Isaac Rosenberg (November 25, 1890 - April 1, 1918) was a Jewish-English poet of the First World War who was one of the greatest of all British war poets. His "Poems from the Trenches" are recognised as some of the most outstanding written during the First World War.
Isaac was born in Bristol and moved to 47 Cable Street in 1897, a poor district of the East End of London with a strong Jewish community. He attended St. Paul's School around the corner in Wellclose Square, until his family (of Russian descent) moved to Stepney in 1900. He left school when was fourteen, where he became an apprentice engraver.
Suffering from poor health, Rosenburg emigrated to the warmer climate of South Africa to try and cure himself.
He was interested in both poetry and art, and managed to find the finances to attend the Slade School. At his time at Slade School, Rosenberg notably studied alongside David Bomberg, Mark Gertler, Stanley Spencer, Paul Nash, Edward Wadsworth and Dora Carrington. He was taken up by Laurence Binyon and Edward Marsh, and began to write poetry seriously, but he suffered from ill-health. Nevertheless, he enlisted in October 1915 and was sent to the Somme on The Western Front in France where he was killed on April 1, 1918. His body was never recovered. He was enlisted into The Bantams, a special battalion for men too short to be accepted into other regiments. Rosenberg's works are often drawn upon by historians as, unlike more famous war-poets, he was not only Jewish but a private.
Biography from: Wikipedia |
