It's that end-of-the-month crunch to get these written before my next set of periodicals arrives. I've been shying away from Poetry lately, as I've been really into The Egoist. I'll just make a few notes here, perhaps someday to return.
The main items of interest:
Carl Sandburg's Chicago Poems, the famously-anthologized, appear here, and hold up remarkably well. Compare to Williams' poems in The Egoist of this month, there are many similarities that I might come back and hound down someday.
Amy Lowell contributes an essay on genre: the distinction between vers libre and rhythmic prose. Her thesis is that poetry always returns to itself, primarily rhythmically but it is the return (or "curve") that makes poetry poetry. I understand this as meaning: poetry is self-aware and self-shaped, as elements correspond to other elements. It's a nice definition.
Just skipping my stone on the surface--
Sunday, March 30, 2014
The Egoist, March 16 1914
This issue opens with the editors responding to their overt dialogic partner, Benjamin Tucker. Because I'm going back in time a little to catch this one, I would like to hazard that the manifesto in the March 19 issue of The New Age (see above post) is, at least obliquely, a response to the thesis of the opening "Views and Comments" here. Compare this paragraph, for example:
"The hypothesis upon which the rebel leaders—the agitators—press their propaganda is that "some thing" is amiss: therefore that it is a "duty" for those of us who are not pleased with things, to be prepared to attack persons and institutions. An egoist would say that such an hypothesis is erroneous and that hopes built on working it out will end in failure and disappointment." (104)
Going on to explain that the egoist would suggest that the poor gain power by whatever means they can. Pre-echoes of the "if you don't like being poor, get a job" argument, modified somewhat by The Egoist's lack of moral scruples. I didn't think I'd ever start siding with The New Age over The Egoist, and it is probably foolish to set myself into a false binary from a century ago, but there you have it.
The current installment of Portrait of the Artist is the smugging incident, right at home among The Egoist's discussions of Ireland, authority, education, homosexuality, etc. A perfect fit.
Pound reviews a show by Epstein and Gaudier-Brzeska, inaugurating the use of "snuggly" as an art-critical term:
"Brzeska is in a formative stage, he is abundant and pleasing. His animals have what one can only call a 'snuggly,' comfortable feeling, that might appeal to a child. A very young child would like them to play with if they were not stone and too heavy" (109).
William Carlos Williams contributes a sequence called The Wanderer: A Rococo Study. It leaps Whitmanically through the air with birds, attended by a mysterious goddess-shifting being, meets the Passaic. Is this part of Paterson? I run to the living room. I cannot find these passages. Perhaps they are presages.
Lastly, not leastly, a piece from the correspondence section. In reply to Benjamin Tucker's futile attempts to deal with/apprehend/converse with The Egoist, the editors attach this self-description:
Perhaps if we made a few statements we might help matters somewhat.
(1) We refuse to answer to "Rebel."
(2) We prefer not to be called "Pragmatist."
(3) We may not—according to Mr. Tucker—be called "Anarchist"—wherein we are quite willing to acquiesce.
(4) We respond readily to "Egoist," and beg it to be observed that throughout this battle about nomenclature, the "voice" remains the same: and that a well-meaning person could distinguish it anywhere.—ED.
"The hypothesis upon which the rebel leaders—the agitators—press their propaganda is that "some thing" is amiss: therefore that it is a "duty" for those of us who are not pleased with things, to be prepared to attack persons and institutions. An egoist would say that such an hypothesis is erroneous and that hopes built on working it out will end in failure and disappointment." (104)
Going on to explain that the egoist would suggest that the poor gain power by whatever means they can. Pre-echoes of the "if you don't like being poor, get a job" argument, modified somewhat by The Egoist's lack of moral scruples. I didn't think I'd ever start siding with The New Age over The Egoist, and it is probably foolish to set myself into a false binary from a century ago, but there you have it.
The current installment of Portrait of the Artist is the smugging incident, right at home among The Egoist's discussions of Ireland, authority, education, homosexuality, etc. A perfect fit.
Pound reviews a show by Epstein and Gaudier-Brzeska, inaugurating the use of "snuggly" as an art-critical term:
"Brzeska is in a formative stage, he is abundant and pleasing. His animals have what one can only call a 'snuggly,' comfortable feeling, that might appeal to a child. A very young child would like them to play with if they were not stone and too heavy" (109).
William Carlos Williams contributes a sequence called The Wanderer: A Rococo Study. It leaps Whitmanically through the air with birds, attended by a mysterious goddess-shifting being, meets the Passaic. Is this part of Paterson? I run to the living room. I cannot find these passages. Perhaps they are presages.
Lastly, not leastly, a piece from the correspondence section. In reply to Benjamin Tucker's futile attempts to deal with/apprehend/converse with The Egoist, the editors attach this self-description:
Perhaps if we made a few statements we might help matters somewhat.
(1) We refuse to answer to "Rebel."
(2) We prefer not to be called "Pragmatist."
(3) We may not—according to Mr. Tucker—be called "Anarchist"—wherein we are quite willing to acquiesce.
(4) We respond readily to "Egoist," and beg it to be observed that throughout this battle about nomenclature, the "voice" remains the same: and that a well-meaning person could distinguish it anywhere.—ED.
The New Age, March 19 1914
Perhaps the most important (written) piece in this issue is the weekly "Present-Day Criticism," an impassioned plea for the artists to attack the rich in order to aid the poor masses. Extremely relevant to Lawrence Rainey's theses on patronage in modernism. An extreme manifesto, probably aimed at The Egoist and company. Excerpt:
"Attack these would-be patrons ! They throw you the change of the gold they wring from the working class. You could not live on it, though it were one million times as much as the wretched pieces you get! There is no life to be had through this money-no life that will satisfy the spirit of a soul gifted by invisible, eternal and watching gods. Destroy your enemies!
Do not--do not think of the workers as of slaves! There is no slave-class in England. There is no aris- tocracy in England. The powerful class is the monied class; and this class injures all-poets, musicians, painters, architects, equally with the craftsman and the labourer. Attack this class! Attak this sordid and contemptuous plutocracy! Nothing can arise from your spirits while the incubus of this class is allowed to feed upon the nation’s energy." (624).
Followed by, no less, the logo of the MJP:
Quick notes from this issue:
"The risks of flying are greatly exaggerated"--Winston Churchill, quoted in "Current Cant."
S. Verdad discusses German anxieties about impending war, pointing to their newspapers which claim that Germany has a lead on Russia (which is mobilizing troops), but will lose it if they do not attack soon. Verdad points out that this is not true.
Romney criticizes the Ulster Volunteers for claiming that they will adopt Boer-style guerrilla tactics in an Irish civil war. Romney thinks that there isn't enough space in Ireland for this to work. Romney is really bad at predicting how wars will go.
Arthur Penty's guild-socialist "Art and Revolution" continues here, with the still-resonant claim that "there is a limit to the quantity of work which any man [sic] can do well". I don't think this tradeoff between quantity of work and quality of work is even an issue anymore: more is better. Solution? "...and the Medieval Guilds provided that this limit should not be passed." SO local regulation of production leads to increased quality. Elegant, outdated even when it was written (or so it seems to me right now).
Richard Curle provides a travel narrative of Egypt. The prevalence of travel narrative is remarkable, perhaps unremarked on?
Beatrice Hastings includes a satirical selection from an unpublished novel, attacking the Fabians.
"Attack these would-be patrons ! They throw you the change of the gold they wring from the working class. You could not live on it, though it were one million times as much as the wretched pieces you get! There is no life to be had through this money-no life that will satisfy the spirit of a soul gifted by invisible, eternal and watching gods. Destroy your enemies!
Do not--do not think of the workers as of slaves! There is no slave-class in England. There is no aris- tocracy in England. The powerful class is the monied class; and this class injures all-poets, musicians, painters, architects, equally with the craftsman and the labourer. Attack this class! Attak this sordid and contemptuous plutocracy! Nothing can arise from your spirits while the incubus of this class is allowed to feed upon the nation’s energy." (624).
Followed by, no less, the logo of the MJP:
Quick notes from this issue:
"The risks of flying are greatly exaggerated"--Winston Churchill, quoted in "Current Cant."
S. Verdad discusses German anxieties about impending war, pointing to their newspapers which claim that Germany has a lead on Russia (which is mobilizing troops), but will lose it if they do not attack soon. Verdad points out that this is not true.
Romney criticizes the Ulster Volunteers for claiming that they will adopt Boer-style guerrilla tactics in an Irish civil war. Romney thinks that there isn't enough space in Ireland for this to work. Romney is really bad at predicting how wars will go.
Arthur Penty's guild-socialist "Art and Revolution" continues here, with the still-resonant claim that "there is a limit to the quantity of work which any man [sic] can do well". I don't think this tradeoff between quantity of work and quality of work is even an issue anymore: more is better. Solution? "...and the Medieval Guilds provided that this limit should not be passed." SO local regulation of production leads to increased quality. Elegant, outdated even when it was written (or so it seems to me right now).
Richard Curle provides a travel narrative of Egypt. The prevalence of travel narrative is remarkable, perhaps unremarked on?
Beatrice Hastings includes a satirical selection from an unpublished novel, attacking the Fabians.
Wednesday, March 19, 2014
The Egoist, March 2 1914
This issue opens with another essay deconstructing (aware of anachronism, but it suits) the decalogue, presumably by Dora Marsden. Marsden's criticism turns to "love one another" this issue. The gist of her argument is that a commandment making love compulsory has the effect of acting as an incredibly powerful repressive tool by giving license to interfere with (love) one's neighbors. Contrasting this with real love, which is a childish (in a good way) friendship that allows for self-expression, Marsden makes a plea for an immoral life based on taste, hoping that "men begin unashamedly to judge the quality of life by its flavour in actual living: by their own "taste" in regard to it, forming thereby their principle as to what they accept and what they reject in it, which is living by a "principle of taste"—a principle which is no principle. It is living according to personal desire: life according to whim: life without principle: the essentially immoral life" (83). Pretty radical. As I understand it, this fits nicely into the arc of The Egoist by attacking terminology and then redefining it. The grounds of morality are completely undermined to allow each individual to set the terms of their own existence. Cracks are taken at churchmen and feminists who promote herd-mentality. It's an attractive philosophy for an artist, though--taste as the arbiter of morality, Pound's dilettante?
The next column is the repeating "Views and Comments," and it slides in nicely, following up the ideas introduced above. In South Africa, major labor unrest is shaking the foundations of the Boer-controlled government. General Smuts is brutally repressing the strikers, winning the admiration of The Egoist: "General Smuts, who affirms frankly to an astonished world that the means which keeps men free is the necessary force to defend whatever state or condition it pleases any whatsoever to give the name of " freedom" (84). No shared basis for morality.
Ok: then the editor(s) go on to continue sparring with Benjamin Tucker, who has labeled them "Archists" rather than "Anarchists," a lovely term with its inclusion of "arch" and Archy. The editors take this opportunity to explain the difference between the anarchy they prefer and Tucker's: Tucker wants anarchy of conscience, in which everyone treats everyone well without a state because it is "right." The Egoist prefers anarchism as a resistance to state power, of space for individuals to reach a higher form of self-determination (including, presumably, space to oppress people?). Scary.
Miss Hoskyns-Abrahall is advertising a series of lectures. I'm going to try to screen-capture the ad, because it is too cool for summary. Anyone who has read Yeats' A Vision want to comment on the similarities? How effortlessly it moves from discussing biology and education to spirituality!
Aldington contributes translated dialogues from Lucan, the Pan one is particularly nice.
Madame Ciolkowska reviews drawings by Andre Rouveyre. She intro's them with (of all things) a quotation from Paraclesus and the animal nature of man (especially woman). Apparently Rouveyre's value comes from being able to show how animal we are. And then there's this terrifying Marie Curie Zombie:
On the poetry front, John Gould Fletcher's Irradiations are selected in this issue--see my discussion of them from Poetry, if you want.
The last thing I'll mention here, despite the wealth of stuff in the correspondence pages, is the next chapter of Portrait of the Artist. This is the one where Dante Riordan gets in a big fight with Simon Daedelus over Parnell and the place of the Church in Ireland. I want to point out how perfectly this chapter illustrates everything Marsden says at the beginning of the issue: the debate is the source of morality.
Ok I lied: "Auceps" satirizes Pound in the correspondence section, showing off his (Auceps') knowledge of Greek sculpture and making fun of Pound's claims to knowledge of everything. On the way he compares Pound to Ruskin, though, which is interesting. Auceps must be Richard Aldington? Not sure about that...
Sunday, March 9, 2014
The Little Review, March 1914
The inaugural issue of The Little Review!
It's been a while since I added another journal to the project--strange, how time telescopes down to entries in a bibliography when I read criticism. It's so different to go about reading things in some sort of analogous time-space. The proud, imperious Little Review begins relatively quietly, with a paean to creative criticism and appreciation (by editor Margaret Anderson). The first editorial, "An Announcement," positions The Little Review among its contemporaries, with veiled nods to publications like The New Age. The differences:
"Criticism that is creative — that is our high goal. And criticism is never a merely interpretative function; it is creation: it gives birth!" (2).
The privileging of birth isn't merely the old-hat metaphor, because later in the issue actual motherhood is used as a position of authority to argue from. Which points to another difference: "Feminism? A clear-thinking magazine can have only one attitude; the degree of ours is ardent" (2).
Next difference: independence. Here's where I sense some New Age tension: "Finally, since THE LITTLE REVIEW, which is neither directly nor indirectly connected in any way with any organ ization, society, company, cult or movement, is the personal enterprise of the editor, it shall enjoy that untrammelled liberty which is the life of Art." (ibid.).
Beyond TLR's self-definition, though, I noticed a characteristic tendency to include both sides of a critical question--both in discussions of Rupert Brooke and Henri Bergson, the journal prints arguments pro- and con. The Brooke argument hinges on whether his excellent lines outweigh his tendency to write about vomit etc.
Anderson's feminist essay beginning on page 21 is pretty excellent, arguing that women have always worked very hard, and that their labor should be recognized (along with their right to self-determination).
Sherwood Anderson comes in with an article arguing for craft in art.
The poetry in the magazine is... not great. Yet?
Gertrude Stein, though, gets a shout-out from someone who has heard her read by someone who figured out how to read her: "But one night my host — a great, strong, humorous, intelligent hulk of a man, himself a scoffer at cubism — read part of her essay on Matisse so that it was almost intelligible. His in flection and punctuation did it." (43).
"Tagore as a Dynamic" is an essay about T., with an editorial proviso that they disagree with it. Interesting.
All for now...
It's been a while since I added another journal to the project--strange, how time telescopes down to entries in a bibliography when I read criticism. It's so different to go about reading things in some sort of analogous time-space. The proud, imperious Little Review begins relatively quietly, with a paean to creative criticism and appreciation (by editor Margaret Anderson). The first editorial, "An Announcement," positions The Little Review among its contemporaries, with veiled nods to publications like The New Age. The differences:
"Criticism that is creative — that is our high goal. And criticism is never a merely interpretative function; it is creation: it gives birth!" (2).
The privileging of birth isn't merely the old-hat metaphor, because later in the issue actual motherhood is used as a position of authority to argue from. Which points to another difference: "Feminism? A clear-thinking magazine can have only one attitude; the degree of ours is ardent" (2).
Next difference: independence. Here's where I sense some New Age tension: "Finally, since THE LITTLE REVIEW, which is neither directly nor indirectly connected in any way with any organ ization, society, company, cult or movement, is the personal enterprise of the editor, it shall enjoy that untrammelled liberty which is the life of Art." (ibid.).
Beyond TLR's self-definition, though, I noticed a characteristic tendency to include both sides of a critical question--both in discussions of Rupert Brooke and Henri Bergson, the journal prints arguments pro- and con. The Brooke argument hinges on whether his excellent lines outweigh his tendency to write about vomit etc.
Anderson's feminist essay beginning on page 21 is pretty excellent, arguing that women have always worked very hard, and that their labor should be recognized (along with their right to self-determination).
Sherwood Anderson comes in with an article arguing for craft in art.
The poetry in the magazine is... not great. Yet?
Gertrude Stein, though, gets a shout-out from someone who has heard her read by someone who figured out how to read her: "But one night my host — a great, strong, humorous, intelligent hulk of a man, himself a scoffer at cubism — read part of her essay on Matisse so that it was almost intelligible. His in flection and punctuation did it." (43).
"Tagore as a Dynamic" is an essay about T., with an editorial proviso that they disagree with it. Interesting.
All for now...
Sunday, March 2, 2014
The Egoist, Feb 16 1914
The Egoist does not disappoint. This issue, again, has a lot of great content.
Most notable (besides the continuation of Portrait) might be Pound's contribution, "The New Sculpture," a futurist manifesto (or very close kin) about the immanent takeover of the world by an artistic aristocracy. This is the first manifestation of angry-Pound I have encountered, which is a pretty significant centennial. Up to this point, he's been content to adopt a superior attitude that was predicated on distance and quotation. Now, he's yelling: "Modern civilisation has bred a race with brains like those of rabbits and we who are the heirs of the witch-doctor and the voodoo, we artists who have been so long the despised are about to take over control" (68).
Pound attacks Greek art and the psychological-realistic novel. This points to a deep fissure between his outlook and that of Richard Aldington. Aldington reviews de Gourmont and Conrad: his review of Conrad's Chance makes a distinction between Conrad's adventure tales and this more-psychological text. Aldington draws a comparison to Lawrence Sterne, praising the novel's long flashback. Fractures.
Amy Lowell contributes imagist poems of the John Gould Fletcher genre, with added weight of morals. Some, though, are quite good: the rhythmic play of "The Pike" is nice. The weirdest and best, though, is "The Precinct. Rochester." It's a portrait of a Roman wall at Rochester cathedral, and fits best the Egoistic worldview: "People who say:/ They are dead, we live !/ The world is for the living."/ Fools ! It is always the dead who breed." (69).
The editors continue their attack on ideas, this time through a perverse reading of the decalogue.
Correspondence contains a couple interesting letters: one on the normalcy of the sex drive, in women in particular. It takes an anti-suffrage turn.
Another unfavorably compares The Egoist to The Freewoman, because The Egoist has become obsessed with "art" instead of life.
Dissatisfying post... must get on, though.
Most notable (besides the continuation of Portrait) might be Pound's contribution, "The New Sculpture," a futurist manifesto (or very close kin) about the immanent takeover of the world by an artistic aristocracy. This is the first manifestation of angry-Pound I have encountered, which is a pretty significant centennial. Up to this point, he's been content to adopt a superior attitude that was predicated on distance and quotation. Now, he's yelling: "Modern civilisation has bred a race with brains like those of rabbits and we who are the heirs of the witch-doctor and the voodoo, we artists who have been so long the despised are about to take over control" (68).
Amy Lowell contributes imagist poems of the John Gould Fletcher genre, with added weight of morals. Some, though, are quite good: the rhythmic play of "The Pike" is nice. The weirdest and best, though, is "The Precinct. Rochester." It's a portrait of a Roman wall at Rochester cathedral, and fits best the Egoistic worldview: "People who say:/ They are dead, we live !/ The world is for the living."/ Fools ! It is always the dead who breed." (69).
Correspondence contains a couple interesting letters: one on the normalcy of the sex drive, in women in particular. It takes an anti-suffrage turn.
Another unfavorably compares The Egoist to The Freewoman, because The Egoist has become obsessed with "art" instead of life.
Dissatisfying post... must get on, though.
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