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.
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