Art

by Elyse Graham Clive Bell’s theories of art shaped themselves under two major influences. One was the ethical philosopher G.E. Moore‘s defense of his field: for a set of things to shelter under one class, they must have a common property—in the case of ethics, goodness—which must really exist. 1 Bell, who like all art… Continue Reading Art

Poems and Last Poems (Edward Thomas)

by Emily Cersonsky Though an active literary critic for most of his life, Edward Thomas did not write his first poem until late in 1914, and proceeded to produce his entire oeuvre (over 100 poems, most published posthumously in the collections Poems and Last Poems) before his death in 1917 at the Battle of Arras.… Continue Reading Poems and Last Poems (Edward Thomas)

Tender Buttons

Gertrude Stein’s “Tender Buttons” (1914) offers “studies in description” of objects, in which, as in cubist still life, the object being described seems to be veiled by the medium of description. In the cubism of Picasso and Braque, the veils were the planes into which the painter broke up the canvas. In Stein’s writing, as… Continue Reading Tender Buttons

Des Imagistes

Des Imagistes: An Anthology (1914) by Elyse Graham When Ezra Pound arrived in London in 1909, he began arranging introductions to all the literary people he could manage. The most felicitous was to the novelist Olivia Shakespear; not only did she connect Pound with her lover, W.B. Yeats, but Pound eventually married her daughter, Dorothy.… Continue Reading Des Imagistes

Exhibition of the Camden Town Group and Others

This exhibition was held from December 1913 to January 1914 at the Brighton City Art Gallery. Although it was advertised as ‘An exhibition of the Camden Town Group and Others’ – the catalogue sported the title ‘An exhibition of English Post-Impressionists, Cubists and Others’ and the introduction by J. B. Manson called it an exhibition… Continue Reading Exhibition of the Camden Town Group and Others

BLAST

by Pericles Lewis Ezra Pound collaborated with Wyndham Lewis on the first issue of the journal BLAST, published less than a month before the outbreak of the first world war (July 1914). The volume contained a manifesto, a few of Pound’s less successful poems, reproductions of Vorticist paintings, the first draft of Ford Madox Ford’s… Continue Reading BLAST

Study of Thomas Hardy

by Sam Alexander D.H. Lawrence’s Study of Thomas Hardy (1914) began as a commission for the “Writers of the Day” series published by James Nisbet and co., but grew so far beyond its ostensible subject that Lawrence had to abandon the hope of publication. By 1915, he had even renamed it “Le Gai Savaire” (pseudo-French… Continue Reading Study of Thomas Hardy

Poems of War and Patriotism

by Pericles Lewis Among Thomas Hardy‘s “Poems of War and Patriotism,” collected in Moments of Vision (1917), some date to as early as the outbreak of the Great War in 1914. On September 2, 1914, Cabinet Minister C. F. G. Masterman invited Arnold Bennett, G. K. Chesterton, Arthur Conan Doyle, John Galsworthy, Thomas Hardy, H.… Continue Reading Poems of War and Patriotism