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A Reading on Isaac Rosenberg's War Poetry

This paper attempts to introduce Isaac Rosenberg's war poetry written during the First World War. Rosenberg reveals the reality of war through his own war experience and his participation on the Western Front. In order to understand his war poetry, I introduced Rosenberg's early childhood and educational background. He was the son of poor Jewish immigrant in Bristol, England. He was interested in painting and particularly good at writing poetry. As soon as World War I broke out, he returned to England from South Africa and enlisted as a soldier, as most young people did. As opposed to most war poets, Rosenberg was not an officer but a simple soldier. In this paper, I classified Rosenberg's war poetry in three periods; the early period, the middle period, and the last period. In his early period, Rosenberg watched the war with an objective attitude as a mere observer writing his poems based on his experiences as a soldier. In the middle period, he viewed the war as a severe, horrific and disgusting immortal darkness through his famous poems from the trench. In the last period, he revealed his transcendental view toward the war and also accepted his religious attitude from the war poems. By reading Rosenberg's war poetry, I was able to grasp his own unique style toward war poetry, where he showed his introvert and shy personality based on his biographical background. This paper reveals that Rosenberg's unique personality accounts for the difference between his war poetry and other's war poetry.