Sunday, July 27, 2014

The New Age, July 9 1914, and a note from the blogger

You'll notice that I've fallen down on the job of keeping the blog updated this month. I'll try to fill in some of the gaps--and flag interesting things to return to later.

Naturally the biggest news is BLAST, discussed across many of the journals that I read. Reading BLAST again, this time in context, was a great deal of fun--but contemplating a post that could encompass it has been intimidating. So I haven't. Quick notes would cite Rebecca West and Wyndham Lewis' contributions as ones that I think I haven't paid enough attention. Usually the manifesto hogs it all.

The war starts in two days. The first phase of this project may well be over--my dissertation will be about the avant guerre. I will hopefully be able to continue work on this, though--I am sure that the contrasts of before and during the war will be fascinating, especially as it tends to be discussed before and after, which doesn't take the length of the war into account.

And with this brief note, I will proceed to try a post or two.

The July 9 issue of The New Age has just a couple things I want to point out as important. One is the long discussion of the importance of Archduke Ferdinand in S. Verdad's "Foreign Affairs." He paints an Archduke who was compelled to expand by Germany--one who was not at fault.

England, it is often forgotten, was on the brink of a possible civil war over how to deal with Ireland. "The Religion of Home Rule" by one L. G. Redmond Howard is far more prominent than the discussion of continental affairs. 

R.H.C. (Orage) discusses BLAST on page 229. For further discussion, see the next issue of The New Age (which I may well get around to posting about)

T.E. Hulme writes a nice piece on David Bomberg. My favorite part wasn't about Bomberg, but when Hulme ruminates on the inadequacy of artists to describe their art, an inadequacy that degenerates into hand-waving. He would invent a mechanical device that could be used to make adequate gestures where hands cannot (231). 

All for now...

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