In this episode of pplpod, we dive into the brief, brilliant, and tragic life of Rupert Chawner Brooke, the celebrated English poet whose idealistic war sonnets came to define the early spirit of the First World War. Famously described by the Irish poet W.B. Yeats as "the handsomest young man in England," Brooke's literary genius and striking boyish looks made him a captivating figure of his era.

We explore his early years studying classics at King's College, Cambridge, his association with the Bloomsbury Group and the Georgian Poets, and his complex romantic entanglements that ultimately led to a severe emotional crisis in 1912. Seeking recuperation, Brooke traveled across the globe to the United States, Canada, and the South Seas, where he may have fathered a child in Tahiti before returning home to a world on the brink of conflict.