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.