The New Age, October 23 1913

First, politics:

I've been reading George Bornstein's Material Modernism for my PhD exams, and it is really the perfect companion text to my work on this blog. In it, Bornstein examines (for example) Yeats' poems in their original contexts (as much as accessible) and in other editions that have emerged since. His readings of Yeats' "September 1913" have been reminding me to keep an eye on things Irish (like A.E./George Russell's letter last issue) and on labor disputes.

This issue of The New Age begins with a discussion of the Senghenytdd mining disaster. It moves to a more usual topic, the railroad strikes. There's revolution in the air--threats of a massive strike to take place in 1914. Remember that worker's movements have been urged to arm themselves in TNA and The New Freewoman.

The link between armed resistance in Ireland and the possibility for it in England is actually explicit: "The trade unions... though their grievance is of a parallel nature to that of the colonies of Ireland, are even today unaware of its true nature. For them as for these the remedy is Home Rule" (746). See also the poem by Susan Mitchell, "To the Dublin Masters" on page 760, which ends with an unveiled threat of the guillotine. The focus moves back to South Africa, and the editors of TNA wonder whether the armed strikes there will emerge in England. Then more on the lockout in Dublin, which is starving1/3 of the city's population. The desire for a more comprehensive revolution informs The New Age's rejection of a legal minimum wage.

Second, feminism:

Beatrice Hastings reviews a housekeeping guide by Mrs. J. G. Frazer, "First Aid for the Servantless," a book that attempts to show how women don't need house servants. The review is fascinating, though, not for that--but because it stands in as a sort of autobiography of Hastings. She explains her position in the literary world by contrast to her domestic life, continuing her generally anti-feminist approach: "I am a minor poet of the first class. I have never created anything" (759). Hastings' literary ability boils down to the fact that (in her own account) she knows her limitations, many of which are dictated by her gender. Frustrating, revealing.

"Readers and Writers," by Orage presumably, is a take-down of Pound. It hits him right where he's most sensitive when it questions his credentials: "What qualification, may I ask, has Mr. Pound revealed for making a fair estimate of English writing as compared with French?" He also gloats somewhat over having baited EP into an over-emotional response, which I don't think actually happened: Pound has been very reserved about the awful situation he's in (being pilloried in the very journal that is releasing you serially). Pound showed a definite lack of tact (or tactic) but strategic foresight when he slighted the writers of TNA, and of course he ultimately wins the fight (or has for the foreseeable future).

As for pseudonyms and identities, this issue has two delightful plot-thickenings:

J.M. Kennedy replies to "The Writers of the National Guilds Articles" that he hasn't written for TNA for six months and that they have misrepresented his theories. "The Writers" immediately reply, a privilege usually reserved for the editors or the inner-circle of TNA. I imagine that The New Freewoman must be wrong in identifying "Romney" with Kennedy (see earlier discussion). Or it's really getting conspiratorial: could the editors be the "writers?" Orage singled out the "writers" for praise in one of his self-righteous reviews earlier, which he also uses to boost Hastings. Evidence mounts.

Hastings goes after Rebecca West's analysis of Hall Caine's roman a clef that supposedly stars Hastings (see above TNF), saying that her Pages from an Unpublished Novel are NOT autobiographical. Judging by the Stephen Gray biography of Hastings, Hastings is lying (or perhaps Gray repeated West's error? I doubt it). The public image management of Hastings is really fantastic, sort of like Fox News' fake bloggers.

All for now...