We have seen larks in these poems before, but in “Returning, We Hear the Larks,” Rosenberg makes more extensive use of them than someone like McCrae, who merely describes them as “bravely singing.” What makes the larks a more powerful poetic symbol in Rosenberg’s poem?
For Rosenberg to be recognized as one of the great War Poets took some time. He had his early champions, but his manifest poetic achievement had to overcome his status as an outsider: he was a poor son of Jewish immigrants. However, his reputation has climbed almost steadily since the late 1920s. In The Great War and Modern Memory, the seminal 1975 study of the poetry of the Great War, renowned critic Paul Fussell calls “Break of Day in the Trenches” the greatest poem of the war. Whether or not you think that is the case, what makes Rosenberg’s poetry stand out to you? How is it different from the poems we read for last class by Sassoon, Graves, and Gurney (and McCrae, Brooke, and Thomas, for that matter).
Among the few who knew him, Rosenberg was a well-regarded painter as well as poet before the war. Here is a selection of eleven of his paintings. Do you see any evidence of his being a painter in his poems?
Like last time, in lieu of these questions you may explicate any one of these poems, or any portion of one of these poems, as fully as you can. As always with poetry, your focus should be on not only what the theme or message of the poem is but on how the poem conveys it. Remember that in an effective poem, the form of the poem recapitulates the theme. Do not merely paraphrase. Write about what makes the poem — or passage within the poem — effective.