STUDIES IN THE POETRY OF ISAAC ROSENBERG

Abstract

ABSTRACT This research is carried out to explore the poetry of Isaac Rosenberg whose poetic works featured as war poetry. The First World War poetry of Isaac Rosenberg, Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen and Ivor Gurney among others ushers in a new tendency in the history of English Literature distinctive in the Modern period. These men explored the Great War which is also known as the First World War (1914-1918). In their poems are to be found ideas, writings which express extreme emotions like fear, anger, hatred etc. Their voices combined and were heard, each wrote from their personal experience of the military events in Europe during the First World War. The poems they wrote become a call to national consciousness and conscience. Most of them were icons of innocence, vulnerability, courage and integrity. Among these poets is Isaac Rosenberg whose works form the topic for this thesis. Isaac Rosenberg who was born in 1890, in a Jewish family belongs to the group of war poets whose writings gained prominence during this period. He participated in the war until his death. Among the poems that gained prominence for him is the lyric Drenched in the trench among other poems. The aim of this research is to explore the Poetry of the First World War by using Isaac Rosenberg as a case study. In this research, I explore the link between Isaac Rosenberg and the First World War, write about him, analyze his poems and know why he is called a war poet. The biography of Isaac Rosenberg seen against the background of modernism, the First World War, and war poetry will form the first chapter of my research. In chapter two|, I reviewed all the literature available concerning the poet and his poetry. What people have said about him, the things that dominated his poetry and written about the First World War Poetry. In other to find the link between Isaac Rosenberg and First World War poetry, four of his poems written from 1914-1918 were analyzed using literary tools. Background studies for each of the chosen poems were written. The Tone/mood, structure, language and other literary features were found in them. Chapter four revealed the fact that First World War is a product of historical events in Europe; soldier poets told their own story through poetic rendition. These War poets discussed one central theme which is the War and its destruction. This was expressed as their personal and social anxiety attached by writers to the subject of individual mortality. Hence, I argue that the poetry of the Great War used language as seen in the extensive use of metaphor and images which revealed atrocities, instabilities, lack in consolation, an era of human brutalities and modern legalised death. This is a clear examination of the emotional, intellectual, moral, ideological and aesthetic responses to the Great War in the poetry of Isaac Rosenberg.