The New Freewoman, July 15 1913

The mid-July issue of The New Freewoman is wild.  Here are the headlines from my notes, which I'm including because they should give an idea of just how wild things have gotten--followed by explanations,  etc.  I'm looking forward to reviewing The Masses, where the politics are radical but reasonable. 

1. Democracy is a delusion, tyranny is preferable. Editors.

The libertarian argument here is that someone living under a tyranny knows that they are under an arbitrary system and can therefore act more freely than under a democracy--because in a democracy you cede your moral authority to the majority.  Not sure about that, but in general this article resonated with lots of fringey stuff still going around. 

2. Feminism is a bunch of rotten rhetoric, buy a gun. 

In June 1913 a strike of white South African miners was brutally crushed: see The New Age for an angry and horrified response.  The New Freewoman scorns the mainline suffragettes for writing a letter of protest, instead advocating arming oneself in case it happens in England.  Again, resonance. 

3. The "Cat and Mouse Act" is "exceedingly good government."

Because it keeps people from subverting the rule of law.  I do NOT understand the jump from the libertarian pleas for individual action to the defense of law and order. 

4. Anti-Semitic (but lighthearted) rant about how the Jewsrun England. 

Apparently someone wrote an article titled "What shall we do with our Jews?" in a contemporary publication, with the suggestion that they be given Angola for a homeland.  The New Freewoman laughs at this, calling it the tail asking "What shall we do with our dogs?" and suggesting that the Jews will take over England whenever they want to.  Ugh. 

5. There is an immortal soul, it's ecstasy, and sometimes it makes you kill yourself. 

Rebecca West's third contribution is more of a philosophical essay than her earlier travel writings--she reviews one book that says there is no such thing as a soul, and then another (by Francis Grierson, who keeps popping up) that says there is.  Her opinion is that their is something kind of soul-like, present in the ecstasy of dynamism.  Sort of reminded me of the Futurism+religion. 

6. White Slavery = Marriage

After all, that's what marriage is, right?  In its historical roots?  An entertaining but not at all useful contribution to the discussion of the white slave panic (see earlier posts).

7. The only thing paintable is the realm of the imagination

Huntley Carter describes a modern abstract painting as linked to photography: painting isn't distracted by realism anymore (photos beat them every time), so now it's about art (rather, about Art).  Cool connection to photography. 

The New Age, July 17, 1913

I'm only going to report on Beatrice Hastings's editorial, "Feminism and Common-Sense."  This is a recurring series of letters, and though it is good to have Hastings back, it's always depressing when she writes about feminism.  Her thesis: the establishment feminists are attacking prostitutes because of the decline in the marriage rate, not for moral reasons (remember the White Slave stuff?).  But it's not the prostitutes that are lowering the marriage rate--it's loose women who sleep around and try to be "pals" with men instead of getting married.  Note how Hastings rails against herself.  The fundamental flaw in her argument is that she takes it for granted that men will only marry virgins, though she acknowledges this as a disaster: "the unchangeable little tragedy is that the average man considers a temporarily loose woman a confirmed loose woman... wheras she is liable to prove an immaculate monogamist" (343).  The solution?  A capitulation before nature, a return to "virtue" by which she means sexy feminine mystique: "Mrs. Humphrey Ward was lately jeered at in 'Votes for Women' as suggesting a return to the poke bonnets and flounces, but a woman in a poke bonnet and flounces was a charming mystery... I should say that the craft of wearing clothes is pretty well lost to-day: we are all too busy putting them on!"

Of course, Beatrice Hastings was a fiercely independent woman who was "loose" enough to cut notches in her bed for every man who slept in it.  The contrast is intense, almost too much.  I am fascinated by Hastings--her rough start in life may be leading her to warn women away from her own path, a path that I tend to read as liberated?  More on this as it develops. 

The New Freewoman July 2, 1913

You may recall that I was a little confused about what exactly The New Freewoman stood for, politically--they seemed more individualist than feminist, per se.  This second issue overtly addresses their platform, and it is exactly that: a materialist individualism.  "Nothing that is not temporal is real," they write, countering claims that they were influenced by Buddhism in the strongest terms. 

As far as their feminism goes, I hope to run it by some of my friends who know more about the intricacies of feminist theory--I'd like to see where it fits into the grand scheme of things.  It is very interesting.  "Woman" is, to them, a social construct: "If we take reproductive organs away from this concept Woman, what have we left?  Nothing, save a mountain of sentimental mush..." (24).  There's also a whiff of flat ontology, as they discourage readers from thinking of "women" as a category at all, and instead to deal with individual entities as complete identities.  They take the opportunity to explode the concept of "Race" as well, along the same lines.  Pretty cool stuff, no wonder everyone loves Dora Marsden (and no wonder they changed the name to The Egoist, which seems far more to the point  than the somewhat misleading The New Freewoman."

Rebecca West contributes another great travel essay, titled Nana.  It's an account of a burlesque show in Spain, very sexy, very progressive-feeling in its (hedged) depiction of a female lust for a female. 

Also, Horace Holley keeps showing up.  Not enough of a Wikipedia page to really tell who he is, but enough to surprise me--it's all about his following of Baha'i.  Another character to add to the cast. 

The New Age, July 10 1913

Just going to jot down one cool thing in this one: Richmond Haigh, Beatrice Hastings's brother and fellow South African, contributed a piece on how racist British justice was destabilizing South Africa.  He claims that the British tendency to lock up native Africans for mostly-innocent misdemeanors criminalized and radicalized them once they spent time with hardened criminals.  Check it out: "What fools we are! I mutter.  What utter imbeciles!  And I mentally kick myself as being one of the white men of twentieth century civilization concerned in the deliberate manufacture of criminals."  The solution: instead of prosecuting people under a system of laws they didn't create, have never had explained to them, etc., Haigh proposes sending them back to their country homes, where they will be disciplined by their own people, and to ban them from returning to the city for two years (not sure about city people).  Things change slowly in the world. 

One other cool thing in this issue: instead of mooning about Italy, Aldington uses his column to discuss Florentine art.  His still-radical position is that the Byzantines had it right, while Renaissance realism was inherently flawed: "The Italians were like young children and could never have understood Byzantine art."  Or: "The student of the arts takes a macabre pleasure in observing the transition from a style of painting whose aim was to conventionalize beauty to one which is no more than a commonplace 'verisme.'  All this and more on page 296. Best Aldington piece thus far.

[Edit: I wonder how much Aldington's position owes to Roger Fry, who compared the Post-Impressionists to the Byzantines in 1910, in a March 1908 letter to the Burlington Magazine, for instance, reproduced in The Post-Impressionists in England. End edit.]

The New Age, July 3, 1913

I'm just going to post about one article in this issue: the weekly "Present-Day Criticism," a column that usually consists of the New Age editors demolishing the said present-day critics. 

This one is written anonymously--though the epigraph from an Indian religious text and the author's declaration that they are back from a break leads me to believe that it is by Beatrice Hastings, conspicuously absent for a few issues.  Thank goodness she's back (if indeed she is, but the liveliness of the piece is another point in her favor). 

Anywho, this one is another attempt to prevent spelling reform, but what caught my eye is that the guy calling for the reform is none other than Robert Bridges, poet laureate--and who I know primarily through my work with Gerard Manley Hopkins's manuscripts.  Most of the highest-amplitude Hopkins poems were first read by Bridges, through correspondence--he would write out beautifully handwritten copies of "The Windhover" etc. and then Hopkins would cross out all his mistakes, add all the accents he missed, etc.  This is the reason that many print editions capitalize the "AND" in "The Windhover"--Hopkins seems kind of mad that he had de-emphasized the exclamation point after "buckle."  Whatever their friendship was like, we owe it to Bridges that Hopkins' poems were published in 1918--more on that in five years.

The clash of Bridges and Hastings excited my poetry nerdiness, only I wish they'd talked about poetry instead of spelling.  Bridges' plan is to simplify spelling by a moderate phonetic reform: instead of strictly phonetic spelling, he's willing to admit that many vowels are pronounced the exact same way.  The solution is to just make that overtly clear, so that "they" and "day" are both acceptable phonetic spellings (no word on whether you could mix it up at will, "thay" and "dey". 

Pseudo-Hastings points out that "they" and "day" don't actually rhyme.  Hmm... maybe to her?  I find myself wondering.  I'm glad that we have our ridiculously spelt language, though.  Even if I don't really get the argument on either side.  Must be that I'm American. 

The New Age, June 26 1913

If you'd like to read some really curdling racist logic, read Sevota's "White Pre-Eminence in South Africa."  If you're into that.  Thesis: Abraham Lincoln would not support expanding the freedom of black South Africans because he was reasonable.  Bleh!  The sort of turd one has to mention in one's blog, because these things shouldn't be passed over lightly, should they? 

On a more lighthearted note, this issue of The New Age contains reviews of several of the other magazines I've been reading!  Now I get to write a little review of a little review reviewing little reviews.  Sorry. 

I continue to want to read The English Review, which is only partially digitized (and not 1913), and they are the only magazine that doesn't get panned: they are praised for their work debunking the white slave traffic. 

The Blue Review, aka Rhythm, is accused of publishing "incompetent" rather than "impertinent" poetry. 

Poetry gets panned, and to be fair, the last issue was pretty bad (notice that I didn't say much about the poetry in it): "'Poetry' is as unsurprisingly amateur as any journal of the kind in England" (237).  Tagore takes more flack--no mention of Pound or the Imagists. 

The New Freewoman also panned, with the (obvious?) exception of Rebecca West's essay (see above).  Still, there's plenty of "ouch!": "There is a great deal of cackle, but mostly lively cackle--which is saying much since the articles are anything from one to five paragraphs too long." 

I'm still waiting for some interesting literature to reappear in The New Age, and may have to wait until Hastings returns from her summer vacation.  I miss her like I miss John Stewart. 

Poetry Magazine, June 1913

There are a few cool things in this issue of Poetry.   My favorite is John Reed's response to Pound's Contemporania in the April 1913 issue of Poetry.  Reed had published his poem "Sangar" in the December 1912 issue of Poetry.  It is an allegory of the muckraker Lincoln Steffens' attempt to reconcile opposing sides of a political struggle (spoiler alert)--a virtuous king is murdered by his son for attempting to reconcile with the Huns.  Pound then excerpts the ironic opening of "Sangar" for his poem "Pax Saturni" in the April number.  In June, Reed's rightly-pissed-off letter about it gets printed.  Clearly Pound was using Reed's poem as if that opening was serious, but as an allegory of contemporary events, it is supposed to be ironic.  Reed applies the same treatment to Pound: "How would you like it if I were to amputate 'Say there are no oppressions,/ Say that it is a time of peace./ Say that labor is pleasant,/ Speak of the American virtues' and clap it at the head of an ode titled "President Taft?' Wouldn't it seem ridiculous to you?"  The parting jab: "I am glad you and Walt Whitman are friends.  You should have known each other long ago."  Of course, Walt gets the last word: the issue closes with a quotation from him: "To have great poets, there must be great audiences too." 

Also noteworthy is the Poetry debut of William Carlos Williams, which surprised me most in how many exclamation points he used.  Four poems, 35 exclamation points! 

Tagore publishes more poems, too--hopefully continuing the controversies that he's sparked.

Witter Bynner takes a poetic potshot at Yeats in an extended epigram, in the correspondence section.


Note added 8/10/13: I almost forgot to mention that this is the same John Reed who wrote the awesome article for The Masses. Or did I say that elsewhere?