Isaac Rosenberg
Isaac Rosenberg | |
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Pas-de-Calais , France
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Cause of death | Killed in action |
Occupation | Poet, artist |
Isaac Rosenberg (25 November 1890 – 1 April 1918) was an
Early life
Isaac Rosenberg was born in
He became interested in both poetry and
Afraid that his chronic bronchitis would worsen, Rosenberg hoped to cure himself by relocating in 1914 to the warmer climate of South Africa, where his sister Mina lived in Cape Town.[1] The Jewish Educational Aid Society of London helped by paying the fare.
After arriving in Cape Town in the end of June 1914,[3] he composed a poem "On Receiving News of the War". While many wrote about war as patriotic sacrifice, Rosenberg was critical of it from the outset. However, feeling better and hoping to find employment as an artist in Britain, Rosenberg returned home in March 1915.[3] He published a second collection of poems, Youth and then after being unable to find a permanent job enlisted in the British Army at the end of October 1915.[3] He asked that half of his pay be sent to his mother.[6]
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."[7]
First World War
Rosenberg was assigned to the 12th Bantam Battalion of the
In January 1917, Rosenberg reported being sick and his family and friends asked his superiors to remove him from the front lines; he was transferred to the Fortieth Division Works Battalion and started to deliver barbed wire to the trenches.[3] He wrote his poem Dead Man's Dump during this period.
In June, he was temporarily assigned to the 229 Field Company, Royal Engineers. In September 1916, he spent ten days in London on leave.[3] After returning to his old unit, he fell sick in October and spent two months in the 51st General Hospital. After release, he was transferred to the 1st Battalion of the King's Own Royal Lancaster Regiment.[3] He applied for a transfer to one of the all-Jewish battalions formed in Mesopotamia, but historians have been unable to trace his application.[8]
On 21 March 1918, the German Army started its
Legacy
- His self-portraits hang in the
- A commemorative blue plaque to him hangs outside the Whitechapel Gallery, formerly the Whitechapel Library, which was unveiled by Anglo-Jewish writer Emanuel Litvinoff.[12]
- On 11 November 1985, Rosenberg was among 16 Great War poets who were commemorated on a slate stone unveiled in Poet's Corner.[13] The inscription on the stone was written by a fellow Great War poet, Wilfred Owen. It reads: "My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity."[14]
- 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."
- Sir Antony Sher and Simon Schatzberger – re-broadcast by Radio 4Extra.
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; ISBN 1-900814-15-3)
- Harold Finch – The Tower Hamlets Connection – a Biographical Guide (Stepney Books ISBN 0-902385-25-9)
- 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; ISBN 0-521-48569-X
- Poets of the Great War: Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, Isaac Rosenberg, Richard Aldington, Edmund Blunden, Edward Thomas, Rupert Brooke, and Many Others. (Naxos AudioBooks; ISBN 962-634-109-2)
- 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; ISBN 978-0900157097)
- Charles Tomlinson, Isaac Rosenberg of Bristol (Bristol Historical Association pamphlets, no. 53, 1982), 19 pp.
Notes
- ^ a b c d e
Moorcroft Wilson, Jean (8 November 2003). "Visions from the trenches". The Guardian. Retrieved 1 April 2009.
Isaac Rosenberg was one of the finest and most distinctive poets of the first world war.
- ^ Charles Tomlinson, Isaac Rosenberg of Bristol (Bristol Historical Association pamphlets, no. 53), pp. 1-4
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Vivien Noakes (Editor.) Isaac Rosenberg. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. See: Chronological Summary of Isaac Rozenberg's Life, pp. XXYII – XXXYI. During discussions of immigration issues in the House of Commons it was revealed that in Boys Department of the Baker Street Board School, Stepney, in 1901, there were "280 foreigners as against 29 English" pupils. — Great Britain. Parliament. – 1902, p. 1274
- ^ Sewell, Brian (25 April 2008). "Who was Isaac Rosenberg?". This is London. Archived from the original on 21 May 2008. Retrieved 1 April 2009.
- ISBN 978-1-905847-84-6.
- ^ The Forgotten Jewish Great War Poet, Revived: Long-gone writer is introduced to new readers with the help of graphic art, Tablet, 8 January 2015.
- ^ Field, F. (1991). British and French writers of the First World War: Comparative studies in cultural history. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, p. 235.
- ^ Wilson, J. M. (2009). Isaac Rosenberg: The making of a great war poet: a new life. Evanston, Ill: Northwestern University Press.
- ^ "Rosenberg, Isaac – Private, 1st Bn., King's Own (Royal Lancaster Regiment)". Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Retrieved 1 April 2009.
Son of Barnet and Annie Rosenberg, of 87, Dempsey St., Stepney, London. Born in Bristol. Some critics of the time considered Rosenberg the best of the war poets after Wilfred Owen.
- ^ "Portrait NPG 4129 – Isaac Rosenberg". National Portrait Gallery. Retrieved 1 April 2009.
- ^ "Self-Portrait by Isaac Rosenberg". Tate Online. Retrieved 1 April 2009.
- ^ "EL unveils plaque to Isaac Rosenberg". Emanuel-litvinoff.com. Retrieved 19 April 2014.
- ^ "Poets of the Great War". net.lib.byu.edu. Retrieved 1 April 2009.
- ^ "Preface". net.lib.byu.edu. Retrieved 1 April 2009.
External links
- 11 artworks by or after Isaac Rosenberg at the Art UK site
- The Isaac Rosenberg Collection Archived 27 September 2011 at the Oxford Universitycontains 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)
- Works by or about Isaac Rosenberg at Internet Archive
- Works by Isaac Rosenberg at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
- Isaac Rosenberg profile and poems at Poets.org