I
Of the many young poets who gave their lives in the war, Isaac Rosenberg
was not the least gifted. Adverse circumstances, imperfect education,
want of opportunity, impeded and obscured his genius; but whatever
criticism be made of his poetry, its faults are plainly those of excess
rather than deficiency. His writing was often difficult and obscure,
because he instinctively thought in images and did not sufficiently
appreciate the limitations of language. Also, a continual fear of being
empty or thin led him to an over-intricate complexity. But there was no
incoherence in his mind. And the main object of these notes, beyond
recording the facts of his life, is to illustrate the growth and
workings of his mind from his own letters, which will be the best
commentary on his poems.
I cannot precisely fix the date, but it must have been some time in
1912, when one morning there came to me a letter in an untidy hand from
an address in Whitechapel, enclosing some pages of verse on which
criticism was asked, and signed “Isaac Rosenberg.” It was impossible not
to be struck by something unusual in the quality of the poems. Thoughts
and emotions of no common nature struggled for expression, and at times
there gushed forth a pure song which haunted the memory.
I answered at once, and the next day received another letter which told
me something about my unknown correspondent. In this letter, which, like
nearly all his letters, is undated, he wrote:
“I must thank you very much for your encouraging reply to my poetical
efforts.... As you are kind enough to ask about myself, I am sending a
sort of autobiography I wrote about a year ago.... You will see from
that that my circumstances have not been very favourable for artistic
production; but generally I am optimistic, I suppose because I am young
and do not properly realize the difficulties. I am now attending the
Slade, being sent there by some wealthy Jews who are kindly interested
in me, and, of course, I spend most of my time drawing. I find writing
interferes with drawing a good deal, and is far more exhausting.”
He went on to tell of his admirations, Rossetti coming first for him
among modern artists. He had seen very little of early Italian art, but
divined that theirs was the type of art which he thought the only kind
worth having—“expression through passionate colour and definite
design”—not “a moment frozen on to canvas,” but “the spontaneity of
un-selfconscious and childlike nature—infinity of suggestion—that is as
much part and voice of the artist’s soul as the song to the bird.” As to
modern poets, they were “difficult to get hold of” (their volumes being
expensive), but he had an immense admiration for Francis Thompson—“that
is the sort of poetry that appeals most to me.” He had done nothing yet
in painting which he would care to show. He aspired to do imaginative
work, but at present was practising portraiture, as it was necessary to
earn a living.
At my invitation Rosenberg came to see me. Small in stature, dark,
bright-eyed, thoroughly Jewish in type, he seemed a boy with an unusual
mixture of self-reliance and modesty. Indeed, no one could have had a
more independent nature. Obviously sensitive, he was not touchy or
aggressive. Possessed of vivid enthusiasms, he was shy in speech. One
found in talk how strangely little of second-hand (in one of his age)
there was in his opinions, how fresh a mind he brought to what he saw
and read. There was an odd kind of charm in his manner which came from
his earnest, transparent sincerity.
The “sort of autobiography,” which I have never seen since I returned it
to him, and has perhaps been destroyed, was the story of a youth,
mentally ambitious, introspective, dissatisfied with his surroundings,
consumed by secret desires for liberation and self-expression.
The external facts of his life are briefly told. For these I am mainly
indebted to his sister, Mrs. Wynick, whose devotion to her brother and
his work was at all times unwearied. She gave much of a scanty
leisure-time to typing copies of his poems, and many of them would have
been lost but for her care in preserving them.
Isaac Rosenberg was born at Bristol on the 25th of November, 1890. When
he was seven he came to London with his parents. The family settled in
the East End. The boy was sent to the Board School of St. George’s in
the East, and afterwards to the Stepney Board School. From childhood he
showed a natural gift both for drawing and for writing. While at the
Stepney school his promise appeared so remarkable that the headmaster
allowed him to spend all his time in these pursuits. Out of school he
would draw with chalks on the street pavement. Reading poetry was a
passion with him. At the age of fourteen he was reluctantly obliged to
leave school. His parents were poor; and though they took great pride in
his gifts, he was one of a family of eight, and he must now earn his
living. He was apprenticed, therefore, to the firm of Carl Hentschel, in
Fleet Street. A trade connected with art was chosen for him as a
stepping-stone to a painter’s career, and as something to fall back upon
in case his resources failed him. But he hated trade, and felt in
bondage. In his meal-times he consoled himself by writing poems; in the
evenings he went to classes at the Art School of Birkbeck College. He
worked hard and won many prizes. Mr. Frank Emanuel, the painter, who
befriended and encouraged him at this time, describes him as having been
made “bitter and despondent by his circumstances”; and his letters
reveal fits of the deepest dejection against which his will contended.
The uncongenial work came at last to an end. The sense of liberation was
at first intoxicating. Yet work had to be found, and Isaac was
determined to pursue art and nothing else. He met at first with
disappointment, and endured many privations. But before long he found
good friends. Mr. Amschewitz, an artist, and Mr. Samuels warmly
interested themselves in his behalf. Through them he made the
acquaintance of three ladies, Mrs. Josephs, Mrs. Herbert Cohen, and Mrs.
Lowy, who undertook to provide the means for his training at the Slade
School.
Through Mr. Emanuel’s friendship he had become a member of “The
Limners,” a club of artists and art teachers, which met at Mr. Emanuel’s
studio. Here he had the opportunity of meeting other artists and
exchanging ideas. Prizes were given, which young Rosenberg occasionally
won. In spite, therefore, of his poverty and unpropitious surroundings,
he had now won sympathetic friends, and received both encouragement and
material help from discerning compatriots. But with his sensitive
artist’s pride and jealous independence of spirit, he was not always
easy to understand; and those who, with the sole desire to help him,
advanced his circumstances sometimes felt that their efforts did not
seem to be appreciated. The case is not unfamiliar to readers of
artists’ biographies.
Rosenberg went to the Slade School in October, 1911, and remained till
March, 1914. He won prizes at the school and praise from his teachers.
Thrown among contemporaries, all occupied with the problems of art and
the discussion of them, he became tinged with the temper and the
prevalent ideas of his own generation of students. His natural bent, I
think, was in another direction. He showed me drawings and studies from
time to time, and I saw a few of his paintings when they were exhibited
one summer at the Whitechapel Gallery. He was full of ideas, was a
capable draughtsman, and could conceive an interesting design. Yet, to
judge from what I have seen of his work, it did not seem to be for him
the inevitable means of expression. He once showed me at his studio a
large, ambitious composition—an oil-painting—which I fancy was never
completed. I cannot recall the nominal subject, but it was saturated
with symbolism and required a good deal of explanation. I liked the
mysteriousness of it, and the ideas which inspired the painting had
suggested figures and groups and visionary glimpses of landscape which
had passages of real beauty, though the whole work had grown impossibly
complex with its convolutions of symbolic meaning. It reminded me of his
poetry; and I think that represented his natural bent in art. Had he
been born half a century earlier, he would have been an ardent disciple
of Rossetti. But he could not escape from the mental atmosphere of his
own generation, in which so “literary” a conception of painting was
bound to wither in discouragement. Later, he showed me some studies of
landscape and portrait which he had made in South Africa. These were in
a more “modern” vein of realism, but they seemed to fail in the quality
of force, to which all other qualities had been, in intention,
sacrificed. They had no personal savour. Like every generous and
ambitious youth, Rosenberg wished his own generation to do glorious
things, and wished to belong to it as a comrade. Whether he would have
emerged and found himself as a painter is a doubtful conjecture. I think
it possible that he would have abandoned painting. For his true vocation
was poetry, and he thought of himself as a poet rather than as a
painter.
He had begun to write verse at a very early age. Mr. Morley Dainow, who
was at the time librarian in the Whitechapel Public Library, was
approached one day by a Jewish girl who wanted advice and help for her
young brother. His aim in life, she said, was to be a poet. The next day
the boy was brought to the library. Isaac then seemed to be between ten
and twelve years of age. He had already determined to be a poet and a
painter. He interested and impressed Mr. Dainow, and in return for his
friendly encouragement sent him a poem called “David’s Harp.” These are
the earliest verses of Rosenberg’s that Mr. Bottomley or I have seen.
They are not printed in this book, but they are interesting because they
show how, even as a young boy, Rosenberg cherished the traditions of his
race and aspired to become a representative poet of his own nation.
Moses and Judas Maccabæus were intended to be themes of his maturer
poetry. “David’s Harp” is in fluent stanzas, and shows the passing
influence of Byron.
The pamphlet called “Night and Day,” printed in 1912, contains probably
all that Rosenberg cared to preserve of his early verse, though no doubt
it represented but a small selection from what he had written.
After leaving the Slade School, he found himself faced with a harder
struggle than ever. But he never admitted defeat. He sold a few pictures
and got a few poems into print, but his health was now a cause for
anxiety. His lungs were thought to be affected, and he was advised to
try a warmer climate. Having a married sister in Cape Town, he thought
of South Africa, and in June, 1914, he sailed for the Cape. Here he made
one or two friends, painted some pictures, taught a little, gave a few
lectures, and published some poems and articles. But the visit was not a
material success, and he returned disappointed and despondent. Soon
after his return, in 1915, he printed a second pamphlet of verse,
“Youth.” But he was restless and unhappy, and could not work. It was now
that he enlisted in the Army. From this date onward he had practically
no time for painting, but he continued to write till the end. “Moses”
was printed in 1916. He was first in a Bantam regiment, then in the
King’s Own Royal Lancasters, and after a period of training at Bury St.
Edmunds and at Farnborough went out, early in 1916, to France. No one
could have been less fitted for a military life. He suffered not only
from physical disability, bad health, and sensitiveness, but from the
absent-mindedness of one whose imagination was possessed by his poetic
schemes. “My mind will not relinquish its poetical yearnings,” he wrote,
“and concentration on alien things and dull has strained my memory.” But
he endured the inhuman horror of modern war with a great heart; he would
not have liked to be called a hero, but his fortitude was truly heroic.
On the first of April, 1918, he was killed in action.