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...