The Little Review, September 1916

So, real work has come between me and my blog project lately--even though it was the beginning of much of that real work. But I have to hop on for a quick post on this month's issue of The Little Review. It's the famous blank issue, where the arts pages have been left entirely empty as a statement of the magazine's high standards--there was nothing good enough to print this month, so they print nothing. Awesome.

But... they didn't print nothing, strictly defined. They also printed little comics of what Margaret Anderson, the editor, was doing instead of editing. They are delightful. Here she is, depressed and eating a ziggurat of fudge for breakfast, for instance:

She also plays piano for 18 hours a day (and brings it to bed at night), converts the sheriff to "anarchism and vers libre," etc.

Also, the issue has no art, but it wasn't empty save for the comics. Its political coverage (of bomb attacks in San Francisco!), reviews, and correspondence are intact. There's even a letter from Frank Lloyd Wright, encouraging the journal.

A legendary moment in a legendary journal. That's all for now, though...

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 Crisis, July 1916

I'm just starting a fellowship to work on The Crisis this summer, and I'm excited to get to work on that. After a sparse June, I hope to get more posts up, and more promptly--but I bet the fellowship will distract me somewhat. I'll be setting up a component of UW's "Mapping Social Movements" website in its NAACP section, using information from The Crisis.

Transposing text from a magazine into a map poses some challenges--the magazine is at once a series of discrete events and a continuously evolving, living thing. Its life is more the life of the fossil now, perhaps, but I can catch much of the enthusiasm of the journal as it evolves. I want to keep my maps consistent, while also representing its evolution. This is just some prewriting here. I'll get more done soon.

On to the post on the issue:

The defining event of this issue is The Crisis' coverage of the lynching of Jesse Washington, "The Waco Horror," in a supplemental section. This is unusual, as there are only two of these supplements, to my knowledge. The Crisis uses its conventional tactics: graphic photography paired with a spare account of the facts, with moments of bitter irony and editorial comment that yet grant much ethical impetus to the story. This supplement is fascinating--it sets ups its accusation first by a long description of Waco itself, the kind of description that often precedes praise of a community in other sections of The Crisis, setting up the fact that Waco is a thriving, educated, typical town. The fact that the crowd was not drunk or rowdy is emphasized by subtle comments and captions. The Crisis also dwells on the fact that the murder was covered as a "news item" rather than as something more than that, that the media was not living up to its responsibilities. These careful rhetorical settings force the reader to confront that this is not an isolated event, or hysteria, or even mere news.

I'm curious about the development of this piece from the account of a lynching in Temple, Texas in the January issue. The Waco Horror supplement has its own wikipedia page, while the Temple lynching has comparatively little presence online. The Crisis' tactics in the two cases make the coverage of Temple seem like a precursor, and this might be worth a deeper look soon. 

Which brings me back into The Crisis itself. This issue is a deft counterpoint to the supplement, celebrating educational and artistic achievements. The text of the magazine itself reflects on this intellectual heritage in little details--using "yclept" rather than "named" just once, such a small detail, so full of meaning (130).

A couple details I noticed: the "Crime" section was folded into the "Ghetto" section this month. I am curious to see if that continues and if it signals a shift in the coverage of lynching in The Crisis. 

Of particular interest to me is the description of the NAACP's formation of what is essentially a PR department in order to counter the racism of the Associated Press (141-142). 

I was glad to see a graduate of UW-Seattle celebrated in the issue:

The Egoist, May 1916

End of the month means a flurry of short posts:

The oddest thing, perhaps, about this issue of The Egoist, is that it doesn't have an editorial at all. Harriet Shaw Weaver had been filling in for Marsden in the role, but this one opens with an essay by Aldington. He also contributes an elegy for Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, "A Life." It's a beautiful, subdued tribute.

The best things, perhaps, are the two poems by Marianne Moore, including one with this amazing title: "You are Like the Realistic Product of an Idealistic Search for Gold at the Foot of the Rainbow."

Quick notes: 

Pound contributes a translation of one of the dialogs of Fontanelle, 

There's a story about the trauma of a young girl who listens to her father beat her mother every night--signed B. Durak, a pseudonym I can't track a the moment.

Tarr continues--this time through, I'm noticing how thoroughly narrated the narrative is. Even the slippages between narrator and character are part of the narration, it seems. Incredibly rich prose, peppered with the occasional false note--or is it salted? 

The Masses, May 1917

The end of the school year rush is upon me, so this note will be brief.

This issue of The Masses stands out as particularly full of fiction. Short stories dominate the pages, crowding out the usual essays--seven short stories balance three or four essays, depending on how you categorize things. I wonder if this is a blip, or if it signifies a change in the magazine's policy.

John Reed's "Broadway Nights" was, of the seven stories, the outlier. The other stories are representations of injustice, of militarism, of poverty, or some combination of the above--they are ideological tools as well as stories, and tend toward the sentimental. Lots of dead children. In fact, every short story other than Reed's has a child or a young man die, except the one where the child is abandoned. It is strange to have such a persistent pall of untimely death over the magazine, especially considering the many ways it appears.

Reed's story, though, is a modernist tour de force, a short story about the shimmering lights of Broadway, depicting New York as a surrealist prose poem, or fever dream:

The final sentence: "Why do you insist that there must be a reason for life?" seems almost a response and rebuke to Richard Aldington's "The Tube," which ended asking "What right have you to live?" Instead, Reed celebrates the murky underbelly of the city at night, and its strange paradoxes. 

That's all for now.

The Little Review, April 1916

Now for The Little Review.

Charles Zwaska, the young office boy who joined the magazine at seventeen (he insisted on being called office boy), contributes a scathing take-down of Vachel Lindsay. As someone who is often irritated by Lindsay, I disagree with the faint penciled-in criticism in the scan of the magazine, which says "rather silly." The best part of this article comes when Zwaska writes about Lindsay's book of film criticism, The Art of the Moving Picture. To counter the theories there, Zwaska cites the disdain of the audience for the films Lindsay praises--he sketches a vivid portrait of their collective expertise, as they live in the theater, and sleep there all night. A golden age of audience engagement, cut short by the police now patrolling there. This is reminding me of Benjamin's "Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," a little. I'll look it up.

Quick Notes:

Like The Egoist's praise of Jane Poupelet, this issue mentions a few women who were highly regarded artists and performers at the time--here, a cabaret singer and a playwright--Yvette Guilbert and Alice Gerstenberg.

Allan Ross MacDougal writes about Guilbert, a French cabaret singer: "But whatever she sang—and I didn't know a word of what she sang—carried me away completely. Not a mood did I miss—not a suggestion of a mood. Perfect is her art. She has my adoration" (30). Hear for yourself on Youtube!

Gerstenberg appears in a blurb about her play Overtones. That link connects to a website that has the full text available, and at a glance, it seems pretty cool. Characters are followed by actors playing their "real selves," so the two characters are in dialog with their internal selves and each other, simultaneously. 

Ezra Pound, of course, appears in this issue--here he rails against the import duties leveled on books imported to America, and his complaints seem justified. Sometimes they are.

Lastly, The Little Review courageously announces a set of lectures by Margaret Sanger: