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.