The Egoist, April 1916

So, I had to get that belated March post up in order to get one ready for April. It's a heck of an issue.

Before turning to the canonical coolness of several of these pieces, a moment from Muriel Ciolkowska's "Passing Paris" that turned into a half hour's exploration of the internet: Ciolkowska informed us about "Mme Poupelet," Jane Poupelet. The wikipedia article's in French--she doesn't have an English page, not yet. This passage caught my attention:

The idea of "our leading woman-sculptor" making dolls of "remarkable qualities" caught Kate's and my imagination. We have yet to locate any of these dolls online, either mentioned or in images. We did find some of her sculptures, like this whimsically chubby cat, apparently sold a couple years back in Rockland, Maine--a town where K used to sell farmer's market produce. Such a small world. Too bad we weren't living in the area and aware of this at the time!

So cute! We probably couldn't have afforded it. Further searches turned up this blog post by Alain Verstichel about her work sculpting prosthetic masks for wounded soldiers. It's also in French, but you should follow the link even if you can't read it to look at the images. From here, I learned that Poupelet worked with American Anna Coleman Ladd building these masks.

Katelyn also turned up this article in Harper's, titled "A Great French Sculpturess," written by Janet Scudder in the April 8, 1916 issue--coincidentally coinciding with the century immersion project of this blog. Scudder's extremely excited about Poupelet--here's a prophecy she makes, though, that might be true, at least most of the time: "Poupelet's name will be forgotten just as the name of the sculptor of the Narcissi is forgotten--that is unimportant."

Then we noticed that April 19th is Poupelet's birthday, which means I have to post this post today instead of worrying it over overnight, the way I often do. Happy 142nd, Mme Poupelet!

In other, more canonical news:

Tarr begins. I read it for my PhD exams, but reading it in this immersion project changes it considerably. Tarr, the character, talks like The New Age, and like The Egoist itself. Tarr's criticism of the world indicts the reader as well as his companions in the artistic Knackfus Quarter. The misogyny reverberates through the women's movements I've seen, and the anti-German sentiment gathers force next to the coverage of the war. Even H.D.'s recent poems of turmoil and initiation seem to be of a piece with Tarr as a piece of The Egoist--the dream of being alone, together, holds these things in an uneasy conversation. Or something like that. Is it a coincidence that it is followed immediately by a letter titled "Second-Rate Supermen" about the German misapplication of Nietzsche? Probably not.

Quick Notes:

Harriet Shaw Weaver's editorial criticizes the worship of wonder, the feeling of wonder, in itself: wonder properly appreciated ends with an inspiration to destroy it through learning. Knowledge is the proper end of wonder, not wonder itself. 

H.D. contributes "The Helmsman," a poem I know from Sea Garden. 

Richard Aldington contributes an understated prose poem about an English town, one about "the perfect book" which resonates with the first chapter of Tarr, and a lineated poem about Italy.