To the same, November-December 1917
Many thanks for book and chocolate. Both are being devoured with equal pleasure. I can’t get quite the delight in Whitman as from one poem of his I know— ‘Captain, my Captain’. I admire the vigour and independence of his mind, but his diction is so diffused. Emerson and not Whitman is America’s poet. You will persist in refusing to see my side of our little debate on criticism. Everybody has agreed with you about the faults, and the reason is obvious; the faults are so glaring that nobody can fail to see them. But how many have seen the beauties? And it is here more than the other that the true critic shows himself. And I absolutely disagree that it is blindness or carelessness; it is the brain succumbing to the herculean attempt to enrich the world of ideas.
8th Dec. 1917
22311 Pte. I. Rosenberg
11th. K.O.R.L.
LINES B.6.
51, General Hospital
B.E.F. France.
DEAR LEFTWICH,
I am in hosp and have been here for about 2 months — lucky for me — I fancy — as I got out of this late stunt by being here. My brother Dave in the Tanks got a bullet in his leg and is also in hosp — also my wilder brother in the S.A.H.A. is in hosp. And now your letter has been buffeted into hosp, and that it has reached me must be looked upon as one of the miracles of this war. I know Isaacs, who I like — but his poetry didn’t appear to me much good — but then, when he showed it to me I was on leave and poetry was quite out of my line then and possibly the poetry in them may have been too delicate and subtle for me to discover at the time. We never spoke about Whitman— ‘Drum Taps’ stands unique as War Poetry in my mind.
I have written a few war poems but when I think of ‘Drum Taps’ mine are absurd. However I would get a pamphlet printed if I were sure of selling about 60 at is each — as I think mine may give some new aspects to people at home — and then one never knows whether you’ll get a tap on the head or not: and if that happens — all you have written is lost, unless you have secured them by printing. Do you know when the Georgian B. will be out? I am only having about half a page in it — and its only an extract from a poem — I don’t think anybody will be much the wiser. What’s the idea of my joining your J affair, its no use to me out here, is it? Besides after the war, if things go well — I doubt whether I’d live in London. But you can put me down if you like.
I. ROSENBERG
1918
January 26, 1918
My address is on the other side
MY DEAR MARSH
I have been in topsy turveydom since I last saw you and have not been able to write. Even now it is in the extremest difficulties that I’m writing this. I wanted to talk about the Georgian Book which I had sent over to me but have not had time to more than glance through. I liked J. C. Squire’s poem about the ‘House’ enormously and all his other poems. Turner’s are very beautiful and Sassoon has power. Masefield seemed rather commonplace, but please don’t take my judgement at anything because I have hardly looked at them. I am back in the trenches which are terrible now. We spend most of our time pulling each other out of the mud. I am not fit at all now and am more in the way than any use. You see I appear in excellent health and a doctor will make no distinction between health and strength. I am not strong. What has happened to your Life of Rupert Brooke. Is it out yet. I suppose you are kept very busy.
Yours sincerely
I ROSENBERG
Address Pte I Rosenberg 22311
4 Platoon A Coy 11th K.O.R.L.
B.E.F.
To Miss Seaton
February 14, 1918
We had a rough time in the trenches with the mud, but now we’re out for a bit of a rest, and I will try and write longer letters. You must know by now what a rest behind the line means. I can call the evenings — that is, from tea to lights out — my own; but there is no chance whatever for seclusion or any hope of writing poetry now. Sometimes I give way and am appalled at the devastation this life seems to have made in my nature. It seems to have blunted me. I seem to be powerless to compel my will to any direction, and all I do is without energy and interest.
February 23, 1918
22311 Pte I R
8 Platoon, B Coy. 1st K.O.R.L.
B.E.F.
DEAR RODKER
I did not know you were a fixture or I’d have written direct to the Settlement. I don’t see the papers so your news is news. However we’re expecting to go up the line soon, after some weeks rest. I’d like to read Elliott’s work but I hardly get a chance to read letters sent to me. If we get any time there is no seclusion and always interruptions. I am very glad you can read and if you write to my sister for Hueffer’s book I daresay she’ll find it for you. I’ll mention it in my next letter also. Address Miss A. Rosenberg 87 Dempsey St Stepney. E.
Mine is 22311 Pte I R 8 Platoon, B Coy. 1st K.O.R.L. B.E.F.
I suppose I could write a bit if I tried to work at a letter as an idea — but sitting down to it here after a day’s dull stupefying labour — I feel stupefied. When will we go on with the things that endure?
Yours sincerely
ISAAC ROSENBERG
To Gordon Bottomley
February 26, 1918
I wanted to send some bits I wrote for the ‘Unicorn’ while I was in hospital, and if I find them I’ll enclose them. I tried to work on your suggestion and divided it into four acts, but since I left the hospital all the poetry has gone quite out of me. I seem even to forget words, and I believe if I met anybody with ideas I’d be dumb. No drug could be more stupefying than our work (to me anyway), and this goes on like that old torture of water trickling, drop by drop unendingly, on one’s helplessness.
March, 1918
DEAR RODKER
I could not answer your last letter as immediately as I wished because of a lot of unexpected things. Things happen so suddenly here that really nothing is unexpected — but what I mean is quite a lot of changes came on top of each other and interfered with my good epistolary intentions. I hope you still keep the same good spirits of your last letter and that the work is not beyond your strength. My work is but somehow we blunder through. From hospital I went back to the line and we had a rough time with the mud. Balzac could give you the huge and terrible sensations of sinking in the mud. I was in the trenches a month when our Batt broke up and I am now in another Batt of our regiment. When you write again write to
Pte I Rosenberg 22311
8 Platoon. B. Coy
1st Batt K.O.R.L.
B.E.F.
Just now we’re out for a rest and I hope the warmer weather sets in when we go up the line again. It is quite impossible to write or think of writing stuff now, so I can only hope for hospital or the end of the war if I want to write. In hospital I saw the Georgian Book. Turner is pretty good — but somehow I seem to have lost all sense of discrimination and everything seems good. My own is so fragmentary that I think it were better left out. I hear it is selling well. You have got an article on Trevelyan, I hear. He sent me his Comedy which I liked very much. I know little of his other work.
Yours sincerely
ISAAC ROSENBERG
To Gordon Bottomley
March 7, 1918
I believe our interlude is nearly over, and we may go up the line any moment now, so I answer your letter straightaway. If only this war were over our eyes would not be on death so much: it seems to underlie even our underthoughts. Yet when I have been so near to it as anybody could be, the idea has never crossed my mind, certainly not so much as when some lying doctor told me I had consumption. I like to think of myself as a poet; so what you say, though I know it to be extravagant, gives me immense pleasure.
To Miss Seaton March 8, 1918
I do not feel that I have much to say, but I do know that unless I write now it will be a long time before you hear from me again, without something exceptional happens. It is not very cold now, but I dread the wet weather, which is keeping off while we are out, and, I f
ear, saving itself up for us. We will become like mummies — look warm and lifelike, but a touch and we crumble to pieces. Did I send you a little poem, ‘The Burning of the Temple’? I thought it was poor, or rather, difficult in expression, but G. Bottomley thinks it fine. Was it clear to you? If I am lucky, and come off undamaged, I mean to put all my innermost experiences into the ‘Unicorn’. I want it to symbolize the war and all the devastating forces let loose by an ambitious and unscrupulous will. Last summer I wrote pieces for it and had the whole of it planned out, but since then I’ve had no chance of working on it and it may have gone quite out of my mind.
March 1918
DEAR DAVE
We’ve been very busy lately and I’ve not been able to answer your letters. I’m now back in reserves and know that even this poor scrawl will be better than nothing and you will understand it as but the vanguard of a host. I wanted to write a battle song for the Judaens but so far I can think of nothing noble and weighty enough. I wrote a slight poem which I will send in next letter.
My address now is
Pte I R 22311
6 Platoon B Coy
1st K.O.R.L. B.E.F.
I do hope you get your leave for Pasach and the Stepney business will be over by then.
Best love
ISAAC
March 1918
DEAR DAVE
I had a letter from you yesterday but lost it before I could properly read it. So can’t reply to the actual wording. Have you my new address
Pte I R 22311
8 Platoon B. Coy.
1st K.O.R.L. B.E.F.
There is some good stuff in it but very little. Gordon Bottomley stands head and shoulders above the rest.
I’m not saying this because he wrote me there were few pages in the book as beautiful as mine. His ‘Atlantis’ in this Georgian Book is one of the most beautiful of modern poems. There is a rotten poem by Herbert Asquith and some paltry stuff by very good poets. Masefield is far from his best. 18 writers are included altogether. J.A. is having a lark I see.
Best love
ISAAC
March 7, 1918
MY DEAR MARSH
I see my sister has been on the warpath again, and after your scalp in her sisterly regard for me. They know my lackadaisical ways at home and have their own methods of forcing me to act. I have now put in for a transfer to the Jewish Batt — which I think is in Mesopotamia now. I think I should be climatized to the heat after my S. African experience. I’ll let you know if I get it. I am now in
8 Platoon, B Coy 1st. K.O.R.L. B.E.F.
as our old Batt broke up.
I saw the G.B. It does not match the first G.B. nor indeed any of the others in my mind. But I put that down to the War of course. Turner is very poetic. Masefield sentimentalizes in too Elizabethan a fashion. There is a vivid poem about Christ in the Tower I remember I liked very much. And of course G.B.’s ‘Atlantis’ stands out. I saw the book about 3 months ago and not for long. I was going into the trenches then. What have you done with your ‘Life of R.B.’ is it complete yet?
I’m sending this letter to Ministry of Mun because I sent a letter a month or so ago to Raymond Buildings and got no answer. If you are very busy do try and drop just a line so that I know you’ve rec my letter.
Yours sincerely
I ROSENBERG
April 2, 1918 — 28th March
MY DEAR MARSH
I think I wrote you I was about to go up the line again after our little rest. We are now in the trenches again and though I feel very sleepy, I just have a chance to answer your letter so I will while I may. Its really my being lucky enough to bag an inch of candle that incites me to this pitch of punctual epistolary. I must measure my letter by the light. First, this is my address
22311 Pte I R.
6 Platoon B Coy 1st K.O.R.L.
B.E.F.
We are very busy just now and poetry is right out of our scheme. I wrote one or two things in hospital about Xmas time but I don’t remember whether I sent them to you or not. I’ll send one, anyhow.
During our little interlude of rest from the line I managed to do a bit of sketching — somebody had colours — and they weren’t so bad, I don’t think I have forgotten my art after all. I’ve heard nothing further about the J.B. and of course feel annoyed — more because no reasons have been given me — but when we leave the trenches, I’ll enquire further. I don’t remember reading Freeman. I wanted to write a battle song for the Judaens but can think of nothing strong and wonderful enough yet. Here’s just a slight thing.
I’ve seen no poetry for ages now so you mustn’t be too critical — My vocabulary small enough before is impoverished and bare.
Yours sincerely
I ROSENBERG
The Paintings
The Whitechapel Gallery, a public art gallery on the north side of Whitechapel High Street, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets — Rosenberg exhibited artworks in this gallery in 1914.
LIST OF PAINTINGS
CONTENTS
Sea and Beach
Self-Portrait
Landscape with Flowering Trees
The Fountain
The Road
Head of a Woman, ‘Grey and Red’
Sacred Love
Landscape with River
Trees
Hark, Hark the Lark
Self-portrait
Self-Portrait
Sonia
Clare Winsten
Sea and Beach
1910
Self-Portrait
1910
Tate Gallery
Landscape with Flowering Trees
1911-1912
The Fountain
1911
The Road
1911
Imperial War Museum
Head of a Woman, ‘Grey and Red’
1912
Sacred Love
1912
Landscape with River
1911-1912
Trees
1912
Imperial War Museum
Hark, Hark the Lark
1912
Self-portrait
c. 1915
Self-Portrait
1915
Sonia
1915
Clare Winsten
1917
The Prose
Soldiers in The King’s Own Royal Lancaster Regiment — in 1916 Rosenberg was assigned to the 11th (Service) Battalion of The King’s Own Royal Lancaster Regiment — a bantam battalion for men under the usual minimum height of 5’3”.
Rosenberg, c. 1916
LIST OF PROSE WORKS
CONTENTS
ON A DOOR KNOCKER
RUDOLPH
THE PRE-RAPHAELITE EXHIBITION
ROMANCE AT THE BAILLIE GALLERIES
EMERSON
ART
UNCLE’S IMPRESSIONS IN THE WOODS AT NIGHT
WE HAVE HINTS, SUGGESTIONS
THE PRE-RAPHAELITES AND IMAGINATION IN PAINT
ON MODERN ART
THE SLADE AND ITS RELATIONS TO THE UNIVERSE
THE SLADE AND MODERN CULTURE
AN AGE THAT BELIEVES IN BLAKE AND TOLERATES TENNYSON
HIDDEN IN AIR, IN NATURE, ARE UNEXPLORED POWERS
WE NEVER EXCUSE THE ABSOLUTE WANT OF SPIRIT AND DIGNITY OF CHARACTER
ON NOSES
JOY
SHORT FRAGMENTS
ON A DOOR KNOCKER
This is essentially an age of romance. We no longer dream but we live the dream. Romance is no more a dim world outside the ordinary world, whose inhabitants are only poets and lovers, but wide, tangible and universal. Poets no longer hold exclusive monopoly of the clouds, but whosoever pleases (except the poet generally) can soar aloft on the wings of an aeroplane beyond the reach and ken of man. No longer is it the poet who brags of the rushing chariot of the whirlwind, for he alone is unable to afford a motor. In fact, the positions are reversed. The philistine has become the romanticist, and the poet th
e philistine; and he actually presumes to deny the purity of their romanticism on the grounds that achieving the ideal destroys the ideal, and the charm of existence is the illusion of it. Wherever we turn we see the unmistakable atmosphere of romance and strangeness, of a delightful incongruity, that might be a Japanese fantasy. The ragged newsboy bartering news and information to the gentleman in the high hat. The gentleman in the high hat benevolently making a picture of himself for us to enjoy the spectacle; and see, this charming young lady decked out as a draper’s front window, as if this were some merry carnival. In this age of romance we are bent so profoundly on romancing ourselves that we have little time to notice the romances of others. We read novels, true; but they are Hardy, Zola, Turgenev; dreadfully realistic, so as to get more zest from the romance of life, by contrast with this ugly realism. Few ever dream of considering — say — the romance of a door knocker. Its romantic pre-existence — its long subterraneous sojourn in purgatorial mines; its awakening to light, and the kingdom of man; the gradual stages of its development, make of it an object supremely romantic. We will take the knocker as it is, and study it in its aspect and relation to modern conditions; it must be worth while, having had such romantic development. We will see how the manners and customs, the tendencies of the age are reflected in the knocker.
Complete Works of Isaac Rosenberg Page 27
