The Un-Idealizing of War
Rosenberg belongs to a group of British writers collectively known as the “trench poets” whose portrayed life in World War I battles from unique perspective of being there on the front lines. While most of these poets either hailed the glory of fighting for God and country or used their disillusionment with the crumbling of such ideals to fuel their writing. Rosenberg particularly stands out for rejecting the idealization of the unmitigated horrors of that bloody and wasteful conflict. He was moved to enlist on purely economic reasons and never had the chance to become a poet of disillusionment since he had no illusions about the nobility of the cause or any particular tied to England’s claims of greatness to begin with. The portrait he paints in verse of being in the trenches is one in which the days become impossible to distinguish from another and in which the only certainty is that death is all around and inescapable.
Irony
Irony is pervasive throughout the poetry of Rosenberg and hardly limited to just his war verse. Irony is typically a reaction to powerlessness; humor is a strength that cannot be taken away, but only given away. Rosenberg’s life was hard from the beginning to the end and this is especially so during his short career as a soldier. The irony can be lofty and comprehensive such as recurring motif that change and evolution for civilization usually comes only after great violence and violation. Rosenberg was also capable of using irony in a corrosively specific way such as the rat scurrying across his hand in “Break of the Day in the Trenches” which may be a less noble creature than man, but enjoys far greater freedom than the soldiers and will almost certainly outlive many of them as well.
The Devastation of War
The devastation of war extends far beyond the soldiers fighting in the trenches. For Rosenberg, war a devastating pestilence that reaches into every aspect of the lives of those involved. One of his most famous poems tells of the delousing process for soldiers and reveals the dehumanizing effect of merely being a soldier that has nothing to do with engagement or combat. Other poems touch upon the effects of strained relationships and the pressure placed upon women whose partner is daily facing the prospect of annihilation. The immediate impact of battle touches upon the landscape and the small details never imagined to become luxuries back during the serenity of peacetime.
