The New Age, January 28 1915

"Hate us but hear," says R.H.C. in this week's installment of "Readers and Writers" (347). This is in response to one of the many New Age feuds, as someone is complaining that TNA makes too many personal attacks. The content is less important than the context: though this is about spelling reform, R.H.C. (probably Orage) explains that the reason TNA is so abusive is in direct relation to the mainstream media's tendency to only publish positive criticism.

Before ending on that note, R.H.C. closes a running dispute about a 18th century story that he claimed was written by a "1754 Blast School," which sparked a debate with a Mr. Duncan, an expert in the time period. The story is about "Hottentot" conceptions of beauty, and is very overwrought in its descriptions. Duncan finally succeeds in convincing R.H.C. that it's not a "Blast" from the past, because it is a satire, firmly a product of its time. While I'm just mentioning this here for the first time, I think it's important in my investigation of TNA's conception of modernism that Orage first attempts to show that the modern and new is a repetition--and only grudgingly admits that times have changed. This also redounds on my thinking of TNA's satire: by making Grub Street the old Blast, they also implicitly positioned themselves as modern Samuel Johnsons, Jonathan Swifts.

"R.H.C." also predicts that Kipling will soon fall out of fashion because there is no mystery in his stories. This intrigues me, and I'll try to keep an eye on Kipling.

I'll briefly one of the "Reviews" from this one: first, and more imporantly, Harold Munro's Poetry and Drama has suspended operations for a year due to the war. The New Age gives some credit to the journal, which it stabbed at hard enough while it was running--but says that ultimately PD was simply too big to contain much literature of lasting value, relative to its size. I don't have this issue of PD at hand, but I think R.H.C. takes a shot at "The Road Not Taken" specifically, and Frost in general. I should get the bound volume from the stacks and see: "Mr. Robert Frost piffles impertinently about setting forth somewhere where he will never go, worse luck" (352).

Moving on. Ezra Pound continues his "Affirmations," but before going there, I'd like to dip into the correspondence pages to show you his response to Beatrice Hastings/Alice Morning's criticism of him in the last issue, because it is so revealing of his relationship to both Hastings/Morning and Richard Aldington:

This letter appears on page 359. Is he joking about his lightest utterance? I sometimes think that he comes off much worse than he means to because he trusts the reader to take him lightly (which would make the joke circular). The Aldington reference is a pretty good burn, as he's pointing out that Aldington is the one who is always writing about the phallus, not Pound himself. Note, though, that Morning's criticism is placed above Aldington's satire in value, and this after Pound's repeated beatings at her hands in The New Age. 

Turning to the "Affirmation" itself, this week's is particularly of interest to me because it is about Imagisme (349-350). I'm going to condense it, perhaps too much: an image happens when an artist receives a powerful emotion and this emotion leads to their perception of a "pattern-unit" or a "unit of design" that is new, unique, suited to the moment, etc. These are "fused ideas" rather than single ones, and finding these fused images is the goal of an Imagiste. That's the kernel of the essay, as I see it.

Quick notes:

Alice Morning hersel(ves) continues her "Impressions of Paris." She opens with an idea that isn't too far off from Pound's Cantos: that "light in balance" can describe the Mercury of Bologna. She also gossips about Max Jacob and Picasso's portrait of Jacob, saying that the cubists are trying to say that cubism was "never more than an experiment," and that rumors say "this portrait was photographic enough in all conscience. I can’t imagine that Picasso is really doing that" (343). Here it is:

There's a marked contrast between Romney's prediction of a "speedy decision of the struggle" and Morning's "No one hopes any longer for a speedy end to the war," with which she ends her impression (335, 344)

Richard Curle contributes a kind of whiny travelogue about how much he hated traveling in Madrid, Spain. In some ways, it is a negative image of The Sun Also Rises. 

The New Age is full of fury for British commerce, which on the one hand is asking working people to sacrifice their lives, and on the other is claiming the right to sell war materiel at war market prices.

Marmaduke Pickthall continues to discuss the caliphate--a resonance across the century.

C.H. Norman's open letter to the House of Commons, "The Parliament of the Dead," proves legally that the members of the House are dead--as they voted themselves salaries, they violated a code that stated any MP who got a profitable job would be considered as if they had died in office, and a new election would be held immediately. The fire is somewhat lost in the legalese, but it's entertaining.

All for now...