Isaac Rosenberg (25 November 1890 – 1 April 1918) was an English poet and artist. His Poems from the Trenches are recognized as some of the most outstanding poetry written during the First World War.

Early life

Isaac Rosenberg was born in Bristol on 25 November 1890 at 5 Adelaide Place near St. Mary Redcliffe. He was the second of six children and the eldest son (his twin brother died at birth) of his parents, Barnett (formerly Dovber) and Hacha Rosenberg, who were Lithuanian Jewish immigrants to Britain from Dvinsk (now in Latvia). In 1897, the family moved to Stepney, a poor district of the East End of London, and one with a large Jewish community. In 1902, he received a good conduct award and was allowed to take classes at the Arts and Crafts School in Stepney Green. In December 1904, he left the Baker Street School, and in January 1905, started an apprenticeship with Carl Hentschel, an engraver from Fleet Street. During his time at Slade School, Rosenberg notably studied alongside David Bomberg, Mark Gertler, Stanley Spencer, Paul Nash, Edward Wadsworth, Dora Carrington, William Roberts, and Christopher Nevinson. He was taken up by Laurence Binyon and Edward Marsh, and began to write poetry seriously, but he suffered from ill-health.

In a personal letter, Rosenberg described his attitude towards war, "I never joined the army for patriotic reasons. Nothing can justify war. I suppose we must all fight to get the trouble over."

First World War

thumb|200px|Private Rosenberg, personal service number 22311

Rosenberg was assigned to the 12th Bantam Battalion of the Suffolk Regiment, a bantam being a designation for men under the usual minimum height of 5'3". After apparently declining promotion to lance corporal, Rosenberg was transferred, first, to the South Lancashire Regiment, then to the King's Own Royal Lancaster Regiment (KORL). He was sent with his unit to serve on the Western Front in France, where he arrived on 3 June 1916.

On 21 March 1918, the German Army started its Spring Offensive on the Western Front. A week later, Rosenberg sent his last letter with the poem "Through These Pale Cold Days" to England before going to the front lines with reinforcements. Rosenberg's gravestone is marked with his name and the words, "Buried near this spot", as well as – "Artist and Poet". and Tate Britain.

  • A commemorative blue plaque to him hangs outside the Whitechapel Gallery, formerly the Whitechapel Library, which was unveiled by Anglo-Jewish writer Emanuel Litvinoff.
  • On 11 November 1985, Rosenberg was among 16 Great War poets who were commemorated on a slate stone unveiled in Westminster Abbey's Poet's Corner. The inscription on the stone was taken from Wilfred Owen's "Preface" to his poems and reads: "My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity."
  • Rosenberg appears in the novel Grosse Fugue by Ian Phillips.
  • In The Great War and Modern Memory, Paul Fussell's landmark study of the literature of the First World War, Fussell identifies Rosenberg's "Break of Day in the Trenches" as "the greatest poem of the war."
  • BBC Radio 4 broadcast a documentary on his life called "Nobody Told Me To Oil My Boots", written and directed by Neil Cargill with narration by Sir Antony Sher and Simon Schatzberger – re-broadcast by Radio 4Extra.

Notes

References

  • Geoff Akers – Beating for Light: The Story of Isaac Rosenberg (2006)
  • Jean Moorcroft Wilson – Isaac Rosenberg, poet and painter (1975)
  • Word and Image VI. Isaac Rosenberg 1890–1918 (National Book League, 1975)
  • Jean Liddiard – Isaac Rosenberg; the Half Used Life (1975)
  • J. Cohen – Journey to the Trenches: The Life of Isaac Rosenberg 1890–1918 (1975)
  • Deborah Maccoby – God Made Blind: The Life and Work of Isaac Rosenberg (1999 Symposium Press; )
  • Harold Finch – The Tower Hamlets Connection – a Biographical Guide (Stepney Books )
  • Six Poets of the Great War: Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, Isaac Rosenberg, Richard Aldington, Edmund Blunden, Edward Thomas, Rupert Brooke and Many Others. (edited by Adrian Barlow) Cambridge University Press, 1995;
  • Poets of the Great War: Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, Isaac Rosenberg, Richard Aldington, Edmund Blunden, Edward Thomas, Rupert Brooke, and Many Others. (Naxos AudioBooks; )
  • Isaac Rosenberg – Selected Poems and Letters ed. Jean Liddiard (Enitharmon, 2003)
  • Jon Stallworthy, ‘Rosenberg, Isaac (1890–1918)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 2 October 2013
  • Isaac Rosenberg – Selected Poems and Letters ed. Jean Liddiard (Enitharmon, 2003)
  • William Baker– Whitechapel at War: Isaac Rosenberg and his Circle (Ben Uri Gallery and Museum, 2009; )
  • Charles Tomlinson, Isaac Rosenberg of Bristol (Bristol Historical Association pamphlets, no. 53, 1982), 19 pp.
  • The Isaac Rosenberg Collection in The First World War Poetry Digital Archive by Oxford University contains images of all Rosenberg's War poetry manuscripts, letters, plus a searchable full text corpus.
  • Rosenberg's Early Poetry and Related Documents at the University of South Carolina Library's Digital Collections Page
  • Lost Poets of the Great War , a hypertext document on the poetry of World War I by Harry Rusche, of Emory University. It contains a bibliography of related materials.
  • Selected Poetry of Isaac Rosenberg – Biography and 5 poems (Dead Man's Dump, God, The Jew, Louse Hunting, Through These Pale Cold Days)
  • Isaac Rosenberg profile and poems at Poets.org