The Egoist, June 1 1914

This issue of The Egoist opens with Richard Aldington’s summary of Imagism, “Modern Poetry and the Imagists.” In it he reduces the scope of Imagism to just a few poets core three of himself, Pound, and H.D., possibly Williams, possibly Lowell, excluding the rest of the authors in The Glebe’s anthology (also hosted on the Modernist Journals Project). He even warily holds Flint at heavily-qualified arms-length, “Still, I think many people prefer Mr. Flint because he is an Impressionist. I don't say that he isn't an Imagist. He is, and the whole theory and practice of Imagism owe a great deal to him. But…” (203). But indeed.

Though the canonization is important, I also enjoyed Aldington’s Aldington-ized version of the Imagist manifesto, his crotchety satire already dripping from the whole thing. His answer to the rhetorical question of why they call themselves Imagists, for one: It cuts us away from the "cosmic" crowd and it equally bars us off from the "abstract art” gang, and it annoys quite a lot of fools.” Again his project is about partitioning subgenres of poetry (with a little agitation thrown in). Aldington numbers seven (six really, the last is that he forgot the rest) rules for Imagism. My favorites:

“1. Direct treatment of the subject. This I consider very important. We convey an emotion by presenting the object and circumstance of that emotion without comment. For example, we do not say " O how I admire that exquisite, that beautiful, that—25 more adjectives—woman "or" O exquisite, O beautiful, O 25 more adjectives woman, you are cosmic, let us spoon for ever," but we present that woman, we make an Image of her, we make the scene convey the emotion.”

Telling, perhaps, that it is not adjectival description of a woman that is Imagist, but rather creation, transmutation. H.D. is referred to elsewhere in the review as “the best” of the poets, and I sense her presence (cosmic?) in this moment.

And, next:

“6. The exact word. We make quite a heavy stress on that. It is most important. All great poetry is exact. All the dreariness of nineteenth century poets comes from their not quite knowing what they wanted to say and filling up the gaps with portentous adjectives and idiotic similes. Have you seen those unfinished poems of Shelley, which go something; like this :

" O Mary dear, that you were here,

With your tumtytum and clear,

And your tumtytumty bosom

Like a tumty ivy-blossom," &c. ?”

Hilarious and effective. He contrasts this with “Hermes of the Waves” by H.D., making the comparison to “nicely carved marble,” perhaps initiating (perhaps not, I’m not positive) the tradition of making Imagism into sculpture. Earlier it was perhaps inscription, “3. A hardness, as of cut stone.”

The whole crew is contrasted with cosmic Horace Holley, a constant contributor to The Egoist, so we’ll see what he makes of the review.

Egoism on Wells:

The editors (plural? unsigned, as usual) review (and diagnose) H.G. Wells’ The World Set Free, a book about a kind of postapocalyptic reconstruction of humanity through a sort-of United Nations. Which sort of actually happens, of course, so props to Wells. The editors are more interested in the ways he undercuts much current abstract moralism by clearly defining positions that are usually left abstract (which in turn reveals how stupid it all is once somebody defines it). That might not make much sense, so here is an example quoted by the editors on p. 205: “I want to make it clear how small are men and days and how great is man in comparison." This is anti-Egoism, perfect anti-Egoism. The empty plural “man” replaces the individual.

Quick Notes:

John Gould Fletcher’s poems are pretty cosmic in this one—or perhaps they are a hybrid of cosmic and imagist doctrines. They are interesting in contrast and in comparison. Fletcher’s use of adjectives and his unabashed first-person seem to keep them from “pure” imagism, or maybe it’s the tendency to heavyweight last lines that make the poems resolve completely.

Leigh Henry continues his set of articles on modern music with a really nice piece on Stravinsky, praising him as a Dionysian artist of great intellectual power. The opening paragraphs, in which Henry explains why 1914 audiences don’t get Stravinsky, would be particularly useful for teaching. He includes this drawing, I think by himself, to illustrate the new dynamics of dance:

One Bastien von Helmholtz reviews Poetry magazine! He encourages Harriet Monroe’s work so far, especially as a “provincial” journal in a corner of a “dark continent” (!), but wants her to “modernize” so that every issue will be worth reading, instead of just the occasional number. That seems to be a just criticism to me. He’s excited by Fenollosa’s Noh translations.

Harriet Shaw Weaver writes a review of a novel, “The Spider’s Web,” by Reginald Kauffman. Fascinatingly, Kauffman tried to use the philosophy of The Egoist and Dora Marsden in particular to shape his hero. Unsurprisingly, he bungles it, and The Egoist turns this into another chance to define themselves against those that attempt to define them. Good stuff, and it’s nice to see a signed article in which it is easier to tell who is who.

A section titled “Revolutionary Maxims” steals the methods of The New Age’s “Current Cant,” consisting of inane or hypocritical quotes pulled from the Times Literary Supplement.

Charles Whitby contributes a poem titled “Suburbia,” very much a la Whitman.

Ciolkowska pens a piece on the positions of women and men to love: women create it, men inspire it. Not her most original work, but I like how the resistance of love to translation into speech mirrors The Egoist’s larger philosophies.

Lastly, this holy collusion of poetry and advertisement, truly a paragon of its medium and its era: