Poems By Isaac Rosenberg

Isaac Rosenberg (1890-1918) is commemorated as one of the greatest War poets in Westminster Abbey. He was born in Bristol into the Jewish Faith but later moved to London to become an apprentice engraver. He was called up in 1915 and died in 1918 at the Battle of the Somme. His War poetry depicts in vivid detail the horror and sadness of war.

Isaac Rosenberg was among the greatest poets of the First World War. The British-born son of impoversihed Russian Jews, Rosenberg fought as a private in the trenches of the Great Was and died on the Western Front in 1918 as the age of 27. In Isaac Rosenberg, Wilson examines the influence of Rosenberg's class and heritage on his writings, as well as the development of his poetic technique. She traces his maturation from his childhood in Bristol and the Jewish East End of London to art school, his travels to South Africa, and finally his harrowing service as a private in the British Army. Rosenberg was also a gifted painter and this beautifully illustrated volume oncludes some hitherto inseen self-portraits, along with photogrpahs of Rosenberg and his family. Wilson's biogrpahy brings together all known Rosenberg material with a mass of important new discoveries. Isaac Rosenberg is a long-overdue consideration of a remarkable war poet.

This is the first scholarly edition of the poetry of Isaac Rosenberg. Although he is generally described as a First World War poet, this edition also highlights his pre-war achievement as a writer of powerful individual work. Drawing on a detailed analysis of manuscript sources, it offers unrivalled insight into the process of his poetic thought. His numerous drafts have been transcribed in full or given as textual variants so that, for the first time, the reader is able to followthe extraordinary way in which he built up his poems by composing individual lines which he then assembled into the finished work: 'that is the only way I can write, in scraps, & then join them together - I have the one idea in mind' he wrote in 1914. Extensive cross-referencing, in particular withthe plays, throws light on his re-use of poetic images and ideas; his methods, and the frequent hardships under which he worked, are further illuminated by a detailed description of many of the manuscripts. The mis-reading of some texts, and errors in dating, in earlier editions have been rectified, while a detailed chronological summary offers biographical information. The introduction and commentary examine textual matters, dating and ordering; people, places, and historical and biographicalcontext; and the way in which, especially while working in isolation as a private soldier in France, he was able to share critical ideas and thoughts on individual poems with his peers.

In the first volume to be published in the new 21st-Century Oxford Authors series Vivien Noakes presents all of Isaac Rosenberg's surviving writings - poetry, plays, prose works, and letters - with an introduction and commentary addressed to the student and general reader. There are also examples of Rosenberg's paintings and drawings.

Isaac Rosenberg has long been regarded as one of the most important artistic figures of the First World War. His poems, such as "Dead Man's Dump" and "Break of Day in the Trenches", have been included in every significant war anthology and have earned him a place in Poets' Corner. He studied at the Slade School of Art at the same time as Stanley Spencer and Mark Gertler, showing promise as a painter. His poverty, education and background made him an outsider, yet equipped him to cope with the unforeseen horror of war in the trenches.