The silliest, but most interesting, part of this issue of The New Age is Ezra Pound's next "Affirmation," "The Non-Existence of Ireland." In this one, he satirically describes how he can't find any evidence of an actual Ireland as a way to criticize the stall-out of the Celtic Revival. Naturally, James Joyce is an exile, so he doesn't count and is the exception that proves the rule. Pound praises Joyce and D.H. Lawrence, "so far as I know [they are the] only two writers of prose fiction of my decade whom anyone takes in earnest." Intriguing footnote after that: "A critic, whom I respect, frequently quotes a pseudonymous romance--'The Maid's Comedy'[sic]--which I have unfortunately never read." So without reading Hastings, he's willing to give her boosters in TNA the benefit of the doubt that she (pseudonymously) might be on the par of Lawrence and Joyce. And now, forgotten!
BH as Morning notes that she's laid up with influenza and won't be able to contribute anything new for the next few weeks.
"Readers and Writers" this week contains transcribed tidbits of conversations Orage has had recently. Some are very insightful, some not so much, some are revealing outside of their own terms. My favorite of these last: "The modern movement is likely to land us in a series of marital disasters. On the one side, men are aiming at the synthetic man typical of the Renaissance: on the other, women are specializing in fragments. Very soon it will take seven women to balance a man, and polygamy will be talked of. But even a fragment of a woman will insist on the rights of a whole" (457). So, skipping the New Age misogyny at the end of that for now, consider what he's saying: male modernists are synthesizing, while female modernists are fragmenting. That this thesis is even possible shows the stature of women in modernism, but I wish he'd provided examples.
Quick Notes:
The last of Morgan Tud's Three Tales runs today. I still don't know who he is--but I'm feeling more sure that these are satires of Joyce. I will write about them someday, I think...
"An Open Letter to Mr. Stephen Graham" by one Percy Cohen is a nice response to antisemitic tripe about moving all the Jews out of Russia and Poland. Really cool. The New Age is taking on The English Review's implicit bias. The effect is somewhat dulled by C.E. Bechhofer's [sic, but I think this was spelled differently before?] account of anti-foreign and antisemitic bias in Kiev.
"Reviews" covers many recent books. December's Poetry comes in for a drubbing, as does Huntley Carter's book on Max Reinhardt, and new poems Rabindranath Tagore.
Pound responds to the satire of the prisoners from last issue: "His parable of the two prisoners is full of marrow," he says, but as a way to swipe back. Also, a direct reply to BH as AM, in a series of rhetorical questions. Most important are the last two, "Does she find no difference between the direction of my propaganda and that of the destructionists? Who most respects the masterwork of the past, one who battens upon it, cheapening or deadening its effect by a multitude of bad imitations, or one who strives toward a new interpretation of life?" He's calling her out for her bad classical poetry, I think, which is delightful to me.
Showing posts with label Anti-Semitism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Anti-Semitism. Show all posts
Thursday, March 5, 2015
Thursday, February 19, 2015
The New Age, Feb 11 1915
This will be a very Hastings-heavy post.
In her "Impressions of Paris" this week, Alice Morning/BH tells about a fire breaking out in her flat--she grabbed a sculpture of a head by Modigliani to some ridicule: the artist thought she was foolish for rating the sculpture above all of her other possessions. That makes this part of her "Impression" a double retort: she's responding to Modigliani, "the value of works of plastic art has to be settled by the critics because, of course, artists seldom know their good work from their bad" (401). She claims that artists revile writers out of vanity, but that they should see critics/writers as their "best friends" because they teach the public how to appreciate their works. It's worth reading.
The other side of the retort is to Pound, who has been boosting Epstein and Gaudier-Brzeska's sculpture in his "Affirmations" (more on that below). By stating her reading of Modigliani's sculpture, she acts as a counterweight to Pound's opinions: "The whole head smiles in contemplation of knowledge, of madness, of grace and sensibility, of stupidity, of sensuality, of illusions and disillusions--all locked away as matter of perpetual meditation. It is as readable as Ecclesiastes and more consoling, for there is no lugubrious looking-back in this effulgent, unforbidding smile of intelligent equilibrium." She also overtly half-replies to Pound: "I could point out millions of muddles in his articles--but he knows I am handicapped by not being on the spot [London]. He would only patronise my Parisian explorations and warn me, on the pain of his ingratitude, to leave him alone. I will leave him alone, then, the Clusterist." I recently got my hands on a copy of Hastings' The Old New Age, her 1930s exposee of The New Age, in which she claims complete responsibility for getting Pound published there, and even says that the money he was paid came out of her own pocket sometimes. This gets some corroboration in the "ingratitude" referenced above.
For the record, Hastings was probably right about the head being her most valuable possession. The image below is of a Modigliani head that sold for 50+ million dollars. I am not sure if it is the same one referenced in the story (photo from the Wall Street Journal, here's a link).
Interestingly, BH quotes Shaw as a riposte to Pound: "'With the technique of Michael Angelo, they set themselves to produce primitives!' The falsity of modern art is defined there." I wonder how much this points back to Modigliani, too?
She also includes a beautiful war poem by a soldier, titled "The Hours," originally published in Figaro:
I can't identify the author or find anything else about the poem online.
I think I will hold off on writing about Pound's "Affirmation" of the week because it dovetails very nicely with his essay in Poetry: I'll do a combined post on Pound and the Renaissance, Feb 1915. He has, though, also been writing in to the correspondence pages. In this one, he responds to the critics of his column on imagism with a few examples:
He goes on to say that telling the difference between rhetoric and ornamentation and an authentic image is a matter of intelligence. He can feel/see/know the difference, and we should be able to, too.
Quick Notes:
The issue opens with a declaration that the war is a "war of idea," and won't be won by battles or machines. This leads into an argument that the compulsory health insurance act has undermined the spirit of the English common folk...
"Romney"'s weekly "Military Notes" explain that English common folk can't rule, and need proper upper-class officers to boss them around. I don't see this as very New Age-y, so we'll see what next week's correspondence brings in response.
Marmaduke Pickthall's "National Honor and Personal Honor" predict much of what happens to (the legend of, at least) Lawrence of Arabia, explaining that individual Englishmen are trusted in the middle east, but the government isn't, and that's because the government will betray anyone for its own ends.
Morgan Tud continues his "Three Tales" in this issue, and again I'm struck by how modernist they are. This one is a shaggy dog joke, combining Old West imagery with trying to buy pills from a pharmacist. I want to know more about the author! Nothing in the MJP pseudonym database. I suspect Hastings, but the texture is Joyce, and the last was so Irish?
The correspondence section contains an absolutely venomous response to J.M. Kennedy's articles accusing Austin Harrison of selling out Oscar Levy (I think I mentioned this last post?). Harrison replies: "Jew M. Kennedy is a liar and had better go to Germany" (415). Yikes. Kennedy responds calmly, pointing out Harrison is the editor of the English Review, which is owned by Alfred Mond, who would later be a prominent Zionist. Awkward.
Last, a prophecy: "The ridiculous threat of the German Government to blockade England-and an ineffective blockade, which is the only kind Germany can attempt, is contrary to The Hague Convention-is not likely to affect our shipping, but it may likely jeopardise the lives of American travellers on the big liners. Even the American papers have begun to point out facts like this. The best argument we can use in the United States-and we can prove it-is that it will “pay” the Americans to support us," S. Verdad, 396.
In her "Impressions of Paris" this week, Alice Morning/BH tells about a fire breaking out in her flat--she grabbed a sculpture of a head by Modigliani to some ridicule: the artist thought she was foolish for rating the sculpture above all of her other possessions. That makes this part of her "Impression" a double retort: she's responding to Modigliani, "the value of works of plastic art has to be settled by the critics because, of course, artists seldom know their good work from their bad" (401). She claims that artists revile writers out of vanity, but that they should see critics/writers as their "best friends" because they teach the public how to appreciate their works. It's worth reading.
The other side of the retort is to Pound, who has been boosting Epstein and Gaudier-Brzeska's sculpture in his "Affirmations" (more on that below). By stating her reading of Modigliani's sculpture, she acts as a counterweight to Pound's opinions: "The whole head smiles in contemplation of knowledge, of madness, of grace and sensibility, of stupidity, of sensuality, of illusions and disillusions--all locked away as matter of perpetual meditation. It is as readable as Ecclesiastes and more consoling, for there is no lugubrious looking-back in this effulgent, unforbidding smile of intelligent equilibrium." She also overtly half-replies to Pound: "I could point out millions of muddles in his articles--but he knows I am handicapped by not being on the spot [London]. He would only patronise my Parisian explorations and warn me, on the pain of his ingratitude, to leave him alone. I will leave him alone, then, the Clusterist." I recently got my hands on a copy of Hastings' The Old New Age, her 1930s exposee of The New Age, in which she claims complete responsibility for getting Pound published there, and even says that the money he was paid came out of her own pocket sometimes. This gets some corroboration in the "ingratitude" referenced above.
For the record, Hastings was probably right about the head being her most valuable possession. The image below is of a Modigliani head that sold for 50+ million dollars. I am not sure if it is the same one referenced in the story (photo from the Wall Street Journal, here's a link).
Interestingly, BH quotes Shaw as a riposte to Pound: "'With the technique of Michael Angelo, they set themselves to produce primitives!' The falsity of modern art is defined there." I wonder how much this points back to Modigliani, too?
She also includes a beautiful war poem by a soldier, titled "The Hours," originally published in Figaro:
I can't identify the author or find anything else about the poem online.
I think I will hold off on writing about Pound's "Affirmation" of the week because it dovetails very nicely with his essay in Poetry: I'll do a combined post on Pound and the Renaissance, Feb 1915. He has, though, also been writing in to the correspondence pages. In this one, he responds to the critics of his column on imagism with a few examples:
Quick Notes:
The issue opens with a declaration that the war is a "war of idea," and won't be won by battles or machines. This leads into an argument that the compulsory health insurance act has undermined the spirit of the English common folk...
"Romney"'s weekly "Military Notes" explain that English common folk can't rule, and need proper upper-class officers to boss them around. I don't see this as very New Age-y, so we'll see what next week's correspondence brings in response.
Marmaduke Pickthall's "National Honor and Personal Honor" predict much of what happens to (the legend of, at least) Lawrence of Arabia, explaining that individual Englishmen are trusted in the middle east, but the government isn't, and that's because the government will betray anyone for its own ends.
Morgan Tud continues his "Three Tales" in this issue, and again I'm struck by how modernist they are. This one is a shaggy dog joke, combining Old West imagery with trying to buy pills from a pharmacist. I want to know more about the author! Nothing in the MJP pseudonym database. I suspect Hastings, but the texture is Joyce, and the last was so Irish?
The correspondence section contains an absolutely venomous response to J.M. Kennedy's articles accusing Austin Harrison of selling out Oscar Levy (I think I mentioned this last post?). Harrison replies: "Jew M. Kennedy is a liar and had better go to Germany" (415). Yikes. Kennedy responds calmly, pointing out Harrison is the editor of the English Review, which is owned by Alfred Mond, who would later be a prominent Zionist. Awkward.
Last, a prophecy: "The ridiculous threat of the German Government to blockade England-and an ineffective blockade, which is the only kind Germany can attempt, is contrary to The Hague Convention-is not likely to affect our shipping, but it may likely jeopardise the lives of American travellers on the big liners. Even the American papers have begun to point out facts like this. The best argument we can use in the United States-and we can prove it-is that it will “pay” the Americans to support us," S. Verdad, 396.
Sunday, January 18, 2015
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.
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.
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
The New Age, August 14 1913
This issue of The New Age contains the first protest against anti-Semitism that I have come across in my explorations, "The Folly of Anti-Semitism" by one of the editors (Orage, presumably?), starting on page 449. It's very disturbing, and very revealing, how much the author has to hedge their position. The main thrust of the piece is to discredit the Jewish international finance conspiracy theory, and further to discredit the idea that Jews have more money than is proportionate to their population. So far, so good. The author also defends Jewish intellectual culture, particularly their left-wing, to which The New Age is (at the moment) claiming alliance.
But then the bad: there's a lot of very-vintage backpedaling about "intermixture" and "purity of blood and spirit." This isn't shocking. I almost wrote about it in my piece on Rebecca West's "At Valladolid," (The New Freewoman, August 1)--but there's a throw-away aside in that story that has the narrator casually say, "We hate the Jews because of their habit of evaluation," going on to explain that Englishfolks are just as bad (67). Stuck in my craw. West has the fictioneer's excuse that she's writing characters and not her own views, but it says something about the audience. I remember a professor of mine during my undergraduate schooling telling the class that Pound was somewhat of a scapegoat--he was attacked by people who felt guilty for his public airing of their private thoughts. That seems likely, definitely possible, if not grounds for excuse.
At any rate, I'm glad The New Age has at least taken steps to combat the more-obviously-bullshit conspiracy theories then current.
Other moments:
I love it when the journals I read give me a shout-out. This time, Orage published the financials of The New Age "published, not as an appeal, but as a record for posterity, how soon to arrive I do not know" (458). They're losing one thousand pounds a year, pretty tough.
They also review John Gould Fletcher's Fool's Gold. Remember last New Age, when I was surprised to see him outright panned? They're just as surprised to really like his second book, going so far as to accuse the publisher of delaying the first one too long. So he's redeemed.
Satirical poet P. Selver makes fun of the vogue for villanelles, by writing a crappy one about villanelles. Ha.
There's a great surrealist urban short story by Arthur Thorne, "A Modern Metamorphosis," on page 466. I won't give away what the "organism" is--maybe I should have figured it out sooner, but I was happy when the moment of recognition came.
Beatrice Hastings, alas, continues "Feminism and Common Sense." This week's concern: how the decay of English hospitality has made it difficult to marry off daughters. Complete with totally square anger over dance parties.
But then the bad: there's a lot of very-vintage backpedaling about "intermixture" and "purity of blood and spirit." This isn't shocking. I almost wrote about it in my piece on Rebecca West's "At Valladolid," (The New Freewoman, August 1)--but there's a throw-away aside in that story that has the narrator casually say, "We hate the Jews because of their habit of evaluation," going on to explain that Englishfolks are just as bad (67). Stuck in my craw. West has the fictioneer's excuse that she's writing characters and not her own views, but it says something about the audience. I remember a professor of mine during my undergraduate schooling telling the class that Pound was somewhat of a scapegoat--he was attacked by people who felt guilty for his public airing of their private thoughts. That seems likely, definitely possible, if not grounds for excuse.
At any rate, I'm glad The New Age has at least taken steps to combat the more-obviously-bullshit conspiracy theories then current.
Other moments:
I love it when the journals I read give me a shout-out. This time, Orage published the financials of The New Age "published, not as an appeal, but as a record for posterity, how soon to arrive I do not know" (458). They're losing one thousand pounds a year, pretty tough.
They also review John Gould Fletcher's Fool's Gold. Remember last New Age, when I was surprised to see him outright panned? They're just as surprised to really like his second book, going so far as to accuse the publisher of delaying the first one too long. So he's redeemed.
Satirical poet P. Selver makes fun of the vogue for villanelles, by writing a crappy one about villanelles. Ha.
There's a great surrealist urban short story by Arthur Thorne, "A Modern Metamorphosis," on page 466. I won't give away what the "organism" is--maybe I should have figured it out sooner, but I was happy when the moment of recognition came.
Beatrice Hastings, alas, continues "Feminism and Common Sense." This week's concern: how the decay of English hospitality has made it difficult to marry off daughters. Complete with totally square anger over dance parties.
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