The Egoist, July 1916

Still working through The Egoist backlog, things are exciting:

Marsden begins the next phase of her philosophy by broadening her scope and heightening her ambitions, now aiming to change all philosophy forever. I'll try to explain what I think she's trying to do: philosophy is about to have a revolution like the scientific revolution, and Marsden is placing herself at the epicenter. The revolution will be a linguistic turn, one that reads, creates, and investigates symbols from other realms. It will be scientific, analytical, and based in facts--but because of the strong vitalist strain in Marsden, it will be full of life, fully acknowledging that the observer changes the observed, and is changed by it in turn. Here are some tastes:

"The symbols adequate to express the part are inadequate for the expression of the whole. But it is quite otherwise with the powers of the symbols which have grown up for the expression of the whole." (100)

That kind of optimism about the power of language feels very modernist to me, though I often think of it more in the context of poetry than symbols as such (though the gap is small). Echoes of Imagism. Which brings us to this, the climax of the essay:

"For while its agency is the living energy of mind which impregnates with change and growth everything it touches, its manner of activity (which is its distinction) is mind in concentration. The notion that its activity means just a disintegration of a composite whole into its constituent parts and that by analysing a subject we arrive at a predicate which contains merely the sum-total of the parts of the object with which we started fails to appreciate the true features of the observing process, and it is indeed utterly refuted by the growth in the world's multiplicity and richness. Exactly as the tree is not in the seed but— given devotion and care—is capable of being developed out of it, so in analysis: at the outset the subject does not contain the predicate but, given the fertilizing energy of mind, above all in the concentrated strength in which it appears in analysis, then out of the subject can be grown such a wealth of predicates as might beggar the imagination of a magician." (102)

Mind and matter, co-creating.

Marsden's piece, in a fantastic coincidence, is followed by one of my favorite H.D. poems, "Cities." I've written about "Cities" several times, but this is the first time I've seen it in its Egoist form--in the Collected Poems, it contains a different final stanza, one that redeems the horrors of industrial society. This poem doesn't.

And, as if that's not enough, Muriel Ciolkowska contributes a review of Proust's A la Recherche du Temps Perdu! It's one of her best pieces yet, containing large tracts translated from the novel, and ending with a reflection on the difficulty and limits of book reviewing. I feel like the book has rubbed off on Ciolkowska's style, at least for the review, as her descriptions seem to mirror what they describe as they meander from metaphor to precision.

In other news from Ciolkowska, she writes an obituary of the incredible Jane Dieulafoy.

Quick Notes:

Aldington contributes a dialog on conscientious objection.

Edward Storer writes in defense of Ireland after last month's editorial, and Marsden writes a very squirrely response, classic Marsden. She fends off Storer's criticism by explaining that he misread her and misunderstood her vocabulary.

Leigh Henry, more commonly in The Egoist for his articles on music, contributes a trio of Imagist-esque poems.

And of course, Tarr continues, with Kriesler and Bertha's convoluted walk to the party.

The Egoist, June 1916

I have a backlog of posts, but good reasons: I spent the last month or so working on a project on The Crisis, which I'll post about soon. These backlog posts will be quick sketches of interesting moments. Some might be more than that. I've been trying to keep up with my reading even as I'm not writing much here, and there were some interesting moments in the June 1916 Egoist. 

Primarily, Marsden's long editorial on the Easter Rising. Marsden illustrates the continuing development of her philosophy of political linguistics by explaining the relative successes and failures of England and Ireland during the rising, finding the roots of the crisis in rhetoric rather than reality. It's a problem of difference:

"Ability to distinguish "cheese from chalk " is the people's criterion of intelligence, and no doubt a scale of intelligence could be drawn up on the basis of the number of distinctions which people can bear in mind at a given moment; and if by some strange fluke a great empire can ignore this fact with impunity and read uniformity where actually there exists difference, lesser powers—rebels and the like—cannot." (82)

Marsden explains that the republicans failed to distinguish between their own situation and that of Ulster. She builds a philosophy of hate, and explains how hate emerges from rhetoric: inflammatory statements are made because, precisely, they are not actions. But they inevitably lead to actions.

"The chrysalis develops into the moth. Beginning in words just because these do not mean action, it ends in the use of words just in order that they shall mean action. The words which in the beginning were excrescences: appendages to men's more serious selves, in the sequel become the main body to which men are the insignificant appendages." (84)

A thought that resonates today. Plain speech is the remedy, according to Marsden, along with ever-finer distinctions and observations. Ironically, many of her more specific arguments seem wrong to me, shaded over by her wartime faith in England's omnipotence. When she generalizes, though, she often hits the mark.

Quick notes:

H.D.'s poem "Sea Gods" immediately follows this notice.

Aldington contributes a prose poem, "The Middle Ages."

Moore contributes "Pedantic Literalist."

Tarr continues, with the spiritually grimy Kriesler meeting Anastasya at a restaurant. The description of the Restaurant Jejune, on page 91, is brilliant.

The Egoist, October 1915

The Egoist is replete with interesting material, as usual. I'm currently working on a paper on Dora Marsden, and I really should be spending all my time on it... but here goes.

Speaking of Marsden, she continues her anti-government reading of contemporary politics. The upshot of the month's "Views and Comments" is that the media is misrepresenting the people--that the controversy over conscription is unnecessary because the people support the war, and are willing to do what they need to do to win it.

M. Montagu-Nathan continues a series on problems with the translation of Russian literature into English. He wants more Gogol.

Edward Storer contributes many translations of Sappho, giving his own take on the sort of Greek lyric poets that Aldington has been publishing lately. He cited the Wharton edition as his source, and translated both whole poems and fragments, but corrects Wharton's more prudish reading of the poems with this: "That her poems were chiefly love-poems, and love-poems written to women, is clear even from the mutilated fragments which remain. Any other explanation destroys at once their art and their reality. Yet sedulous hypocrites are to be found to-day who will wilfully mistranslate and misconstrue in order to envelope the manners of antiquity in a retrospective and most absurd respectability." Cool. So are the poems. I have read many translations of Sappho, but in these, the aphoristic epigrams stand out:

The indefatigable Huntly Carter reviews A.J. Eddy's book, "Cubists and Post-Impressionism," an early critical work on those movements. Carter, having been on the scene since Manet and the Post-Impressionists in winter 1910, weighs in quickly and decisively. He accuses Eddy of jumbling up which artist belongs in which school ("Picasso is not a Cubist, but an essentialist." [!!!]) Carter does point out that writing about avant-garde art should be investigated with caution, especially when "painted theories of a school do not agree with the written ones." Intriguingly for me, Carter boils Eddy's theory down to a paraphrase of imagist doctrine (without citing imagism): "the painter is seeking to make an abstraction of the individualising features of a movement experienced by him in a moment of time. In this trifle resides the only possible theory and practice of art." Here Carter is condensing Eddy's reading of Duchamp's "Nude Descending a Staircase," and this is the first time I've seen Duchamp referenced. Carter has nice things to say about Kandinsky.

Someone signing as "E. H. W." translates Peter Altenberg's story "Une Femme est un Etat de Notre Ame." It's very interesting, a portrait of the emptiness of a young woman's bourgeois life, written in an experimental fashion. It's ambiguous to me on a first reading whether Altenberg is using the relationship with the young man to redeem and transform this life, or whether the relationship and its poetry is also ironized as empty. I lean to the latter. I wonder who "E. H. W." is.

John Gould Fletcher continues Ghosts of an Old House, his southern Gothic serial poem. I'm not into it, but he prophesies my (and your!) reading his poem after his death in this one:

Perhaps the perfect answer to this comes on the same page, facing: Marianne Moore's "Diligence is to Magic as Progress is to Flight," a poem in part about how a poem can escape becoming ephemeral. The other Moore poem is "To a Steam Roller," and both are amazing, but here I'll post just "Diligence" because of my (contrived) attempt to make it a response to Fletcher's anxiety:

I should wrap up this post, and I'll do so with Richard Aldington: he writes about Laurent Tailhade, praising him for his obscene satire. What does this suggest? Yes! Aldington's own attempt at poetic satire follows it. To continue the theme established by Fletcher and Moore: Aldington's satire ends with another accurate prophesy:

And here he is, by Raoul Kristian, who I can't locate online, and that's all for now:

The Egoist, August 1915

A quick post on The Egoist of this month--

For me, the one of the more exciting things in this issue is Marsden's editorial, which appears to be a fusion of Imagism and her philosophy in a discussion of novelty and the new:

"The directing lures in life then are Images : Feelings in prospect : which can magnetize the vital power, first to Attention and thereafter to Action. Prospective Sensations hook into the Imagination. The prospect of growing into a sensation more and more definitely constitutes the paramount "Urge," and action in life is governed by this attitude towards a progressive definiteness in Sensation. The vital instinct is to follow such sensations as offer promise of developing themselves into something new : which said differently, means that life is in its highest condition of well-being when it is enlarging its world to include something new."

I'll have to think on this, but that discussion will probably end up landing in my dissertation, not on this blog.

In a hilariously-titled section, "Periodicals Not Received," The Egoist takes some measured at Wyndham Lewis' second issue of Blast, which I personally found to be fantastic. The Egoist is less convinced, mixing praise and blame (I suspect Aldington is behind this piece). Here's a sample: "Mr. Lewis writes brilliantly and in some cases with truth on his side; but it makes one weep to see a very talented man like Mr. Pound putting his name to such rubbish, even for a joke—the joke is stale" (131). Awesome: The Egoist is already accusing modernism's foremost practitioners of being derivative, facile, and late (a thesis I remember from Rod Rosenquist's Modernism, the Market, and the Institution of the New). The picture muddies again, and delightfully. No comments on Eliot's debut.

Quick Notes:

This issue includes a small set of Imagist poems by Aldington, Fletcher, and Moore. I recognized Moore by feel before reaching her name--even this early, her sound is unique, excellent. One of her poems is to Browning, another to Bernard Shaw, continuing her trend of writing poems dedicated to artistic men.

John Cournos eulogizes Henri Gaudier-Brzeska.

James Whitall contributes English translations of Judith Gautier's French translations of Chinese poetry. Some are very charming.

Muriel Ciolkowska's "Passing Paris" of the month includes an essay on Guy-Charles Cros, and three of his poems.

Richard Aldington praises Eugene Demolder's La Route d'Emeraude, calling Demolder an imagist.

A.W.G. Randall writes about Rilke at length as the most popular poet in modern Germany--I think this might be the first time I've spotted Rilke during this project. He's praised, though Randall thinks his mystical works aren't his best. He includes a translation of a poem, "Pont du Carrousel," which seems like (another) proto-mini-Waste Land with its underworldly bridge and blind but sublime protagonist. Very cool (page 127).

The same page contains the launch of the Poets' Translation Series, chapbooks of classics, one of which I'm fortunate enough to own in real life. Maybe I'll do a post on it, later...

The Egoist, June 1915

I've mentioned my summer fellowship on here before: I'm working on it a lot, and it's sucking up some of my blogging time. So a short post on The Egoist:

Marsden opens the issue with these lines, which make one think that one isn't going to like what else she's going to say: "Anglo-Saxon intelligence must arrive at an accurate apprehension of the nature of cultures if Anglo-Saxon supremacy is not to be finally and definitely relinquished." This sounds pretty bad taken with the other five sixths of the twentieth century to come. Her overall point is that England has allowed itself to be fooled into believing that morality has a bearing on international affairs, while morality is really just a means to keep the lower classes oppressed. This international morality leads in turn to the rise of Germany. Oddly, this argument is also one for socialism, and the suppression of individuality to the state for the duration of the war. At this point, Marsden seems a shadow of her former self: still arch, still provocative, but I have a feeling that her philosophy can't handle the war.

May Sinclair, famous for inventing the term "stream of consciousness" in The Egoist in 1918, contributes a passionate refutation to Harold Monro's reading of H.D. in the May issue of The Egoist. I love this passage on H.D.'s "Hermes of the Ways":

"If you are sworn to admire nothing but Swinburne, or Rossetti, or Mrs. Browning or Robert Browning and their imitators for ever and ever, you may reject the " Hermes " because there is no " passion " in it.

But why, in Heaven's name, should there be passion in it ? Haven't we had enough of passion and of the sentiment that passed for passion all through the nineteenth century ? We can't hope to escape the inevitable reaction. And isn't it almost time to remind us that there is a beauty of restraint and stillness and flawless clarity?"

My own reading of the poem finds plenty of passion in it, but Sinclair's point is to draw a contrast between it and "sentiment that passed for passion." We agree, though, that "to me, H.D. is the most significant of the Imagists" (88).

Awesome, awesome stuff.

Quick Notes:

 This issue contains a handful of poems, one by Aldington, one by Frances Gregg, one by Helen Hoyt, and one by Anna Wickham. Gregg's is a cool Gothic one about seeing (and maybe more) a ghost at sea. Helen Hoyt's is intense: "The Bullet Speaks to the Poet," a poem written from the perspective of, well, a bullet--but a bullet who resembles a poet in its effects.

Joyces Portrait continues, and seems very much at home here in The Egoist, as usual. It is dazzling.

Aldington reviews a periodical released by Edward Storer, one of the original pre-Poundian imagists, Loose Leaves. It is two pages long! Sounds lovely.

Allen Upward sends a poem to the correspondence pages! I love this. It is his own version of the history of Imagism in Upwardian verse. Some of it is silly, but the upshot is that he claims independence from the movement and that his inspiration was Chinese poetry, not Storer, Flint, and company.

Lastly, the final set of letters: one from Huntly (whose first name I fear I've misspelled for the entire duration of this project) Carter, and a response from Aldington. Carter responds to the Imagists in his usual vitalist Romantic fashion, saying that they see poetry as "an Art" instead of "as Art," and are more interested in form than expression. Aldington's response is materialist, in its way: people need training to become better at art, and studying forms is the equivalent of an athlete's training in poetry. Nice counterpoints that really capture an important contrast in how to read poetry.

Actually lastly: there's a lovely advertisement at the end, a place I'd like to visit:

That's all for now.

The Egoist, April 1915

The Egoist in April, 1915:

Marianne Moore makes her Egoist debut, with her poems appearing just after those of a forgotten modernist, Richard Butler Glaenzer--who has the tragic fate of not yet having a wikipedia page. His poems are cool, though. More on that in a second, after more on Moore's two short poems.

The first is dedicated to Gordon Craig, modernist director:

I can almost see the last line as the very very first draft of her much-drafted poem "Poetry." Note the careful rhymes, the way that meaning enjambs from line to line, the very-slant rhymes of "wake" and "retrospect." It's very interesting that the dedication is part of the first line. This poem makes me think of my late teacher, Herb Blau, who I wish I could show this to--I have a feeling he would have identified with Moore's portrait of Craig.

The second poem, "To the Soul of 'Progress,'" doesn't fit neatly on to a page and would look kind of weird on the blog here, but it is certainly worth a look in the pdf of the journal. On the level of content (or discontent), the poem is about how war can emerge from the desire for progress. It fits perfectly with the Egoist's skepticism. It also has an extremely tight and unusual rhyme scheme, a prevision of "The Fish." She seems to be channeling Yeats in a certain stanza that contains clapping wings and a tumult...

Returning to Glaenzer: his poems are about his hatred of cities, contrasted Imagistically with his love of Bermuda--and then, there's also a poem about an Antoinette. His poems are powered more by raw Whitmano-Futurist energy than intricacies, but I noticed that they are attempting to fuse that kind of dynamism with imagist technique, which feels odd in the context of how imagism is understood retrospect-ively, but actually makes a lot of sense in following the journals.

Huntley Carter contributes a piece that has a few interesting points--titled "The Curve of Individualism," it contains several points that are made stridently, then hedged back, so take this summary with its own hedging. First, he claims that Futurist art predicted the war. Then he explains that their art reveals the fundamental inequality of humans, and Carter postulates that one could create a chart in which "the height of the curve above the base line will represent the varying value of human beings" (59). He jumps from this to review Theodore A. Cook's The Curves of Life, which finds that the perfect spiral is that basis for biology and art, a claim Carter appreciates but qualifies with Cook's own "nothing which is alive is ever simply mathematical." This might mitigate the brutality of charting human worth somewhat? Maybe? Because he comes to a philosophy of difference:

"Advance (progress we call it) resides in differences freely expressed. If human beings are to move significantly in any direction they must not be tied up in inseparable bundles, called groups, guilds, and communities. Each must belong wholly to himself or herself. Each must be free to feel, act and choose a path of his or her own. The social or artificial restraint of differences in human beings is slowly but inevitably making for the destruction of the human soul" (60).

Note the pointed critique of The New Age's Guild Socialism.

So much more to do, but I will stop here for today after my customary

Quick Notes:

Marsden continues "Truth and Reality," and it is amazing. Too much to review on a blog, I will hopefully be devoting a chapter of my dissertation to Marsden. For now, this nugget: "The two terms 'real' and 'Reality' are very near to being the expression of opposites: real—the sign attached to a thing whose potentialities have been proved to be like to another's, and Reality—the name of a nominal " something " which has never yet existed and which, should '"it " ever achieve existence, would become degraded into Appearance and thereby cease to be part of Reality" (51). 

Richard Aldington contributes an essay on "Decadence and Dynamism" which in turn continues his own literary researches. He finds that most new art can be considered either decadent or dynamic, and that investigating the decadent, one finds that dynamism is merely intensified decadence. He reads Huysmans' A Rebors to make most of his points, and is probably one of few people who read enough obscure Latin to pronounce judgment on Des Esseintes' classical criticism (Aldington thinks it is brilliant).

Portrait continues...

Frank Denver reviews a modernist art show, praises Epstein, and declares that there isn't much good art around in those days.

"Fighting Paris" declares that it will return to its old title, "Passing Paris," as things are back to normal in the capital. I wonder if that will stick.

That's all for now...

The Egoist, March 1915

A day late, my post on The Egoist for March: just a few quick notes for myself.

Richard Aldington writes an essay on Ernest Dowson that warms my heart because he was inspired to do so while "turning over old numbers of the Mercure de France" (41). This piece is particularly interesting because of its economic theory of art, lamenting the struggles of his contemporary young poets. I wonder if there's some oblique commentary on Pound in his account of geniuses who are unfit to make a regular living.

Marsden continues her "Truth and Reality" series, with meditations on reality as based in conventions of language. Importantly, she attacks Bergson, who was important to the magazine in 1913. This essay is really interesting, and will get more attention than I'm going to give it right now--in my dissertation.

Harold Munro, after the collapse of Poetry and Drama, has found his way to The Egoist to pen a piece on a poet who died young, James Elroy Flecker, which ends with this sentence: "Few writers have devoted such careful study to their art, and few modern poets realized so truly the necessity for devotion to the art of poetry" (39). Note how, oddly, Munro seems to say that modern poetry is already finished with the past tense of "realized." I wonder if that's a slip, or if there's an implied periodization there.

F.S. Flint contributes a few lines of translation from the Mille Nuits et Une Nuit, presumably from Antoine Galland's edition.

The Egoist prints poems in french by Paul Fort.

Three Chicago journals have taken out a full page ad at the end: Poetry, The Little Review, and Drama. The momentum of American modernism seems to be shifting from New York to Chicago in a hurry.

The Egoist, February 1915.

Another truncated post. Out of gas. Dissertation too much.

Quick notes:

"As the article under the heading 'I Am' in the last issue of THE EGOIST raised all the debatable an insoluble problems in philosophy, we realize that promptness in acknowledging their existence and attempting  to deal with some of them is very desirable..." So begins this month's Egoist. Marden has such a flair for the dramatic, such confidence...

Her essay responds to the correspondence pages. Stephen Byington writes in with his objections, for one.

Portrait of the Artist continues...

Aldington contributes Synthetic Sonnets, funny satires.

Pathetic post, but hey!

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.