The Egoist, March 1916

A belated post on The Egoist for March! I thought I'd written one, but when working on April I noticed that I hadn't.

The big news here is that Tarr is beginning. Wyndham Lewis' novel opens with a few forerunners here--Ezra Pound's "Meditatio" excoriating the stupidity of the literary public for not liking Lewis and Joyce is one of these. The others are short stories by Lewis himself, "The French Poodle"  and "A Young Soldier." Both are war stories, as is Tarr, at least in that it appeared in The Egoist during the war and will certainly resonate with it. They are themselves a matched pair: "The French Poodle" is about a young soldier attempting to sort through his trauma, and mostly failing. "A Young Soldier" is much shorter, a sketch more than a plotted story, about seeing a soldier who looked like he was born to kill.

Quick Notes:

Harriet Shaw Weaver continues to write the editorials, though Marsden is still on the paper, apparently.

Richard Aldington, Amy Lowell, and H.D. all contribute poems, as does Alice Groff. Leigh Henry writes on Ravel, Huntly Carter on American photography and French cubism. 

The Egoist, January 1916

Something's come between Dora Marsden and the editorial contribution this week--perhaps her ill health? Whatever the reason, we get a rare treat in a full editorial from Harriet Shaw Weaver, usually silent, at this point the force behind what actually gets published in The Egoist. Weaver's essay should probably be required reading in the standard Intro to Theory courses in graduate schools, because it is a theory of theories in the humanities. Weaver's essay doesn't contain as many mind-bending twists as a Marsden piece, but it is a sophisticated look at the way theories come to dominate readers, who rely on their favorite theories to interpret all things, regardless of whether the theory is applicable or not. 

After arguing that theories are properly means to an end, but often become "pets or hobbies" instead, Weaver shows how the indeterminacy of language combines with rhetorical power to tend to channel people to the theories they already know: "And since the weapons of the warfare of beliefs are language, the shifting meanings of words, the fluidity and mistiness of connotation of abstract terms give the protector of any favoured theory his chance... Without consciously going such lengths, the propagandist nevertheless becomes skilful at so manipulating words and phrases as to confuse the issue, and he actually measures his success by his ability finally to create a dilemma from which the only apparent way of escape is by adoption of his theory" (2). Weaver moves from this to a keenly-observed point: the very revelatory power of a theory can lead to it creating obscurity later, as the ease which a theory solves problems can lead to it being applied where it is inappropriate, or even can lead to it being applied to prove contradictory points. 

Weaver uses the above to draw a distinction between The Egoist and its contemporary journals, which are more shaded by political programs and theories: "THE EGOIST is wedded to no belief from which it is unwilling to be divorced." That alone makes it superior to the likes of The New Age. I've added this essay to my syllabus for the class I'm teaching next quarter, and placed it early. There's a lot packed into these two pages, but Shaw's lucid writing makes this accessible enough for a 200 level course, I think (and hope). 

Quick Notes:

Leigh Henry is back to contributing essays on music, albeit from his prison camp in Germany. This week he reviews the Fantasiste poets, and is full of high praise for them. 

John Cournos reviews Fyodor Sologub, and a few satirical stories by Sologub appear in the issue.

Richard Aldington reviews book reviewers very negatively, but delightfully for me bases his criticism on the fact that the public only likes things that are one hundred years old, using Keats as his example of an unpopular poet who is now too popular a century later. 

H.D. contributes "The Cliff Temple." 

F.S. Flint reviews Amy Lowell's translation, Six French Poets. Mostly kindly. 

R.B. Kerr writes in recommending that we read Mother Earth, the journal edited by Emma Goldman. I found a digitization here, maybe I'll take a look at it soon. 

Others 1, 2, 3

It's the beginning of a new quarter here in Seattle, which means chaotic wrappings-up of summer projects and chaotic scramblings to get new projects going. But I have to do a quick post on Others. 
   
The first three issues are absolutely epic.

The first issue (July) contains poetry by Mina Loy, and is the first time I've seen her on the MJP. Her Love Songs are racy and provocative, right away.

The August issue contains poems by this august crew (deep breath): Amy Lowell, William Carlos Williams, and Wallace Stevens. It also has a couple mostly-forgotten poets that I'm interested in: Skipwith Cannell and Robert Carlton Brown. The real treat, though, is Wallace Stevens.  I think this is the first time I've seen Stevens in the archive, and like Loy, his first contributions are amazing: "Peter Quince at the Clavier" as debut!

Lastly, to get me up to date, the gem of the September issue is T.S. Eliot's "Portrait of a Lady." John Gould Fletcher appears too, but his appropriative Native American themed poem is a mess.

I have to go to work!

The Egoist, May 1915

In May, The Egoist hosted a special issue on Imagism, now without the terminal -e of Imagisme. It is epic. It contains articles on F.S. Flint, Ezra Pound, H.D., John Gould Fletcher, D.H. Lawrence, and Amy Lowell. It has an essay on the history of Imagism by F.S. Flint, and criticism of Imagism by Harold Monro. As an act of canon formation, it is notable for how it downplays Pound's position in the movement. Critics went a long time before rediscovering that Pound was not as single-handedly responsible for the movement as he can sometimes appear.

I wanted to write a post on this issue, but it is too much. Check out the table of contents:

This is must-read material for scholars, fans, and enemies of Imagism. Apologies for not being quite up to the task of posting on eight or so essays, and a set of poems. I'll be teaching this in the fall and into the future, no doubt. 

Before realizing that there was just too much to cover in a blog post, I finished my section on F.S. Flint's first essay, "The History of Imagism." I'll post it because I managed to ferret out one of his obscure epigraphs. 

It upends completely the standard narrative of imagism, and clearly sets out this intent with an epigraph from Tacitus' Agricola, which translates to:

"And so matters, which as being still not accurately known my predecessors embellished with their eloquence, shall now be related on the evidence of facts."

The second epigraph is harder to track: "Chi compra Manfredi?" or, "Who will buy Manfred?" John Addington Symonds wrote about this in Renaissance in Italy, which I take as Flint's source. Here's an excerpt:

"Our knowledge of the earliest Italo-Provencal poetry is vague, owing to the lack of genuine Sicilian monuments. We can only trace faint indications of a progress toward greater freedom and more spontaneous inspiration, as the 'courtly makers' yielded to the singers of the people. The battle of Benevento extinguished at one blow both the hopes of the Suabian dynasty and the development of Sicilian poetry. When Manfred's body had been borne naked on a donkey form the battle-field to his nameless grave, amid the cries of "Chi compra Manfredi? a foreign troubador, Amerigo di Peguilhan, composed his lament..." (27)

The context in Symonds explains why Flint places this here: the death of Manfred ended a developing poetic that was transplanted to northern Italy, which became famous for its innovations, while the true innovators were forgotten. Clever, Flint.

Flint gives the credit to Hulme, who is currently "in the trenches of Ypres," claiming that they founded a "Poet's Club" in 1908, to impress women. Pound didn't show up until 1909 (by a printer's error, it is 7909 in the text!). Flint is clearly upset by Pound's conquest of the term. I wonder how the poetic justice of Amy Lowell's theft of the movement felt for Flint. Intriguingly, Flint implies that he did not write the contribution to the March 1913 Poetry text published under his name and which contained the three rules of Imagism. After a few more barbs at Pound, Flint stops.

The Little Review, May 1915

Sometimes I can feel a post devolving into either a table of contents or a diaphanous simulacrum of the issue, and I feel like a parrotfish of the archive: taking in rich, life-filled coral, and turning it to critical sand that sifts into the abyss. The nature of this project makes some of that inevitable, I guess--the real payoff isn't the blog post, after all, but the immersion itself. They are reflections of reflections of reviews. This is going to be a long one, one of the longest yet.

One thing that helps give things a shape is if I can sense the editors of a particular journal giving the whole issue a certain spin (perhaps an English, in the sense of shooting pool?). This issue of The Little Review has more of an English than the last--it is caught up in the spirit of revolution, and it sees this revolution as a distinctly American phenomenon. It is also a revolution centered on the individual (Anderson is reading The Egoist, after all).

First stop, editor Margaret C. Anderson's editorial, "What Are We Fighting For?" It opens with a response to her article preferring Scriabin to Gabrilowitsch from last issue (which alas I did not comment on in my post, not having enough knowledge of the musical context). This moves into a programmatic moment I've fetched for you here:

I am certain that other scholars of The Little Review and Anderson have commented on this passage before, because it is so perfect. Anderson places herself on the absolute cusp of the new, and a step beyond it.

Here are other important lines to consider:

"There's nothing pompous in saying that the thoughts of only a few people matter. This has always been so and always will be. Every new valuation has come about just that way—championed by a group and then endorsed by a majority long after it has ceased to matter much."

"In each of the future issues of THE LITTLE REVIEW, beginning with June if possible, we shall have a special article attacking current fallacies in the arts or in life—getting down to the foundations. Each one will be written by a person who knows thoroughly what he is talking about, and each will be 'true and memorable,' to use Will Comfort's good phrase."

Finally, if one would like to join in, Anderson solicits articles from expert readers:

"The conditions of acceptance are these : You must know English prose; you must write it as though you are talking instead of writing; you must say quite frankly and in detail the things you would not be allowed to say in the prostituted, subsidized, or uninteresting magazines; and you must be true. This begins our warfare."

While these speak for themselves, I'll make some observations. First, there's an awful lot of talk about true and false here, which makes me think Anderson likes Marsden's work quite a lot but doesn't apply its lessons on the emptiness of truth as a concept and criterion. Note that Anderson expects sweeping changes to emerge from her magazine, but embraces the condition of being an elite avant garde that creates a "new valuation" that will not be immediate accepted. The call for writing "as though you are talking instead of writing" is very cool, and resonates with both Pound's position as "village talker" and Beatrice Hastings' embraced insult when she was called a talker, not a writer (see The Old New Age pamphlet, must-read stuff for Hastings fans). It also distinguishes TLR from The Egoist in that TE doesn't use the language of speech. Also, the title and the final line carry unusual weight in a time of war.

So that's the mission--now I'll look at how this issue attempts to achieve this. As usual, editorial vision cannot (and should not) bring contributors into total coherence. This issue is full of notable, diverse writing.

Will Levington Comfort contributes "America's Ignition," an excited and exciting manifesto about the reconstruction of the world after the war, in which America and the new generation will take a leading part. Comfort believes that the secret to life is avoiding selfishness, and that the current generation will be unselfish because of the vision of the war. This will lead to a renaissance of intuitive thought. He claims that nationalism will end when people realize that the differences among nations are merely part of the great international whole--alas. He claims that the world seeks balance, and that Germany's aggression is an attempt to balance the oversized power of the British Empire. The below paragraph on intuition vs. intellect is worth taking as a whole:

We will cease to "believe in intellect," and instead intuition will provide a more valid way to know.

Anderson reviews lectures by Mother Jones and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, and is surprised to prefer Flynn. While appreciating Jones, she writes of Flynn: "I like these I. W. W. people a lot. They are not only offering an efficient program of labor ; they are getting close to a workable philosophy of life. They are even capable of a virtue no working-class organization is supposed to be overburdened with: hardness of thought. As Miss Flynn said : 'Don't pamper yourselves. It's not a sacrifice to fight for your own freedom !'" (18).

Amy Lowell, who appears to be well on her way to capturing Imagism, writes an encomium on Harold Monro and his Poetry Bookshop. It is a little self-aggrandizing, as she relishes in describing herself as the enlightened intellectual causing a stir by being so into books. On the other hand--she models the practices of a reader of poetry and fuses that with the joy of shopping. This may be more of a throwback to the 19th century's obsession with beautiful books of poetry than something new, but it can only help the poets she mentions.

Helen Hoyt contributes a cool memento mori poem in free verse, "Words out of Waking."

Richard Aldington provides an overview of the career of Remy de Gourmont. It feels familiar: I wonder if it is a version of something that appeared in The Egoist. Possibly, or possibly just on a similar topic. I love this: "under his pen mysticism itself appears almost as exact as science" (11).

Nestled within the self conscious avant garde is--a hoax. Sade Iverson, who contributes a long poem, "Who Wants Blue Silk Roses," is really Elia W. Peattie, who is hoaxing Anderson and modern poetry in general (according to the Dictionary of Midwestern Literature). Triangulating modernism via hoaxes is pretty fun: this one seems to think a bohemian lifestyle in the context of the war, rendered in unrhymed verse, can be passable modernism.

John Gould Fletcher contributes an intense post-Whitman prose poem, "America, 1915," in his usual elaborate style.

George Lane pens an extended review of Some Imagist Poets. It's notable for being very harsh on Pound, who is  accused of "jejune maledictions," which the movement has gotten beyond (27). I'll be writing about this at length later, so I'll leave it for now.

Last, an epitaph for Rupert Brooke:

The New Age, January 7 1914

I've been down hard with the flu this last week, so this post is a little out of date. I'm going to do back-to-back New Age posts to catch up. This post will be a bit dashed-off, I apologize in advance...

Starting with eerie coincidence: Alice Morning/Beatrice Hastings continues her "Impressions of Paris" by recounting a dream in which a dead friend returns to her. She then reports that a friend, the Spanish author Mesa, has been killed at the front...

...but (spoiler alert) in the January 14th issue she'll find him alive! But wounded. So the dream of a friend who died coming back was immediately followed by a different dead friend, Mesa, returning.

Back to January 7th's "Impressions": she reports meeting a pair of wounded soldiers, each supporting the other:  "Two fractures in the leg one, and the other--you couldn't say what he had; he  laughed it off" (245). Premonitions of The Sun Also Rises. She goes on to write about rumors of German women fighting at the front, with characteristic disgust at women who take on men's roles. This contrasts to a description of a wild New Year's party, and a short digression on the ugly architecture of Paris.

Immediately following BH's piece is the first of Pound's series of "Affirmations," an essay on the ancient musical instruments of Arnold Dolmestch. He praises this early music for its elegant and intellectual patterns, framing it as a vortex:

"That is the whole flaw of impressionist  or "emotional” music, as opposed to pattern music. It is like a drug; you must have more drug, and more noise  each time, or this effect, this impression which works from the outside, in from the nerves and sensorium upon the self--is no use, its effect is constantly weaker and weaker. I do not mean that Bach is not emotional, but the early music starts with the mystery of pattern; if you like, with the vortex of pattern; with something which is, first of all, music, and which is  capable  of  being,  after  that, many things. What I call emotional, or impressionist music, starts with being emotion or  impression  and  then  becomes only approximately music. It is, that is to say, something in the  terms of something else. If it  produces  an effect, if from sounding as music it moves at all, it can only recede into the original emotion or impression. Programme  music is merely a  weaker, more flabby and descriptive sort of impressionist  music,  needing,  perhaps, a guide  and  explanation." (247).

Quick Notes:

E.A.B., the American correspondent, writes a racist piece about the failure of American immigrants to naturalize, in "The Hyphenated States of America" (as in German-American, Irish-American, etc.). Prophecies doom.

E. A. B. also writes "American Notes," takes time to savage Rebecca West's contributions to "The New Republic," which is only a few issues old and is causing some stir. See also the strongly negative reviews of Harriet Monroe's new book, and Amy Lowell's Sword Blade and Poppy Seed. 

Upton Sinclair writes in, holding up George Sterling's poetry as the exemplar of American art (261-2).

Though The New Age has been against conspiratorial anti-Semitism, they print Oscar Levy and responses to him, so much remains--in the correspondence pages of this issue, for instance.

The Little Review, January 1915

I've been back to visit The Little Review after missing a few issues, sent in particular because The Egoist's last issue referred to TLR as its "firstborn." Rare praise for another journal! Perhaps possible because transatlantic distance diffuses competition, though note that TLR advertises The Egoist in its back pages.

Before beginning, Albert Spalding's performance of Mendelssohn in New York is reviewed on page 43, so why not put a little on in the background? The intro to this Youtube video is funny, too (recorded 1936). This recording emphasizes his established reputation, The Little Review, his growth into maturity.

I found several pieces to mention here. One is a poem by Nicolas Beauduin, and its accompanying introduction by Edward J. O'Brian, "The New Beauty" and "A Note on Paroxysm in Poetry," respectively. In a classic modernist little magazine power play, O'Brian positions paroxysm between a retrospective romanticism and prospective futurism, "paroxysm is deep-rooted in today" (15). Note that paroxysm is a word that ends in -ism naturally. Very clever. This introduction includes a short manifesto that does confirm O'Brian's analysis, containing elements of neo-romanticism ("we are not afraid to be cosmic"), and technological futurism ("It will sing the new man, the man-machine, the multiplied man, the Man-Bird"). It risks appearing like a watered-down futurism, though, and by so effortlessly connecting the romantic and the futurist reveals (to me) the inherent romanticism in futurism. The poem is an excellent example of work that attempts to absorb high-tech terms and effects. Here's the last stanza:

Cool, right? But not too cool. Like when people use quantum mechanics in poems nowadays.

Moving on, there's a review of Frank Lloyd Wright and Japanese art (18-19). Wright's philosophy meshes well with the revolutionary tendency of The Little Review, one that is concerned about the state of the world and of the United States and highly critical of established society, but one that has no revolutionary program as of yet. Wright's thesis, reflected in the essay, is that great artists create a "right conventionalization of life," and he himself admits that it takes an artist to understand what he means.

Several points in the issue refer to lectures by "Mrs. Havelock Ellis," Edith Ellis. She wants to reform sex and marriage. Here's her takedown of eugenics: "But later she cleared herself of the charge of cultism by her laughing remark to some one who discussed eugenics with her: "Eugenics? A mere spoke in the wheel, and a very dogmatic spoke at that. Heaven knows we don't want a race of averages" (32). This editorial comment also mentions that Margaret Sanger is currently on the run from the authorities.

A word on Eugenics: like I mentioned above, The Little Review is omnivorous, devouring theories from many sources, from Emma Goldman, to eugenics. I'll track it when I can.

Quick notes:

Amy Lowell opens the issue with a prose poem about the war. It seems so silly that I wonder if the added note that it was written in August is intended to satirize it lightly? Probably not, but one can hope.

Marguerite Swawate contributes a poem, "I Am Woman," a good example of 1915 feminist poetry. The poetic speaker is learning to sing her own songs, "my own way, without kiss, without child." This allows the male side of things to figure out how to sing in counterpoint to her, rather than alone, and ends up with a more perfect marriage. A somewhat disappointing ending.

The New Freewoman, September 1 1913

September is the cruelest month for graduate students--but we've come out of our annual move mostly intact in Bellingham, WA.  After a bit of a stressful beginning, I hope to get back to writing these posts in a more timely fashion. 

I've been reading Walter Benjamin's Arcades Project again--straight through for the first time.  I finished convolute "N" a few days ago, which has given me a new impulse for this project.  I think I'll try to make it more Arcadian--more presentation, perhaps, less commentary, certainly less retrospect.  Naturally there will still be a lot of both because the blog's primary function is still as a scholar's notebook... but I'll give it a try.

"Method of this project: literary montage.  I needn't say anything.  Merely show... the rags, the refuse--these I will not inventory but allow, in the only way possible, to come into their own: by making use of them" (Benjamin 460).  I'm hardly playing with refuse--but at least rags? 

With that, I'll turn to Sept 1 1913.

1. "Concerning the Beautiful" By Dora Marsden?  Unsigned.

"To read the history of the "Idea of the Beautiful" is the best known way of destroying respect for philosophy.... The reason is clear... [a]n effect is put up as a cause; from the supposed cause, a quality is supposedly abstracted; the supposed abstraction is given a sturdy name and then set free to roam the thin atmosphere of thoughts" ("Concerning the Beautiful, 101). 

This in the context of The New Freewoman's general skepticism toward concepts and "thoughts" as opposed to realities.  Calling Marsden and co. materialists may have angered them: it would domesticate them.  It's worth noting that the essay moves on to figure beauty as an elusive bird, building up an extended metaphor.  It also claims that beauty is "repose," a peaceful state of the soul.  Like Burke and his sublime/beautiful split, I think. [I was right--see below]

After arguing that beauty is food for the soul, which becomes larger and better integrated through beauty, this gem: "As the intrinsic feature of a food is merely that it feeds, ie. that is can be used up in satisfaction of a need, so in the case of what we call the "beautiful," it is everything which overcomes disparateness in the soul, now being one thing, now another.  Sometimes the same thing will fairly regularly answer to the purpose.  Sometimes not.  All depends on the specific character of the need. 'A thing of beauty is a joy forever,' sang Keats.  Not at all." (101-102).  This manages to at once dissipate the power of tastemakers on both sides--the traditionalists and avant-gardists are revealed as part of the same overall experience of soul-feeding.  The twist is the NFW's characteristic hint that not all souls are equal, nor do they require the same food--which of course reestablishes their own claim to elite taste.  A delicate operation with/of power and confidence. 

Beauty must be "sensed, not thought," therefore "effects which primarily belong to a thought-process must be eliminated from the category" (103).  The editor lists three "brands" of this ersatz "associative" beautiful: the sublime, the picturesque, and the seductive.  The sublime is an "intellect-tainted substitute."  The picturesque "intellectualized beauty-fake."  The seductive "is merely the evidence of a suitability in the objective means to a definite objective end" (103). 

The end of the article, with its catalog of fakes, never really establishes what beauty actually is.  Here it seems to contradict the principle established at the start: "The intellectual malaise connected with the sublime the sentimental melancholy of the picturesque, the quickened desires... of the seductive, tend to dispersal rather than to cohesion.  They may have their contribution to make to the soul's need.  The casting forth of seed is as necessary as the reaping of the grain; but for the 'beautiful,' its function lies in the reaping" (104).  So dispersal is admitted as a potential need.  This hedging of the beautiful with the shrubbery of the picturesque (and allies) shows that the fear of dissolution is tempered by acknowledgment of its necessity.  I wish Marsden(?) had followed up on that--perhaps in future essays?

[I'm afraid that the rest of the issue didn't lend itself as well to sampling with commentary--or I just fell back into my old cataloging habits.  Consider the following notes as bookmarks, not finished comments.]

2. "Views and Comments."

Interesting attack on The New Age's guild-socialism, including a takedown of the concept of a "monopoly of labor-power."  Followed by half-humorous linking of NA with Pankhursts, and truly Hastings isn't far off. 

3. "The Poet's Eye," Ford Madox Heuffer.  This is a slightly-changed reprint of the essay from August's Poetry.  Transatlantic timeshifts?  I'm seeing more and more reprints and arguments across my journals--looking across and inwards already ready for canonization?

4. "In Metre," Ezra Pound.  Same review as from Poetry. 

5. "The New School" by Imagistes.  A nice selection of single poems from Aldington, H.D., Lowell, Cannell, Flint, and Williams.  Flint's poem is my favorite.  Williams's the best in retrospect, he's very much playing H.D. here, I wonder if the poem is for her. 

6. "Domestic Studies in the Year 2000": another science fiction anecdote, this one by E. S. P. Haynes.  It's about an old man about to be compulsorily euthanized and his reminisces of the 1913-present.