Chapter 27 - Isaac Rosenberg (1890–1918)

Summary

The poet/painter Isaac Rosenberg‘s poverty, education, and Jewish upbringing made him an outsider, yet this experience equipped him to cope with the unforeseen horror of war in the trenches: ‘I am determined that this war, with all its powers for devastation, shall not master my poetry.’ At first overshadowed by Brooke, Sassoon, and Owen, Rosenberg, whose background and poetic achievement insistently challenged contemporary judgements, increasingly symbolised those outside the established cultural canons. It was the poets who read and absorbed his work; and those of the next war who found in him an alternative voice which spoke to them. In the 1950s/60s that difference of approach, which had seemingly marginalised Rosenberg, now interested younger poets and eventually critics and the wider public. The originality and strength of his poetry were rooted in the struggle with the opposing elements of his life, which did not follow the conventions of any role he played: East End Jew, poet, painter or soldier.