To Gordon Bottomley
July 20, 1917
My sister wrote me of your note, and it made me very glad to feel you thought in that way about my poem, because I liked it myself above anything I have yet done. I know my letters are not what they should be; but I must take any chance I get of writing for fear another chance does not come, so I write hastily and leave out most I should write about. I wished to say last time a lot about your poem, but I could think of nothing that would properly express my great pleasure in it; and I can think of nothing now. If anything, I think it is too brief — although it is so rare and compressed and full of hinted matter. I wish I could get back and read your plays; and if my luck still continues, I shall. Leaves have commenced with us, but it may be a good while before I get mine. We are more busy now than when I last wrote, but I generally manage to knock something up if my brain means to, and I am sketching out a little play. My great fear is that I may lose what I’ve written, which can happen here so easily. I send home any bit I write, for safety, but that can easily get lost in transmission. However, I live in an immense trust that things will turn out well.
To the same
c. August 1917
The other poems I have not yet read, but I will follow on with letters and shall send the bits of — or rather the bit of — a play I’ve written. Just now it is interfered with by a punishment I am undergoing for the offence of being endowed with a poor memory, which continually causes me trouble and often punishment. I forgot to wear my gas-helmet one day; in fact, I’ve often forgotten it, but I was noticed one day, and seven days’ pack drill is the consequence, which I do between the hours of going up the line and sleep. My memory, always weak, has become worse since I’ve been out here.
1917, July
22311 Pte I Rosenberg
11th K.O.R.L. Regt.
Attached 229 Field Coy, R.Es.
B.E.F. France
DEAR MR SCHIFF
I was most glad to hear from you. I have just received your letter and its useful enclosure for which many thanks. I say I was most glad — but that is not quite true — your letter is too bitter. I did not get your letters in France and I often wondered about you, but things are so tumultuous and disturbing that unless one has everything handy, like an addressed envelope a pencil and a moment to spare one cannot write letters. One’s envelopes get stuck and useless with the damp and you cannot replace them. I managed to jot down some ideas for poems now and then but I wont send them to you because they are actual transcripts of the battlefield and you wont like that, anyway just now. I do hope you have exaggerated your feelings and are not so low in spirits as your letter makes out. We manage to keep cheerful out here in the face of most horrible things but then, we are kept busy, and have no time to brood. I hope your wife is well. My sister and my mother wish you well.
Yours sincerely
ISAAC ROSENBERG
I am sending you a good photo of myself in a day or two.
July 30, 1917
MY DEAR MARSH
I’m glad you’ve got your old job again and are Winston Churchill’s private sec once more, though it will be a pity if it will interfere with your literary projects. I thought that would happen when I heard he’d become Minister of Munitions. I can imagine how busy you will be kept and if you still mean to go on with your memoir and G.P.; you perhaps can imagine me, though of course my work pretty much leaves my brain alone especially as I have a decent job now and am not as rushed and worked as I was in the trenches. I will be glad to be included in the Georgian Book, and hope your other work won’t interfere with it. I’ve asked my sister (she recognises your helplessness about me, but I hope you were not too annoyed at her persistence; although I was; when I heard of it) not to send the Amulet because I’ve changed the idea completely and I think if I can work it out on the new lines it will be most clear and most extraordinary. Its called ‘The Unicorn’ now. I am stuck in the most difficult part; I have to feel a set of unusual emotions which I simply can’t feel yet. However if I keep on thinking about it it may come. We may not begin a letter with our address but work it in the text; I generally forget about it as I go on writing.
Pte I.R. 22311 11th K.O.R.L.
Attached 229 Field Coy R.E.s.
B.E.F.
I think with you that poetry should be definite thought and clear expression, however subtle; I don’t think there should be any vagueness at all; but a sense of something hidden and felt to be there; Now when my things fail to be clear I am sure it is because of the luckless choice of a word or the failure to introduce a word that would flash my idea plain, as it is to my own mind. I believe my Amazon poem to be my best poem. If there is any difficulty it must be in words here and there , the changing or elimination of which may make the poem clear. It has taken me about a year to write; for I have changed and rechanged it and thought hard over that poem and striven to get that sense of inexorableness the human (or inhuman) side of this war has. It even penetrates behind human life for the ‘Amazon’ who speaks in the second part of the poem is imagined to be without her lover yet, while all her sisters have theirs, the released spirits of the slain earth men; her lover yet remains to be released. I hope however to be home on leave, and talk it over, some time this side of the year. In my next letter I will try and send an idea of ‘The Unicorn’.
If you are too busy don’t bother about answering;
Yours sincerely
ISAAC ROSENBERG
To Gordon Bottomley
August 3, 1917
I don’t think I’ll get my play complete for it in time, though it will hardly take much space, it’s so slight. If I could get home on leave I’d work at it and get it done, no doubt, but leaves are so chancy. It’s called ‘The Unicorn’. Now, it’s about a decaying race who have never seen a woman; animals take the place of women, but they yearn for continuity. The chief’s Unicorn breaks away and he goes in chase. The Unicorn is found by boys outside a city and brought in, and breaks away again. Saul, who has seen the Unicorn on his way to the city for the week’s victuals, gives chase in his cart. A storm comes on, the mules break down, and by the lightning he sees the Unicorn race by; a naked black like an apparition rises up and easily lifts the wheels from the rut, and together they ride to Saul’s hut. There Lilith is in great consternation, having seen the Unicorn and knowing the legend of this race of men. The emotions of the black (the Chief) are the really difficult part of my story. Afterwards a host of blacks on horses, like centaurs and buffaloes, come rushing up, the Unicorn in front. On every horse is clasped a woman. Lilith faints, Saul stabs himself, the Chief places Lilith on the Unicorn, and they all race away.
c. August, 1917
DEAR FATHER
Ray wrote me card of the air raid, also your letter. Your miracle amused me very much and the story of the honey delighted me. I hope to be home before the new year but leaves are going very slowly in our division. So its no use building on it. Mrs. Herbert Cohen sent me a little book compiled by the Chief Rabbi of Jewish interest. There are good bits from the Talmud and from some old writers. A very little bit by Heine, nothing by Disraeli and a lot by Mr. Hertz and a few more rash people; I admire their daring, if not their judgement. Mrs. Cohen has paid all the expenses and a fuller anthology is coming out shortly; I hope some restraint and caution will be used this time. I think you will find Heine’s poems among my books, there is a beautiful poem called ‘Princess Sabbath’ among them, where the Jew who is a dog all the week, Sabbath night when the candles are lit, is transformed into a gorgeous prince to meet his bride the Sabbath.
I mention this because there is a feeble imitation of this in the anthology. If I am lucky and get home this side of the year you might keep Dave’s breeches for me.
Love to all
ISAAC
1917 August
MY DEAR MARSH
Is the poem clearer now? I felt the opening was the weak part and have struggled hard with it.
I am sure onc
e you get hold of it you will find it my best poem and most complete, most epic. I haven’t had the chance to work on ‘The Unicorn’ but will send you the central idea soon.
G. Bottomley wrote me Mr Abercrombie is a shell inspector now at Liverpool, but is living in Arabia between whiles, but says nothing of Parnassus. I shall have to find another daughter of war who elopes with his soul and the background will be a munition factory. Doubtless my usual obscurity will be serviceable this time, and save me from the wrath of a jealous wife.
Pte I R, 22311. 11th K.O.R.L. attached 229 Field Coy. R.Es. B.E.F.
I hope your job keeps you fit.
Yours sincerely
ISAAC ROSENBERG
September 1917
87 Dempsey St
Stepney E
DEAR MR SCHIFF
I am home on leave for 10 days. I called at your place but as you are away, I write this. I trust you’re fit and having a good time also Mrs Schiff. I’ll write a longer letter shortly.
Yours sincerely
ISAAC ROSENBERG
To Gordon Bottomley, on leave,
September 21, 1917
The greatest thing of my leave after seeing my mother was your letter which has just arrived... I wish I could have seen you, but now I must go on and hope that things will turn out well, and some happy day will give me the chance of meeting you... I am afraid I can do no writing or reading; I feel so restless here and un-anchored. We have lived in such an elemental way so long, things here don’t look quite right to me somehow; or it may be the consciousness of my so limited time here for freedom — so little time to do so many things bewilders me. ‘The Unicorn’, as will be obvious, is just a basis; its final form will be very different, I hope.
September 26, 1917
DEAR MR TREVELYAN
I rec your play and Annual. Thank you very much. The play is gorgeous, one of the chiefest pleasures of my leave days; and for this I thank you indeed. The ideas are exactly what we all think out there — and the court martial of the Kaiser and kings etc might have been copied from one of ours. The fun and the seriousness is splendidly managed together and I only wish the thing had the power of its purpose — I suppose it will be in the end through such literature that we will get satisfaction in the end — just as the French Revolution was the culmination of Revolutionary literature. I have not had the chance of looking at the Annual yet but will do so before I go back.
Yours sincerely
ISAAC ROSENBERG
1917, October
22311
A Coy 3 Platoon 11th K.O.R.L.
B.E.F.
DEAR FATHER
I am glad you are satisfied with my Yomtov energy. I had a letter from Minnie which I’ve answered. I suppose you will be home for the winter now. I am short of stationery so can’t write much, but everything is contained in ‘I’m fit’. Will write home as soon as I get stationery.
ISAAC
18th Oct. 1917
22311 Pte I Rosenberg
11th K.O.R.L. Att 229 Field Coy R.E.
Lines B.6. 51 General Hospital B.E.F. France
DEAR MR TREVELYAN
My sister sent your letter on to me here. I liked your letter and very much your little boy’s verses. ‘And the wind blows so violent’ takes me most; I hope he will always go direct to nature like that and not get too mixed up with artifice when he has more to say about nature. I brought your play back with me but I’m afraid its lost now. I lent it to a friend in the Batt but that day I fell sick and was sent down here to hospital. My sister is sending on Lucretius and I have time now to read so I will write you how it strikes me. Your play was all I read at home — I read it in bed — the rest of my time I spent very restlessly — going from one place to another and seeing and talking to as many people as I could. G. Bottomley sent me nearly all the poems in the annual before so I knew them. ‘Atlantis’ is an immense poem — and as good as anything else he has done. I saw friends of J.R. while on leave, and I don’t know whether he’s having a worse time than us; I hardly think so — Anyway, we’re all waiting.
Yours sincerely
ISAAC ROSENBERG
1917, November
DEAR MOTHER
Rec Parcel — everything in it champion — but really there is no need to send butter, eggs or Borsht, just now, at any rate. I suppose we get our food much easier than you — and in this village we get any amount of extra. I have not heard from Samuels so don’t know whether he is Colonel of the Batt. I applied for a transfer about a month ago but I fancy it fell through. I shall apply again. Neither Mrs. Cohen or Lowy have written to me though I have written. You can let them have my new address if you care to. Did you come across any notices of my thing in the Georgian Book? I don’t know who the Sergeant was Annie saw — several are on leave now — they mostly live in the North of England though. I hope our Russian cousins are happy now. Trotsky, I imagine will look after the interests of his co religionists — Russia is like an amputated limb to our cause and America is the cork substitute: I doubt whether she is more. 8 Platoon B Coy 1st Batt. K.O.R.L. B.E.F.. I hope you manage to get things all right and comfortably. We hear such rotten tales about home.
Love to all
ISAAC
To Miss Seaton written in Hospital,
Autumn 1917
I was very glad to have your letter and know there is no longer a mix-up about letters and suchlike. Always the best thing to do is to answer at once, that is the likeliest way of catching one, for we shift about so quickly; how long I will stay here I cannot say: it may be a while or just a bit. I have some Shakespeare: the Comedies and also ‘Macbeth’. Now I see your argument and cannot deny my treatment of your criticisms, but have you ever asked yourself why I always am rude to your criticisms? Now, I intended to show you— ‘s letters and why I value his criticisms. I think anybody can pick holes and find unsound parts in any work of art; anyone can say Christ’s creed is a slave’s creed, the Mosaic is a vindictive, savage creed, and so on. It is the unique and superior, the illuminating qualities one wants to find — discover the direction of the impulse. Whatever anybody thinks of a poet he will always know himself: he knows that the most marvellously expressed idea is still nothing; and it is stupid to think that praise can do him harm. I know sometimes one cannot exactly define one’s feelings nor explain reasons for liking and disliking; but there is then the right of a suspicion that the thing has not been properly understood or one is prejudiced. It is much my fault if I am not understood, I know; but I also feel a kind of injustice if my idea is not grasped and is ignored, and only petty cavilling at form, which I had known all along was so, is continually knocked into me. I feel quite sure that form is only a question of time. I am afraid I am more rude than ever, but I have exaggerated here the difference between your criticisms and— ‘s. Ideas of poetry can be very different too. Tennyson thought Burns’ love-songs important, but the ‘Cottar’s S.N.’ poor. Wordsworth thought the opposite.
Late 1917
22311
Pte I Rosenberg 11th K.O.R.L. Att 229 Field Coy
RE Lines B.6. 51 General Hospital B.E.F. France
DEAR MR TREVELYAN
Your Lucretius arrived in all its beauty of type and cover. It is a noble poem and I wish it were printed in a more compressed form so that one could have it in the pocket and read it more. It does not sound like a translation the words seem so natural to the thought. Hamlet’s enquiring nature so mixed with theology, superstition, penetration, may be more human and general — But Lucretius as a mood, definite, is fine, proud philosophy. I can say no more than I got deep pleasure from it and thank you very much. I’m reading some Shakespeare — Sturge Moore, G. Bottomley, H. G. Wells — Sturge Moore delights me — they are only small things I mean as number of words go, — but he is after my own heart. You know what I think of G.B. And that old hawker of immortality how glad one feels, he is not a witness of these terrible times — he would only have been flung into this terrible distructi
on, like the rest of us. Anyway we all hope it’ll all end well.
Yours sincerely
ISAAC ROSENBERG
To Miss Seaton written in Hospital,
November 15, 1917
London may not be the place for poetry to keep healthy in, but Shakespeare did most of his work there, and Donne, Keats, Milton, Blake — I think nearly all our big poets. But, after all, that is a matter of personal likings or otherwise. Most of the French country I have seen has been devastated by war, torn up — even the woods look ghastly with their shell-shattered trees; our only recollections of warm and comfortable feelings are the rare times amongst human villages, which happened about twice in a year; but who can tell what one will like or do after the war? If the twentieth century is so awful, tell me what period you believe most enviable. Even Pater points out the Renaissance was not an outburst — it was no simultaneous marked impulse of minds living in a certain period of time — but scattered and isolated.
Complete Works of Isaac Rosenberg Page 26