Rosenberg's Letters

Letters about his own Work

1910?

1910?
[To Miss Seaton]

It is horrible to think that all these hours are full of vigour and my hands and soul craving for self-expression, I am bound, chained to this fiendish mangling-machine, without hope and almost desire of deliverance, and the days of youth go by...I have tried to make some sort of self-adjustment to circumstances by saying, 'It is all experience'; but, good God! it is all experience, and nothing else...I really would like to take up painting seriously; I think I might do something at that; but poetry Ð I despair of ever writing excellent poetry. I can't look at things in the simple, large way that great poets do. My mind is so cramped and dulled and fevered, there is no consistency of purpose, no oneness of aim; the very fibres are torn apart, and application deadened by the fiendish persistence of the coil of circumstance.

July 1916

To Gordon Bottomley [postmarked July 23, 1916]

Your letter came to-day with Mr Trevelyan's, like two friends to take me for a picnic. Or rather like friends come to release the convict from his chains with his innocence in their hands, as one sees in the twopenny picture palace. You might say, friends come to take you to church, or the priest to the prisoner. Simple poetry -that is where an interesting complexity of thought is kept in tone and right value to the dominating idea so that it is understandable and still ungraspable. I know it is beyond my reach just now, except, perhaps, in bits. I am always afraid of being empty. When I get more leisure in more settled times I will work on a larger scale and give myself room; then I may be less frustrated in my efforts to be clear, and satisfy myself too. I think what you say about getting beauty by phrasing of passages rather than the placing of individual words very fine and very true.

May 1917

Postmarked May 27, 1917

My Dear Mr Marsh

I liked your criticism of 'Dead mans dump'. Mr Binyon has often sermonised lengthily over my working on two different principles in the same thing and I know how it spoils the unity of a poem. But if I couldn't before, I can now, I am sure, plead the absolute necessity of fixing an idea before it is lost, because of the situation its conceived in. Regular rhythms I do not like much, but of course it depends on where the stress and accent are laid. I think there is nothing finer than the vigorous opening of Lycidas for music; yet it is regular. Now I think if Andrew Marvell had broken up his rhythms more he would have been considered a terrific poet. As it is I like his poem urging his mistress to love because they have not a thousand years to love on and he can't afford to wait. (I forget the name of the poem) well I like it more than Lycidas.

I have written a much finer poem which I've asked my sister to send you. Don't think from this I've time to write. This last poem is only about 70 lines and I started it about October. It is only when we get a bit of rest and the others might be gambling or squabbling I add a line or two, and continue this way. The weather is gorgeous now and we are bivouacked in the fields. The other night I awoke to find myself floating about with the water half over me. I took my shirt off and curled myself up on a little mound that the water hadn't touched and slept stark naked that night. But that was not all of the fun. The chap next to me was suddenly taken with Diarrhoea and kept on lifting the sheet of the Bivouac, and as I lay at the end the rain came beating on my nakedness all night. Next morning, I noticed the poor chap's discoloured pants hanging on a bough near by, and I thought after all I had the best of it.

I fancy you will like my last poem, I am sure it is at least as good as my Kolue speech, and there is more of it.

Yours sincerely
Isaac Rosenberg

June 1917

To Edward Marsh June 1917

I am now fearfully rushed, but find energy enough to scribble this in the minute I plunder from my work. I believe I can see the obscurities in the 'Daughters', but hardly hope to clear them up in France. The first part, the picture of the Daughters dancing and calling to the spirits of the slain before their last cries have ceased among the boughs of the tree of life, I must still work on. In that part obscure the description of the voice of the Daughter I have not made clear, I see; I have tried to suggest the wonderful sound of her voice, spiritual and voluptuous at the same time. The end is an attempt to imagine the severance of all human relationship and the fading away of human love. Later on I will try and work on it, because I think it a pity if the ideas are to be lost for want of work. My 'Unicorn' play is stopped because of my increased toil, and I forget how much or little I told you of it. I want to do it in one Act, although I think I have a subject here that could make a gigantic play. I have not the time to write out the sketch of it as far as it's gone, though I'd like to know your criticism of it very much. The most difficult part I think from; I think even Shakespeare might:-the first time Tel, the chief of the decaying race, sees a woman (who is Lilith, Saul's wife), and he is called upon to talk. Saul and Lilith are ordinary folk into whose ordinary lives the Unicorn bursts. It is to be a play of terror-terror of hidden things and the fear of the supernatural. But I see no hope of doing the play while out here. I have a way, when I write, to try and put myself in the situation, and I make gestures and grimaces.

Letters about other Writers

On Criticism

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. What ever 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.

The Renaissance

To Miss Seaton [Written is 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.

On Rupert Brooke (1)

22311 A Coy 3 platoon
11th K.O.R.L B.E.F

Dear Mrs Cohen

We are on a long march and I'm writing this on the chance of getting it of; so you should know I received your papers and also your letter. The notice in the Times of your book is true-especially about your handling of metre. It is an interesting number The Poetry Review you sent is good-the articles are too breathless, and want more packing, I think. The poems by the soldier are vigorous but, I feel a bit common-place. I did not like Rupert Brooke's begloried sonnets for the same reason. What I mean is second hand phrases 'lambent fires' etc takes from its reality and strength. It should be approached in a colder way, more abstract, with less of the million feelings everybody feels; or all these should be concentrated in one distinguished emotion. Walt Whitman in 'Beat, drums, beat' has said the noblest thing on war.

I am glad Yeats liked your play: His criticism is an honour. He is the established great man and it is a high thing to receive praise from him. Don't talk of Noyes-he only cloys. I always think of some twopenny bazaar when I read him.

On Rupert Brooke (2)

[August 1916]

My 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 remini[s]cent. The second half of the second line, and the whole of the 4th line are so uninteresting. Forgetting 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 jut lately and only bring out abhortions. Yours sincerely

I ROSENBERG