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: