Little Magazines after the First Month of War: The Egoist, The Little Review, Poetry and Drama, and (a little) Poetry

This post will cut across several magazines. I've already written a bit about The New Age and The Masses and their reaction to the beginning of World War One. I was interested in the different perceptions of the reasons for the war that they each had. After reading the second Egoist of the month, as well as The Little Review and Poetry, I thought I would do a cross-journal posting surveying this issue.

To recap: The New Age tends towards talk of national and racial struggles, painting the war as the result of macrohistorical cultural struggle. Depending on when you caught them, this was either between the West and the East or between Civilisation and the Barbarians.

The Masses provides a socioeconomic account, blaming international trade, in particular maneuverings that deprived Germany of its share of the spoils of global imperialism, which forced the Germans to look for a military solution.

Moving forward to The Egoist and The Little Review:

"The Illusion of Anarchism" by Dora Marsden

Dora Marsden is The Egoist's spokesperson on this. I sense a calcification of her term "Archist," which was introduced as a playful opposite to anarchist some months ago: now she's using it seriously (not archly), dropping the pun to make a philosophical point. This shift in her philosophy is an important step, and an important step backwards in my view: she used to insist on defining her philosophy entirely in the negative, only as a rejoinder, response. Now she's building a self-supporting platform able to support theories on why the war has begun. Her anti-humanist and rationalist approach to politics has led her to believe that the war happened because Germany sensed an opportunity to seize wealth and power. Nothing more or less--and no judgement on her part, as she explains that Germany will ultimately be judged only on its success or failure (using George Washington as an example: he would have been a traitorous secessionist had he failed, etc.). Let me try to sketch the logical chain she constructs. Public opinion is illusory, and most people just follow it because they have weak personalities. A strong personality (Napoleon ex.) can sway public opinion, and even make people (generally greedy) act selflessly (because that is too a kind of greed). Germany's opinion-makers and industrialists had created an atmosphere of confidence that could only be fully-fulfilled by attacking an England they saw as decadent. And it is/was: but the war will wake up England and then England will be awesome and there will be great art! Here's the optimistic note she strikes:

"And the result immediately to follow, one can safely trust, will be equally in her favour: that is, the brilliant vindication of British spirit on the seas and the battlefields will speedily have a counterpart in British laboratories: in renewed and confident strength of spirit in English philosophy, literature and art (where it is needed, God wot!). Confidence, which dare look at plain fact without latent undermining fear, confidence and deeply stirred emotions are the materials which inspire a new spirit in the Arts. After the war, because of the war—the Renascence!" (343).

The next piece in The Egoist is also by Marsden, also concerning the war and the State, but I will quickly skip to the end to point out an interesting reply to correspondence in which Marsden explains how classifications work--might be useful for any work on Marsden's semiotics.

Beyond Marsden, this issue includes an article in the series "Fighting Paris" by Mdme Ciolkowska, printing her daily war diary. I think she keeps this up throughout the war, so it will be a way to live it vicariously.

Before leaving, Aldington contributes an essay on free verse, declaring its independence from vers libre. A teachable, useful, brief manifesto that slots into the contemporary discussions of prosody very nicely.

The Little Review, "Armageddon."

TLR is suitably impressed by the war opening across the Atlantic. The short editorial piece "Armageddon" makes the case that the war is foolish, and civilization is directly responsible:

"Twenty-odd million men flying at each other's throats and destroying the bitterly won triumphs of years of peace, without any good reason. We hear phrases like "balance of power," "dynastic supremacy," "the life of our country," "patriotism," "racial prejudice," "difference of religion," Each individual nation is praying to God with profound sincerity for its own success. Priests bless the arms. There is no denying the reality of all this in the consciousness of Europe. Such things do lead men to battle with the fire of conviction.

"Well, the brutal fact stands out like a giant against the sky, that if such motives can produce such a result, they are working only for their own destruction. Not a single nation, whether conqueror or victim, can come out of the struggle as strong or as great as it went in. All alike must be swept into destitution of all the things civilization has taught us to value. And this is the result of civilization ! It is a spectacle or demoniac laughter. And shall the United States stand aloof with a feeling of pitying super­ iority, thinking that, because we happen to have a president instead of a king, and inhabit a different continent, such motives are foreign to us? What folly of conceit ! As long as we cultivate the ideal of patriotism, as long as we put economic value above spiritual and human value, as long as in our borders there exist dogmatic religions, as long as we consider desirable the private ownership and exploitation of property for private profit-—whether by nations or by individuals-—we maintain those elements of civilization which have led Europe to the present crisis." (3-4)

This prescience, that America will be swept into the war in the same ideological tide as Europe, is not without an optimistic final sentence: "Nineteenth-century civilization has overwhelmingly and dramatically failed. What shall we build now?"

The Little Review, then, blames the war on ideology. The sheer stupidity of that offers an opportunity, as something new may emerge from this destruction. Alas.

I've also been reading the quarterly Poetry and Drama in a bound volume I got from the UW library: not nearly as satisfying as the .pdfs on the MJP, but a little easier on the eyes. Poetry and Drama is completely shocked by the war, more than The Little Review or any of the other journals I have read. Harold Monro's opening article explains that wartime is not a time for good writing--patriotic writing will drown out art, with a few exceptions (one in this issue is Frost's "Home Burial"). One gets a sense of depression and desperation: Monro calls for the formation of a "Literary Emergency Fund" to support people of letters who have been made unemployed by the war, for one example.

Perhaps the most telling article, though, is "French Chronicle" by F.S. Flint. He meditates, sitting at the English Channel, on the dangers being faced by his French poet-friends. One, Charles Peguy, has already been killed. Flint is furious at the Germans, angry at being rejected for military service, wishing England had conscription. He, too, though, is hopeful that France will defeat the barbarous Germans and that literature will emerge from the war stronger than it was at the outset.

Poetry's September issue doesn't mention the war, but it includes an essay by Joyce Kilmer on Gerard Manley Hopkins, who he "gets." This is cool but sad, because Kilmer will be killed in the war. Also features a plea for funds to support the magazine. Sorry to be so lazy about Poetry, but perhaps my readers will understand.

To overgeneralize horribly, here's a quick and silly and probably useless summary of the journals' opinions on the war and its causes:

The New Age: civilization vs. barbarians (categories permeable).
The Masses: traders vs. traders, with the rest of us caught in a web of lies.
The Egoist: vigorous German people vs. almost-awakened soon-to-be vigorous English people.
The Little Review: the war is the outcome of a bankrupt system of civilization.
Poetry and Drama: this is no time for literature.
Poetry: please donate money to Poetry magazine!

The Masses, September 1914

My friends know that I consider The Masses a respite from the acid of the English little magazines that I have been reading. Its international socialist platform supports many ideas/ideals that have become more general since then. This issue responds to several arguments being advanced in The New Age (among others), and I think it provides an important counterweight to the talk of races and nations found in other places referenced in my last post.

From the tophat-wearing bomb-flinging mad-naked capitalist on the cover, The Masses' attitude to the war is pretty immediately apparent. The two main articles on the subject are Max Eastman's War for War's Sake and an anonymous piece titled The Traders' War. The first debunks the racist arguments, while the second analyzes the economic reasons that Germany declared war (further refuting the mythological causes). 

The journal holds out the hope that this war will end in a better world. 

An antidote? Anodyne, at least. 

About Face: The New Age and Russia on the Eve of War

First post in a while--I'm hoping to add targeted essays to my usual program of surveying single issues of the little magazines. This post is about the representation of Germany and Russia in The New Age, in particular how quickly it changed. Between August 13 and August 20th, A. R. Orage and S. Verdad moved from indicting Germany's foolishness in distracting the West from its struggle with Russia to calling all Germans irredeemable barbarians. The Russians, however, are redrawn as an ancient and mystical culture. Observe:

August 13th, 1914 (two weeks after war was declared):

Orage 337:

For  another  thing,  the German navy  was  not merely a dangerous  luxury  for  Germany herself,  but  its  creation involved the  weakening of the defence of Western against Eastern Europe. Against what Power is it necessary for Western civilised Europe, and  England  in  particular,  to  be  armed if not Russia?  But  against  Russia  the-British  Navy  was sufficient  in itself to equip  navally the whole  combination of Western Europe. In the discharge of the mere daily duty of our Empire we were compelled to maintain a Navy that could, always  be depended  upon by civilisation to equal  Russia’s possible navy. No need therefore  existed to supplement  it by a fresh  Navy or  to  tax  Western Europe  with  the  cost of multiplying  ships  already  sufficient. By insisting upon  building a navy  Germany  has, in fact, not only squandered her own money which might well have been  spent to better  purpose  against  our common Russian enemy, but she has compelled her Western colleagues to  squander  much of theirs  as well.

Russia is the real danger--the vision is a combined front of "civilisation" against their barbarism. The British Navy is the European Navy, or would be, if not for Germany's blunder. Germany is again

S. Verdad, 339:

"Now let us see where we stand. Ever since the Turkish Revolution of 1908 it was a race between the
Teutonic Powers, Germany and Austria, and, on the other side, the Slav Power, Russia, as to which should reach the Aegean first. (S. Verdad, August 13, 339).

S. Verdad represents the conflict as a racial war (though he uses "race" in its other sense here)--in phrases premonitive of Hitler, nations are more important than states. Verdad accuses Germany of an "incalculable" error in starting the war, but places the motivation for the war firmly in the East.


August 20, 1914.

But, by August 20, the tone of each writer has changed. Orage excoriates the barbarism of the Germans, while rallying the English people to the war:

"The working classes of England have realised, as quickly as any other class, that the present war is a
struggle, for national existence, reluctantly undertaken and forced upon us, if we may adapt an anthropological expression, by a few survivals. The Kaiser is an anachronism; he belongs to the pre-Christian era." (Orage 362)

Etc. etc. Examples of how awful the Germans are abound. This makes me think of Wyndham Lewis' Tarr more than anything else--and Tarr will be published during the war.

S. Verdad works on a similar theme, but takes time to boost Russians as a category vs. Germans as a category:

Mr. G. K. Chesterton, I think, who has only recently referred to the Russians as natural mystics. The description is felicitous. The dreamy Slav has a longer, nobler, and more powerful culture at the back of him than the Teuton; and, spiritually, he is far superior. (S. Verdad 365)

After this, he explains that Russia may be a longer-term threat. However:

In the immediate present, however, Germany, and Germany alone, is the enemy.  Compared with ourselves the Germans are, frankly, barbarous people; worthy descendants of their forerunner, Arminius, who, when serving in the Roman army, betrayed his general and helped the Teutons to cut his former comrades in arms to pieces in the Teutoberger Wald." (S. Verdad 365). Comparisons to the Huns follow.


In these passages and the articles I extracted them from, I noticed how deeply World War One was seen as a macrohistorical struggle between races. This journal, supposedly devoted to economics, moves into racialist discourse very quickly. Rallying the people to fight the Germans seems antithetical to their socialist and class-based long term goals (which they admit), but their nationalist bent takes over at this point. Nationalist socialists with racially conditioned worldviews--a dangerous combination.

The New Age July 23 1914

I turn to this issue first (before going back to catch up with The Egoist) because I want to see what my window into July 1914 will reveal. The 23rd would have been almost exactly a week before the war began. England will declare war on August 4.

So, of course, "Current Cant" is simply a bunch of quotations from BLAST (a nice selection of the most embarrassing moments,  see the beginning in the image below). Joyce Kilmer is also quoted when he takes a shot at The New Age. 

There's an early English-language responses to Freud's On the Interpretation of Dreams by "M.B. Oxon," who is intrigued but a bit scandalized--"to the dirty everything is dirty."

Beatrice Hastings/Alice Morning continues her "Impressions de Paris," intriguingly offering a critique of The New Statesman's response to Blast and Italian Futurism...

The "Press-Cutter" takes a brief shot at The Egoist in correspondence: And, lest
we forget, the other lady’s paper, the ‘Egoist,' prints a letter in which you are ranked with it as ‘ advanced.'
Are you so far behind as that?"

The New Age, July 9 1914, and a note from the blogger

You'll notice that I've fallen down on the job of keeping the blog updated this month. I'll try to fill in some of the gaps--and flag interesting things to return to later.

Naturally the biggest news is BLAST, discussed across many of the journals that I read. Reading BLAST again, this time in context, was a great deal of fun--but contemplating a post that could encompass it has been intimidating. So I haven't. Quick notes would cite Rebecca West and Wyndham Lewis' contributions as ones that I think I haven't paid enough attention. Usually the manifesto hogs it all.

The war starts in two days. The first phase of this project may well be over--my dissertation will be about the avant guerre. I will hopefully be able to continue work on this, though--I am sure that the contrasts of before and during the war will be fascinating, especially as it tends to be discussed before and after, which doesn't take the length of the war into account.

And with this brief note, I will proceed to try a post or two.

The July 9 issue of The New Age has just a couple things I want to point out as important. One is the long discussion of the importance of Archduke Ferdinand in S. Verdad's "Foreign Affairs." He paints an Archduke who was compelled to expand by Germany--one who was not at fault.

England, it is often forgotten, was on the brink of a possible civil war over how to deal with Ireland. "The Religion of Home Rule" by one L. G. Redmond Howard is far more prominent than the discussion of continental affairs. 

R.H.C. (Orage) discusses BLAST on page 229. For further discussion, see the next issue of The New Age (which I may well get around to posting about)

T.E. Hulme writes a nice piece on David Bomberg. My favorite part wasn't about Bomberg, but when Hulme ruminates on the inadequacy of artists to describe their art, an inadequacy that degenerates into hand-waving. He would invent a mechanical device that could be used to make adequate gestures where hands cannot (231). 

All for now...

The New Age, July 2 1914

Edit: I somehow posted this under the wrong date. Remedied.

For once, I have little to report. This issue of The New Age seems mostly unremarkable. Maybe because Blast just came out (they do joke about it in "Current Cant," but even the London Times noticed Blast).

So, quick notes:

"Foreign Affairs" is about the government of India, and not about an immanent world war.

Alice Morning continues her "Impressions de Paris," which continue to be quite well done.

Really, though, very little stood out as worth blogging. Onward.

The New Age, June 25, 1914

So, in real life -100, the Archduke is dead but England hasn't really noticed the oncoming war yet. I need to rewind a little to catch the last issue of The New Age before the assassination:

This issue is significant because of its aggression against the avant-garde artists associated with other periodicals (though many have appeared in its pages). The always-vicious context-free essence of scissor-clipped bile that is "Current Cant" opens with salvos against Pound, Lewis, and Marinetti. I also noticed that they stab at Max Nordau and Holbrook Jackson. Nordau just because he's been cropping up lately. Jackson's more interesting: he was the co-founder of The New Age as a socialist paper, along with Orage, back in 1908. I'll try to dig up the reason for such a breakdown in relations.

I'm going to skim over the other stuff and focus on the issue-wide attack against non-representational avant-garde art.

"Readers and Writers" opens with a discussion of Richard Curle's new book on Conrad (a travelogue of his trip to Greece also occurs in this issue). My suspicion is that this was strategic, because clearly Orage wants to discuss Nevinson and the Futurists more, but doesn't want to dignify them with pride of place. Here's how he opens his analysis of Futurism:

"One of my colleagues  observed the other day that the defect of Futurism  is  that it  is a reaction against Art not against Life. It is a fine critical observation and  I wish  I had made it first. Hearing Messrs. Marinetti and Nevinson the other evening I was  struck by their fury against  their  predecessors  remote  and of yesterday. It was to distinguish themselves from  these  that  it  appeared their  campaign  was  being  undertaken.  This will never  do, for  to  be moved by art  is  just  not  to be moved by life" (181).

Here we see his problem, and it sounds familiar: the avant-garde is a reaction against institutionalized art, and can have no existence outside of this binary. Orage goes on to note that they also claim to have no thoughts about the immortality of their work, which makes it "vulgar." For Orage, the present is not an isolable temporal condition--art must contain the past and the future. Pound agrees in parallel publications in The Egoist, not mentioning Orage by name.

Orage continues: "What perhaps is of value  in  Futurism  is its affirmation of the claim of the age upon art. Use, its exponents say, the material of your own time for your art, for every other is more or less alien. There is something in this; but, once  more,  it  is  a question of insight. To see deeply into one’s contemporary life is to  see life much as it  has  always been and  always will be. Plato writing to-day would write much the same as  Plato  writing  two  thousand five hundred  years  ago. The dialect of truth does  not  alter much."

This is the fundamental difference: the Futurist vision is founded on the uniqueness of the times and the development of individual powers. Orage believes in a stasis of human nature, even across time and culture. 

Moving from Orage's relatively even-handed treatment to Hasting's satire, she takes down Nevinson's address in a segment of Pastiche titled "Wake Up England!" In it, she adopts Nevinson's bombastic voice and moves point by point through his speech, revealing how wrong Nevinson is by contrast. She uses Turner's "Steam Train" as a counterexample to their claims that their art is the only art that represents speed, and yes, "Steam Train" is very prescient of Giacomo Balla, at least. Even cooler, she draws cinema and photography into the discussion, anticipating parts of Benjamin's argument in "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" here:

"People should constantly buy new pictures. A picture should never be lived with. Who could live with any picture ever painted ? Live, eating, drinking, sleeping, sitting, smoking, staring every instant at one picture? I, for  instance,  wouldn’t  have the Monna Lisa as a gift! Simply because I have seen her smile reproduced all round Europe. Of course, there is no difference between the smile as painted  by Da Vinci and  that reproduced by the camera ! As an  artist, I stake  my  reputation on this." (185).

She's talking about aura and the destruction of aura through mass production of representations of art, but pseudo-Nevinson's distaste for the real thing because of its proliferation is exactly what's being satirized here.

Last stop, The Egoist. C. E. Bechofer has been writing a mostly-irritating series on "Contemporaries," short sketches of people around London, and in this week's issue he lampoons The Egoist. Alas, the Modernist Journals Project doesn't seem to have gotten the joke, as their catalog lists Richard Aldington as the actual author when this is clearly (signed) satire (even Homer nods?).

(See page 186, or this brief digest):

Marsden for her incomprehensible a-morality
Aldington for his buddy-buddy relationship with people like F.S. Flint and the speed at which he swaps movements
Huntly Carter, for being Huntly Carter: " What is art ?” my Carter-hoarse  critics ask.  Let  me try  to explain to  their feeble intelligences. Art is Soul ! Soul is Art ! Soul is everything! Soul is pine-apples ! Art IS ! Pine-apples ARE !
Lastly, and brilliantly, they satirize The Egoist's correspondents: pinging at Joyce, Havelock Ellis, and The Egoist's tendency to self-celebrate in the correspondence columns.

Poetry, June 1914

This issue of Poetry includes Ford Madox Hueffer's On Heaven, which is great.

It also has an essay by Alice Corbin Henderson about how American poetry underpins European poetry through Whitman and Poe, which is cool.

Pound then adds a lengthy essay on Hueffer, praising his precision and his love of good prose (I think this essay may have appeared already in a European journal?).

BUT the thing that I'm most excited to show you is an advertisement:

(Update: my acquaintance, Poundian Sarah Lee, informed me that this was Amy Lowell's kennel!)

The Egoist, June 15 1914

I’m curious how this issue will appear in retrospect: the last printed before the beginning of World War One. It is full of significant writing, full of confidence. It’s also the end of another era: it is Dora Marsden’s last as editor, though she will continue to contribute columns. Harriet Shaw-Weaver will take the helm now. There’s a lot to cover.

I'll start with Marsden, though, because she's departing. Here's her explanation of the changes in title, from The Freewoman to The New Freewoman to The Egoist: 

"The exposition of "The New Morality" turned into a study of the words Morality and Moral; the New Freedom, into an inquiry as to what one meant by being "Free." Far from being erratic the development of the FREEWOMAN-EGOIST has been in one unbroken line: a line of inquiry which has gnawed its way straight through difficulties where the "faithful," the "loyal" would have broken down or turned back. It is not a "new" morality which is required, but an understanding of the "moral" in order to put it in its proper place."

The overall effect of this editorial is twofold: Marsden is looking back on her time as a suffragette, explaining why she (and others) join the movement, and blaming the movement's shortcomings on the Pankhursts. The Pankhurst lust for power, backed by their charisma, formed an illusion of importance that was transferable to young women around England. Ultimately they were duped by this enthusiasm, believing that they were fighting for a cause but actually fighting for an abstraction. 

Moving along too quickly: 

Henri Gaudier-Brzeska reviews the Allied Artists' Association show of modern art. He goes down through the catalog, commenting on many of the artists by name, including himself--he gives his own work conditioned praise, distancing himself from Pound's earlier adulation by declaring himself superior to ancient Chinese sculpture. He points to unusual techniques like carved brass adding to his completely abstract design. This comes up again later when he's explaining why he doesn't like Nevinson (futurism: "impressionism using false weapons"). Here he describes an important difference among the painters:

"Though I am not wholly in sympathy with the other painters, I feel it my duty to point out that the rest of the hall is shared by two sections—one com­posed of able, convinced men admiring natural forms only—and the other of poor academic imitators whose efforts cannot be classified as art even. There is a transitional body—men starting from nature and getting on the verge of the abstract."

This issue also includes Ezra Pound’s essay “Wyndham Lewis,” which is ragged and fantastic. 

In context, this piece is another declaration of independence for the modernists represented by The Egoist and Blast (which is being published just about now -100 years). I won't go in-depth on it here (there will be time)--I do want to point out that along with Gaudier-Brzeska and this essay with its anti-Futurist bias, in the correspondence page is a more literal declaration. Apparently in response to an article in The Observer, this group wrote in to declare that they are not part of Marinetti's movement:

This seems suitable in the context of the ramp-up to Blast and Vorticism in general. 

Quick Notes:

The issue opens with Aldington on French poetry—in general, he follows the method of criticism used by Pound in his French columns in The New Age: briefest introduction followed by extensive quotation.

And though I haven't mentioned it for a few posts, Portrait of the Artist is continuing in its brilliance, in its deep resonance with The Egoist's philosophy. 

The New Age, June 18 1914

An uneasy effect of my work in the periodicals of 1914: the sense of impending doom, the war on the horizon. Articles about foreign and military policy, when incorrect, are terrifying because their theses will soon cost lives--or, more accurately, they indicate the presence of strategic and tactical misconceptions that will cost lives: I’m not claiming that the military formulated policy by reading Romney’s articles in The New Age. His confident declaration that air power is a distraction, and that commanders should be instructed to attack boldly, ring hollow in hindsight. On the other hand, when they are correct they are just as frightening, as S. Verdad’s piece in this issue in which he explains that the British Expeditionary Force won’t be enough to hold the Germans after the (putative at this point) invasion of Belgium. He also predicts that the war will begin in the Near East, between Greece and Turkey, actually—not exactly how things shook out, but close.

Another uneasy effect: that when I read current papers, I scan them for what will become hindsight. The impulse to prophecy is strong, as it was in 1914. How foolish Mr. Brailsford (page 159) looks—claiming that an era of peace will begin circa summer ’14 because at this point there is nothing to gain by conquest. Everything is as exploited as possible, so capitalists won’t bother starting wars. TNA, to be fair, is ridiculing this thesis themselves, and I don’t claim to have a full grasp of his argument.

I will exercise my scholarly privilege, though, and call attention to what is more relevant to my study of  modern aesthetics: this issue contains a transcript of “Vital English Art” by Nevinson, a lecture delivered on June 12, in tandem with one by Marinetti (160). Nevinson’s English Nationalist Futurism at first seems like something TNA would like (and they do print it), but the issue also contains a brutal satire of the whole scene.

Starting with the thing and not the satire of it: Nevinson intriguingly breaks from the Italian insistence on total novelty by pointing out that Futurism is evolutionary, even as it has succeeded its predecessors. Nevinson then lists four essential characteristics of English Futurist art. 1: Art is not representation, it is “a plastic abstraction of an emotion.” This will set up a clash with TNA’s pro-representative bent. 2. “Art must be the expression, intensification and concentration of life” (161). It’s Peter Burger’s thesis in the wild (from Theory of the Avant-Garde). Point 3 follows from point 2: if art is life and the intensification of life, and modern life’s primary characteristic is dynamism and speed, art must become a more intensely dynamic thing than life. The fourth point is that art can and should represent states of mind in the artist.

That’s all well and manifest—but where Nevinson breaks from the genre comes just after. He first explains that paintings aren’t for everyday display: they should be brought out only occasionally, so they can retain their shock value (I think this is important). Then he explains that modern artists must become commodified. They must self-advertise, they must sell to the rich heightened experiences. He might somewhat sink his own ship after that though, when he explains that art shouldn’t last very long (who would invest in that?).

Turning to the satire: Charles Brookfarmer is a long-time writer for TNA, one who provides satire of contemporary meetings in the form of drama. This week, though, he satirizes Nevinson’s lecture (the very one printed in entirety later in the issue). Nevinson is getting the same treatment Pound got at the hands of Hastings earlier this year. Under the title “Futilism: Or, All Cackle and No Osses,” Brookfarmer first paints Nevinson and Marinetti as blowhards. His persona, the student, waits patiently through all this in the hope that he will get to hear the Futurist “noise-tuner” instruments, but alas, they fail to appear. Brookfarmer doesn’t have quite the satirical genius of Hastings, but TNA continues to show its willingness to attack whoever appears in print.

Quick notes:

Alice Morning continues her Paris travelogues. They are well written, and probably deserve to be reread. We need a selected works of Beatrice Hastings.

In the correspondence pages, some guy explains how the women are working to destroy the anti-suffrage movement from within (or at least they are too incompetent to be trusted to assist in the cause). Some Archbishop Gibbs.

Oscar Levy, the rabid Nietzschean, writes in to explain that Nietzshe is not compatible with Stirner, useful as a point of contrast between TNA and The Egoist.

There’s a short silly poem satirizing Futurist fashion on page 152, claiming that the androgynous designs of Leon Bakst don’t damage morals because it’s the difference between sexes that is immoral. Bakst is cool, but I am kind of bewildered that he’d be lumped in with the Futurists (I don’t really know enough about him to comment, though).

The Egoist, June 1 1914

This issue of The Egoist opens with Richard Aldington’s summary of Imagism, “Modern Poetry and the Imagists.” In it he reduces the scope of Imagism to just a few poets core three of himself, Pound, and H.D., possibly Williams, possibly Lowell, excluding the rest of the authors in The Glebe’s anthology (also hosted on the Modernist Journals Project). He even warily holds Flint at heavily-qualified arms-length, “Still, I think many people prefer Mr. Flint because he is an Impressionist. I don't say that he isn't an Imagist. He is, and the whole theory and practice of Imagism owe a great deal to him. But…” (203). But indeed.

Though the canonization is important, I also enjoyed Aldington’s Aldington-ized version of the Imagist manifesto, his crotchety satire already dripping from the whole thing. His answer to the rhetorical question of why they call themselves Imagists, for one: It cuts us away from the "cosmic" crowd and it equally bars us off from the "abstract art” gang, and it annoys quite a lot of fools.” Again his project is about partitioning subgenres of poetry (with a little agitation thrown in). Aldington numbers seven (six really, the last is that he forgot the rest) rules for Imagism. My favorites:

“1. Direct treatment of the subject. This I consider very important. We convey an emotion by presenting the object and circumstance of that emotion without comment. For example, we do not say " O how I admire that exquisite, that beautiful, that—25 more adjectives—woman "or" O exquisite, O beautiful, O 25 more adjectives woman, you are cosmic, let us spoon for ever," but we present that woman, we make an Image of her, we make the scene convey the emotion.”

Telling, perhaps, that it is not adjectival description of a woman that is Imagist, but rather creation, transmutation. H.D. is referred to elsewhere in the review as “the best” of the poets, and I sense her presence (cosmic?) in this moment.

And, next:

“6. The exact word. We make quite a heavy stress on that. It is most important. All great poetry is exact. All the dreariness of nineteenth century poets comes from their not quite knowing what they wanted to say and filling up the gaps with portentous adjectives and idiotic similes. Have you seen those unfinished poems of Shelley, which go something; like this :

" O Mary dear, that you were here,

With your tumtytum and clear,

And your tumtytumty bosom

Like a tumty ivy-blossom," &c. ?”

Hilarious and effective. He contrasts this with “Hermes of the Waves” by H.D., making the comparison to “nicely carved marble,” perhaps initiating (perhaps not, I’m not positive) the tradition of making Imagism into sculpture. Earlier it was perhaps inscription, “3. A hardness, as of cut stone.”

The whole crew is contrasted with cosmic Horace Holley, a constant contributor to The Egoist, so we’ll see what he makes of the review.

Egoism on Wells:

The editors (plural? unsigned, as usual) review (and diagnose) H.G. Wells’ The World Set Free, a book about a kind of postapocalyptic reconstruction of humanity through a sort-of United Nations. Which sort of actually happens, of course, so props to Wells. The editors are more interested in the ways he undercuts much current abstract moralism by clearly defining positions that are usually left abstract (which in turn reveals how stupid it all is once somebody defines it). That might not make much sense, so here is an example quoted by the editors on p. 205: “I want to make it clear how small are men and days and how great is man in comparison." This is anti-Egoism, perfect anti-Egoism. The empty plural “man” replaces the individual.

Quick Notes:

John Gould Fletcher’s poems are pretty cosmic in this one—or perhaps they are a hybrid of cosmic and imagist doctrines. They are interesting in contrast and in comparison. Fletcher’s use of adjectives and his unabashed first-person seem to keep them from “pure” imagism, or maybe it’s the tendency to heavyweight last lines that make the poems resolve completely.

Leigh Henry continues his set of articles on modern music with a really nice piece on Stravinsky, praising him as a Dionysian artist of great intellectual power. The opening paragraphs, in which Henry explains why 1914 audiences don’t get Stravinsky, would be particularly useful for teaching. He includes this drawing, I think by himself, to illustrate the new dynamics of dance:

One Bastien von Helmholtz reviews Poetry magazine! He encourages Harriet Monroe’s work so far, especially as a “provincial” journal in a corner of a “dark continent” (!), but wants her to “modernize” so that every issue will be worth reading, instead of just the occasional number. That seems to be a just criticism to me. He’s excited by Fenollosa’s Noh translations.

Harriet Shaw Weaver writes a review of a novel, “The Spider’s Web,” by Reginald Kauffman. Fascinatingly, Kauffman tried to use the philosophy of The Egoist and Dora Marsden in particular to shape his hero. Unsurprisingly, he bungles it, and The Egoist turns this into another chance to define themselves against those that attempt to define them. Good stuff, and it’s nice to see a signed article in which it is easier to tell who is who.

A section titled “Revolutionary Maxims” steals the methods of The New Age’s “Current Cant,” consisting of inane or hypocritical quotes pulled from the Times Literary Supplement.

Charles Whitby contributes a poem titled “Suburbia,” very much a la Whitman.

Ciolkowska pens a piece on the positions of women and men to love: women create it, men inspire it. Not her most original work, but I like how the resistance of love to translation into speech mirrors The Egoist’s larger philosophies.

Lastly, this holy collusion of poetry and advertisement, truly a paragon of its medium and its era:

The New Age, June 11 1914

This issue of The New Age opens with an account of recent developments in labor, including some kind of truce that has been struck between workers on the one hand and the employers, represented (oddly, to me) by the Theosophical Society. I tried to find an explanation for this, but in a brief internet search I found very little. Probably a moment that seemed momentous, only to be forgotten in the war.

Speaking of the looming war, Franz Ferdinand is not long for this world (-100 years), and has made an appearance in The New Age. Not knowing anything about him except that his assassination sparked a major war, I was glad to learn a little more. The New Age's S. Verdad considers him an able statesman and an authority on naval matters. He's mentioned in connection to the Russian-English naval treaty, which has made Germany nervous. Ferdinand is contrasted favorably with King George as a leader. That his death will spark a war makes more sense in the context of Verdad's comments, which seem to imply that Ferdinand (and the Kaiser) would lead Germany and Austria (competently) in the event of a war.

The literary gem of the issue, though, is the story "Boutshe the Silent" by J.L. Peretz, translated from Yiddish by Gershon Katz. It's more a parable than a story, a retelling of the myth of the man facing judgement in heaven. Boutshe's humility in life and before judgement meshes well with two priorities of The New Age: the value of the lives of workers that exist under oppression, and resistance to antisemitism. See Cecil Chesterton's letter in correspondence for the other side (gross).

Alice Morning (Beatrice Hastings) continues her travelogues on Paris.

Quick Notes:

A.E.R. contributes a column on Freud.

There's a little epigram against the soon-to-be-Vorticist crowd on page 128, incidentally interesting.

Walter Sickert continues The New Age's plea for representative art on page 131--which also holds a Charles Bechofer epigram against Tagore, written a la Blake's "Tyger." It's actually quite clever, "Did he who made Charles Lamb make thee?"!!!! Here's the last stanza:

"Tagore ! Tagore ! babbling  blight,
 In  thine own Bengali write !
Why  in Heaven’s name  have I
To read thy fearful poetry."

The New Age, June 4 1914

Not a whole lot to comment on in this issue because it is so focused on labor issues, which are fascinating, but change slowly. I've dealt with many of the issues raised  in prior posts. This issue is notable, perhaps, for being another that is all about one topic, though The New Age is always about labor.

Quick notes:

P. Selver reviews Max Nordau's criticism of French literature favorably--I know Nordau only through Degeneration, for which Selver calls me (and everyone else) out: "I took down Mr. Max Nordau's "Zeitgentissische Franzosen,”  which was published about thirteen years ago. These critical studies of contemporary French writers form a volume of much greater value than the better-known and, accordingly, worse-written "Degeneration." (109).

"E. A. B.", the new American critic, writes on O. Henry, Brett Harte, and Ambrose Bierce. He places O. Henry and Harte below Bierce--they are hacks, Bierce is unread but has merit. E.A.B. predicts that Bierce will be a new Poe in that Europe will have to teach America how to read him.

Arthur F. Thorn's odd short story "Stamps" is about the National Insurance Act--a portrait of three women working at the stamp desk of a post office. I'm afraid I'm not sure how to read it exactly: the fiance of one of the women, clearly ill, comes in to get his company's health insurance stamps for the week. That, though, seems like a good thing? But The New Age hates the insurance act. Maybe it's just how pathetic the fiance is?

Alice Morning (Beatrice Hastings) continues a series of stories/travelogue about Paris. In this week's edition, she narrowly escapes getting run over by a car.

C.E. Bechofer attacks "The Everyman," a competitor journal, by satirizing their style in "Pastiche."

In correspondence, a writer signed "B" attacks Yone Noguchi, who has been cropping up from time to time throughout the journals. The attack accuses him of being a treacly "Jap" and a bad writer. It's irritating how fast "B" can switch tracks.

All for now...

The Egoist, May 15 1914

The best thing about this project is finding weird and wonderful things to read. Edgar Mowrer provides the most unusual moment of this issue in his review of Georges Polti's The Art of Inventing Personages: the XII Principle Types , Their 36 Subdivisions and 154,980 Varieties Still Unedited. This book is a catalog of every possible character in fiction. Mowrer writes that he was nearly driven mad while reading it. A sample paragraph:

"From this classification of world literature exactly 369 possible characters are lacking. Multiply this number by five, for the five ages of man (childhood, adolescence, youth, maturity, old age) and you obtain 1,845 varieties. But for each of these one can count seven social classes (royal, high-society or elegant, rich middle class, small middle class, working class, indigent, peasant). Multiplying we obtain 12,915 unedited types. Multiply again by twelve in accord­ ance with a mystical mathematic, and you obtain a grand total of 154,980 varieties of literary character still absent from any book. These are what writers are asked to get busy and create. As I write these lines my wits begin to wander anew. (192)"

Perhaps as useful as the review itself, Mowrer provides a lot of commentary on the relationship of science and literature, and pseudoscience and literature (he explains that psychology is pseudoscience because it doesn't accept telepathy).

Quick notes:

Allen Upward continues his translations of Chinese literature, this time in little proverbs labeled "Chinese Lanterns."

"Views and Comments" is a critique of Constance Lytton, a suffragette. The Egoist is solidly anti-.

Aldington writes a review of of W.H. Hudson.

The New Age, May 14 1914

This month has been decidedly unproductive in terms of blog posts, for which I apologize. I will try to create short posts for each of the periodicals that I've read but haven't written about yet.

The column “Unedited Opinions” continues from last week. It is still in the form of a Socratic dialog, with one voice generally asking questions and the other answering them. This one is notable for its usage of the metaphor of a catalyst, later employed by T.S. Eliot in “Tradition and the Individual Talent.” In this case, it is purely social: some people are catalysts, who by their mere presence change the behavior of those around them, like a queen bee, Cecil Rhodes, and King Alfred. It’s a little silly. 

Penty writes on "Fabians, Pigeons, and Dogs." This one might interest my friend Vaclav: the satirical argument is that the Fabian plan to assist in the development of humanity was based on Darwin's evolution, but that genetics don't work in a perfectable way. The example is the spaniel. As breeders tried to improve its sense of smell, they inadvertently shortened its legs. So will attempts to evolve humanity.

Walter Sickert writes about the emerging market for modernist art. Scornfully. Interestingly, he makes a comparison between modern art and manure that can only be used to fertilize a field once. Modern art similarly loses its efficacy. This is part of Peter Burger's Theory of the Avant Garde, contemporary and in miniature.

Orage, as R.H.C., writes this about Marinetti's manifesto, printed in the last issue (see above post):

Mr. Marinetti’s Futurist Manifesto  published in THE NEW AGE last week is, I suppose, in keeping with everything else  in these  pages,  open  to discussion. My view is  that Mr. Marinetti  is  reviving an old quarrel that ought to have drowned and damned by the Flood,-the quarrel of presentation with representation; and that he is on the wrong side of the controversy" (38). He explains that most writers feel inadequacy, but it is internal rather than a frustration with the limits of language. Marinetti, though, throws out the language as if its limits were the problem.  he  mistakes  the whole raison  d’etre  of  literature which is precisely not to present and reproduce, but  to  represent  and  produce." Contrast to Pound is nice here. A fissure between modern art and its articulate critic.

Beatrice Hastings, writing as T.K.L., writes an angry open letter to one Mr. Selfridge, who proposed an alliance between art and commerce, explaining that this would be impossible...

A.E.R. (Randall) writes a review of Freud "On Dreams."

Lastly, in "Pastiche" there is a satire of Marinetti: this note more for my future reference than a helpful one, I fear.

More posts soon! Hopefully I can finish of May before June.

The New Age, May 7 1914

This issue of The New Age begins with an account of the Colorado Coalfield War, which I'd never heard of. The editors of TNA use it as an example of how even a seemingly-sincere antitrust president like Wilson is confronted with an actual strike, he will bow to business immediately and send in the National Guard. They describe the conflict is described as a civil war that exceeds the Mexican civil war in scope. This leads to a call for a Labour Trust to combat the Oil Trust: powerful unions that aren't afraid of violence. Where does this lead, logically? For TNA, it means that women must be excluded from the workforce: "The whole women's movement is in our opinion a movement of cheap labour initiated by the decline in men's wages and stimulated by capitalists who play upon the modern notions of liberty for the purpose of persuading women into industry" (2). It doesn't not sound like the argument against "right to work" laws, in that granting a right to work is often granting a right to exploit. The editors emphasize this further in arguing against state support of motherhood, claiming that it is just a scam to raise willing laborers (3).

The gem of the issue, though, is the translation of Marinetti's manifesto, "Geometric and Mechanical Splendour in Words at Liberty," translated by one Arundel del Re (16). Marinetti elaborates on the "Manifesto on the Wireless Imagination and Words at Liberty" published in Poetry and Drama, explaining more of the details of the system. I think the beginning of the manifesto is pretty familiar Marinetti: insight gained by watching a dreadnought in action=poetic inspiration. One paragraph, though, I want to highlight because I see in it an application of words-in-freedom, though in a modified, prosified (?) form:

"These  have  for  their  essential  elements : power  under control, speed, intense light, happy precision of well-oiled cogs,  the  conciseness of effort,  the molecular  cohesion of metals in the infinity of speeds, the simultaneous concurrence of diverse  rhythms, the  sum of independent and convergent initiatives in one victorious direction." (16)

Later in the essay, Marinetti claims that words-in-freedom will become "AUTOILLUSTRATIONS," and I think he snuck this poetic paragraph into the essay as an example: it is both about the dreadnought and about the poetic, it is the very "sum of independent initiatives" described by itself. Of course it's not really words-in-freedom: Marinetti's definitions make w-i-f seem more like drama than visual poetry. Unconstrained typography serves facial expression and gesture: "the natural lack of proportion between typographical types which reproduce the grimaces of the face and the sculputural chiselling power of gestures" (17). Even more strikingly, adjectives are invited back to the party, though banished to atmospheric brackets (stage directions?). It actually is reminding me of Vachel Lindsay in Poetry. 

Naturally, The New Age being what it is, they print his manifesto but do take a moment in "Current Cant" to ridicule it (5). Also of interest in "CC" is the almost prufrockian popular song about going to the cinema quoted there.

Also related to Marinetti's manifesto: Arthur Penty, an advocate for a return to medieval craft-based economy, responds to critics by directly claiming that mechanical productions are ugly "as sin" (10).

An unsigned article titled "Unedited Opinions" continues the recent spate of Socratic dialogs with one on the flaws of Bergson. Summary: Bergson praises intuition without knowing what it is: his intuition is only impulse. Actual intuition is "above" impulse, and can only be reached through intellect. "The best" people are developing their intellects to the point that they will reach intuition, but at the price of appearing inactive (intellect is a depressing, decadent, "we are all Hamlets more or less"). Beyond this, though, is pure intuition, to be reached in what might be a kind of prophecy of deconstruction: "Why, when the reason is so perfect that as subtle and argument can be invoked for as against anything, the result in reason is a paradox. Thereafter the reason, having finished its work, is satisfied. And the intuition then emerges into consciousness" (12). Of course it isn't that: TNA is still hoping for a true spiritual revelation under all its gritty guild-socialist front, as the recent discussions of reincarnation indicate.

In "Readers and Writers," R.H.C. complains that TNA continues to lose money, that a circulation of as low as 2000 would secure the journal, while 3000 would allow them to start saving for retirement. As this is impossible, they will instead "we shall indulge ourselves when the time comes in distinguished hara-kiri" (14).

Because moments when people stand up for the Jews are few and far between in these journals, so far only occurring in The New Age, I'll point out S. Verdad's attack on Cecil Chesterton for "Jew-baiting" in his attempts to reconcile England with the Church.

That's all for now...

The Egoist, May 1 1914

This issue of The Egoist begins with a set of Richard Aldington's Imagist poems. I immediately notice that though they begin with his characteristic Greek influence, they are largely satirical, like most of Pound's Contemporania. Once through the initial Greek, the poems turn to commentary on the times--and comment on the times of their own production: they carry dates, a year and a month, revealing that the poems were composed from Novemeber 1912-September 1913. Implied is that the Greek poems are actually most recent (though the poems are not arranged chronologically). The arrangement, with the coding of the dates, carries a few important meanings. They claim that Aldington was an Imagist before they broke into print: Nov. 1912's "Les Ennuyes Exquis" is the same sort of Baudelairian satire as Pounds "In a Garden" (Poetry April 1913). The arrangement also seems to make a claim about development. Aldington's Greek influence is made to seem more recent. I want to point out, though, that both Greek poems are about the passing of the Greek gods from the world, which I take as an Egoist-ic allegory for the depravity of modern times--that London is contemporary to classical Greece in its sense of loss and boredom, as in "At Myteline": "And remember us: We, who have grown weary even of music" (161). The generally misogynistic feel to the satirical poems also fits the general temper of The Egoist. I'd like to puzzle through the history of this clutch of poems someday... why this particular arrangement, why now?

Quick notes:

Leigh Henry continues his series on individualism and music with an article titled "Bela Bartok and the Analysis of Racial Psychology." My friend Vaclav Paris has thought more about this article than I have, and I invite his observations! The thesis is that Bartok's music is racially conditioned, as well as national (that nationalism is rooted in race)...

"Saint Fiacre"'s next "Passing Paris" article is on the military parades that are ongoing in Paris, celebrating the visit of the English monarchs and the Entente in general. His thesis: Nationalism and individualism are compatible, that nationalism inspires individuality:

"The sight of its massed regiments, of a few persons in beautiful and symbolical uniform, the idea that so and so is a King, that a more or less hidden power in its very midst is omnipotent enough to impose these rites, rouse a people to its own significance and whip up its prestige. These collective manifestations awaken the individual to himself. Patriotism is an expression of self-affirmation. Internationalism, in its general negativeness, also annihilates the individual." (169). I don't want to go too far in analyzing that here, but the implications should be obvious. I think that Saint Fiacre must be an Irishman living in France, as that's what the real saint did. Any guesses? Was Joyce in Paris? I don't think it's him, but maybe someone around him?

Muriel Ciolkowska writes about Andre Dunoyer de Segonzac's drawings, but uses the drawings more as a place to offer a critique of cubism. Summary: the cubists strive toward abstraction, but by working in concrete media always defeat their push toward the abstract: As soon as an idea is carried out it ranks with the concrete. (Painting is concrete in itself, inevitably, and the most intellectual cubist cannot help representing the suggestion of something substantial)." (173). She offers de Segonzac as an alternative, as someone who represents form intelligently. Here's one of his drawings of Isadora Duncan, though my screenshot contains some of the bibliographic code of my computer:

Charlotte Mew contributes a poem, "The Fete."

Amelia Defries continues in correspondence to The Egoist, though no longer in direct conflict with Aldington. She's identified herself as having ten years of experience writing plays! She offers a long essay on the state of the stage in England, ending with a passionate plea for an almost Poundian technical school of theater (177).

And, of course, Portrait of the Artist continues, though I'll leave it be for this post.

The New Age, April 30 1914

A quick post on this issue of The New Age:

I'm interested to notice the commentary on the finances of TNA that appears on page 816. It claims that the rise in the price hasn't met the costs of producing the journal, and proposes as a solution that the whole thing be cut from 32 to 24 pages, noting: "another thing, most readers, I believe (if they are like me), read from cover to cover: and a little less will be a relief; like the wise thrush, we can even read our articles twice over!" As, in a sense, a long-time reader of TNA I think this will be (was? we'll see) a good step for them.

I think I mentioned the attack on Harold Monro in the last issue--but I don't think I mentioned the catalog of his grammatical errors and cliches that were the bulk of the assault. It was brutal. In the correspondence pages, Monro responds not to the criticism of himself, but in a conciliatory (and, perhaps, uncharitable way) to the criticism of the poets he published, saying they aren't connected with his Poetry Bookshop. Orage, though, is not to be conciliated: on the same page as the notes on finances, he reiterates that the poets are indeed connected to Monro and aren't good poets.

One E. A. B. contributes "American Notes" immediately after, including an entertaining account of a new journal that calls itself the Unpopular Review. It was some kind of proto-Little Review, in that it was intending to be an elite publisher. E. A. B. is not impressed.

Alice Morning, aka Beatrice Hastings, writes a short story in "Pastiche" titled "The Plum Tree," another of her stories starring "Valerie" who I believe is a caricature of Katharine Mansfield. This one is typically antifeminist, about annoying women invading a men's club. Poking around the MJP I found the first "Valerie" story today, titled "Modernism" and published in the January 18 1912 issue. Hopefully I can do a throwback post on it, because that's just too good to pass up.

On further Hastings-watch: I think that "Your Novel Reviewer" who responds to criticisms leveled in the correspondence pages of the last issue, is none other than BH. The tone is too familiar, as is the  gendering of literary ability as masculine (regardless of the sex of the person writing). I'll return to this at some point.

Quick notes:

Romney, of "Military Notes," hypothesizes that Japan could knock the USA out of a war by launching a surprise attack on the Pacific Fleet and the West Coast. In 1914.

Ludovici continues his defense of aristocracy (proto-fascism) in the correspondence pages.

And, finally, T.E. Hulme introduces two brilliant visual pieces, including this by Nevinson:

Poetry April 1914

Just a quick post on Poetry to end the month of Little Review Reviews:

Amy Lowell headlines this issue--following some essays, she's contributing poems here. I like a lot of them, but one enriched by context is "The Foreigner," a goofy Noyes-ian swashbuckler poem about a swordfight between the speaker-foreigner and a bunch of callow treacherous locals. I think it's an allegory of Lowell's trip to England, and sheds some light on her confident encounter with the London avant-garde. Lowell figuring herself as a deft swordsman outfencing the locals seems a little ludicrous now...

More interesting formally is "The Forsaken," a prose dramatic monologue of a Swiss woman who is pregnant, and whose lover just died in an avalanche. Interesting formally as a prose poem in Poetry.

Joyce Kilmer writes so sweetly: his poem "Easter" is printed in this issue. John Reed also contributes a poem, though I tend to prefer his journalistic work in The Masses to his poetry. 

Arthur Johnson contributes a poem "Lyra Vernalis," which is now the second pre-"Waste Land" wasteland poem in Poetry after Cawein's (see above). 

Last quick note: there's a definite Orientalist strain in this issue as the vogue for Eastern art hits Poetry--in particular, several references to Japanese art and a sequence of poems by A. J. Russell titled "The House of Takumi: Poem-Sequence from the Japanese." Unfortunately these are as "from" as the "Sonnets from the Portuguese": a note in the authors section points out that "Mr. Russell's poem is not a translation."

Lastly, and related: this is the first ad in Poetry for something other than books and publishing-related stuff. Looks pretty cool, too:

The New Age, April 23 1914

As usual, I'll open with the pieces that are most interesting to me (and perhaps to you, dear readers, both of you) before adding quick notes about the rest.

One of my rediscoveries during this project has been the impact of Allen Upward's writing and poetry on Ezra Pound. This issue contains an essay by Pound titled "Allen Upward Serious.". Period in the title in the original. It's a passionate defense of Upward as a thinker and writer, along familiar Poundian lines. Apparently Upward's recent books, "The Divine Mystery" and "The New Word" are being panned in the press because Upward also writes popular fiction--there's a snobby reaction against his ability to write "serious.". Pound also makes his defense of Upward's etymology of "glaux" as derived from the Greek for owl, later used in Canto XXI (see Liebregts 2004, 183, I edited an essay of Liebregts' for Paideuma when I worked there, so it's nice to find this connection). This essay on Upward also contains some insight into Pound's political development, as he credits Upward for claiming that "a nation is civilized in so far as it recognizes the special faculties of the individual, and makes use therof" (780). This makes a nice self-referential double-knot: by making this Upward's point, Pound lets his praise of Upward be that recognition while also calling attention to his own lack of cultural support. It's also Pound's concern, of course, and he was great at "making use of" special individuals. It's also clear that this is an elitist anti-democratic standpoint, the next sentence: "You do not weigh coals with the assayer's balance."  Reference to Pound pere, the assayer?

Quick notes (because it is the end of the month and I have a backlog):

Arthur Penty contributes an article titled "Medievalism vs. Modernism" which only obliquely deals with art: for him, the terms refer to political philosophies. On the one side, the guild system, Luddite anti-machinery craftsmanship, and nonalienated labor. For the modernist side, mechanization, alienation, Sidney Webb.

Peter Selver contributes a poem lampooning modern poets: "A Few Words with a Modern Poet," almost certainly targeting the Imagistes (794).

There's a huge controversy brewing between proto-fascist racialist Anthony Ludovici and others, including Annanda Coomarswami. Fascinating, disturbing stuff--Ludovici claiming that aesthetics are racial: "Ugly is simply a word denoting 'not our race' or 'not a good, healthy example of our race.'" (799). This was public discourse 100 years ago, albeit provocative discourse. At least one "R. Cox" protests that Ludovici in particular and The New Age in general is "too aristocratic." Must medievalism and aristocracy go hand-in-hand?

The New Age, April 16 1914

This issue of The New Age is uncommonly packed with content that caught my eye, so this post might ramble a little.

As a student of modernism, I'll look first at A.E.R.'s (Alfred E. Randall) review of Horace B. Samuel's book Modernities. Samuel's book apparently followed \ thinkers and writers that he considered modern, with one figure per chapter. It's the review, though, that interests me more (having not read the book this is only natural). A.E.R. enters into ongoing debates about the nature of modernity. Vide:

"Exactly  what  the word  “Modernities”  means,  I  do  not know and Mr. Samuel does not say; to call them “Newnesses” would be to risk a fearful pun on the name of one of our wholesale providers of reading matter. What is a “Modernity”?" (755).

The pun, I think, is on the eponymous publishing company founded by George Newnes. Haha, I guess, but to continue: what is a "modernity?" A.E.R. expresses displeasure with Samuel's definition, which I'll quote:

"If, however, an attempt were to be made to pronounce of what the spirit of modernity really consists, one might suggest that it is a spirit of energy, of fearlessness in anaylsis, whose sole raison d'etre and whose sole ideal is actual life itself." (Samuel)

A.E.R.'s objection to this definition is that these are not unique characteristics of a single moment or movement, historically speaking. This is a version of the many-modernisms theory. The last chapter of Samuel's book is titled "The Future of Futurism," in which he restates the thesis that energy defines modernism, and futurism is special because the form exceeds the content. A.E.R.'s response to it is worth quoting.

"[Samuel claims that] the function of form is to extract the whole emotional quality of its content, or, in other words, form exists for the purpose of emptying itself. It is not a container, but an extractor, of its content; it is Life plucking out its own entrails, if I may use so violent a personification; in other words, it is not form. There is one word that describes such a conception; it is phantasmagoria; and that is what Mr. Samuel really means by modernity" (756).

To give this a little context and analysis: lately Orage, A.E.R., and therefore TNA at large have been pleading for a common-sense English nationalist aesthetic based on wisdom (see his comments on Greek sculpture on page 755, for example). It's that strange paradox where TNA promotes some modernisms (particularly visual modernism) but not others. The bloggable quick answer might be that they feel the pressure that contentless form places on political organization, pre-flecting the debate between postmodernism and identity literature (I'm not qualified to speak on that debate, but my ear picks up a resonance). The excellent modernist artwork that Orage prints, like Roberts' image in this issue (see below), usually have a recognizable non-abstract content-contained in them.

Orage also makes a vicious attack on Harold Monro and his Poetry and Drama, but I'll be better equipped to talk about it tomorrow when I pick up the bound editions of P and D from my library.

Going back to the beginning of this week's TNA, the issue begins with a discussion of Edward Carson and the Ulster resistance to Home Rule. I had no idea that he was also the prosecutor of Oscar Wilde's libel case. By this time, he's helping to organize the illegally-armed Ulster militia that will ultimately keep Northern Ireland part of the UK. The New Age, though, thinks he is just bluffing and that the northern counties will use their armed wing as leverage in negotiations, before inevitably joining the rest of Ireland. Alas.

A. H. Hannay contributes a review and critique of Benedetto Croce's "The Theory of Art." Croce, according to Hannay, believes that imagination precedes perception. Artistic vision becomes everyday vision: "The visual perception of ordinary people, for instance, is not the  datum  of  the  painter,  it is itself derived from some painter’s vision: it  is a repetition of a previous  original vision. And that vision was imaginative: it created a possible experience" (749). Croce-via-Hannay might provide a lens for modernist art as carving out new possible visions, and has the benefit of being part of the contemporary conversation.

Quick notes:

Arthur Thorn includes a short piece titled "The Starving Man: A True Story," about a magician-type who has fasted for many weeks.

There's a translation of a Checkov play, "Popping the Question," a silly farce about property and propriety.

Ananda Coomarswami, who has appeared before in connection with both The Egoist and TNA, contributes a piece on art history.

The correspondence pages include R.B. Kerr (a contributor elsewhere) making a Marxist rebuttal of Beatrice Hastings' antifeminism, explaining that her vision of femininity as separate from the sphere of work is class-based and, therefore, baseless when broadly applied.

There's also an angry dust-up with T.E. Hulme over cubism, penned by one Harold B. Harrison. Could he be real?

At one point Wilde gets taken to task for writing prose in poetic rhythm.

This is by William Roberts, with a caption by Hulme in the magazine which I'll quote here because of its relevance to Orage's piece on Futurist form:

"This drawing contains four figures. I could point out the position of these  figures  in. more detail,  but I think such detailed indication misleading. No artist can create abstract  form  spontaneously ; it  is always generated, or, at  least, suggested, by the  consideration of some  outside concrete shapes. But such shapes are only interesting if you want to  explain the psychology of the  process of composition in the artist's mind. The interest of the drawing itself depends on the forms it contains. The fact that such forms were  suggested by human  figures is of no importance" (753).

The Egoist, April 15 1914

Leigh Henry begins (I think--I half-remember something like this before) a series called "Liberations: Studies of Individuality in Contemporary Music" with a piece on the music of Francesco Balila Pratella. Henry's essay begins, suitably enough, as a manifesto, delineating the different conditions of life that call for a new kind of artist: "With the discoveries of science and the invention and perfection of new types of mechanism, the external aspect of life has undergone a complete change, and this has naturally caused a corresponding alteration in the mental standpoint of the artist" (147). Perhaps in rebuke to some of the other authors in The Egoist, Henry joins the Futurist camp by also explicitly stating that ancient wisdom no longer applies in this new world. "Liberations" isn't the first time that Futurism has cropped up in my readings in these periodicals, but it is the first time that the genre of Futurist manifesto has been ported so perfectly (though ironically also a review). There's a focus on the value of materials over the human values, of science over emotion, of provisional intellectual constructions over monumental constructions--the last being my favorite characterization of Futurist art from the piece: "not the erection of useless monuments destined to obstruct the progress of the future, but the construction of light and effective edifices which, serving a material purpose, shall remain standing only until some superior form be discovered." Henry praises Pratella for his virile exuberance, unflinching individualism, etc. etc., and it all fits as a nice parallel theme to the general arc of The Egoist. 

From the correspondence pages:

The feud with Stephen Byington continues, as the former contributor keeps talking past-and-through his former editors. There's a neat formulation of anti-Platonic egoism in the editors' response: "The influence of the Platonic Idea has increased and is increasing : and we consider it our business and pleasure as far as we are able to resist it" (157). This in the context of The Egoist's dislike of abstract terms that define reality, and as counter to Byington's point that Descartes' idea of "idea" has supplanted Plato's in modern usage.

Aldington gets called out by Amliea Dorothy Defries, who seems to be quite formidable. You may recall that she wrote to him about the "Divine Origin" of art three issues ago. Aldington was nasty and imagist in his response. While her efforts to cut him down to size have mixed, though eloquent, results, I will include her analysis of imagism for its value as a contemporary critique:

He must know, too, that great poets are not the only people who are exact. Every scientist, great and small ; all architects, even builders ; and all engineers—even plumbers, are exact. Every mathematician, all financiers, every decently successful man of business, even shopkeepers are exact... These may all be great poets, but if they are it is not because of their exactness. Nor can the giving of " emotions, experiences, observations in exact phraseology " make them into artists: Technique ALONE is not art, an obvious truth that our eager people of the younger generation so nearly forget: and Mr. Aldington too truly bares their thin soul for us when he gives them, and himself, away, saying " The difficulty—the real problem for the artist—is to present the exact emotion, the exact vision, the exact Image." This is all very well, if I may take it for granted that he is allowing for the emotion, the vision, the image being greatly conceived, in the first place.

You may, reader, see where she's going to take this: the greatly conceived art work must come from somewhere, something she considers divine and Mother Natural. She defends the Victorians scorned by Aldington, pointing out (correctly) that both she and Aldington are in part Victorian. I found it difficult to learn anything about her, but Devries went on to write some kind of biography of Patrick Geddes, and Tagore wrote the preface. Further, she became an art historian, traveler, architectural critic, and, intriguingly, author of a handbook on the cultivation of mushrooms. I'll look forward to Aldington's reply, if he deigns to do so. The knot of Pratella, Aldington, and Defries is just beautiful.

Quick Notes:

The weekly "Views and Comments" is all about politics today. Perhaps most interestingly, the author (Marsden or Weaver, I assume) predicts, though satirically, that politics as creative entertainment will become increasingly important.

Portrait of the Artist continues with the passage in which Stephen tells on the vicious prefect.

I didn't comment on the first installment of "Memoirs of a Charming Person" by one "M. de V-M" from the last issue, but this was too cool to miss. A mysterious count, an occult sage, explains that each of the four elements has its corresponding kind of spirit. With natural processes (nothing satanic), one can come to know these creatures, the gnomes, sylphs, nymphs, and salamanders. Once you can see them and talk to them, you'll be mobbed by potential suitors from the spirit world because they attain immortality by mating with a human.

The New Age, April 9 1914

It often happens that the journals I read lead me to other texts. Their combination of curation and criticism, combined with their dialogic nature, means the art happening out of the journal is often as important as the art within it. This week's The New Age is an example of this. Orage's (I believe)  "Present Day Criticism" is a fascinating, socially engaged close reading of a poem by J.C. Squire. It in turn is a pretty amazing poem. I had to find it after beginning Orage's column. Here's the link to it on Project Gutenberg, click on this link to open Squire's poems and search "in a restaurant." The poem's title is "Ode: In a Restaurant," and it has Orage up in arms, performing one of the closest readings that I have found of a poem of length in any periodical so far. Quick synopsis: a poet drinking whiskey at the restaurant muses over his transcendental powers, but moves from scorn to empathy with the proprietors and servers, muses over the globalization of food that the restaurant represents, and finally surrenders to mundane reality. Orage opens by explaining that the poem is a satirical soliloquy of a modern poet, "carried out even to  realistic extreme in reproduction of the alternating metrical order and disorder which betrays the nerves scorified..." (720). Squire's poem is on the psychology of modernism, then, reproduced down to form from an observer. This is part of the satirical tradition of modernism that is so vibrant in The New Age, and its importance might be hinted at by the fact that Orage almost never likes a poem outside of TNA: the poem was published in The New Statesman, a journal not stocked by the MJP, but maybe I'll try to find it. It's a kind of proto-Prufrock, down to the music from the farther room:

The weak unsatisfied strain
        Of a band in another room;
        Through this dull complex din
        Comes winding thin and sharp!
        The gnat-like mourning of the violin,
        The faint stings of the harp.
        The sounds pierce in and die again,
Like keen-drawn threads of ink dropped into a glass
Of water, which curl and relax and soften and pass.
Briefly the music hovers in unstable poise,
Then melts away, drowned in the heavy sea of noise.
        And I, I am now emasculate.
        All my forces dissipate;
        Conquered by matter utterly,
        Moving not, willing not, I lie,
        Like a man whom timbers pin
        When the roof of a mine falls in.

I think that's excellent. I think one of the reasons Orage writes so much about this poem is that it is a moving target, a serious satire, a dramatic monologue, a psychological romantic poem that is about material goods. Here's what I mean: "This piece, as a satire, is terrible. The author spares never. We are made to hear the last words of the damned man, word of cynicism against self, and everything else. The poet knows that henceforth he is tied henceforth to his inexorable ame-damnee: 'Fool! Exert your will/ Finish your whiskey up, and pay your bill" (720). That's just a taste of the essay. Hopefully it is sufficient to give a quick taste, and anyone who wants more can go find it. One last note: Orage interprets this poem through his politics. It's very much a socialist reading, what we'd now call Marxist criticism, as the depicted consciousness's relationship to material culture is the whole point. 

I'm going to write more about that poem in this journal, but not here or now. Moving on to the issue as a whole, I noticed that this is another of those special New Age-s that has a loosely defined, central concern. This time it is about the relationship between the producer and the produced. I'll do my usual quick notes with that in mind.

"Notes of the Week" continues discussion of the Curragh incident, in which British troops made it known that they would not attack Ulster (more complicated than that, sorry for abbreviating). The New Age suggests that this fracture between what the army wants and what the troops will do marks the time for a general revolution. Amazing. This kind of instability, right before WWI breaks out.

A. J. Penty writes on economic reform, revolution, and Fabianism vs. Medievalism. Thesis: value in life is from a positive relationship to work, which will require a guild system.

Orage jokes about Henry James as biographer in "Readers and Writers," claiming that James would be his  choice to write the life of Orage. Jokes aside, there is a fascinating passage just past that explains TNA's view of contemporary literature:

Readers occasionally find fault with THE NEW AGE for apparently having no literary policy-as if you had only to sit down and imagine a policy and then proceed to expound it. But a policy is not arrived at in that way. That way lies idiosyncrasy. To formulate a  true policy, two things  are required-first, a good standard, and, secondly,  a perceptible drift and tendency in one’s age. While aiming to possess good standards, I affirm that our age is for the present too distracted and puzzled to have any particular tendency. Our writers are revolving very busily on their axes, and some, even, set off for somewhere; but who can say that so much as a  school are  going in the  same direction? (722).

As a so-called scholar of "modernism," this is interesting because it shows that even the most well-read critics of the time did not see any unifying features of modernism. His chosen example is "energetics," apparently suggested by Gosse as a common feature of modernism. Sounds right: modernism is about energy, which would gather Futurism, nascent Vorticism, etc. underneath a single umbrella. Orage, though, points out that there are anti-energetic poets (his example: Tagore). Whether or not Orage really thinks this, it highlights the murkiness of being contemporary.

Anthony Ludovici contributes an essay critiquing the arts and crafts movement directly, especially the furniture of Romney Green. He finds it clunky and impractical, and using this failure to call for more and better craft.

Walter Sickert eulogizes Spencer Frederick Gore as a "Perfect Modern." Another definition.

Much more, as always, remains in the issue. I've neglected these student essays, though, for too long. Until next time--

The Egoist, April 1 1914

This issue didn't pack quite the punch of some: here's what I noticed.

Portrait continues and continues to fit like a hand-in-a-glove in The Egoist. This issue's piece continues the critique of the Catholic church begun earlier. It's actually far more apparent than I'd remembered from my last (non-serialized) read-through. The context makes it pop, context like:

Richard Aldington's piece on mystical Latin poetry in the March 16 issue excites a correspondent (one Amelia Defries)  to write in positing that God is behind all great art, opposed to Aldington's contention that art has no divine origin. Aldington counter-attacks this position with classic Imagist rhetoric, applied:

"This much can be said. A work of art is so precisely because it is not divine or inspired or supernatural in any way. In the case of literature a work of art is the record of an experience, an emotion, an observation; its value as art depends upon the method of presentation. If the method is untrained, amateurish, not precise, the result is a collection of vague generalities which only torment the reader by seem­ ing to mean something they do not mean; if the method is trained, precise, hard, the result is an exact impression which is satisfactory to the reader and stimulating to his imagination." (139).

Intriguingly, the letter was from a theosophical type (the other sort of New Age), very crank-y, looking for the messiah. I quote for color:

"And, in the awakening of this New Era of ours, there is every possibility that such a man may once again appear among us. A poet, "a man whose eyes are those of a leader of men," "red-haired," "Godlike with great brows," "with passionate lips, of gigantic will and indomi­ table energy, a born fighter and overthrower, young also and enthusiastic . . ." and he will lead, as Jesus led 2000 years before; and all the normal men and women will be "divinely inspired" and will sing of him and with him in words, and paint, and marble, and stone, in colour and in music, and every word of his and of theirs will be of "Divine origin"—as indeed are every word and every line created by His forerunners to-day." (ibid).

Aldington takes a moment to specifically reject Besant, and also makes fun of the writer for the "red-haired" bit (I wonder if on some level a swipe at Pound, as well?).

Another cool thing in the issue may involve Aldington, too: Auceps continues his feud with Pound and Gaudier-Brzeska. Auceps specifically claims that he has never met Pound or Gaudier, which would take Aldington out of the question, but his concerns are so Aldingtonian! Eliot-fan moment: check out how Auceps (Latin for fowler), while making fun of Gaudier-B and EP by personifying them as birds, uses a certain cry for Pound:

"Popopopopopou io io!" wails the other tunefully. "Nay, dear Gaudier, sweet Gaudier, chuck-chuck chuck-a-darling, he has too much feeling, he is a sentimentalist. Tititititina Tereu-tereu !" (137).

I'm able to think it's possible that Possum might be reading this? Pound as Philomela?

Quick notes:

D.H. Lawrence prints a set of love poems that are very closely linked by key words, making me think they are a series or sequence rather than just a selection.

Pound continues to print "the notes of a practical and technical Chinaman" called "The Causes and Remedies of Poverty in China." Shades of later Poundian economics, as the unnamed author advises distributing the wealth currently concentrated in the hands of the dictatorial monarchy.

The first piece in the issue is on the music of Schoenburg, might be interesting to get a music-expert opinion on it.