Brain Snacks: Tasty Tidbits of Knowledge
Just as the poem predicts, Brooke died in the war—from an infected mosquito bite. He died on April 23, the traditional birthday of Shakespeare. (Source.)
A young Winston Churchill, who gave Brooke his commission in the Royal Navy, also wrote part of his obituary. (Source.)
Now this is eerie. Rupert Brooke is buried on the Greek island of Skyros. That's right. He's in "some corner of a foreign field"! (Source.)
The famous novelist Virginia Woolf once boasted that she had gone skinny dipping with Rupert Brooke (he was so handsome that it would have been kind of like saying you went skinny dipping with Tom Cruise). (Source.)
Brooke lived in Tahiti for a while; supposedly, he fathered a child with his Tahitian lover. (Source.)