by Pericles Lewis In the “Futurist Manifesto” (1909), the leader and publicist of the Italian futurists, F.T. Marinetti, showed a characteristic interest in anything fast or lethal: racing cars, trains, automobiles, airplanes, machine guns, tanks. He writes, for example, that “A racing car whose hood is adorned with great pipes, like serpents of explosive breath—a… Continue Reading The Futurist Manifesto
Tag: 1909
An Essay in Aesthetics
by Elyse Graham An early but significant article by Roger Fry, an art critic in the Bloomsbury Group, “An Essay in Aesthetics” (April 1909) attempts to describe what art is and why it matters. 1 Because Fry lived in a spirit of openness to new ideas (with attendant intellectual restlessness), it would be unfair to… Continue Reading An Essay in Aesthetics
Sestina: Altaforte
by Sam Alexander Ezra Pound‘s “Sestina: Altaforte” (1909) was first published in June, 1909. Pound had given a reading of the poem to the Poets’ Club two months earlier, which was so emphatic that at the Soho restaurant where the club met “a screen had to be placed around the gathering to prevent a public disturbance.”[1]… Continue Reading Sestina: Altaforte