Complete Works of Isaac Rosenberg

by Isaac Rosenberg

  Since I wrote last I have been given a job behind the lines and very rarely go into the trenches. My address is c/o 40th Divisional Coy Officer. B.E.F. Pte I Rosenberg 22311. It is more healthy but not absolutely safe from shells as we get those noisy visitors a good many times a day even here.

  Yours sincerely

  ISAAC ROSENBERG

  August 1916

  DEAR MR SCHIFF

  Thank you for your letter which gave me great pleasure. With your letter was a post card sent a week or so before the letter but which only reached me now. Trevor Blakemore’s letter was a good one and I enjoyed the manner of it. What he says is good, also, but though I agree with most part of it about over involved simplification etc. I think we would be at loggerheads in our ideas of technique. I mean to make my next play a model of lucidity. I have never read ‘King Lear’s Wife’. (Is that the book you’re sending me, because Marsh, who brought the book out, gave me the first Georgian B; however, either would delight me.) ‘The End of the World’ in the first Georgian Book stands by itself in the language. I do not think there is any modern poet with the subtlety and energy of mind and art that Bottomley has. John Drinkwater, I could never read, he seems so dull to me and Rupert Brooke has written one fine poem with depth, ‘Town and country’. I don’t like his other work much, they remind me too much of flag days. I am so glad you are in a happy place and the weather is all you wish it to be. Gertler once told me you had written a novel and I look forward to seeing it when I get back, and the new one. Prose is so diffuse and has not the advantages of poetry. The novels I like best are those terrific conceptions of Balzac, and one I read of Stendhal’s. Hardy I think is a better poet than novelist. There is so much unessential writing one puts in a novel and yet which must be there, at the same time, that makes me regard novel writing as a mistaken art.

  I will write the moment I receive the book. Did I acknowledge your papers?

  Yours sincerely

  I ROSENBERG

  August 17, 1916

  MY DEAR MARSH

  You didn’t get my letter because it was never sent; however time has put it all to rights again and there’s no need to bother you about it. Thank you for showing my thing to Rothenstein. I value his praise very much.

  G. Bottomley sent me ‘King Lear’s Wife’. I do think it magnificent as a play and some stunning poetry in it too. There are few men living who could whack that as a play.

  We are kept pretty busy now, and the climate here is really unhealthy; the doctors themselves can’t stand it. We had an exciting time today, and though this is behind the firing line and right out of the trenches there were quite a good many sent to heaven and the hospital. I carried one myself in a handcart to the hospital, (which often is the antichamber to heaven.)

  Binyon wrote me a letter about Moses with the paternal rod half raised in one hand and some sweets and chocolates in the other. But it was a letter I feel grateful for and very good criticism. He says my poetry comes out in clotted gushes and spasms. He has been to France and is back in England now.

  Write me if you get time as you know a letter (especially Strakers Stationery) is a bit — a very tiny bit like London.

  I ROSENBERG

  August 1916

  DEAR MR SCHIFF

  Your Georgian B. has arrived at last; many many thanks. I pounced on King Lear’s Wife, and though it was not more than I expected, it was not less. The only fault I can find is in the diction. It has the aspect of talking to children, in some places.

  Goneril is marvellously drawn. Lear is a bit shadowy perhaps, but altogether as a poetic drama, it is of the very highest kind. The conception of Lear making love to the servant beside the bedside of his dying wife is unsurpassable.

  In one way I do not think the play equal to some things in ‘Chambers of Imagery’; at least I never got that startling pleasure from the play as I did from those. Rupert Brooke’s poem on Clouds is marvellous; his style offends me; it is gaudy and reminiscent. The second half of the second line, and the whole of the 4th line are so uninteresting. Fogetting these it is a really wonderful thing. I also received your packet of papers which I’ve had no time yet to look into. I trust you’ve heard well of your nephews. I wonder how Bomberg behaves. I must write to him.

  Is the novel growing? I am a bad midwife to ideas just lately and only bring out abhortions.

  Yours sincerely

  I ROSENBERG

  August 1916

  DEAR MR SCHIFF

  Many thanks for your letter and the papers. I’ll wait till I get back to England to learn French as I can’t concentrate on it here. The French poets I think have given a nasty turn to English thought. It is all Cafe Royal poetry now. The Germans are far finer though they are fine through Baudelaire. Heine, our own Heine, we must say nothing of. I admire him more for always being a Jew at heart than anything else. Personally I am very fond of our Celtic Rabelais. Of Butler I know very little, but Shaw in spite of his topsy turvy manner seems to me to be very necessary. Anyhow his plays are the only plays I can stand at the theatre. I mean of course of the plays that are played on the stage. He has no subtlety, no delicate irony, none of the rarer qualities. But his broad satire is good.

  Yours sincerely,

  I. ROSENBERG

  August 1916

  22311

  A Coy 3 Platoon

  11th K.O.R.L. B.E.F.

  MY DEAR MARSH

  I know the terrible length of my new address will make an excellent excuse for not replying; I hope however, it will not frighten you. I am back again in the trenches. I have a notion the Artist rifles have been somewhere about because I fancy I recognized a Fitzroy Street flea, but I couldn’t swear to it. I have been forbidden to send poems home, as the censor won’t be bothered with going through such rubbish, or I would have sent you one I wrote about our armies, which I am rather bucked about. I have asked the ‘Nation’ to print it, if they do, you will see it there. The ‘Georgian book’ was sent out to me here. Brooke’s poem on ‘Clouds’ is magnificent. Gordon Bottomley has been writing me warm letters. He is a great man and I feel most pained about his condition. Do you know anything about artists out here to disguise things, landscape sheds etc. Col S J Solomon is their Chief I believe and I know him a bit. I wonder if I’d be any good at it. Who would I have to approach about it. Do write.

  Yours sincerely

  ISAAC ROSENBERG

  Late August 1916

  DEAR MR SCHIFF

  As soon as I had sent my letter off to you I wrote this little thing. I believe Mr Massingham will like it better than the other you showed him, though I of course prefer the other. I am not sending it to any other paper.

  How is the novel progressing.

  Yours sincerely

  ISAAC ROSENBERG

  Late August 1916

  22311

  A Coy, 3 Platoon,

  11th K.O.R.L. B.E.F.

  DEAR MR SCHIFF

  I sent the poem to Mr Massingham. Nation. It makes things so complicated when there is no reply, as one can’t show it elsewhere. I am back in the Trenches now and my address is altered as you notice. Thank you for Lawrence offer but cloth books are so bulky and impossible out here. I have sent home the Georgian book. I know his poems a little and admire his power, but not his outlook. I suppose he is the necessary spokesman for people that way inclined. It is a pity you are chucking your novel, but of course, you would know best. I read an excellent poem in the Westminster Gazette, it got the prize there; it begins ‘Me and Bill and Ginger’ do you know who wrote it? Its by someone at the front.

  I am sorry I can’t date my letters as you ask but I never know the date and one can’t choose your own time as to sending letters. I generally write when I see the postman coming to collect, if I get the chance.

  Yours sincerely

  ISAAC ROSENBERG

  1916 August

  22311

  A Coy 3 platoon

  11th K.O.R.L. B.E.F.

  DEAR M
R SCHIFF

  Thanks very much for papers. I liked the article on the Somme Cinemas; Of course Chesterton on Zangwill was nearer home; but C seems sly and certainly anti Jewish. We are having rotten wet weather in the trenches, mucky and souzing and cold. I don’t think I’ve been dry yet, these last 3 days. Bottomley is a permanent invalid and lives quietly in the North of England. I don’t think he’s ever troubled much about his work though they have made more headway in Yankeeland than here. I think him in many ways our best poet. He has an extraordinary dramatic power and quite new. There is a lovely delicacy about his work as if shaken about strength, as powerful as any of those sledge hammer bawlers which many people will accept alone for strength. His enfeebled condition is a great loss to literature as it lessens his output.

  Yours sincerely,

  ISAAC ROSENBERG

  I forgot to mention the rejected masterpiece. Its adventures must have been various and many, to judge by the interminable length of time it took to reach me again; it must have been handled by angels too, for the printless pressure of their fingers on the paper could be felt but not seen. Gordon Bottomley thought the lines from 2 to 5 first rate poetry, but thought the whole thing seemed like a long interjection. Well, I had meant to go on with it.

  22311. A Coy. 11th Batt. K.O.R.L. rgt

  3 Platoon

  British Expeditionary Force France

  DEAR MR TREVELYAN

  My sister sent me your letter on, which I answered; but as certain other letters I sent off at the same time went astray I surmise that one was lost as well, so I am writing again. The other side of this sheet is a very crude sketch of how I look here in this dugout. I’ll write out at the end of this letter a little poem of the troop ship where I try to describe in words the contortions we get into to try and wriggle ourselves into a little sleep. Of course if you’re lucky and get a decent dugout you sleep quite easily — when you get the chance, otherwise you must sleep standing up, or sitting down, which latter is my case now. I must say that it has made me very happy to know you like my work so much; very few people do, or, at least, say so; and I believe I am a poet.

  Here in the trenches where we are playing this extraordinary gamble, your letter made me feel refreshed and fine. I hope Bottomley is quite better by now — he is a man whose work (I have only read ‘Chambers of Imagery’) has made me feel more rare and delicately excited feelings, than any poetry I have ever read. The little poem ‘Nimrod’ the image in the first stanza to me is one of the most astonishing in all literature. Another thing that seems to me too astounding for comment, is Abercrombie’s Hymn to Love.

  I hope we may some day be able to talk these things over.

  Yours sincerely

  ISAAC ROSENBERG

  22311 A Coy. 3. Platoon

  11th. Batt. K.O.R.L. B.E.F.

  DEAR SONIA

  I have been anxious to hear from you about Rodker. I wrote to Trevelyan (he thinks me a big knut at poetry) and asked him for news but I fancy my letter got lost. Write me any news — anything. I seem to have been in France, ages. I wish Rodker were with me, the infernal lingo is a tragedy with me and he’d help me out. If I was taciturn in England I am 10 times so here; our struggle to express ourselves is a fearful joke. However our wants are simple, our cash is scarce, and our time is precious, so French would perhaps be superfluous. I’d hardly believe French manners are so different to ours, but I leave all this for conversation. Here’s a little poem a bit commonplace I’m afraid.

  Yours sincerely

  ISAAC ROSENBERG

  1916 October

  22211 A Coy 3 Platoon

  11th K.O.R.L. B.E.F.

  DEAR MISS LOWY,

  I did not send K.L.W. as I hadn’t the chance and am most glad you had already read and liked it. We have been on the march almost all the time since I last wrote to you and it has been impossible to do anything one wanted to do. King Lear’s Wife is remarkable. The conception of the king’s love making at the bedside of his dying wife is marvellous. I chiefly admire the simple beauty of the writing and the characterization of Goneril — hard and beautiful. If you can, do get his ‘Chambers of Imagery’. I like some things there perhaps better than the play. He wrote me when he read my ‘Moses’ that the ‘Ah Kolue’ speech, and two or three other speeches was the ‘very top of poetry’.

  He is a permanent invalid and it gives him hell to write much. He has written me most warm letters out here and I feel really happy when I hear his work is enjoyed.

  I spent my wild little pick-a-back days in Bristol; was born there, too. I have some vague far away memories of the name of Polack in connection I fancy with Hebrew classes and prize giving. It pleases me much that my poems are liked in my natal place — a fate so opposite to the usual — but probably that is because they are unaware of it being my natal place.

  G.B. has urged me to write Jewish Plays. I am quite sure if I do I will be boycotted and excommunicated, that is, assuming my work is understood. My ‘Moses’ is a hard pill to swallow and should I get the chance of working on it and amplifying it as I wish — it will be harder still. Mrs. Cohen sent me her book. It is interesting but my idea of poetry is something deeper than that. She sent me papers too and I notice there Gilbert Cannan has written a novel called ‘Mendel’. I fancy as far as I can make out, Gertler is the hero. Gertler is or was on very friendly terms with Cannan, and lived with him a long time. Cannan is very clever and is ranked very high as a satirical novelist, a kind of Piccadilly Voltaire. I must stop now as we have no more lights.

  Yours sincerely

  ISAAC ROSENBERG

  To Harriet Monroe

  1916 October

  Could you let me know whether a poem of mine ‘Marching’ has been printed by you, as I understood from J. Rodker, it was accepted. I have no means of knowing, or seeing your magazine out here, I have lost touch with Rodker... I am enclosing a poem or two written in trenches...

  October 10, 1916

  22311 A Coy 3 platoon

  11th K.O.R.L. B.E.F.

  MY DEAR MARSH

  You complain in your letter that there is little to write about; my complaint is rather the other way, I have too much to write about, but for obvious reasons my much must be reduced to less than your little. My exaggerated way of feeling things when I begin to write about them might not have quite healthy consequences.

  I was most glad to hear about Bottomley. He has been writing me warm letters and I was greatly pained to find so fine a nature possessing so frail a hold on health and I am always most anxious about him and to hear anything of him.

  My Lilith has eloped with that devil procrastination, or rather, labours of a most colossal and uncongenial shape have usurped her place and driven her blonde and growing beauty away. I have written something that still wants knocking into shape. I feel too tired to copy it out, but later on I will, if you care to see it. I came across that poem on clouds by poor Rupert Brooke. It is magnificent indeed, and as near to sublimity as any modern poem.

  The poem I like best of modern times is Abercrombie’s Hymn to Love. It is more weighty in thought, alive in passion and of a more intense imagination than any I know. I was amused to hear of your gardening experiment. I suppose one must get interested in things different to our usual interests and get our thoughts shaken up a bit nowadays or it would be Hell going on. Do write when you can.

  Yours sincerely

  ISAAC ROSENBERG

  To Laurence Binyon,

  Autumn 1916

  It is far, very far, to the British Museum from here (situated as I am, Siberia is no further and certainly no colder), but not too far for that tiny mite of myself, my letter, to reach there. Winter has found its way into the trenches at last, but I will assure you, and leave to your imagination, the transport of delight with which we welcomed its coming. Winter is not the least of the horrors of war. I am determined that this war, with all its powers for devastation, shall not master my poeting; that is, if I am lucky enough to come th
rough all right. I will not leave a corner of my consciousness covered up, but saturate myself with the strange and extraordinary new conditions of this life, and it will all refine itself into poetry later on. I have thoughts of a play round our Jewish hero, Judas Maccabeus. I have much real material here, and also there is some parallel in the savagery of the invaders then to this war. I am not decided whether truth of period is a good quality or a negative one. Flaubert’s ‘Salambo’ proves, perhaps, that it is good. It decides the tone of the work, though it makes it hard to give the human side and make it more living. However, it is impossible now to work and difficult even to think of poetry, one is so cramped intellectually.

  Pte I Rosenberg

  Address deleted by the censor.

  DEAR MR TREVELYAN

  Your letter came with a second one of Bottomley’s. His first was all praise and his second all criticism; but his criticism was higher praise than any praise I had been given before. His letter was full of fine writing and useful tips and I feel very grateful for it, and to you for first showing my things to him. I had been meaning to write to him for some time, in fact, when I first read him, but I always thought to myself, — wait till you have something worthy to show him! It was only coming out to France and the risk of being knocked over made me print the poems hurriedly.