruit', Rupert
Brooke's sonnet 'The Soldier' was the last in a sonnet sequence
entitled '1914'. The five numbered sonnets, preceded by an
unnumbered sonnet were first published in the periodical New
Numbers (number 4) in January of 1915:

5 Ways to Kill a Man

There are many cumbersome ways to kill a man.

You can make him carry a plank of wood
To the top of a hill and nail him to it. To do this
Properly you require a crowd of people
Wearing sandals, a cock that crows, a cloak
To dissect, a sponge, some vinegar and one
Man to hammer the nails home.

Or you can take a length of steel,

Shaped and chased in a traditional way,
And attempt to pierce the metal cage he wears.
But for this you need white horses,
English trees, men with bows and arrows,
at least two flags, a prince and a
Castle to hold your banquet in.

Dispensing with nobility, you may, if the wind

Allows, blow gas at him. But then you need
A mile of mud sliced through with ditches,
Not to mention black boots, bomb craters,
More mud, a plague of rats, a dozen songs
And some round hats made of steel.
In an age of aeroplanes, you may fly
Miles above your victim and dispose of him by
Pressing one small switch. All you then
Require is an ocean to separate you, two
systems of government, a nation's scientists,
Several factories, a psychopath and
Land that no one needs for several years.

These are, as I began, cumbersome ways

To kill a man. Simpler, direct, and much more neat
Is to see that he lives somewhere in the middle
Of the twentieth century, and leave him there.

-- Edwin Brock

在 poem 開始的時候，其實亦覺得 Brock (作者) 很變態，但隨後顯而

易見的，就是 Brock 對這個世界的體會。

大家請留意在最尾的 stanza，Brock 提到用這麼多種的方法殺人，都

不及將一個人放在 20 世紀般殘酷，可見作者對 20 世紀的看法....

而且，既然作者寫 20 世紀任何一個角落都足以殺死人，由此則可見作
者現在已經感到生不如死了。

其實，閱畢筆者以上所打的一小段，便為本詩要表達的，亦是 CE 會
考作答的。

然後還會考些甚麼呢? 則是那些句子用了甚麼修辭手法之類，作者如何
表達出主題(motif)?標點符號的運用? 開初幾段的作用?

有時，HKEAA 還會考某隻字的特定意思，不過，這通常都只會在
unseen poem 出現。
有時，又會將這首詩同另一首比較。比較的，來來去去亦是修辭，主旨，
表達，詩句的形狀之類。不過絕對不用怕，seen poem 只要熟讀詩的一
切，此 part 難度不高，而且亦都 不 用 背 詩，考評局會印在卷上。

至於 unseen poem，這 part 通常就是歷代考生橫屍遍野之處，何解?

首先，考生未有讀過 poem，加上考試時間不足，不可以極詳細地分析。
首詩有時又難，意思又隱晦，就極容易令學生答錯。自然橫屍遍野。

曾經有一年會考，題目用中文意思解，就是最尾那個字的作用是甚麼。
結果，7 成以上考生就寫了整首詩的最尾那個字的作用（巧合地那個意
思十分特別）
但其實，原來，考評局的要求是－每一句的最尾那個字

當年，這條題目可真使人橫屍遍野。

由此可見，eng lit 這一科，沒有足夠的英文根底，真的不建議選修。