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MODERNISM AND THEIDEOLOGY OF HISTORY

Louise Williams explores the nature of historical memory in thework of five major Modernists: Yeats, Pound, Hulme, Ford andLawrence. TheseModernists, Williams argues, started their careerswith historical assumptions derived from the nineteenth century.But their views on the universal structure of history, on the aban-donment of progress and the adoption of a cyclical sense of thepast, were the result of important conflicts and changes withinthe Modernist period. Williams focuses on the period immediatelybefore the First World War, and shows in detail how Modernismdeveloped and why it is considered a unique intellectual movement.She also revisits the theory that the Edwardian age was a difficultperiod of transition to themodernworld. Finally, she illuminates thecontribution of non-Western culture to the literature and thoughtof the period. This wide-ranging and inter-disciplinary studyis essential reading for literary and cultural historians of theModernist period.

is Assistant Professor of British andIntellectual History at Central Connecticut State University.

MODERNISM AND THEIDEOLOGY OF HISTORY

Literature, Politics, and the Past

LOUISE BLAKENEY WILLIAMSCentral Connecticut State University

Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo

Cambridge University PressThe Edinburgh Building, Cambridge , United Kingdom

First published in print format

isbn-13 978-0-521-81499-7 hardback

isbn-13 978-0-511-07347-2 eBook (EBL)

© Louise Blakeney Williams 2002

2002

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For my parents

Contents

Acknowledgements page viiiAbbreviations ix

Introduction

“Immaterial pleasure houses”: the initial aesthetic dilemma

“A more dream-heavy hour”: medievalist andprogressive beginnings

“Pedantry and hysteria”: contemporary political problems

“A certain discipline”: radical conservative solutions

“A particularly lively wheel”: cyclic views emerge

“Our own image”: the example of Asian andnon-Western cultures

In “the grip of the . . . vortex”: the proof ofPost-Impressionist art

The “cycle dance”: cyclic history arrives

“The Nightmare” and beyond: the First World War andmature cyclic theories

Conclusion

Notes Index

vii

Acknowledgements

It is impossible to acknowledge all of the people who made this projectpossible. But I especially would like to thank David Cannadine; with-out his acute criticism and patient encouragement of the extraordinarilylengthy first version of this book it would never have been completed.Laurence Dickey’s fascination with intellectual history, his exacting aca-demic standards, andhis confidence inmyabilities as awriter and thinkerwere invaluable in inspiring me to take the approach I have. RobertO. Paxton, R.K. Webb, J.W. Smit, and Steven Marcus all providedessential assistanceby suffering through thefirst draft andmaking insight-ful suggestions for its improvement. This book, however, would neverhave been begun without Stephen Koss. His sheer delight in all aspectsof British history and culture was infectious, and his ability to combineacademic rigor with humor and kindness was inspirational. His earlydeath was truly a great loss to the historical profession. I also wouldlike to thank the staff at the British Museum for their help in providingaccess to unpublished papers, and the librarians at the British Library,University of Keele, University of Hull, Cambridge University, OxfordUniversity, Columbia University, and the Harry Ransom HumanitiesResearch Center at the University of Texas, Austin all for their impor-tant assistance. Finally, I must thank my family and friends for theirsupport through such a long project, the faculty of the History depart-ment at Central Connecticut State University for being friends as well ascolleagues, and my parents for their unflagging interest in, and unques-tioning encouragement of, everything I do. Last, but hardly least, noneof this could have been done without Dr. No, who never once used thatword about this book.

viii

Abbreviations

The following abbreviations are used in the notes:

CEP Collected Early Poems of Ezra Pound ed. Michael John King(New York: New Directions, ).

E&I W.B. Yeats, Essays and Introductions (New York: CollierBooks, ).

ELH English Literary History

Letters I The Letters of D.H. Lawrence. vol. ., ed. George J. Zytarukand James T. Boulton (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, ).

Letters II The Letters of D.H. Lawrence. vol. ., ed. George J. Zytarukand James T. Boulton (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, ).

P/SL Ezra Pound and Dorothy Shakespear: The Letters, –,ed. Omar Pound and A. Walton Litz (New York: NewDirections, ).

UPI W.B. Yeats, Uncollected Prose Vol. I, ed. John P. Frayne(New York: Columbia University Press, ).

UPII W.B. Yeats, Uncollected Prose Vol. II, ed. John P. Frayne andColton Johnson (New York: Columbia University Press,).

ix

Introduction

Edwardian Britain, despite a century’s distance with which to judge it,remains an enigmatic period for the historian. As early as GeorgeDangerfield challenged the simplistic myth of “the Edwardian gardenparty,” the “golden afternoon” before the deluge remembered throughthe tarnished lenses of those who had experienced the First World War.Dangerfield found the story of Britain between and to be “afar more curious drama” than that of a country “dancing its way intowar, to a sound of lawn-mowers and ragtime, to the hum of bees andthe popping of champagne corks.” Rather, the period as he describedit was one of confrontation and conflict, tension and transition.

For Dangerfield above all the drama revolved around the fact that“true pre-war Liberalism” “was killed, or killed itself, in .” A similarmurder was committed in the intellectual history of the period. Amongone group of thinkers in particular a “strange death” occurred in theirconcept of history. On or about the year the idea of progress died.

Fortunately, death is not the only story in Edwardian Britain. And it ispossible to view the age not simply as the sunset of the preceding century,but also as the dawn of much that we consider modern. As Dangerfieldhimself acknowledged, the “extravagant behavior of thepost-wardecade,which most of us thought to be the effect of war had really begun beforethe War. The War hastened everything – in politics, in economics, inbehavior – but it started nothing.” The emergence of the Labour Party,the foundation of theWelfare State, even the origins of fascism have beenthe emphasis of historical studies of the pre-war period as much as hasbeen the demise of the Victorian era.

Birth was evident in the literary history of the age as well. Mod-ernism, the characteristic literary movement of the first half of the twen-tieth century, had its origin in the years immediately preceding theFirst World War. Those features of literature that are associated withthe “high” Modernism of British writers in the s and s, such

Introduction

as non-representationalism, “abstraction and highly conscious artifice,”“abrupt juxtaposition of seemingly unrelated particulars,” “stream-of-consciousness narrative in the novel” and unrhymed verse, originated inthe “drama” of Edwardian Britain.

It was in this movement, British literary Modernism, that can befound one group of Edwardians among whom the idea of progress diedand a different concept of history was born. In opposition to progres-sive notions, the Modernists found much more reality in cyclic viewsof the past. As one literary critic has succinctly pointed out, “mod-ernism . . . abandons the idea of a linear historical development, fallsback upon notions of a universal condition humaine or a rhythm of eter-nal recurrence.” Moreover, it is commonplace to be informed thatsuch characteristic Modernist practices as the “mythical method,” the“method of ideogram and anachronism,” and the “time shift technique,”in addition to the explicitly circular structures of many novels and longpoems, reflect a non-progressive concept of time and the past.

It is important to note that the Modernists were not merely innova-tive creative writers devising a new and unusual literary technique. Theythought and wrote a great deal about politics, society, religion, and phi-losophy. And their abandonment of progress and adoption of a cyclicsense of the past went well beyond technique alone. The Modernistsformulated their views of the universal structure of history as a resultof a complex emotional and intellectual response both to the traditionin which they had been brought up, and to the important conflicts andchanges of the Edwardian age. In observing the disturbing and oftenconfusing challenges of this period, the first British Modernists foundprogress to be an historical structure unsuited to their needs and percep-tion of reality. Cycles were far more satisfying.

This is a work of intellectual history, which examines the origins of thisnew historical view among the Modernists in an attempt to illuminateone aspect of the “curious drama” of Edwardian Britain. Thus, it isan intellectual history of intellectuals and history. While the Modernists’attitudes towards history have been the subject of studies in the past,mostcommonly the concern has been to shed light on the writers’ maturecreative work. As a result, chronology and historical background areoften ignored. Thiswork, however, considers theModernists as thinkers,aswell as artists.Moreover, it applies the techniques of intellectual history,which have provided much insight into the writings of philosophers andpolitical theorists, to thework of creative writers. It is hoped that what hasresulted is a new understanding not only of this group of very important

Introduction

literary figures, but also of the nature of the period in which they wereliving.

This, therefore, is a work of history, not literary criticism. Moreover,it takes the form of a collective intellectual biography. By examining allthe writings of a representative group of thinkers over a short span oftime it attempts to point out how and why their thought collectivelychanged direction. In the end this study illustrates Dangerfield’s thesis ofthe Edwardian age as a period of disturbing transition. The Moderniststhemselves viewed the time in which they lived as one of chaos andconfusion. Ultimately, they used history, and in particular the idea ofcycles, as a means not only to discover order in the face of disorder, butalso to innovate in their own creative writing, to ensure themselves, andartists in general, a more important place in the world, and, finally, toprovide a sense of hope for the future.

While some observers may judge the Modernists’ critical writingsand their uses of history as superficial and naive, they are important fora number of reasons. First, the development of their views of history illu-minates some of the problems of the period as they were felt by informedobservers who were not necessarily professional politicians or philoso-phers. Moreover, the Modernists’ writings also can illustrate some of thesubtle ways in which history has been and can be used – to solve per-ceived problems and meet a variety of, often unconscious, needs. Finally,Modernist views of history were crucial in the development of one of themost important innovations in artistic practice of the twentieth century.All of this warrants a full study of the genesis of their historical thinking.

Five authors have been selected as a representative group of Mod-ernists to form the focus of this study: W.B. Yeats, Ford Madox Ford(ne Hueffer), Ezra Pound, T.E. Hulme, and D.H. Lawrence. They havebeen chosen for a number of reasons. First, they are all acknowledgedby literary critics as having made important contributions to Modernisttheory and practice. In addition, because this is a study of the originsof Modernist views of history, the representative group must have livedand published works in Britain well before the beginning of the FirstWorld War. This is true only of the group selected. Other acknowledgedModernists such as James Joyce, T.S. Eliot, and Virginia Woolf eitherwere not in Britain before or had not published anything substan-tial by that date. Moreover, the fiveModernists selected were part of thesame generation. They were all born within twenty years of one an-other (Yeats and Ford in and respectively, Hulme in , andPound and Lawrence both in ). And although they originally came

Introduction

from different areas of Britain or America, they all lived and worked inLondon for much of the time between and .

Finally, these five authors have been chosen collectively to representearly Modernism because they were, in fact, part of a loose intellectualgroup. Although they were not a self-conscious coterie agreeing on aname or a strict program to describe their work, Yeats, Ford, Pound,Lawrence, and Hulme had close personal and professional connectionswith one another. They all knew each other or knew of one another. Theywere all well aware of one another’s work and ideas. They wrote for thesame set of journals, went to many of the same places professionally andfor entertainment, and they had many of the same friends in common.Moreover, they felt an affinity between theirwork and ideas.Among thoseauthors actively publishing literature in London in those years, the fiveModernists acknowledged one another, and were acknowledged at thetime by others, as having many ideas in common, as being different fromother writers, and as representing an important new trend in literatureand thought.

These five authors, therefore, had the opportunity and desire to sharetheir views and theories with one another. Although their ideas origi-nally may have developed from their own individual interests and back-grounds, they all were brought closely together immediately before thewar. It is not surprising, therefore, that a common set of assumptionsabout history resulted. It is these common ideas, emotions, or attitudesthat are the focus of this work. What has been sacrificed, therefore, is acomprehensive analysis of the very real differences between the authorsand those features of their thinking thatmake each unique. This has beenintentional, both in the interest of space, and because this is the studyof a group; the emphasis, thus, is on the commonality of their opinions.Much critical writing has been done on each individual author and thisbody of work should be consulted for an understanding of the differencesbetween them.

Because it is the origins of the Modernist view of history that is underconsideration, this study focuses on the years to , although ithas been necessary to discuss some ideas well before and someafter . Nineteen hundred and nine has been chosen as a startingdate because it was then that the five Modernists first met, or becameaware of, one another; is the ending date, naturally, because it is thestart of the First World War.

Moreover, because the Modernists have been treated as intellectualsas well as literary figures, all of the works of the five Modernists have

Introduction

been considered in these years to point out their changing ideas of his-tory. This includes journal articles, letters, private papers, memoirs, andnon-fiction, as well as their poetry, drama, stories, and novels. It is im-portant to note, however, that the genesis of their historical views was acomplex process involving emotional and intellectual responses to con-temporary developments in a wide variety of areas including politics,society, religion, and aesthetics. Thus the discussion of their ideas of his-tory necessitates a consideration of their attitudes towards all of thesetopics as well.

As a work of contextual intellectual history, moreover, it has been nec-essary to examine the social, political, and intellectual context to whichthe authors responded, in order to discover what might have promptedthe changes in their ideas. The construction of this context has beencarefully limited by the five Modernists’ own writings. Only those sub-jects and events that they commented upon explicitly or that they tookan interest in have been considered part of the context. Unlike a literarycritic such as Sanford Schwartz who studies a wide “matrix” of ideaswhich were “in the air” at the time and that he has selected because ofa perceived similarity to the thought of the Modernists, I have only dis-cussed those ideas and occurrences either that the authors wrote about orof which there is strong indication that they were aware. Therefore, notall of the features of Edwardian England have been included as part ofthe context considered. For example, some of the five Modernists wroteexplicitly about the Boer War, the Parliament crisis, the ideas ofHenri Bergson, or the Theosophical Society. All of this has been exam-ined. Articles in journals they were known to have read and on subjectsin which they were interested at the time also have been considered. Butif Einstein’s theory of relativity has not been mentioned, or if Nietzscheor the Suffragette movement are considered only briefly, it is because thefiveModernists either did not discuss these ideas or events or mentionedthem infrequently.

The study follows a roughly chronological organization, although itdoes not do so strictly. This is because it is a collective, rather than an in-dividual, biography. In order for the common thought of all five authorsto emerge, the chapters are organized around topics, rather than aroundwriters. Because the five Modernists did not comment on all topics, ordid so at different times, it has not been possible to proceed in a strictlychronological manner or to include every author in every discussion.What this means is that some Modernists feature more in some discus-sions than others. For example, D.H. Lawrence seems remarkably absent

Introduction

in the beginning of the work, but, like Athena from the head of Zeus,emerges suddenly almost fully grown at the end. Ford Madox Ford, onthe other hand, fades from view somewhat as the study progresses.

In the end, the presentation of the origins of the historical thinkingof the five Modernists in this work may resemble Ford Madox Ford’s“Impressionistic” rendering of the past more than anything else. It aimsat giving the reader an impression or general feeling of the chronologicaldevelopment and of the common ideas and emotions of the authors.However, unlike Ford’s histories, the impressions and conclusions of thiswork are based on careful research done for each author in a strictlychronological fashion.

The genesis of the five Modernists’ views of history occurred slowlyand often was quite subtle. It is important at the outset, therefore, to beaware of what are the general components of different views of historyin order that the often minor changes in their thinking can be prop-erly weighed. That the five Modernists theorized about the nature ofhistory was hardly innovative. In fact, they were joining the ranks of nu-merous artists, as well as philosophers, theologians, and historians whoconstructed speculative philosophies of history. In this the Modernistswere doing more than just reflecting poetically on “the mutability andtransience of all things.” Rather, they were attempting to answer fun-damental questions “about patterns and purpose and meaning” in thepast, in order “to render the whole historical process meaningful in thesense of ‘intelligible’.”

Moreover, theModernists’ conclusion that historymoves in cycles alsowas not particularly new. In fact, it has been argued that “there are threepossible patterns” of history; “either history has proceeded in a certaindirection, or it has repeated itself in succeeding peoples and periods, orit has been formless and chaotic.” The latter view does not lend itselfto speculative philosophies of history, the fundamental aim of which isto reduce “the whole of the past to an order” and to predict “things tocome.” As a result, speculative histories are almost exclusively eitherprogressive or cyclic. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that theBritish literary Modernists of the early twentieth century were not thefirst to speculate that cycles were the fundamental feature of the past.

Nevertheless, while the five Modernists were not unique in holdingcyclic philosophies of history, they were the first to do so in quite a longtime. Since the eighteenth-century Enlightenment the most commonpattern of history was that of progress. There have been, however, anumber of different progressive views. Inspired by the discovery of laws

Introduction

of nature for the physical world during the Scientific Revolution andencouraged by the belief that similar laws could be found for all areasof human existence, European thinkers such as Turgot, Lessing, Smith,Condorcet, Herder, and Comte developed theories of linear progres-sive improvement. In other words, they speculated that if the scientificmethod was applied properly and existing conditions were changed ac-cording to the laws uncovered by that method, the world would rapidlyimprove. Such views of progress culminated in the nineteenth-centuryDarwinian and social Darwinian theories of positive evolution, and inthe progressive assumptions of British Whig historians such as Buckle,Macaulay, Freeman, and Maitland who carefully plotted the develop-ment of the British political system from its primitive origins to its per-fection in the present day.

The “optimistic belief in progress which laid its mark on so muchnineteenth-century historical thinking” was reflected occasionally inliterature. For example, Tennyson wrote in his poem “LocksleyHall” of the “glorious gains” that British civilization had achievedthrough the growth of wisdom and science, and he expressed confidencethat if he could look “into the future, far as human eye could see” hewould witness “all the wonder that would be.” George Eliot, writing in, was optimistic that “every phase of human development is part ofthe education of the race in which we are sharing; every mistake, everyabsurdity into which poor human nature has fallen, may be looked onas an experiment of which we may reap the benefit.”

However, few nineteenth-century thinkers or artists were entirely un-equivocal about positive progress, and a number had become so disillu-sioned that they even speculated about the linear decline of civilization.One historian even argues that a “European-wide . . . anxiety about de-generation” existed, which “reached something of a crescendo in thes.” The fact that an entire school of artists were named “Deca-dents” saysmuchabout theories of history at the endof the century.Thesewriters did not, however, abandon underlying assumptions of progress.The only difference was a change in direction; the world was growingprogressively worse, rather than better.

While linear progress was very popular in the eighteenth and nine-teenth centuries especially among the general public, it was not the mostcommon pattern of history among artists and thinkers. In fact, the phi-losophy of history that gained most adherents in the nineteenth centurycombined linear advance with cyclic regression or repetition to create aspiral pattern. The first widespread group to develop spiral theories were

Introduction

the Romantics. M.H. Abrams, in his extensive study of Romantic theo-ries of history, Natural Supernaturalism, argues that the most characteristicpattern of history of authors such as Shelley, Coleridge, Wordsworth,Schelling, Schiller, and Fichte was progress in the shape of a spiral. Inthis view of history, improvement occurs after a decline or fall from agolden age. When humanity returns to the principles of the former age,a new golden age results, superior to the first one because of the knowl-edge gained by the fall. No further falls will occur and progress willcontinue indefinitely. The fall, therefore, is “fortunate” because withoutit the future could not be permanently better.

The early nineteenth-century Romantic writers were not alone inspeculating about the spiral pattern of history. In fact, most laterVictorian thinkers and artists developed their own varieties of this theory.For example, according to one literary critic, the “paradox of the fortu-nate fall underlies Ruskin’s whole concept of the Gothic,” because he be-lieved that it was possible to reverse the decline following theMiddleAgesand restore the world “to a glory far greater than that possible had therebeen no prior transgression.” Other Victorians held similar views, butproposed that, not one, butmany “fortunate falls” had occurred. Perhapsinfluenced byHegel’s dialectic pattern of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis,many nineteenth-century authors believed that throughout history twoprinciples, one positive and one negative, alternated with one another.Arnold’s Hebraism and Hellenism, Carlyle’s systole and diastole of faithand unfaith, Pater’s centrifugal and centripetal, Ionic and Doric, Asiaticand European, and Nietzsche’s Apollonian and Dionysian impulses allfit this pattern. Each of these thinkers continued to propose that the tra-dition they found preferable had increased and been perfected over timebecause of the lessons learned during each negative “fall”. And theywere hopeful that the struggle of oppositeswould be resolved or, to use theHegelian concept of ‘aufheben’, annulled, preserved, and transcended,and progress would result.

Thus, most Romantics and Victorians could not avoid the nineteenth-century optimism in the likelihood, as Matthew Arnold put it, of “thegrowth towards perfection.” In fact, Arnold like somany othersmade itclear that his aim,whichwas “the aimof great culture,”was progress – “toascertain what perfection is and to make it prevail.” And despite muchpessimism about the present, most Victorian writers were confident, likeThomas Carlyle, that “the happiness and greatness of mankind at largehave been continually progressive” and that “a new and brighter spiritualera is slowly evolving itself for all men.”

Introduction

The historical theories of the early twentieth-century British literaryModernists were indebted to many earlier authors and appear similarto them at first glance. However, there are some very significant dif-ferences. Despite being called ‘modernist’, their philosophies of historyhad a greater affinity to pre-modern thinkers than to any eighteenth-or nineteenth-century figure. Many literary critics point out the debtthat Modernists such as Yeats and Joyce acknowledged to the earlyeighteenth-century philosopher, Giambattista Vico, who it is claimeddeveloped one of the only modern cyclic theories of the past. However,the Modernists’ theories were quite different from his. A close readingof Vico reveals that within his “corsi e ricorsi,” or repetition of the divine,heroic, and human ages, are common assumptions of progress. BecauseVico believed that with greater historical knowledge it was possible tomake fundamental changes, improve upon the past, and thus avoid thefinal degenerative age of a future cycle, his views cannot be consideredstrictly cyclic, as were those of theModernists. Some historians even haveargued that Vico’s importance is not as a cyclic thinker, but as a precursorof later progressive theories; his “books were the vehicle by which theconcept of historical development at last entered the thought of WesternEurope.” Similarly, a recent study concludes that his “cycles were notcyclical but spiral-like.” Vico’s theories, thus, resembled Romantic andVictorian views of historymore than anything pre-modern orModernist.

It was only in the pre-modern period that thinkers were willing toaccept the strictly cyclic nature of the past. This was certainly the casein traditional and non-Western societies, such as those of Persia, India,Mesopotamia, and Egypt. It also has been argued that “the eternalreturn is a universal ingredient of mythic thought” and was the mostpopular theory in the Greco-Roman world. Most pre-Socratic philoso-phers wrote of a universal pattern of a cyclic coming together into unityalternating with a decay into separation. Plato’s theory of the great yearand recurring destruction of worlds, Aristotle’s cycle of political revolu-tions, Polybius’ rise and fall of states and empires, and the Stoics’ theoriesof the periodic return to an original state of innocence were all cyclicas well. That some twentieth-century Modernists were aware of thepre-modern origins of their views of history is made clear by Yeats’s exposition of his theory of history, A Vision, which includes an overviewof all of these ancient ideas and more.

As with progressive views, there are a variety of cyclic theories of his-tory. Two patterns are most common – the “cycloid” and “sinusoidal”types. A cycloid pattern of history is one in which “history goes

Introduction

through . . . [a] sequence of beginning, middle, and end only to startover with a repetition.” In other words, these theories posit the growth,maturity, and decay of one civilization or tradition and the repetition ofthat pattern within that civilization or another. These theories were mostcommon in the later Greco-Roman period and the Renaissance. Theyalso can be easily transformed into spiral pattern with the addition ofsome form of progress over time as occurred in much Romantic andVictorian thought.

In the late nineteenth, and especially the early twentieth century thiscycloidal thinking re-emerged. For example, Nietzsche’s idea of the Eter-nal Recurrence suggested that throughout time all events are repeatedinfinitely. However, Nietzsche did not elaborate on this idea fully enoughfor it to be considered a speculative philosophy of history, and there isdebate about whether he evenmeant it to be taken literally.Moreover, histheory of the Overman implies an acceptance of progress; a consciouslywilled evolutionary process that overcomes and transcends the presentmay result in a better future. Thus, Nietzsche’s thought is not unequiv-ocally cyclic. It is only with Oswald Spengler’s The Decline of the Westin that a fully developed cycloidal philosophy of history appeared.Spengler found in nine separate cultures a cyclic “pattern analogous tothe life cycle of a plant or animal;” all grew, matured, and decayed.

Arnold Toynbee in the s and s found a similar organic “pat-tern of growth, breakdown, and eventual decay and dissolution,” butexpanded upon Spengler by examining twenty-one civilizations of thepast.

The historical theories of the early British literary Modernists, how-ever, were different even from those of other cyclic thinkers in their ownera. This is because, rather than claiming that history followed a cycloidpattern, theModernists, like thinkers of amuch earlier period, developedsinusoidal views of history. They accepted an “alternation (or fluctuation)view” of the past in which “there is a movement in history wherein oneset of general conditions is regularly succeeded by another, which thenin turn gives way to the first.” In other words, rather than theorizeabout one eternally repeated life cycle, an alternation view postulatesthe existence of two sets of phenomena, principles, or traditions thatcyclically alternate throughout time. One tradition is predominant for anumber of centuries or years and then it is replaced by the other tradi-tion. The first tradition will return, the second one will then follow it, andthis alternation will continue for ever. The Modernists’ views of history,therefore, were quite unique for the period in which they were written,

Introduction

and they marked a fundamental shift from the ideas of the Enlighten-ment and Romanticism. This becomes especially apparent when the keyassumptions underlying the cyclic views of the early British Modernistsare examined.

In rejecting theories of progress, the early British literary Modernistsalso abandoned a number of ideas that formed the basis of those theories.What is common to all progressive notions of history is the belief thatsignificant change takes place over time. When Tennyson declared, “alltruth is change” he revealed the basis of his theory of progress. Equallyimportant, progressive change is cumulative; chronologically later pe-riods incorporate the changes (either good or bad) of earlier periodsand thus are fundamentally different (either better or worse). Becausechange is cumulative, therefore, chronology or the sequence of time pro-vides value in history. Upwards progress holds that “whatever is later intime is prior in value”; decadence assumes the reverse – that which isearlier in time is more important. Thus, the place of an occurrenceor idea in absolute time is crucial in these views of history. Moreover,because events in the past contribute to the nature of the present and areincorporated into it, the past and present are essentially incomparable.As a result history is fundamentally irreversible. Later time periods areso different from earlier ones that there is no possibility of ever returningto the past.

In cyclic views, however, history is reversible because, while changemay occur over time, that change is not cumulative. Change occurs whenone set of principles or tradition replaces its opposite. While this changecan be apocalyptic because it can involve great destruction, it is notso in the sense that something fundamentally different results. Despiteany devastation when the two traditions alternate, neither tradition isaltered or incorporates within itself anything fundamentally new. As aresult, the essential features of the past may return and history can, anddoes, reverse itself.

This does not mean that a tradition when it returns will be exactlyidentical to its previous appearance. In the early Modernists’ theories inparticular, the best description is of “similar recapitulation,” rather than“sheer reiteration.” As historian Frank Manuel explains it, “there is acertain core of meaning that remains the same over the centuries, butonly a certain core.” Surface details may vary with each return. Thefive Modernists believed that the cycle that would appear in the nearfuture would incorporate many features of the modern world, especiallyindustrial technology. However, theymade it clear that this did not mean

Introduction

that there would be a fundamental change from the essence of the pasttradition that had returned.

Because each tradition remains always the same, and because the pastneither causes the present nor is incorporated into it, chronological se-quence is unimportant in cyclic views. Each tradition is uniform in thesense that all ages within the same tradition are equivalent regardless ofwhen they occurred in time. They are essentially different, not from oneanother, but only from ages in the alternate tradition. These differences,moreover, are not determined by the place of an age in the chronologicalsequence (by whether it occurred later or earlier in time), but by the tra-ditions themselves. As a result, events or ideas from periods separated byvast amounts of time can be compared and utilized equally. There canbe no anachronism in juxtaposing aspects of two ages that are hundredsor even thousands of years apart as long as they are part of the same tra-dition because they have identical value. Chronology, thus, is irrelevant.

Finally, cyclic views of history differ fromprogressive ones because theyare closed rather than open-ended, and because they are not teleological.In progressive views, it is usually assumed that a final end of history, eitherin an earthly paradise or utter disintegration, will ultimately take place.In the present day, however, cumulative change is not considered to befinished and the exact nature of the end-result of the historical process isunknown and open. In cyclic views of history, on the other hand, becauseall values are already in existence in past cycles or in the two traditions, nonew ones can develop over the course of time. And because change is notcumulative, there can be no final product to the historical process. Again,history cannot be apocalyptic in the sense that it incorporates significantor final change. Cyclic alternation will continue indefinitely, and thereis no possibility of anything new resulting. All that will happen in thefuture is already known in its essence from the past. History, therefore,is a closed process that easily can be foretold.

Sinusoidal theories of human history may have been particularly ap-pealing to pre-modern thinkers because they readily accommodate abelief in the existence of a supernatural realm that contains ultimatetruth. In fact, cyclic views of history almost always are accompanied byan assumption that behind the temporary changes of the human worlda superior reality is present, which is permanent and unchanging, existsoutside of time, and in which all things occur simultaneously. This cer-tainly was the case, for example, in ancient Greece when philosophers“more and more . . . became obsessed with the idea of a changeless uni-versal order;” “almost everything in philosophy became subordinated

Introduction

to . . . explaining the ‘transitory flux’ of experience in terms of the ‘un-changing realities’ that lay behind it.”

Thus, while progressive views value change above all, or what theAncient Greeks would call “becoming,” cyclic views of history give pre-eminence to a fundamental stability underlying all change – “being.”Change was considered inferior to stability, for example by the pre-Socratic philosophers, because it was deemed to be the cause of divisionfrom unity into destructive struggle. Cyclic views of history reflect thispreference for stability because their structure makes the human past,like the cosmos in general, fundamentally changeless despite the appear-ance of change. Moreover, by positing a stable equilibrium between twoopposed principles or traditions that constantly recur, they ensure moreharmony than progressive theories, the ultimate goal of which is theovercoming or expulsion of one of the two principles of life – that of evilor strife. Rather than struggle against one of the cosmic opposites, cyclicviews balance both into a unified whole that accepts and incorporateseach.

Strictly cyclic views of history are difficult for the modern mind toaccept. With no freedom to enact fundamental change, no hope of per-manent improvement, no ultimate expulsion of evil or disorder, no reso-lution of conflict, and no promise of an earthly paradise, cyclic theoriescan appear deeply pessimistic. The Modernists’ cyclic theorizing alsomay not be sympathetic to the Post-Modern sensibility; their strict di-chotomizing between two fundamentally opposed principles can appearsimplistic and unrealistic. However, these are not the only ways to con-sider their views of history. In fact, the early British literary Modernistsfound a belief in historical cycles to be a realistic and optimistic alterna-tive to their deep disillusionment with the contemporary world and theirpessimism about the possibility of improving it. By providing order whileaccepting the inevitability of disorder, cyclic theories seemed a perfectlyreasonable way to ensure meaning and stability in a confusing period ofchange.

Moreover, what will become evident from this study is that the fiveModernists’ views of universal history were related to their new liter-ary techniques. In fact, there are important similarities between them.Literary critics have shown thatModernism’s apparently random style isfar from chaotic but is, rather, a highly ordered and controlled pattern.

It is not just a mirroring of a perceived chaos in the modern world. TheModernists did perceive chaos, but their technique was a new way toincorporate it into a meaningful pattern. Their cyclic views of history

Introduction

also were ways to ensure order while accepting the chaos that they per-ceived around them. For various reasons, the five Modernists feared thechanges of the period in which they lived and interpreted them as signsof confusion and anarchy. Their cyclic theories of the past were a de-fense against that confusion that incorporated, rather than annulled it.From the study of these five authors’ theories of history, therefore, thenature and extent of the break between Modernist and Enlightenmentthinking becomes strikingly apparent. The Modernists themselves werecyclically returning to older patterns of thought. Their thought, thus,was simultaneously very old and very new.

The cyclic views of the five Modernists examined in this book de-veloped gradually. They all began their careers with fundamentallynineteenth-century historical assumptions and developed their new ideasslowly over a long period of time. As a result, in their early thinking,holdovers of previous ideas, and tensions between old and new assump-tions are evident. To plot the development of their historical innovations,therefore, a sensitivity to subtle changes is essential. This is why thisstudy has considered some important elements other than commentsopenly rejecting progress and suggesting the cyclic nature of history.The following ideas, which are components of cyclic theories of history,have been taken into consideration as evidence of growing cyclic views:the sense that two distinct and constant traditions existed in the past;the idea that the universal order is essentially constant; the dislike ofchange and belief in, and preference for, a superior permanent andtimeless reality; a sense that absolute time or accurate chronology isunimportant or a belief that ages with similar values are equivalent re-gardless of the passage of time; and a sense that ideas or occurrencesin equivalent ages can be compared without anachronism even thoughseparated by a vast amount of time. The development of all of theseassumptions has been related to the political, social, and intellectualcontext that may have inspired them.

Who exactly were these fiveModernists? Howmight they have sharedideas and opinions? A brief account of the main characters is necessaryat the outset. By Yeats, Ford, Hulme, Pound, and Lawrence hadbegun to form a group. This might have been considered surprising.All five authors had very different personalities, came from differentbackgrounds, and two were of slightly different ages. Initially, therefore,there was no obvious reason why they would get to know one anotheror share similar attitudes towards history. Two forces served to bringthe authors together. One was the vitality of the London art world. The

Introduction

other was Ezra Pound. According to one contemporary, “unaware of theapproaching disasters of the First World War, a wave of creative activityseemed to be sweeping London.” And she added that “Ezra’s drivingforce was everywhere.” In many respects this was true. It was veryoften Ezra Pound’s “driving force” that acted as a catalyst for the fiveModernists.

Pound arrived in London in late September after having traveledfromAmerica to Italy the previous year. Prior to that timehehad receiveda Master of Arts degree in Romance languages from the University ofPennsylvania, held a teaching position at Wabash College in Indiana,and pursued post-graduate studies in Provencal and medieval Spanishliterature. Despite this academic background, when Pound moved toLondon at the age of twenty-three he was quite an eccentric figure. Hecame from a respectable upper-middle-class American family, but, likemany a middle-class youth with artistic leanings, when in Europe Poundconfidently took on the role of a bohemian. Ford later recalled that atthe time

Ezra would approach with the steps of a dancer, making passes with a cane atan imaginary opponent. He would wear trousers made of green billiard cloth,a pink coat, a blue shirt, a tie hand-painted by a Japanese friend, an immensesombrero, a flaming beard cut to a point and a single, large blue ear-ring. . . .Hethrew himself alarmingly into frail chairs, devoured enormous quantities of yourpastry, fixed his pince-nez firmly on his nose, drew out a manuscript from hispocket . . . and looking down his nose would chuckle like Mephistopheles andread you a translation from Arnaut Daniel.

Pound had few literary contacts when he first arrived in London. Oneof his first activities was to deposit a book of his poems (which he hadprivately printed inVenice the year before) in bookshops around Londonhoping to gain someattention. In thiswayhemetElkinMathewswhowasa publisher andowner of a bookshop. In turnMathews introducedPoundto a London literary organization called the Poets’ Club on February ,. Although Pound was not very enthusiastic about the Poets’ Club,it did help him to widen his circle of acquaintances. In particular it wasthrough this organization that he met T.E. Hulme.

Born and brought up in Staffordshire, Thomas Ernst Hulme wastwenty-six years old in . He was from an old landowning family,and, like Pound, had been absent from England prior to , travel-ing through Canada and Europe. His educational background was notliterary; he had attended Cambridge and University College, Londonin mathematics, philosophy, biology, and physics. By , however, he

Introduction

too had settled in London, had decided that his main interest was po-etry, and had become an early devotee of the French philosopher, HenriBergson. Hulme was also quite an impressive personality. But ratherthan cultivating Pound’s bohemian extravagance, Hulme developed animage of almost authoritarian strength that was frightening to somepeople, but that concealed a genuine kindness and humor. The artist,Jacob Epstein, a close friend of Hulme’s, described him about this time:“Hulme was a large man in bulk, and also large and somewhat abrupt inmanner. He had the reputation of being a bully and arrogant because ofhis abruptness. He was really of a candid and original nature like that ofSamuel Johnson, and only his intolerance of sham made him feared.”

Because of his interest in poetry, soon after arriving in London Hulmejoined the Poets’ Club and quickly became its secretary. Early in ,however, he had become dissatisfied with the conservative nature of theClub, and by the end of March , he formed his own club, laterreferred to as the “Secession Club.” This was an informal, loosely orga-nized group that met weekly at the Eiffel Tower Restaurant throughoutthe spring and summer of . It was on April , , according toPound’s biographer, that Pound first came across this group and metHulme. Although Pound’s initial introduction to the club was not anunqualified success, he did attend other meetings sporadically in .Moreover, Pound’s meeting with Hulme was not without result. Theirfriendship did develop elsewhere and lasted, even though Hulme soongave up poetry for philosophy, until Hulme’s death.

Although Pound was introduced to Hulme first, the person he mostwanted to meet when he came to London was W.B. Yeats. He hadalready studied Yeats’s work and had sent Yeats a copy of the book ofpoems he had printed in Venice in . Yeats replied, describing it as“charming”. It was over six months later, however, that they actuallymet. Yeats was forty-four years old in and was already one ofthe most famous literary figures of his time. Although he was originallyfrom Ireland, Yeats had been living in London for a number of years.Since well before the turn of the century Yeats also had been deeplyinvolved with Irish nationalism, Irish theater, French Symbolism, andesoteric supernatural studies both in England and Ireland. By inLondon he had established his own circle of literary, political, and occultfriends who were his age and of a somewhat older tradition. His fameand accomplishments alone made him an impressive figure at the time.

When Pound first arrived in London, he spent a good deal of histime working at the British Museum. Through the Museum he “found

Introduction

the Vienna Cafe where museum officials, readers and their friendsdined.” These included writers such as Laurence Binyon, SelwynImage, Ernest Rhys, and May Sinclair, all of whom were friends oracquaintances of Yeats. It was Olivia Shakespear, however, the motherof his future wife (whom Pound had met in February at a party), whomade the actual introduction to Yeats. She was one of Yeats’s closestfriends for his entire lifetime, and in the spring of she took Poundto Yeats’s apartment in the Woburn Buildings. According to Yeats’s bio-grapher, “Pound andYeats got along well from the first, with the youngerman assuming towards the older a mixed attitude of admiration andpatronage.” This was the beginning of a friendship that would lastmany years.

A similar friendship begun in was the one between Pound andFord Madox Ford, called Ford Madox Hueffer at the time. Ford, likeYeats, was somewhat older than Pound and Hulme. In he wasthirty-six and had been living in London for five years, having spentthe previous fifteen years in the English countryside. Although not asfamous as Yeats, Ford had come from a renowned English artistic family.He also was a close friend and collaborator with the celebrated authorJoseph Conrad, and in he had founded and was the editor of animportant and well-received new journal, the English Review. Ford was abit more extravagant in his personal style than Yeats, but like the olderauthor Ford was a well-established literary figure with his own circle ofliterary friends and acquaintances, many of whom he had known sincechildhood. PoundandFordmet in the spring of through the contactsPound had made at the BritishMuseum. The meeting was a success andby June, Pound was already published in Ford’s English Review.

The last member of the quintet to be introduced was D.H. Lawrence.It was Ford who had “discovered” Lawrence. In , when Lawrencefirst moved to a suburb of London, he was twenty-four years old – thesame age as Pound. He was, however, quite a different type of personfrom Pound. From a coalmining family in Nottinghamshire, Lawrencewas clearly of the working class. Shy and provincial at first, he was acontrast to Pound, Ford, and Hulme who were confident, cosmopolitan,and vociferous. However, like Pound and Hulme, Lawrence had littlecontact with London or its literary world before . Previously hehad worked as a clerk for a surgical goods manufacturer and attendedNottingham University College to receive a teaching certificate. In late he accepted a teaching post in a grammar school in South London.Although he considered himself primarily a creative writer rather than a

Introduction

teacher andwas in theprocess ofwriting anumber of short stories, poems,and a novel, Lawrence’s move to London did not immediately bringhim into contact with London’s literary world. This changed in aboutOctober , when his friend Jessie Chambers sent some of his poemsto the English Review. Ford admired these poems immediately, publishedthem, and asked to see Lawrence. Very impressed by Lawrence, Fordbegan to show him off to his circle of friends. He introduced Lawrenceto Pound that autumn, and Pound also took up this new find.

By the end of , thus, the foundations of a new literary group wereset. Through the medium of the contacts established in that year thefive different authors were connected, albeit indirectly; in they allhad met Pound. Beyond that, however, there was little contact and theykept to their own circles. This may have been due to the differencesbetween them, which were a result of their distinct personalities andbackgrounds. Moreover, they were separated also by age. The two olderwriters, Yeats and Ford, grew up in a very similar intellectual milieu ofwhich the younger three were aware only second-hand, they had writtenmuchmore than the other authors, and had more time to think criticallyand develop their ideas and interests before .

It was only gradually between and that their friendshipsbecame closer and they became aware of one another and their commongoals. Nineteen hundred and ten was not a particularly important yearfor the development of their friendships; Pound, Ford, and Yeats spentmost of the year outside of England, traveling in America, Germany, andFrance respectively. It was only in that the five Modernists beganto coalesce into a literary group. There were many ways in which thisoccurred. What follows is representative of just a few.

One means by which the Modernists got to know one another betterwas through the gatherings that four of the five held at their homes.In any one of them could attend the Monday evenings given byYeats or the Tuesday evenings given by Hulme. Almost anyone coulddrop in at Pound’s rooms in Kensington at almost any time. In addition,Ford gave frequent parties at South Lodge, the home of his compan-ion, Violet Hunt. Furthermore, there was a growing group of mutualacquaintances who also attended these gatherings and could share ideaswith, and communicate them among, the five Modernists. These in-cluded friends originally of Yeats’s such as Florence Farr, Ernest Rhys,May Sinclair, and Olivia and Dorothy Shakespear; writers and artistswhom Ford had discovered through his English Review such as WyndhamLewis; and friends and new acquaintances of Hulme’s and Pound’s such

Introduction

as F.S. Flint, Edward Storer, Richard Aldington, H.D., J.G. Fletcher,Skipwith Cannell, and John Cournos. There also were a number ofothers involved. Pound, as the ringleader, invited them all to his homeand took many of them to Yeats’s Mondays, Hulme’s Tuesdays, andFord’s South Lodge parties.

There were also a number of new literary journals that provideda means by which all these artists could get to know one another. In Ford resigned the editorship of the English Review, which had in-cluded the work of many of the five Modernists and their friends. Butthere were other important new magazines after that date. The mostinfluential probably was the New Age, which had been taken over byA.R. Orage in . Hulme and Pound became regular contributors forit in and respectively. Orage also published contributions by,and reviews of the work of, all of the five Modernists and almost all oftheir mutual friends. He held editorial meetings, dinners, and lunches atwhich the contributors and occasionally guests could meet and discussideas. Orage himself attended some of the gatherings held by the fiveModernists.

Other important new magazines were the Poetry Review, which hadbeen founded by Harold Monro in , and Monro’s subsequentjournal, Poetry and Drama, begun in . Pound was a contributor tothese magazines as were Flint, Storer, and Aldington. Although Hulmedid not contribute, he was close enough to Monro to be asked to be ajudge for a poetry competition given by the Poetry Review in . Monroincluded reviews of the work of all five of the Modernists. Monro alsohad a poetry bookshop that Hulme and many of the others frequentedand above which Hulme lived briefly. At this bookshop Monro also gavepoetry readings and parties at which, at various times, all five of theMod-ernists and many of their friends were represented or present. Monroknew all five Modernists socially and attended Hulme’s Tuesdays andYeats’s Mondays as well.

Finally, Pound was a great help with the journal, The New Freewoman,which was started in and was renamed The Egoist in . Poundand, subsequentlyAldington, were the literary editors of thesemagazinesand consequently managed to get the work of almost all the five Mod-ernists and their friends published there. Pound also was the foreigncorrespondent for the new American magazine, Poetry, that was begunin and published in Chicago. Once again he was able to have thework of Ford, Yeats, Lawrence, and many other friends published in thisjournal.

Introduction

Between and , therefore, there were plenty ofmeeting places,mutual friends, and publications that brought together a London literaryscene of which the fiveModernists were a part, and which enabled themto feel that they were sharing in a new literary movement. The similarityof their ideas, therefore, was undoubtedly not accidental; they certainlyhad many opportunities to share their opinions. In the end they allcame to the common idea that cyclic structures for history and for artappeared far more realistic than any idea of progress. While comingto this conclusion they all began to effect the fundamental changes intheir aesthetic theories and practices that eventually became known asModernism. We must now see how all of this happened in the “curiousdrama” of those far from idyllic Edwardian years.

“Immaterial pleasure houses”: the initial

aesthetic dilemma

When we look back upon the lives of our fathers the first thing thatseems to strike us is their intolerable slowness, and then the gloomin which they lived – or perhaps the gloomwould strike us first. . . . Ido not believe they had sunlight. . . . I do not believe they had anyfresh breezes. . . .They could not have had. It was always brown,motionless fog in those days. . . .But in gloom and amidst horrorthey sang on bravely . . . in amidst the glooms they built immaterialpleasure houses.

Ford Madox Ford, Ancient Lights,

According to Ford Madox Ford, one of his very first memories was oflying in his cradle surrounded by proofsheets of the poems of DanteGabriel Rossetti. Although this undoubtedly is an example of Ford’slegendary, and often self-serving imagination, it was not beyond therealm of possibility. Much of Ford’s youth was spent at the home of hisgrandfather, the famous Pre-Raphaelite painter, Ford Madox Brown,in the company of his cousins who were Rossetti’s nieces and nephew.Ford’s early years, therefore, were lived in the shadow of the great figuresof the Victorian art world. And despite his deep love for his grandfather,Ford’s recollection of these artists, as the quote heading this chapterindicates, was often of the depression, gloom, and inadequacy he felt intheir presence. Early on he wished to escape from their influence.

The same could be said of the other fourModernists. In the early daysof their careers, as is hardly surprising, one of the primary concerns of allfive authors was to distinguish themselves from their predecessors andestablish their own place in the history of European literature. Beginningin the late s and s for the elder Modernists, Yeats and Ford, andafter the turn of the century for the younger three, Hulme, Pound, andLawrence, all five authors attempted to outline a unique style and setof ideas for their new generation. It took them quite a while to do this,and they certainly had not succeeded by the time they met in .

Modernism

Of this fact, they all were well aware. Their aesthetic theorizing, andpolitical and social positions were contradictory and derivative. Theircreative workwas vague and imprecise. Rather than successfully definingnew values and initiating novel aesthetic practices, the most obviouscharacteristic of the early work of the Modernists was an unoriginaland romantic escapism that led to the creation of just those “immaterialpleasure houses” of the quote above, which Ford Madox Ford criticizedhis elders for building.

The young Modernists did have a number of strong opinions abouthow they were different from their predecessors. As Ford put it, “theworld of twenty-five years ago,” the world of their “fathers,” was “rathera dismal place.” What made it so depressing was the existence of “thoseterrible and forbidding things – the Victorian great figures.” Ford wasparticularly happy that the “Ruskins, Carlyles, George Eliots” had disap-peared, while the other Modernists agreed and added to the list authorssuch as Arnold, Tennyson, Browning, and Dickens. The early Mod-ernists also were pleased that a new generation of artists for which theyfelt much more sympathy had taken the Victorians’ place in the sand s. These less monumental figures included Arthur Symons,Lionel Johnson, Oscar Wilde, Aubrey Beardsley, and other artists whowere influenced by European Symbolism and could be included in whatwas known as the Aesthetic Movement. These artists were encourag-ing, according to the Modernists, because they heralded a return tothe aesthetic values of the early nineteenth-century Romantics after theunfortunate Victorian aberration.

Underlying theModernists’ optimism about the work of the AestheticMovement of the late nineteenth century was a belief, expressed mostclearly by Ford Madox Ford in , that an “eternal struggle” existed“between . . .Art considered as a thing remote from the external world,and Art that descends for its subjects into the market-place.” Thiswas the key distinction, according to Ford, between “Romantic” and“Victorian” art. All the other Modernists accepted this dichotomy andfrequently expressed a preference for the former for a variety of reasons.

In this the young Modernists were hardly innovative. Since thelate eighteenth century, aesthetic theorists from Shelley, Hallam, andTennyson, to Arnold, Browning, Ruskin, andMorris hadmade a distinc-tion between a subjective art that is the expression of the emotions andimaginationof artistic geniuseswith access to a spiritual realm, andanob-jective art that displays truths learned by reflection or reason and whichconcentrates on the immediate concerns of the entire community.Where

The initial aesthetic dilemma

the Modernists were unique was in the simplicity of their theorizing. Al-though earlier thinkers may have emphasized one form of art ratherthan the other, none of them proposed the entire exclusion of eitherside of the dichotomy. In fact, all hoped to find a type of art that couldaccommodate both.

In their early careers the fiveModernists appeared to prefer what Forddescribed as a “Romantic” art of emotion and imagination to the exclu-sion of a “Victorian” art of reason and social comment. For example,Hulme expressed great distrust of what he considered to be the rational-ism and didacticism of the Victorians. He believed that mid-nineteenth-century thinkers and artists based their work on a deterministic view ofthe universe which they shared with scientists like Darwin, Huxley, andSpencer, and which assumed that all natural and human phenomenacould be explained by a set of simple, orderly material laws. This in turnenabled them to be optimistic about solving contemporary problems andjustified a focus on social reform. Hulme not only found this regrettable,but in reading a book that assumed that “Law was universal” he evengot “the same kind of sensation as one gets from turning up a stoneand seeing the creeping things revealed.” According to Hulme this wasbecause “the nightmare of determinism” denied the mystery of chanceand the freedom of human action, and left little role for the concerns ofthe spirit, such as religion and art.

This determinism also may have contributed to the utilitarianism ofthe Victorians that was Ford’s bete noir. Because the Victorian “great”believed “he was going to solve the riddle of the universe,” accordingto Ford, his “desire [was] to write not so much a good book as a bookwhich will do good.” This led, in the case of an author like Ruskin, to a“continual falsification of aesthetic standards to give body to his ethicaldoctrine.” The Victorian for Ford, thus, was a writer “of polemics, thepreacher” – not a true artist. Or, as Pound put it in a poem of , theywere people “who love not a song whate’er its skill be,/ But only love thecause or what cause should be.” In other words, the Victorian artist hadbecome the useful servant of the public and his art had lost all aestheticvalue.

The other four Modernists agreed on these points – didacticism andsocial reform were inappropriate because they did not produce greatart and because they diminished the importance of artists. Pound, forexample, made it clear that real art was not created by any writer who“confounds poetry with rhetoric and bombast” or who is “a tedioustheorist” so “affected by the thought of his time” and the life around

Modernism

him that all he can produce is an “encyclopedia of what passed forwisdom” of the day. As Yeats put it “rhetorical and didactic verse,” or inLawrence’swords “padding andmoral reflection,” did notmake for greatart. And none of the Modernists felt sympathy for what Lawrence called“Realism’s Reign of Terror” which resulted in works that “inevitablylight on a wound or a festering sore.”

Early in their careers the five Modernists were optimistic that thisVictorian “gloom” was being dispersed. As Yeats put it in , “a greatrevolution of thought” was occurring. He was referring in particular tothework of themembers of theRhymers’Club,whichhehelped organizein and which was part of the new Aesthetic Movement. Theother youngModernists alsowere enthusiastic about the ideals informingwhat they saw as a return to Romanticism. In particular, they werepleasedwith the rejection of rationalism, utilitarianism,materialism, anddeterminism, and the new acceptance of aestheticism and spiritualism.

The young Modernists echoed the late nineteenth-century Aesthetic,and earlier Romantic writers, that the universe was much more complexand mysterious than was claimed by rationalists who assumed, as Yeatsput it, “that the external and material are the only fixed things, the onlystandards of reality.” Yeats, rather, preferred a more religious or spiritualview of the universe. He believed that the supernatural or spiritual world,which lies hidden beneath the surface material world and which is muchless orderly and much more mysterious, was the true reality. QuotingShelley, Yeats claimed that “ ‘the painted veil called life’ may be ‘tornaside’ ” to reveal this truth. This could be done, however, only by thosepeoplewhounderstand emotional and spiritual relations – in otherwordsby great artists. In fact, for Yeats a symbolic art of intuition was truly areligion because “imagination was the first emanation of divinity . . . theimaginative arts were therefore the greatest of Divine revelations” and“ ‘the only means of conversing with eternity left to man on earth’.”The artist, therefore, was not just a more sensitive creature, but also amagician, a seer, or a priest who has privileged access to a superior truththat only he could bring into this world. According to Yeats, great artistsrepeat “the revelation of a spiritual world that has been the revelation ofmystics in all ages.”

Hulmehad a similar view, but it wasmore psychological.He, likemanyothers in the early years of the twentieth century, was deeply influencedby the theories of Henri Bergson. Following Bergson, Hulme claimedthat the “materialistic surface of life” was not the true reality. Rather,according to Hulme, within our minds is a more complex and deeper

The initial aesthetic dilemma

“reality . . . [which is] a flux of interpenetrated elements unseizable bythe intellect.” Only intuition can discover the truths of this reality, andartists are best able to do this. As Hulme put it, “[b]etween nature andourselves, even between ourselves and our own consciousness, there is aveil, a veil that is dense with the ordinary man, transparent for the artistand poet.” Therefore, “the function of the artist is to pierce through hereand there . . . the veil placed between us and reality.” In this way theartist, rather than the scientist, could discover the most important truths.

Early in their careers, the Modernists also thought that the best artmust be based on emotion and intuition. As Yeats and Ford put it, thebest work “express[es] great passions” and, quoting Arthur Hallam, isa “poetry of sensation rather than reflection”; it is “an illustration of anemotion” rather than a presentation of “ideas.” Pound agreed that “shortpoems of emotions and expressions of personal feeling” were preferableto any other forms.

The advantage of an emotional art, for the five Modernists, not onlywas that it discovered deeper truths and was aesthetically superior, butalso that it was much more effective in improving the world. As Ford putit, the “great defect” of the contemporary Englishman was “his want ofsympathetic imagination.” Only an exposure to great art could curethis. All the other Modernists agreed with the fundamentally Romanticnotion of the ennobling power of art by means of the development ofthe faculty of Sympathy, which enables people to imaginatively placethemselves in the situation of others and feel their emotions.

Sympathy, first, was important for the artist’s ability to truly under-stand his subject. As Hulme put it (paraphrasing Henri Bergson) “theartist . . . in placing himself back within the object by a kind of sympa-thy . . . break[s] down, by an effort of intuition the barrier that space putsbetween him and his model.” Pound agreed, quoting DeQuincey, about“ ‘the miracle which can be wrought’ ” by great artists who are capableof “ ‘feeling a thing more keenly, understanding it more deeply, than ithas ever been felt before’.”

Moreover, according to the five Modernists and the Romantics, Sym-pathy helps the audience transcend their individual subjectivity andachieve true communication with others. According to Yeats, “sympa-thy with all living things” and “imagination . . . binds us to each otherby opening the secret doors of all hearts.” An art based on sympathy“makes us understand that we are not walled up within our immediatesenses, but bound one to another, and to some greater life, by a secretcommunion of thought and emotion.” Because of this, as Lawrence put

Modernism

it, “[t]he essence . . . of true human art . . . is a form of sympathy” for itcan “convey the emotions of one man to his fellows.” Thus “the missionof Art . . . [is to] bring us into sympathy with as many men, as manyobjects, as many phenomena as possible.”

This sympathetic imagination, in turn, could change the entire world.As Ford put it, there is a “need for romancers” and imaginative writersbecause “[o]ur laws are good, [but] our manners – our powers of under-standing, sympathizing with or aiding one another – might be so verymuch better.” Lawrence agreed that “we must understand much if wewould do much.” With their sympathetic power of understanding, Yeatsargued, “the imaginative minority will spread their interests among themajority, for even the majority becomes imaginative when touched byenthusiasm.” A new romantic art, according to Ford, thus would have“ ‘a profound moral significance’.”

Great art, therefore, could uncover and communicate deeper truths,aid human communication, make the public more refined, and con-tribute to the improvement of the world. And it could do this withoutresorting to rhetoric, didacticism, or logic, but through the creation ofaesthetically superior works expressing the artist’s subjective emotionsand visions. This in turn made art supremely important and wouldenable the artist to regain a position of primary importance in the world.According to Ford, if a new Romanticism was adopted, it would herald areturn to an age which “held that to be an artist was to be the mostaugust thing in life,” that “still attached something of the priestly to thefunctionaries of the Fine Arts or the humaner letters,” and that kept alive“the tradition that a poet was a seer and a priest by the sheer virtue ofhis craft and mystery.”

Thus the first aesthetic theories of the five Modernists were hardlydifferent from those of earlier Romantic writers. In addition, side by sidewith these lofty aesthetic claims, the Modernists also provided other,less philosophic, reasons for why they preferred a Romantic art, whichoften seemed to be more important to them. Ford summed it up bestwhen he commented that the “mission” of a work of art “is to soothe, tosolace, to excite, to move – to do anything that will make us forget oursqualid lives, our daily toils, the miseries of our friends, or our intolerablefutures. What the artist wishes to do . . . is to take you out of yourself.”Yeats and Pound agreed that poetry was valuable when it could “drawone’s imagination as far as possible from the complexities of modern lifeand thought,” or when it could “prevent ennui” and provide “an escapefrom dullness.”

The initial aesthetic dilemma

Art was important, therefore, not to make serious political or socialcomment by means of the perceptions, or even the fantasies, of sensitiveimaginations, as many Romantics had attempted to do. Rather, for theearlyModernists, it was a way to effect an escape from the contemporaryworld by presenting a more beautiful, mysterious, and passionate alter-native to it. Lawrence, for example, admired the poet, Rachel AnnandTaylor, in not for any deep theoretical reasons, but mainly becauseshe “lived apart from life . . .withdrawn, sublimating experience withodours.” Her poetry was that of “a choice romanticist” because she“takes the pageant of her bleeding heart, first marches ironically by thebrutal daylight, then lovingly she draws it away into her magic, obscureplace apart where she breathes spells upon it, filters upon it delicate lights,tricks it with dreams and fancy, and then re-issues the pageant.” Poundwas more explicit about his view of the role of artists in a poem of :

We, that through all the worldHave wandered seeking new thingsAnd quaint tales, that your easeMay gather such dreams as pleaseYou, the Home-stayers.. . .New tales, new mysteries,New songs from out the breezeThat maketh soft the far evenings,. . .

The five Modernists’ notion of a beautiful alternative to the contem-porary world also required an artistic style that was equally remote fromthe everyday. Pound in particular liked the “profusion” and “bejewelledprose” of “romantic” art, rather than what he described as the “neat-ness” and “restraint” of “classic” art or a language that might resemblecontemporary daily speech. Similarly Lawrence admired work that was“gorgeous, sumptuous” and filled with “sensuous colour.”

The Romanticism that the Modernists preferred, therefore, was oftenan art that, as Pound put it, simply invoked “the beauty of the unusual”rather than “the beauty of the normal.” QuotingWordsworth, Pound inparticular liked poetry that satisfied a desire to hear about “things ‘whichnever were on sea or land’ . . .more weird and marvellous than any youhave yet heard of . . . it is no accurate information about historical thingsthat you seek, it is the thrill which mere reality would never satisfy.” Or,as Hulme put it, they wanted an art filled with analogies “whichmake another-world through-the-glass effect” and which “give a sense of wonder,

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a sense of being united in another mystic world.” Poems “must appearfree movers, and not sprung from that low-thing Earth”; they “must bean imaginary world.”

In fact, this withdrawal from the contemporary world could betaken to such an extreme that, according to Yeats, “visible passing life”should be rejected altogether as an appropriate subject for art. In he even criticized the early Romantics, for being too “full of the pride ofthe world.” Instead, Yeats supported the creation of a literature “whichnever mentions an external thing except to express a state of the soul”and in which “the images of human life have faded almost perfectly.”Hulme agreed and claimed that poetry “must be absolutely removedfrom reality.”

If left at this point, the youngModernists appear clearly to be “the lastRomantics” as they have been defined by some literary critics, and evenby Yeats himself. Moreover, they could be described as last, not just inthe sense of coming later in time, but also in respect to the quality of theirtheory and practice. The dichotomy they posited between forms of artwas so simplistic that none of their Romantic or Victorian predecessorswould have accepted it. Their aesthetic theories were derivative, and allof theirwork and ideas tended to an extremeofwithdrawal that verged onsentimental escapism. However, this is not the complete story of the fiveModernists early in their careers. In many of their writings they clearlywere not comfortable with their “Romantic” position, and especiallynot with an art that suggested removal from the world. Moreover, incontemplating Romantic and Aesthetic work, they drew closer than theycared to admit to theVictorians they rejected. The result was an aestheticposition that appeared contradictory, as well as superficial.

Despite pronouncements to the contrary, all the young Modernistswere uneasy with art that was vague, sentimental, and escapist. As earlyas Yeats remarked that he hated “the soft modern manner” and herealized that his own work fell into this category because “nothing any-where has clear outline. Everything is cloud and foam.” The otherMod-ernists agreed with Yeats’s evaluation of himself. Although Pound nevercriticized Yeats directly, he realized that modern symbolism, which usedsymbols that are “indefinitely suggestive” became “sometimes merelyatmospheric suggestion.” Lawrence and Hulme, however, did implicateYeats. In Lawrence objected to Yeats because “he is vapourish, toothin” and because his type of poetry “leads to so much vapour of words,till we are blind with coloured wordiness.” Lawrence wished to avoidart that was “undecided, vague, suggestive” and which used esoteric

The initial aesthetic dilemma

symbols that “do not show what they stand for themselves.” Hulme alsohad no patience for modern poets, like Yeats, who relied on “big wordsand common phrases without meaning” and on “the vain decorative andverbal images.”

TheModernists also were upset with what Lawrence called “the stickyjuice of sentimentality” andmelodrama that they found in their ownworkand in the work of others. This type of art was concerned with “beautifuldying decadent things with sad odours” rather than with real life. Or asHulme put it, it became an art in which “women whimper and whineof you and I alas, and roses, roses all the way. It becomes the expres-sion of sentimentality rather than of virile thought.” Pound also hatedhis “enemy” the “drivelling sentimentalist.” And in his poem of ,“Revolt. Against the Crepuscular Spirit inModern Poetry,” Pound paro-died “men . . . grown but pale sick phantoms,” “sons . . . grown such thinephemera” because they “dream pale flowers” or “live only in . . .mistsand tempered lights.” Finally, Yeats also agreed with these criticisms. In, he regretted the fact that in the modern world “[t]he poet . . .mustsit apart in contemplative indolence playing with fragile things” and thatpoetry must “separate itself from life.” And even as early as Yeatsassociated his own verse with this escapism because

it is almost all a flight into fairyland from the real world, and a summons tothat flight . . . it is not the poetry of insight and knowledge, but of longing andcomplaint – the cry of the heart against necessity. I hope some day to alter thatand write poetry of insight and knowledge.

In the same years as they advocated a return toRomanticism, andwithincreasing frequency after , all theModernists concurred on the typeof work they wished to write. It should avoid, as Yeats later described it,“that extravagant style/ He had learned from Pater.” Rather, as he put itin , it shouldbe apoetry of “utter simplicity” inwhich “everything [is]very hard and clear.” Lawrence and Hulme in also liked literaturein which there is “nothing superfluous, nothing out of place,” and thatcontains “absolutely accurate presentation and no verbiage.” For Poundtwo years later, “the true poet”was onewho “trusts himself to the simplestexpression, and . . .writes without adjectives.”

Along with simplicity and precision, the Modernists also liked, asLawrence put it in , “level-headed, fair, unrelenting realism.” Poundand Hulme admired poets who “attempt to reproduce exactly the thingwhich has been clearly seen,” and poems in which “each word [is] . . . animage seen.” Artists should be “stern realist[s],” according to Ford, and

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represent “an actual moment caught and recorded”; they should “lookin the face” of the contemporary world rather than “dream for ever ofislands off the west coast of Ireland.” It was precisely for his objectivityand realism, in opposition to Romantic dreaming and subjectivity, thatPound liked the work of the Victorian poet, Robert Browning.

The five Modernists, therefore, were conflicted. Or to put it morestrongly, as has one commentator on Pound, their “response to the de-mands imposed upon the poet by the opposed traditions of subjective andobjective poetry” was “schizophrenic.” They admired the Romanticalternative to determinism, rhetoric, and naturalism, but they dislikedthe resultant vagueness, sentimentality, and escapism. Moreover, theModernists were not entirely confident that the Romantic program ofSympathy and intuition would grant the artist the position of impor-tance for which they had hoped. It was wonderful in theory, but whetherit wouldwork in practicewas questionable. In fact, it seemed to the youngModernists that the return to Romanticism of the Aesthetic artists wasresponsible for a decline in the public appreciation of art.

According to Ford, fin-de-siecle “authors themselves have contributedto the want of interest in literature that the public displays” because theyinsisted that it “is of necessity obstruse, esoteric, far-fetched and unread-able.” This was not made better by their private lives. The alcoholism,drug abuse, and sexual scandals with which many artists were involvedand which seemed to transcend a harmless bohemianism increasinglydisturbed the Modernists. Later in his life, Yeats claimed that “our formof lyric, our insistence upon emotion which has no relation to any publicinterest, gathered together, overwrought, unstable men.” As Pound putit, art was “left to the chance misfit or the much-scorned dilletante.”

The result of this, particularly after the trial of OscarWilde, accordingto Ford, was that “the public . . . inseparably connected in its mind theidea of poetry with ideas of vice.” Artists were no longer “regarded asgentlemen, and, indeed . . . they are hardly regarded as men.” Rather,an artist was considered an “effeminate, if not a decent kind of eunuch.”In other words, the average person came to think of artists as morallysuspect, weak, and remote and, therefore, not meriting serious attention.In fact, according to Ford, the situation in the early years of the twentiethcentury was even worse than in the age of the fin-de-siecle decadents. Atleast in that period artists could shock the public. By even this was nolonger possible. “That poets should have lost even the power to irritatethe lethargic beast,” Ford concluded, “is a symptom of a lamentableimpotence on the part of the poets.”

The initial aesthetic dilemma

TheModernists realized that the Victorian “Greats” did not have thisproblem. They may have made social reform more important than art,but as writers and thinkers they had a much more significant impact onthe world than did the fin-de-siecle artists. The Victorians were respected,they sold books, they made money, they forced their audience to think,and they occasionally even produced results. According to Ford, “[i]ntheir own day each of them was a great and serious fact. For there was atime – yes, really there was a time! – when the publication of a volume ofpoems was still an event – an event making great names and fortunes notmerelymediocre.” This was because the public still had a “keen . . . beliefthat the fine arts could save a man’s soul.” But, according to Ford, “[a]llthese things are most extraordinarily changed.” And he concluded that“nowadays, and in England, we have a singular and chilling indifferenceto all literature.” Yeats agreed as early as that “[t]he arts have failed;fewer people are interested in them every generation.”

Thus the Modernists envied the fact that the Victorians were re-sponsible to the world and were taken seriously. In other words, theyoung Modernists, despite their critique of Victorian social criticism,were not entirely immune to the attraction of the “market-place.” Yeats,for example, agreed with Shelley’s complaint that “ ‘[p]oets have beenchallenged to resign the civic crown to reasoners and merchants’” be-cause they were no longer considered qualified to discuss political, so-cial, or economic issues, and therefore were excluded from concernsthat were rightly theirs. In Yeats dramatized his own frustrationwith the role assigned to artists in the modern world in his play, TheKing’s Threshold; in this work the chief poet of Ireland dies on a hungerstrike that he has started in protest at the revocation of the poet’s ancientright to sit on the king’s council as an equal to bishops, soldiers, andstatesmen.

ThefiveModernists, therefore, took seriously the role artists could playin the world.Moreover, they themselves wrote about politics, economics,and society, made some open political commitments, and hoped thattheir opinions on these subjects would be heard. Once again, in this theModernists were not that far removed from their Victorian predecessors.For example, all theModernists but Pound claimed to have been socialistsof the William Morris school early in their careers. Yeats, moreover, wasactive in Irish nationalism in the s.

The Modernists also were disturbed by many of the same featuresof the modern world as had been the Victorians (and the Romanticsfor that matter). On the most basic level they lamented the ugliness of

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contemporary urbanization and industrialism, and they suggested theneed for some form of a return to a more natural lifestyle. They hadno love, as Ford put it, for “a nation electing to spend its life under thefoul skies of great cities.” And they agreed with Yeats that “a perfect life”is in “a place where men plough and sow and reap, not a place wherethere are great wheels turning and great chimneys vomiting smoke” orwhere “whole districts [are] blackened with smoke like what they call inEngland their ‘Black Country’.”

Lawrence also described the greatest urban center of England,London, as the “pompous, magnificent Capital of Commercialism.” Asthis indicates, the Modernists occasionally went on to criticize mod-ern British economic theory and practice. Ford, for example, claimedthat underlying many of the problems of the modern world was theidea of economic laissez-faire of the “over-utilitarian, didactic, and dis-tinctly militant” English philistines of the Manchester School that wasso widely accepted by capitalists. Yeats attributed most contemporaryills to the fact that “the world surrendered to the competition of mer-chants and to the vulgarity that has been founded upon it.” In fact, in his play, The Countess Cathleen, Yeats has the devil’s servants, who temptthe starving Irish people to sell their souls for money, take the form ofmerchants.

Finally, the early Modernists were concerned with the social conse-quences of these trends. Ford and Yeats especially were disturbed by thecreation of a new form of poverty. Yeats, quoting Shelley, complainedof the fact that “ ‘[t]he rich have become richer, the poor have becomepoorer’.” Ford, on the other hand, was influenced by Ruskin andMorris,to go further and criticize not just poverty, but also the lack of enjoymentand fulfillment, and the intellectual and psychological consequences, ofmodern industrial work:

In the minds of these workers, work itself becomes an endless monotony; thereis no call at all made upon the special craftsman’s intellect that is in all thehuman race . . . It crushes out the individuality, and thus leisure time ceases tobe a season of rest, of simple lying still and doing nothing.

The five Modernists, therefore, did find much to admire in socialcriticism, despite their belief in the importance of an art of emotionand imagination. But because of the simplistic dichotomy they pro-posed between Victorian and Romantic values, they found this to bea contradiction that had to be resolved. Rather than follow Ruskin’ssuggestion that a thinker must make a choice between “Economic”and “Esthetic” man and concentrate on one side first, the Modernists

The initial aesthetic dilemma

tried to develop a third position that was a combination of the two.As Yeats put it, he wished to be “a Shelley and a Dickens in the onebody.”

All five writers hoped to create an art that was of the highest aestheticstandards, but not so remote as to separate the artist from the generalpublic or art from daily life. They wanted all people to be able to appre-ciate, understand, and be influenced by the best work of artistic genius.Yeats hoped that poets could “have all the subtlety of Shelley, and yetuse no image unknown to the common people, and speak no thoughtthat was not a deduction from the common thought.” Pound also re-gretted not living in a period in which writers “could allude to thingsthat all understood” and “write what will be understood of ‘the many’and lauded of ‘the few’.” And Ford hoped that the arts could becomeintegrated enough in the everyday world so that the creative artist “willbe honored by emperors, and ploughmen will desire to take his hand,”and so that poetry “will become once more human nature’s daily food,instead of being, as it is now, the sweet liqueur at the end of a banquet, orchocolates in the little crystal bowls that nestle neglected among greensimlax upon the tablecloth.”

The Modernists were far less successful than most Victorian poets inresolving this debate at this point in their careers. Their artistic workremained vague, sentimental, elaborate, and disengaged. Their politicaland social theorizing lacked specific content or careful analysis. Thisfailure to effect a successful compromise ultimately led them to continueto fall back on escapism. For example, despite Yeats’s theories and hisefforts to make political comment in his early work or to write with adegree of simplicity, he was only able to do so successfully in plays suchas The Countess Cathleen () and The King’s Threshold (). Most of hispoems at the turn of the century, on the other hand, still were written inwhat Richard Ellmann has described as an “ornate style” in which “noword has any explicit meaning.” As a result, vagueness and detachmentremain their key features. This is clearly apparent in the first stanza ofYeats’s poem “The Poet Pleads with the Elemental Powers” from his collection, The Wind Among the Reeds:

The Powers whose name and shape no living creature knowsHave pulled the Immortal Rose;And though the Seven Lights bowed in their dance and wept,The Polar Dragon slept,His heavy rings uncoiled from glimmering deep to deep:When will he wake from sleep?

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Pound employed a similar style. Many of his poems until at least ,as T.H. Jackson remarks, were “marked by a kind of naive aestheticism:a tendency to depend on the bizarrerie of the opalescent word, preciousaural patterns, quasi-Symbolist images of vague import, and the atmo-spheric effects, of images of flame, ‘saphirs,’ and symbolical winds.”

For example, Pound’s poem “Occidit” from his collection Personaeis as follows:

Autumnal breaks the flame upon the sun-set herds.The sheep on Gilead as tawn hair gleamNeath Mithra’s dower and his slow departing,While in the sky a thousand fleece of goldBear, each his tribute, to the waning god.Hung on the rafters of the effulgent west,Their tufted splendour shields his decadence,As in our southern lands brave tapestriesAre hung king-greeting from the ponticellsAnd drag the pageant from the earth to air,Wherein the storied figures live again,Wind-molden back unto their life’s erst guise,All tremulous beneath the many-fingered breathThat Aufidus doth take to house his soul.

The vagueness and ornateness of much of Pound’s work at this periodmay have been related to his “inability to envisage poetry as anythingother than dream.” Or, as he himself put it, it might have been areflection of his “dream-wracked heart,” which did not wish the “blood-red spears-men of the dawn’s array” to drive his “dust-clad knights ofdream away.” In “defiance” of realists, Pound declared that his “moatedsoul shall dream in your despite.”

Lawrence and Hulme were the only Modernists of the five who wereable to make their work more simple, concrete and realistic, and re-flective of their own experiences by . For example, the first stanzaof Lawrence’s “Wakened” from his series, “Night Songs,” publishedin Ford’s English Review in , exhibits a degree of simplicity andrealism:

Is that the moonAt the window, so big and red?No one in the room – no one near the bed?

Listen, her shoonPalpitating down the stair!– Or a beat of wings at the window there?

The initial aesthetic dilemma

Hulme’s poem “Autumn” () reads in its entirety as follows:

A touch of cold in the Autumn night –I walked abroad,And saw the ruddy moon lean over a hedgeLike a red-faced farmer.I did not stop to speak, but nodded,And round about were the wistful starsWith white faces like town children.

However, despite these breakthroughs, Lawrence’s and Hulme’s workoften remained romantic and imprecise. For example, one of Lawrence’sfirst poems, written in , was reminiscent of Pound and Yeats. In“GuelderRose” Lawrence’s description of a rose bush, with its “Chapletsof cream and distant green,” turns into a sort of dream as they “impress”him “like the thought-drenched eyes/ Of some Pre-Raphaelite mysticqueen/ Who haunts me with her lies.” Hulme too was attracted todream-worlds, even if he could write of them in a more simple andconcrete style. In he wrote how

Over a large table, smooth, he leaned in ecstasies,In a dream.He had been to woods, and talked and walked with treesHad left the worldAnd brought back round globes and stone imagesOf gems, colours, hard and definite.With these he played in a dream,On the smooth table.

The impression that results from their creative work, once again, isthat theModernists struggled unsuccessfully early in their careers to findamiddle ground between aestheticism and social comment, or to engagethe real world and change it through the immense power of art. Whatthey really wanted to do was to escape – to another, different, and moreinteresting world. This also can be seen in their other interests, especiallyin their early political commitments. Although Yeats, Ford, Hulme, andLawrence all claimed to have been socialists initially, they were not soin any orthodox sense. In fact, Lawrence and Hulme said little aboutthe details of their beliefs, and Yeats’s and Ford’s socialism was strangelylacking in any comment about the material world.

Yeats and Ford made it clear that their socialism was directly influ-enced byWilliamMorris. This was undoubtedly becauseMorris, morethan other socialists, was concerned with the role of art and morality in

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an ideal society. According to one commentator, Morris’s rejection ofindustrialization and desire to recreate a medieval-style rural way of life,in which all people cooperated in creating beautiful objects for daily use,reflected a more general wish “to simplify life, to make it more reward-ing, to make it more beautiful, to make it more just, to make the joy ofit available to more and more people.” In his early years, he hoped todo all this, not by means of economic theories or practical politics, butthrough the immense power of art.

This emphasis on aesthetic and moral ideals rather than on economicor political details appealed especially to the young Modernists. Fordlater recalled that he “never could understand anything at all about theeconomic conditions of the Ideal State” and Yeats admitted that he “didnot read economics.” And both questioned whether Morris “troubledto understand books of economics” either. But Yeats admired Morrisin spite of, or perhaps because of, this. Yeats liked Morris because hebelieved that Morris “found it enough to hold up, as it were, life as it isto-day beside his visions, and to show how faded its colours were and howsapless it was.” It was this aspect of Morris’s work that encouraged Yeatsto become a socialist, but this was about the extent of Yeats’s socialism.In fact, Yeats’s ideal state was best presented perhaps by John Eglinton,whom Yeats praised for so beautifully describing “the youth of Stateswhen ‘the young men exercise in the fields, the old men sit in council,and at sunset the daughters leap down the street to the dance’.”

Ford’s socialism was similar. In he recalled how “during thatsplendid youth of the world in the ’eighties and ’nineties the words ‘theSocial Revolution’ were for ever on our lips.” However, this “ultimaterevolution . . . our beloved Social one” had little to do with economics.As Ford remembered it, it was an aesthetic revolution “of large women,curtain serge, wheat-sheaves and . . . dream babies.” Ford himself eventried to live this new socialism for a number of years by adopting the“simple life” of small farmer and artist in the country. Again his recol-lection of this experience was mainly of its aesthetic quality, for example,the fact that he, his wife, and friends “all dressed more or less mediae-vally . . . [and] were drinking, I think, mead out of cups made of bullock’shorns.” He admitted later that this was simply escapism.

Even more than socialism, Ford’s politics were informed by a senti-mental anarchism; Ford wanted to be free of all government, not activelychange existing political structures. His political views probably were re-presented most accurately by his fairy story, The Queen Who Flew ().In this tale, the beautiful young queen escapes from the evil barons,

The initial aesthetic dilemma

renounces her kingdom, and lives happily ever afterwith her ploughman-love in “the land of theHappy Folk” inwhich everyone is content becausethere is no government at all.

This is hardly the stuff to make the world return “the civic crown”from “reasoners and merchants” to poets. And if this is the type of socialcontent theModernists wished to add to their poetry as comment on theproblems of the world, it could do little tomake their workmore concreteand less escapist. There is, however, one example of an early Modernistwith a more serious commitment to, and theory about, politics. This wasYeats, who was involved with Irish nationalism. However, even in thisinstance Yeats was not prevented from trying to escape, or withdraw asmuch as possible, from the reality of the contemporary world.

In the late s Yeats was active enough in Irish nationalism to helporganize protests against Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee and a cele-bration of the centenary of the Irish nationalist, Wolfe Tone, who com-mitted suicide in prison after his arrest for his participation in the violentrebellion of . Yeats may even have joined the secret and revolu-tionary Irish Republican Brotherhood. After the turn of the twentiethcentury, however, Yeats largely gave up an active participation in politicalmovements. Nationalism for Yeats became almost exclusively aesthetic.Rather than practical politics, Yeats concentrated on the cultural ele-ments of nationalism, which he had been exploring since the s andwhich were crucial in the development of what became known as theIrish Cultural Revival. He focused his efforts on the study of ancient Irishpoetry and mythology, fairy- and folktales, on the work of nineteenth-century Irish nationalist writers, and on the effort to revive a nationalart in the present day. To the latter end Yeats founded Irish literary so-cieties in Dublin and London and included Irish subjects in his creativewriting.

Yeats soon had formulated a well-developed theory of the importanceof cultural nationalism in effecting real change. This theory comple-mented his views on art in general. According to Yeats, a focus on Irishart and culture was crucial because it could evoke emotions, such as“love of the Unseen Life and love of country” as well as highlight dif-ferences with the English. A great culture, therefore, was much morepowerful and would have more widespread results than a political move-ment that relied on rhetoric and reason. Yeats believed that while politicscould affect only two or three thousand people, a cultural revival couldmove the entire population of the country and make the nation strongenough to finally gain independence. In fact, in Yeats even claimed

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that the new literary movement “in ten or in fifteen years or in twentyyears . . .will be strong enough to shake governments.”

In hindsight we know that Yeats was right. The leaders of the EasterRising of were influenced by the Cultural Revival enough to or-ganize a political action that shook the British government seriously.

But the effect of this Cultural Revival was different for Yeats. A focus onaesthetic or cultural concerns simply served to increase the remotenessof his work. He had hoped that the inclusion of Irish themes would makehis work more concrete and understandable to the general public, andhelp him avoid writing of make-believe lands or subjective emotions. Butin the end this was not the case. In fact, Dorothy Hoare has argued con-vincingly that the use of “Irish matter only served to turn Yeats’s mindmore in the direction of unreality,” to the “coloured land of dreams.”

According to Richard Ellmann, one of Yeats’s classic Irish poems, “TheWanderings of Oisin” (), was little different from his non-Irish work:“the poem is Irish in name and to some extent in scenery, otherwisePre-Raphaelite in style but Symbolist in method.”

Perhaps the vagueness of Yeats’s Irish work was a result of his theory ofcultural nationalism. He did not have to provide any details about howIreland would regain independence from England because the goal of anational art was to evoke nationalist emotions, not provide accurate facts.Thus the beauty, spirituality, and mystery of some undefinable remoteIrishworldwere preferable to any reality.That this did not botherYeats atthe time is clear from his rhetorical question: “Is it not the impracticabledreamer that conquers the world? It is not the impracticable dreamerswho take the world up out of its course and turn it from one way toanother?”

In fact, all five of the Modernists at the beginning of their careerswere “impracticable” dreamers, despite their desire to be more. This isperhaps why they were unable to reach any sort of compromise betweenthe “market-place” and aesthetic beauty in their literary work or politicalcommitments. What they were left with, as a result, were dream-worldsand the “immaterial pleasure houses” of their own creation.

“A more dream-heavy hour”: medievalist and

progressive beginnings

the lovelinessThat has long faded from the world;The jewelled crowns that kings have hurledIn shadowy pools, when armies fled;The love-tales wrought with silken threadBy dreaming ladies upon clothThat has made fat the murderous moth;The roses that of old time wereWoven by ladies in their hair,The dew-cold lilies ladies boreThrough many a sacred corridorWhere such grey clouds of incense roseThat only God’s eyes did not close:For that pale breast and lingering handCome from a more dream-heavy land,A more dream-heavy hour than this.

W.B. Yeats, “He Remembers Forgotten Beauty,”from The Wind Among the Reeds,

In there was one particular dream-world that William Butler Yeatsregretted he could never see. “That indolent, demonstrative MerryEngland” when “men still wept when they were moved, still dressedthemselves in joyous colours, and spoke with many gestures” was gonefor ever. Two years earlier Ford Madox Ford also expressed a desire tobe “back in a century – some beatific century that one cannot name –when nothing was hurried, nothing was passion-worn, nothing strove;when everyone was at peace with his neighbors, when the greatest ofcrimes was that of sitting up late o’nights.” An older way of life, be itjoyous and colorful, or slow and peaceful appealed to all five Modernistsearly in their careers.

One reason the Modernists liked this past was because they under-stood that images from itmight be useful in creating a romantic literature

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of great beauty, as Yeats had done in the poem above. But the past alsocould serve other purposes. It might help provide a solution to the prob-lem that such an art often slips into vagueness and withdrawal. As Yeatshimself suggested, “all ancient vision was definite and precise.” If poetsused symbols taken from history and ancient mythologies they might beable to create a less abstract and evasive art. In addition, if its contentwas derived from a common national heritage of the past, art couldappeal to a large audience and unify society by providing a subject mat-ter that all people, rich and poor, would understand and enjoy. Finally,like Sympathy, history also could evoke emotions and thus could enablean author to make serious social and political comment on the con-temporary world and encourage reform without resorting to reason ordidacticism. By carefully depicting a preferable age in the past, poetscould provoke the readers’ emotional horror about the present and in-directly spur them on to demand change. In other words, as Pound putit, they could “Make-strong old dreams, lest this our world lose heart.”

Or, according to Yeats, if artists used the past and “the magical beryls”of “old legends for their subject” they could exhibit “life, not as it is,but as the heroic part of us . . . hopes it may become.” Thus, an artistwho employed imagination and emotion to construct a beautiful pastautomatically would help improve the present. In a poem of Fordseemed to suggest just this:

(To purge our minds of haste, passfrom an age outworn

And travel to the depths of tranquiltimes long past;

Sinking as sinks a stone throughwaters of a tarn,

Be fitting things and meet:And, look you, on our walls hang

treasures from such depths.)

History, thus, seemed able to provide quite a number of treasures forcreative writers and the world as a whole. As Pound put it about hismedieval studies, “I, who have laboured long in the tombs,/ Am comeback therefore with riches.”

Yet Ford’s stanza, as well as his and Yeats’s descriptions of life in apreferable age of the past included at the start of this chapter, shouldmake us hesitate before applauding the Modernists’ use of history atthis point in their careers. Ford “cannot name” the “beatific century” towhich he wants to return, and there is no specific indication in his poem

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of what treasures are to be gained by the poet. Moreover, the reason forgathering past treasures does not appear to be to effect change, but toprovide a release from cares and an escape to the imagined tranquillityof an imprecise, remote world. In short, the early Modernists still, asPound admitted, looked at the world with “dream-shot eyes.”

These examples of theModernists’ attitudes toward history illustrate ageneral trend. Their desire for romance, passion, and beauty encouragedthe five Modernists, early in their careers, to construct an idealized fan-tasy world of the past. In consequence, they made little serious commenton the problems of contemporary life by incorporating history into theirart. As Yeats later recalled: “I thought that only beautiful things shouldbe painted, and that only ancient things and the stuff of dreams werebeautiful.” It was an unreal, dream-like beauty that was most importantabout the past to the Modernists. Pound even went so far as to describehimself as “the prince of dreams,/ Lord of Shalott,/ And many otherthings long since forgot.”

Thus, despite any hope for its practical effect, history first was usedby the five Modernists primarily as an aesthetic tool to add atmosphericeffect. The lack of specific political, social, or economic content in theirearly depictions or discussions of the past, moreover, simply contributedto the escapist quality of their work. In addition, what content their viewsof history did contain, again, was not much different from that of theirpredecessors. Not only might the Modernists be called the “last Roman-tics,” all of them, butHulme, also were perhaps the last representatives ofthe nineteenth-century medievalism as practiced by Victorian “Greats”like Scott, Carlyle, Ruskin, the Pre-Raphaelites, and William Morris. Asliterary critic, Alice Chandler, has pointed out, medievalism in the nine-teenth century usually took one of two forms.While it often “forced manto imagine a totally different society instead of merely acquiescing in hisown,” frequently it wasmerely decorative and an “attempt to bring colorback in the world,” or to relive imagined “pageantry and drama.” Itshould come as no surprise that early in their careers the Modernistsfell into the latter camp. In fact, they were hardly more realistic or lessvaguely decorative than the most sentimental of nineteenth-century me-dievalists.

But not only was their use of the past derivative of their predecessors,so too were the Modernists’ first comments on the pattern and directionof history. Despite any critique they might have made of Victorian pro-gressive determinism, in the beginning of their careers all theModernists,except Pound, had implicit theories of a universal pattern of history that

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echoed one ormore of the varieties of progress common in the nineteenthcentury. The only significant difference between their theories of historyand those of their predecessors was that the Modernists were primarilyconcerned with the aesthetic, spiritual, or moral developments of historyin which artists and people of intuition, emotion, and genius were theprime movers. Unlike thinkers such as Carlyle or Ruskin, they had verylittle to say about any form of material change, be it political, economic,or social. The results were theories of history that were one-sided, as wellas unoriginal and escapist.

As had so many other artists and thinkers, Yeats, Ford, Pound, andLawrence originally looked to the past to discover a “golden age” thatcontained a way of life that was near perfect. While all appeared to havefound this age, initially they were quite vague about when it had existed.Ford, for example, admired what he described as an “undefined, semi-mythical period” when kings and queens, beautiful young princesses,and magical animals existed. Lawrence mentioned only Gothic archi-tecture, Vikings, and knights as features of the period he admired. Yeatswas even more imprecise. Most often he simply referred to his goldenage as existing in “ancient” times, “the primeval world,” or “old” timeswhen the “way of our fathers” was still in existence.

Despite a vagueness about historical dating, it was clear that all fourModernists were referring to the Middle Ages. This became more ap-parent when authors such as Ford, Pound, and Yeats considered theirfavorite ages more carefully. In Pound admitted that “some tem-peramental sympathy” made him prefer “the Twelfth Century, or, moreexactly, that centurywhose center is the year .” In Yeats thoughtthat “the eleventh and . . . twelfth centuries . . .were . . . the centuries ofperfect learning,” while two years earlier Ford claimed the thirteenthand fourteenth centuries were the ages that were “the most sustainedlyglorious in the history of the nation.”

While theymight have becomemore specific about dating, thoseMod-ernists who commented on the medieval “golden age” provided few de-tails about the political, social, or economic structure of the time. Despitetheir interest in socialism, anarchism, or nationalism, they did not enterthe nineteenth-century medievalist debates, in which Carlyle, Ruskin,and Morris took part, about whether the Middle Ages were communalor hierarchic, aristocratic or democratic, or what were the ways in whichthese features might shed light on contemporary problems.

The Middle Ages as depicted by Yeats, for example, alternated be-tween “Merry England” and ancient Ireland. However, the relationship

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between the two countries, and the unique features of either country’sculture, society, or political structure at the time were not made clear. Infact, Yeats’s references to ancient Irish life are almost identical to Englandunder feudalism as described by nineteenth-century medievalists suchas the English Pre-Raphaelites. Ford would later criticize the Pre-Raphaelites for the fact that “in the gloom and amidst the horror theysang on bravely of Launcelot and Guinevere, Merlin and Vivien, bal-lads of staffs and scrips, of music and moonlight.” If Irish heroes such asOisin, Niamh, Cuchulain, the Druids, and the Sidhe are put in theplace of Launcelot, Guinevere, Merlin, and Vivien, there is little todistinguish Yeats’s work from that of the most decorative of Englishmedievalists.

Ford’s use of theMiddle Ages was a bitmore specific than that of Yeats,but was equally lacking in content. His most extensive examination ofhistory at the time was in his book, The Cinque Ports (), which is adescription of five southern English ports, particularly at their height inthe Middle Ages. Ford was quite careful about the dating of the warsand decrees of medieval kings and politicians, but he did not seriouslyexamine the political structures they created or changed. Moreover, likeYeats, Ford did not discuss the economy or society, and although hementioned feudalism briefly he did not describe its workings or considerit seriously as an economic, political, or social system. The same was trueof Pound who wrote an entire book about medieval literature, The Spiritof Romance. Aside from mentioning the names of a few historical figuresand key battles, however, Pound failed to make any comments on thematerial background to the period.

Rather than describing the political, social, or economic details of theMiddle Ages, the Modernists were interested in its aesthetic, cultural,and moral qualities. One feature that Ford in particular admired wasthe simplicity of the period. It lacked the complexity and disharmony ofmodern life. Ford took pleasure, for example, in “old towns where thesunlight lies along mellowed walls” because they reminded him of “lazyages, of leisured times before us, of things gone, things that can neverbe recalled.” A “new Golden Age” would come about, Ford hoped,when “the fascination of the slow, creaking waggons of the past will growoverpowering, the claims of the simple will be rediscovered.”

The five Modernists also liked the beauty and drama of the MiddleAges. It was a timewhen ceremony, finemanners, and a joy in living wereintimate parts of daily life. For Pound, the “pageantry” of “the feudalceremony” and “perfect chivalric pose[s],” and for Yeats, the “courtly

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and saintly ideals of ” the Middle Ages was far superior to the “practicalideals” of the modern age. While the excitement of “the May-day riotof colour and bright laughter of a medieval township” appealed to Ford,it was more peaceful, pastoral scenes, such as “dancing countrypeo-ple . . . cow-herds, resting after the day’swork, and . . . [a] quietmill-race”that Yeats preferred. According to Yeats, in the Middle Ages one couldfind “Merry Englandwith its glad Latin heart . . . [and] a timewhenmenin every land found poetry and imagination in one another’s companyand in the day’s labour.”

Echoing Ruskin and Morris, the Modernists also admired the excel-lence of the medieval architecture and craftsmanship that made towns,buildings, and objects of daily life beautiful, and reflected a more pro-found religious view of the universe. Ford believed that “the sight of thegood craftsmanship” as produced “in the old days before our times” was“absolutely essential to the cure of certain mental maladies fostered bythe spirit of [his own] age” and was “essential for the preservation of theold faith” that was responsible for it. For Pound the use of “line, composi-tion and design” rather than mass in Gothic architecture was supremelyimportant because with this technique the builders “raised . . . the templeof the spirit” rather than “the temple of the body.”

This religious spirit was essential to the greatness of all medieval art,according to the earlyModernists. Lawrence, for example, admired “theideal, noble emotion which many medieval artists expressed so perfectlyin their Madonnas,” and the “aspiring,” “spiritual,” “noble,” and “di-vine” qualities of Gothic architecture. According to Pound it was be-cause medieval poets were in touch with “the superhuman,” “the thingsof the spirit” that their poetry was great; for them a poem was “a key tothe deeper understanding of nature and the beauty of the world and ofthe spirit.”

But above all theMiddleAgeswas attractive to theModernists becauseof its “romance.” Pound found this in what he considered to be the bestmedieval literature, which was a type of art that was mysterious andmagical and that did not portray the details of actual events that mighthave occurred. This was a literature in which “one expects and demands,haunted fountains, bewitched castles, ships that move unguided to theirappropriate havens.” Lawrence also loved “the old world of romance”in which one could imagine oneself in a place “where you might finda Viking asleep, where there are outlaws and knights in armour andladies who exist solely to be succoured.” It should be evident that theline between romance and escapism was fine. Pound crossed that line

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in when, in searching for “link[s] with the middle ages,” he visitedSpain. What he discovered to his pleasure was “an age far from therealities of ‘the real world’,” “a dream Spain, just as real as Spain’s old-glory, and no more tainted with the appearance of modernity than atime-stained parchment psalter leaf.”

Thus the Middle Ages for the Modernists was a beautiful but alsoexciting world of deep spiritual fulfillment to which they might escapethe drab ugliness of the present day. Yet, although they agreed on thesegeneral characteristics of the Middle Ages, the young Modernists diddiffer somewhat on how they used this historical period in their creativewriting. In Ford described two different types of Pre-Raphaelitemedievalism in a way that could apply to the medievalism of the fourModernists. According to Ford,

between them Madox Brown and Rossetti invented a queer and quaint sortof mediaevalism that was realistic always as long as it could be picturesque.Morris, Swinburne, and Burne-Jones however invented the gorgeous glamourof mediaevalism.

Yeats’s work was akin to the second type. While Lawrence did not writeanything specifically medievalist, he clearly admired art in this ‘gorgeousglamour’ vein. Ford and Pound, however, alternated between the twotypes of medievalism.

For example, Yeats’s poem quoted at the opening of this chapter, “HeRemembers Forgotton Beauty,” cannot be described as anything but‘gorgeous’ with its kings wearing jewelled crowns, “love-tales wroughtwith silken threads,” and ladies walking through incense-filled, “sacredcorridors” carrying “dew-cold lilies.” Yeats’s other poems of this periodalso were replete with kings and queens, music and moonlight, roses andlilies, harpstrings and battle-banners.

The medievalist poetry Lawrence most liked was written in a similarstyle. In particular, Lawrence admired Rachel Annand Taylor, who in he praised for being “mediaeval” and for belonging “to the com-pany of Aucassin andNicolette and to no other.”He even called her “firstamong the poets of today.” Lawrence mentioned approvingly the titlesof some of her poems, which almost could have been written by Yeats,such as “The Queen,” “Arthurian Songs,” “The Knights at Kingstead,”“Rosa Mundi,” “Chant d’Amour,” “Love’s Fool to His Lady,” and“Reveries.” That the quality of these poems appears to have beenless important to Lawrence than their “gorgeous glamour” can be seenin Taylor’s poem “The Queen,” which opens as follows:

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The Queen sinned in a dream,Never a word she spoke;But throned in reverie supremeShe sat amid her folk.

And yet a rumour ranThrough the Castle by the sea;The knights grew pale; the maidens ’ganTo brood right rosily.

Was it the purple dyesDropped from the splendid wingOf Love-o’-Dreams in her sleeping eyes,That told the grim old King?

LikeLawrence, Pound andYeats also verymuch admired the use of themedievalism in contemporary poetry. For example, Pound praised thework of Frederic Manning specifically because “he has caught much ofthe old Saxon vigor and some of thatmediaeval glamour that lies as Aprildew upon the works of WilliamMorris.” Yeats admired Lionel Johnson’swork, again for what Ford would call its medieval ‘gorgeousness’ and forits ability to help him escape from the present day. As he put it, Johnson“has made for himself a twilight world where all the colours are like thecolours in the rainbow, that is cast by the moon, and all the people as farfrommodern tumults as the people upon fading and dropping tapestries.His delight is in ‘the courtesy of saints,’ ‘the courtesy of knights,’ ‘the cour-tesy of love,’ in ‘saints in golden vesture,’ in the ‘murmuring’ of ‘holyLatinimmemorial,’ ‘in ‘black armour, falling lace, and altar lights at dawn’.”

Pound’s own work reflected his literary interests. His early poetryresembled the medievalist ‘glamour’ of Yeats and Taylor. For example,the first stanza of “Canzon: Of Incense,” a poem Ford printed in hisEnglish Review in early , introduces many of the same characters whoappeared in Yeats’s work:

Thy gracious ways,O Lady of my heart, have

O’er all my thought their golden glamour cast;As amber torch-flames, where strange men-at-armsTread softly ’neath the damask shield of night,Rise from the flowing steel in part reflected,So on my mailed thought that with thee goeth,Though dark the way, a golden glamour falleth.

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Poundwrotemany early poems filled, as StuartMcDougal remarks, withthese sorts of “archaisms . . . and Pre-Raphaelite medievalisms.”

However, Pound also wrote some poetry in a more realistic or, touse the Fordian term, ‘picturesque’ style. In this he was influenced bya poet all the Modernists would consider a Victorian “great figure,”Robert Browning. Poems such as “Cino,” “A Villonaud. Ballad of theGibbet,” “Sestina:Altaforte,” and“PiereVidalOld” told the life stories ofmedieval poets in a simpler, less profuse manner, and in a way that oftenemphasized manly strength and even glorified violence. For example,Pound’s “Marvoil,” about the troubadour Arnaut Marvoil begins:

A poor clerk I, ‘Arnaut the less’ they call me,And because I have small mind to sitDay long, long day cooped on a stoolA jumbling o’figures for Maitre Jacques Polin,I ha’taken to rambling the South here.

That Ford’smedievalism resembled Pound’s can be seen in two poems.The last stanza of his poem “The Cuckoo and the Gipsy” () is morerealistic than “glamorous”:

Would your May Days seem more fairWere we chals deep-read in books,Were the cuckoos cawing rooks,All the brakes cathedral closesWhere the very sunlight dozes,

Were the sounds all organ tone and book andbell and prayer?

However, the first two stanzas of Ford’s “Enough” () is quite remi-niscent of a world depicted by Yeats:

Long we’d sought for Avalon,Avalon the rest place;Long, long we’d labouredThe oars – yea for years.Late, late one eventideSaw we o’er still watersTurrets rise and roof fretsGolden in a glory,Heard for a heart-beatWomen choirs and harpingsWaft down the wave-ways.

Although a vague and sentimental medievalism is the most obviouscharacteristic of Yeats’s, Ford’s, Pound’s, and Lawrence’s earliest use of

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the past, there is another quality of all the Modernists’ views of historythat is important to note. While none of the five authors had developeda consistent speculative philosophy of history at this point in their career,there is some sense that they assumed the existence of a universal patternof history. Despite any criticism of the modern world or desire to escapeto a more beautiful past, implicit in the writings of four of the five Mod-ernists under consideration is an optimism about the larger movementof history that is similar to most nineteenth-century thinkers. In otherwords, those authors who wrote about the overall course of history ac-cepted assumptions of the importance of cumulative change over timeand of some form of progress.

This does not mean that all five Modernists had identical theories ofprogress. Rather, each adopted a different variety of progress that echoednineteenth-century views. Yeats’s implicit pattern was of a Romanticspiral. Ford alternated between aesthetic decline and Whig politicalprogress. Lawrence implied a vaguely religious, positive teleology. AndHulme openly agreed with Bergson’s spiritual evolution. However, asin the rest of their thought and work, the Modernists were quite vagueabout the pattern of history and were concerned more with aesthetic,psychological, and spiritual progress than with any change in politics orthe economy.

It is in his comments about the spiritual world that Yeats’s first senseof the pattern of history becomes most apparent. Yeats was interestedin spiritualism from an early age and throughout his life. He was notalone; the turn of the twentieth century witnessed a widespread spiritualrevival. In his autobiography he claimed that this interest, like that of somany others, began because the ideas of Mill, Huxley, and Spencer had“deprived” him “of the simple-minded religion of [his] childhood.”

Yeats began looking for an alternative religious belief, and he found itin the late s and s in the Theosophical Society and his ownorganization he called the Order of the Golden Dawn. Spiritualism wasnot simply a hobby for Yeats. In he wrote that “the mystical lifeis the centre of all that I do and all that I think and all that I write.”Moreover, it was connected intimately with his plans for Ireland. Notonly did Yeats hope for a regeneration of his country with the help ofhis Irish literature, he also wanted to found a new Irish mystery religion,similar to theGoldenDawn andTheosophy, but with its own particularlyIrish temple, rituals, and symbols to contribute to the same goal.

The spiritualist groups with which Yeats was originally involved allaccepted the idea of progress. They believed that by purification and cul-tivation of the will and aided by secret knowledge, an individual could

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ascend by gradual steps, or through successive incarnations, to one-ness with the divine. Moreover, having gained access to this superiorsupernatural world, they also could control nature and other humanbeings, perfect themselves, and even improve the world as a whole.The Theosophists believed in a “spiritual evolutionary scale” that “heldout . . . the promise of unlimited evolution to a state of absolute spiri-tual perfection” for the race as well as for the individual, which wouldcomplement the physical evolution proposed by Darwin.

Yeats translated these spiritual beliefs to the pattern of earthly history,with one change. He modified the pattern to make it less linear. In fact,Yeats’s view of history early in his career was very much like the spiraland “fortunate fall” of so many Romantic artists and thinkers. Becausehe thought that the modern world was aesthetically inferior to the past,Yeats could not accept the idea of strict progress. In he declared that“it is one of our illusions . . . that life moves slowly and evenly towardssome perfection.” Nevertheless, Yeats did not reject the idea of progressaltogether.Rather, he believed that “progress ismiracle, and it is sudden,”coming only after a period of decline. In and he thought thatthe world had been in a state of decline since “the first days” and wascurrently witnessing an age of crisis. He was confident, however, that themiracle of progress was about to occur and that a new golden age wason the horizon. This new age, according to Yeats, “may prolong its firstinspiration without renouncing the complexity of ideas and emotionswhich is the inheritance of cultivated men.” And, in agreement withBlake, Yeats believed it would contain “the simplicity of the first ages,with knowledge of good and evil added to it.”

This ultimate progress, moreover, would not be only physical or ma-terial; it would also be aesthetic and spiritual. Quoting Shelley, Yeatsclaimed that “ ‘there should be a perfect identity between the moral andphysical improvement of the human species’.” Artists, of course, wouldbe essential to the progress because it was they, as well as religious Irishpeasants, who “had been granted by divine favour a vision of the un-fallen world from which others are kept apart.” Thus Irish artists, whorelied on traditional Irish subjects, would contribute to future perfectionFinally, like many Romantics and Victorians, Yeats believed that whenprogress did occur in the future it would be final; the world would reachits “last autumn” and “men’s hearts and the weather . . . [would] growgentle as time fades into eternity.”

Thus, as a number of commentators have pointed out, Yeats’s firstviews of history were, as were those of many progressive thinkers, apoca-lyptic. He assumed that in the future evil would be expunged and history

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would end. In short, Yeats postulated a “salvation from the cycles” anda “transcendence of all history.” In Yeats made this clear whenhe wrote that “the children of the Fiend” will “have power until the endof time,/ When God shall fight with them a great pitched battle/ Andhack them into pieces.” Or, as he put it two years earlier, God “at theend/ Shall pull apart the pale ribs of the moon/ And quench the starsin the ancestral night.”

Ford’s earliest ideas about the pattern of history were less well-developed and less consistent than those of Yeats. But before itis possible to discern two patterns implicit simultaneously in his writings.While Yeats combined, in one theory, his sense of decline with a hopefor progress (through the belief in a spiral of initial decline but ultimateprogress), Ford alternated between the two. As a result, Ford assigned de-cline and progress to different areas. Within the same work, it is possibleto discern both the popular fin de siecle belief in the progressive aestheticdecline of Western civilization, and the common Victorian Whig viewof the evolution of English political liberty and freedom.

Ford’s work of , The Cinque Ports, is primarily the examinationof the decline of those ports from their position of preeminence in thethirteenth and fourteenth centuries – his golden age. They were once themost important parts of England commercially and militarily, but sincehad become negligible agricultural backwaters. Aside from dating thisdegeneration, however, Ford was not particularly interested in exploringthe causes for the political or economic decline or speculating aboutwhat it meant for history as a whole. In the end, Ford attributed thematerial decay of the Cinque Ports purely to physical events beyondhuman control – the silting up of their harbors.

Rather than concentrating on material matters, Ford was more in-terested in aesthetic and spiritual concerns. It was here that he madehis most extensive comments on the progressive decline of the modernworld. Ford consistently complained that “in these days of hurry andforgetfulness” the artistic impulse has either been lost or has been con-sciously destroyed. Buildings are made “to suit the ideals of the modernhousemaid” and “the years we live in, [are] years sad for the craftsman,sadder for the artist, sadder still for the upholder of any faithwhatsoever.”Ford also criticized modern legislation, not for its political consequences,but for contributing to the decline in the aesthetic quality of English life.According to Ford, the contemporary reforms of local political systemsand electoral districts had given the vote to uglymodern cities as opposedto old beautiful towns, and by being “aridly rational,” these reforms had

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done away with all the old “whimsy,” pageantry, and beauty of localpolitical customs and institutions. Nevertheless, Ford realized that re-forms were necessary to put a stop to corruption and nepotism in localgovernment. And despite his professed socialism, when Ford discussedpolitics in The Cinque Ports, he consistently praised any event that her-alded the development of the English system. It is here that a Whig viewof history becomes apparent.

Ford’s greatest praise for any “Cinque Port” town was reserved forwhen it “did what it could to forward the evolution of the nation’s consti-tution, the nation’s freedom.” And his greatest criticism of any institution(for example the Church) was when its members became “mere dragson the progress of the kingdom towards its constitutional destinies.” Im-plicit in his discussion was the belief that Englishmen, from the verybeginning of their history with the Britons, were naturally freedom lov-ing. Periodically, other nations had tried to impose foreign restrictionson that freedom. Ford implied that this happened first with the Romans(“that gross horde of materialists”), then with the Normans who broughtFrench feudalism and an absolute monarchy. However, Ford believedthat the British people consistently fought against these impositions ontheir freedom.

The “Cinque Port” towns, in particular, first freed themselves fromthe restrictions of feudalism (although exactly which restrictions Ford didnot make clear). When this freedom enabled them to grow stronger andmore powerful they continued the fight against royal encroachments.Finally, they helped other, and future, “citizens . . . play their part in themaking of history” by insisting on the reaffirmation of the democraticrights contained in the Magna Carta. Accordingly, Ford claimed thatthe “Cinque Port” towns were important because they represented astage in the people’s fight to uphold and expand “their self-grantedprivileges.” In doing so, they gradually increased, institutionalized,and extended that freedom until the present exemplary constitutionand democracy was established. Unfortunately the silting up of the har-bors prevented them from going further, and the evolution of the consti-tution moved into other hands. Thus, while Ford posited aesthetic de-cline, he did accept the idea of political and social advance. Both views,of linear decay or linear improvement, accept the reality of historicalprogress.

Hulme also believed in evolution, but again it was not political. Rather,his view of progress was more inclusive. It was taken almost entirelyfrom Bergson’s theory of “creative evolution.” Hulme admitted that he

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was attracted to Bergson because his theories provided an alternativeto the determinism and mechanism of evolutionary theories in whichhumankind has no free will and does not play a part in its own destinybecause it responds mechanically to its environment. Bergson’s theory,on the other hand, posited continuous evolutionary advances that werecontingent on the active involvement of human beings. Evolution, forBergson, was the result of the combination of an original “vital impetus”(“elan vital”) of energy and creativity, and the free, collective will of allliving beings. This type of evolution did not assume that beings onlyreact mechanically to external circumstances. Rather, evolution was aresult of humans’ constant will and energy to create. It thus allowed forcontinuous change, growth, and advance in many different directionsfor which humans were freely responsible.

Because of his faith in Bergson’s form of evolution, Hulme consideredretrogressive and wrong-headed any theory that advocated permanencerather than change, or that attempted to devise means to ensure stabilityor to deny “creative” evolution. In Hulme believed that any thinkerwho admired “rest,” “order and organisation,” or “fixity” necessarilywasallied on the side of scientific determinism against Bergsonism becausethe flux is not one of the things that are “fixed entities.” In particular,Hulme disliked Plato’s “Theory of Ideas,” “in which the ideas of love andbeauty are eternal,” because this theorywas an expressionof Plato’s beliefthat “Stability is more noble than Change.” Hulme thought exactlythe opposite. In his “Lecture on Modern Poetry,” probably written in, Hulme made his most impassioned statement about his belief inthe reality of change:

The ancients were perfectly aware of the fluidity of the world and of its im-permanence; there was the Greek theory that the whole world was flux. Butwhile they recognized it, they feared it and endeavoured to evade it, to con-struct things of permanence which would stand fast in this universal flux whichfrightened them . . . . We see it in a thousand different forms. Materially in thepyramids, spiritually in the dogmas of religion and in the hypostatized ideas ofPlato. Living in a dynamic world they wished to create a static fixity where theirsouls might rest.

Both deterministic evolutionary laws and cyclic views of history wererejected by Hulme and Bergson. According to Hulme, under the theoryof creative evolution the future was absolutely “undetermined.” There-fore, not only could there be no prediction of the future even with aknowledge of all the laws which govern things, but the future would

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never repeat the past. It was a “becoming never the same, never re-peating itself, but always producing novelty, continually ripening andcreating.”

Going beyond Bergson, Hulme also thought that the history of philo-sophy supported the idea of evolution. He accepted the idea that in-tellect evolves and that there had been “a philosophic evolution.” Thisevolution has been one from the incorrect views of Plato and Socrates,whose universal “ideas” posited permanence and stability in oppositionto evolution and change, through the thought of Kant and Hegel, to thealmost correct views of Nietzsche, and ultimately to its near perfection inBergson’s ideas of flux and intuition. Hulme believed that art and societyevolve as well. He assumed unquestioningly that there have been stages“in the evolution of society” such as the nomadic and city stages. Andhe believed that verse forms develop and change as thought becomesmore and more complex. A new art form is created when thought hasdeveloped to such a complexity that the old form can no longer accom-modate it. Thus art evolves at the same pace as thought. Like Ford,therefore, Hulme assumed the existence of linear progress. But, despitethe fact that he mentioned a few philosophers and historical periods, headded even less specific content to his discussion of the pattern of history.Hulme believed in the value of change and evolution, but it is unclearthat he had a concrete sense of how this worked in the earthly past.

Lawrence’s ideas of the pattern of history were even more vague thanHulme’s, but again he also believed in progress. In particular, Lawrencethought that there was an underlying purpose to history that movesit forward: “there must be some great purposeful impulses impellingthrough everything to move it and work it to an end.” And he was“earnestly certain of the wonder of this eternal procession.” His “poorlittle philosophy” held that “the great procession is marching, on thewhole, in the right direction.” Lawrence thought that all people area part of this process and help it on: “we are for ever trying to uniteourselves with the whole universe, to carry out some ultimate purpose –evolution, we call one phase of the carrying out.”

In addition, Lawrence identified this “great purpose,” and the sub-mission to it, with religion. In fact his theory was quite similar to the“immanent teleology” that, as M.H. Abrams points out, was an essen-tial part of Romantic views of history. This sort of teleology was a form of“natural supernaturalism” that was “very like the theological concept ofthe universal but hidden working of divine Providence, transferred froman eternal personal God as planner and controller to the immanent

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operation” of the laws of history. It was also a theodicy in the sense thatit held “that if life is to be worth living there cannot be a blank unreasonor mere contingency at the heart of things; there must be meaning (inthe sense of a good and intelligible purpose) in the occurrence of bothphysical and moral evils.”

Lawrence certainly did believe that there was a mysterious but pow-erful force “which keeps the menagerie moving onward to better places,while the animals snap and rattle by the way.” And he believed that thegoal of this force, and the understanding of it, was part of the “religiousinterest,” even a proof of the viability of religion. It was with religioussympathy, according to Lawrence, that one could discover in the “history(origin) and destiny of mankind . . . [and in] the laws of nature . . . some-thing of intelligibility and consistent purpose working through the wholenatural world and human consciousness.”

Early in their careers, therefore, the Modernists were searchingthrough the “more dream-heavy hours” of the past to find “a long-fadedloveliness” that was missing from the present day. History was a placeto escape and a preferable alternative to the modern age. However, de-spite their avowed distaste for the period in which they lived, the patternof history that most of the Modernists assumed existed indicates thatthey still had a fundamental optimism about the world. Even if therehad been a decline, the story of history was of ultimate progress andof improvement to come in the future. But these views and uses of thepast were based primarily on aesthetic thinking, rather than on a seriousconsideration of politics, society, or economics. When the Modernistswere eventually forced to look more carefully at the “market-place” ofthe contemporary world, both their sense of optimism and their viewsof history would change significantly.

“Pedantry and hysteria”: contemporary

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In our age it is impossible to create, as I had dreamed, an heroic andpassionate conception of life worthy of the study of men elsewhereand at other times . . .There was a time when I thought of a noblebody for all eyes, a soul for subtle understandings, and, to unitethese two, Eleusinian rites. Instead, the people cry out for stonesand vapour, pedantry and hysteria, rhetoric and sentiment.

W.B. Yeats, “Journal,” .

On January , Yeats was proud to present, in the Abbey Theatrehe had worked so hard to found three years earlier, a play by an authorhe regarded as the greatest living Irish playwright – the Playboy of theWestern World by J.M. Synge. It was to be the culmination of his dreamthat a great literature of beauty could save the Irish nation. The Irishpublic, however, did not unanimously share Yeats’s views of the role ofthis sort of art. The play was interrupted by so much booing and hissingfrom one section of the audience that the actors could not be heard. Onthe last night of the performance, five hundred police had to be calledin. Street riots followed and continued for a week. Clearly somethingserious had gone wrong with Yeats’s aesthetic theory. As the quote aboveindicates, he was well aware of this fact.

Problems such as he faced at the Abbey Theatre forced Yeats to con-sider what was happening in the modern world. This, in turn, led him tothinkmore carefully about thedistasteful “market-place” of domestic andinternational politics. The same was true of the other four Modernists.By all five had begun to explore the political, social, and economicfeatures of theworld inwhich they lived.What they founddisturbed themdeeply. Different aspects of the period caused concern for different au-thors, and someof them, especially Ford,Yeats, andHulmeweremore in-volved in political, social, and economic speculation than others. But re-gardless of the extent towhich theywrote about the contemporaryworld,all five Modernists shared a common response to current developments.

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There were many possible causes for concern in turn-of-the-centuryBritain. It could be argued that a general feature of the period was theerosion of themid-Victorian confidence in the strength, stability, andpos-sible future of Britain and her empire. This began with the agriculturaland business depression of the late s. While there is some contro-versy among historians about the extent and impact of this depression,or whether it existed at all, at the time it was perceived as problematic fora number of reasons. First, it contributed to a marked decline in incomefor those who made their money from agriculture. This was especiallythe case for the landed aristocracy. It may, in fact, have been the begin-ning of the end for many aristocrats, as they had to sell estates in piecesor in entirety, and were forced increasingly to marry into the wealthymiddle class. The number of millionaires who were landowners fell from percent in to percent in .

While industry recovered from this depression by the late s, busi-nessmen and the public in general had been faced with a great shock.The hope for unending, cumulative economic growth that began withthe seventeenth- and eighteenth-century commercial, agricultural, andindustrial revolutions, and that seemed guaranteed by the British govern-ment’s acceptance of the theory of Free Trade in the nineteenth century,was shattered. The reality of business cycles had to be accepted. More-over, it was increasingly apparent that Britain soon no longer would betheworld’s richest nation. A century of outstanding economic superiorityover all other nations, which was the result of a large head start in indus-trialization, was over. Other major powers such as France, and especiallyGermany and the United States, had now gone through the process ofindustrialization quickly and far more efficiently than the British. Britishmachines, technology, specializations, and business organization wereoutdated. The fear that British business might be drowned in a flood ofgoods “made in Germany” was not farfetched. German industry wasmodern and efficient. As a result, Germany’s share of world manufac-turing surpassed that of Britain around . This is not to say that theBritish were on the verge of bankruptcy. Increasingly, invisible exportsmade up for the deficit of manufactured goods. But for the first time thesigns were ominous for the future of the British economy.

Not only were fears of a flood of German goods far from a wild fan-tasy, neither was the premise of the spate of books predicting a Germaninvasion. With unification and industrialization Germany was provingto be a new and frightening world power. The Prussian defeat of Francein the Franco-Prussian war of was just the beginning. Germans

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were predatory. Just as they imitated British industrialization, they alsoimitated British imperialism, and were determined to have their “placein the sun” and acquire an overseas empire. Other European countriescould not be left out and the “New Imperialism” of the s and sfollowed. Whatever was left of the world that could be taken was nowdivided among theWestern powers. Once again, Britain had lost her po-sition as unquestioned world leader with the only significant empire tospeak of. Moreover, some people feared, not only the results of competi-tion from other empires, but whether the British empire might continueto exist at all in the near future. In the s there was a real possi-bility that the Liberal government under Gladstone might give the IrishHome Rule, and begin the slippery slope to the dissolution of the entireempire. It also was unclear whether Britain could defend her overseaspossessions if challenged by the natives. That this might not be a possibil-ity was apparent when a handful of backward farmers, in a part of SouthAfrica that the British wished to acquire, almost defeated the forces ofthe British empire in the Boer War that began in .

Again, Britain was not in hopeless shape. She still had the largestempire in the world and a highly effective military. Or so she thought,until reports began to appear about the quality of British recruits; almost percent of British men were deemed physically unfit for army service.More reports appeared. In fact, this was an age unleashing “a torrent”of reports, statistics, and analyses – most of them containing bad news.The number of insane people had risen by over percent in the lastdecade of the nineteenth century; almost one third of the population ofthe largest cities in the world’s supposedly most wealthy and powerfulcountry existed in a state of abject poverty; every “normal” worker witha family of three children “passed through a period of probably ten yearswhen he and his family would be underfed.”

Moreover, the unfortunates of the reports, and the working classes ingeneral, no longer seemed quite as passive as they had in the past. Theybegan to participate increasingly in trade unions. Trade union member-ship not only grew almost four times from to , but it becamemuch more active in demanding concessions. More frightening evenwere the efforts of socialists to influence these hordes of hungry workers.Numbers of different groups of socialists, from revolutionary Marxiststo evolutionary Fabians, planned to overturn the economic and socialsystem completely. They wished to take wealth from those who had itand give it to those who did not, while organizing everyone into an ef-ficient, identical collectivity. Things did not grow more promising when

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trade unionists and socialists combined to attempt to infiltrate the polit-ical system with the creation, between and , of an entirely newpolitical party just for the working classes, the Labour Party. Moreover,there was a real possibility that the workers could vote this party intopower, as they were the vast majority of the country amounting to almost percent of the population, and all but the most unfortunate of themhad been granted the right to vote by the ReformAct – the so-called“MudCabin” act. The ability of the aristocracy to halt thesemovementsseemed unlikely because of their diminishing wealth and status.

Some socialists, especially the Fabians, took a different tack from theLabour Party. They tried to “permeate” middle-class political parties.They seemed to have succeeded when the Liberal Party won the election and began to implement a program of social welfare that ap-peared to many people to resemble socialism. Why did the Liberal Partytry to make such radical changes to the existing order? It could be for thesame reason that the Conservative Party insisted on imperial expansionandmilitary preparedness – not necessarily to help the country, but to ap-peal to the newly enfranchised working class. Themiddle classes increas-ingly seemeddesperate to gain the support of the vastmajority of the pop-ulation, before it took matters into its own hands. Concessions from theLiberals to make the workers’ lives better, or an appeal to patriotism bythe Conservatives might work equally well to gain working-class votes.

Moreover, it did look like the workers might be on the move. Afterthe turn of the century the number of strikes increased dramatically, asdid their violence. And other groups were also causing or threateningviolence in the years before the First World War. Women even were de-manding to join theworking class and be allowed to vote.Moreover, theseSuffragettes were not adverse to breaking windows, assaulting membersof parliament and committing arson to attain their goal. The Irish, aswell, looked as if they might explode. With Home Rule a real possibilityunder the new Liberal government after , Irish Protestants who didnot wish to live in a country ruled by themajority whowere Catholics be-gan to arm themselves to resist. Catholic nationalists armed themselvesto support the British legislation. Civil war seemed imminent.

Therewas, therefore, quite a bit aboutwhich anobserver could be con-cerned in pre-war Britain. Of course, the history of the period could bewritten quite differently, as there also was much that some people foundpositive, exciting, and a cause of great optimism. The five Modernists,when they began to consider some of these developments, however, werenot optimistic. They viewed the period inwhich they lived as one of crisis.

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Perhapsmore important, they eventually agreed on one underlying causeof all contemporary problems – the consequences of nearly completedemocracy. Like J.S. Mill fifty years previously, they were deeply afraidof the “tyranny of the majority.” Democracy seemed to have led to thetriumph of incompetent, stupid, cruel, uncaring people both among thepublic and professional politicians. Simultaneously the great minds andcharacters of artists, intellectuals, and aristocrats were ignored. The re-sulting decline in spiritual and aesthetic values made matters worse.

In responding to these problems all five Modernists arrived at similarsolutions – they adopted radical conservative political positions. As aconsequence of their experiences of politics and society in this period,therefore, they set out on a road that would lead some to become in-terested in fascism in the s and s. With new political views, aswell as a more serious consideration of the world around them, it is notsurprising that their aesthetic ideas, creative writing, and views of historyalso began to change.

FordMadoxFordwas the first of the fiveModernists to experience seri-ous disillusionment about contemporary political trends.What disturbedhim initially were developments within the British Empire. Ford becameinterested in issues of imperialism in the late s. This is not surprisingas this was the height of the “New Imperialism.” It was also a periodwhen imperial expansion was actively supported by many people for anumber of different reasons. On the most superficial level exciting talesof British adventures in exotic locations were entertaining enough to sellbooks and magazines. Stories of colonial activities among distant nativesalso appealed to a sense of British superiority, as they often emphasizedthe contribution of missionaries and humanitarians to the “WhiteMan’sBurden” of spreading the benefits of British civilization to primitive peo-ples. The empire appeared to make financial sense as well. In a period ofeconomic competition in Europe a large empire supposedly could ensurenew sources of cheap rawmaterials, expandmarkets for industrial goods,and provide opportunities for the emigration of superfluous British work-ers. Finally, imperial success appealed to the patriotism of workers andgentlemen alike. This in turn, could gain a majority of votes at electionsfor whichever political party supported expansion, and could guaranteethat such a party remained in a position of power in government.

For these and a few other reasons, imperialism was attractive to awide variety of politicians. By the Conservative Party, which wasthen in office, actively supported expansion of the empire by placing anaggressive imperialist in a position of power for the first time with the

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appointment of Joseph Chamberlain to the Colonial Office. Liberalsalso believed in the value of imperialism. The party split in and aLiberal Unionist Party was created to oppose Gladstone’s plan for HomeRule for Ireland because it appeared to be the first step in the dismem-berment of the empire. Of those who remained in the Liberal Party,a growing number of important younger members supported what be-came known as “Liberal Imperialism.” Even a majority of the socialistFabian Society eventually came out in favor of imperialism. The factthat imperialist sentiment crossed all political boundaries was especiallyhighlighted in when the Fabians organized the “Coefficient” clubincluding members from all political parties.

Ford Madox Ford’s first comments on the British Empire in shared this imperial enthusiasm. Inhis bookTheCinque Ports, Ford chartedhow throughout her history England not only witnessed the progres-sive growth of freedom, but also was faced by repeated economic andmilitary threats that she overcame despite all odds. This was largely be-cause of her empire and naval capacity. Ford was proud of the fact that“England . . . invariably did rule the waves . . .when she had the inten-tion of ruling them” and that Englishmen from the earliest times had“worked unrealising at building up an empire, mother of empires.” Heassumed that this would and should continue.

Within a couple of years, however, Ford had become very disturbedby trends in British imperialism. This began a process of deepeninghis interest in politics. Ford attributed his change of opinion largely tothe Boer war of –, which he later described as “the end ofeverything” and “a chasm separating the new world from the old.” Fordrecalled that “since that period the whole tone of England appears tome to have entirely changed, principles have died out of politics, evenas the spirit of artistry has died out amongst the practitioners of thearts.” Ford’s extreme reaction to the Boer War was not developed inisolation. He was probably influenced by a new friendship with JosephConrad whom hemet in . Conrad helped expand Ford’s knowledgeand understanding of the deeper workings of imperialism. In the years through , Ford and Conrad spent a great deal of time togetherhelping each other on their work and collaborating on a number ofbooks. During that time Conrad frequently related to Ford experiencesof his past life, including the stories of his trip to the BelgianCongowhichformed the basis of the novel he was in the process of writing in published as Heart of Darkness.

From Conrad, Ford learned of the reality of imperialist treatment ofAfrican natives by Europeans. According to Ford, Conrad explained

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his entire story to him before it was published and “from time to time,particularly whilst writing ‘Heart of Darkness,’ Conrad would declaimpassionately about the gloomy imbecility and cruelty of the Belgians intheCongo Free State.” With this knowledge, the events of the BoerWarcould be interpreted in a light that was hardly favorable to the Britishimperial endeavor.

On the surface the British involvement in the independent SouthAfrican state of Transvaal in the s could be seen as part of the largerproject of the “White Man’s Burden” to spread the benefits of Britishdemocracy and liberty throughout the world. Although the Transvaalwas governed by Boers, the descendants of the original Dutch settlers ofthe seventeenth century, in the late nineteenth century immigration hadlednon-BoerEuropeans, knownasUitlanders, to grow twoor three timesas numerous as the Boers. TheseUitlanders paid nine-tenths of the taxes,but were not allowed to participate in the government. Because manyUitlanders were British, they frequently asked the British governmentto use its influence to remedy this political injustice and bring them thebenefits of democracy. This was the ostensible reason for the Britishinvolvement. However, beneath this proclaimed crusade the issues weremuch more complex and less altruistic. In gold was discovered intheRand, and theTransvaal republic seemed about to become one of therichest parts of the world. Many Uitlanders profited, even becoming theinfamous Rand millionaires. With two British colonies right next door,Cape Colony and Natal, it was in the British interests, both metropolitanand peripheral, to gain control over the Boer Transvaal and unify it withthe other colonies to create one large British-dominated state. It was alsoa strategic interest to prevent other Europeans, such as the Germans,from trying the same. With this in mind the British government went towar against the Boers.

Ford viewed the British involvement in theTransvaal with abhorrence.As he recalled in : “I suppose I was as hot a pro-Boer as any onewell could be.” This was for a number of reasons. On the one hand,he was very much upset by the stupidity of the public who supportedimperialism. Fordwas horrified by the hysteria and “mob violence” of thejingoistic imperialist patriots, and by “the ferocities and barbarities of theEnglish crowds during the Boer War” who cheered British victories, butshowed little understanding of the realities of the situationwhich involveda large country attempting to deprive a small independent nation ofits liberty.

Moreover, no one showed any concern for the vast majority of thepopulation of South Africa. What were disregarded by British, Boers,

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and Uitlanders alike were the African natives who were exploited fortheir labor by all sides. Ford, having learnt the reality of imperialism fromConrad, was upset by the treatment of Africans. As he later recalled, he“made one or two speeches in the interests neither of the Boers nor ofEnglishmen, but of the African natives. To them it seemed to me – andit still seems so – the African continent belongs.” But above all, Fordfeared the politicians who knew the distasteful truth of imperialism, butlied about it and presented all imperial endeavors in a favorable light inorder to cater to the gullible public and to serve their own selfish andpower-hungry needs. This simply exacerbated the cruelty and injusticeof empire.

Ford’s reactions to imperialism were expressed most immediately inhis novel of ,The Inheritors, whichwaswrittenwith the help of Conradand finished in mid-March . The Inheritors, according to Ford, is“a political work, rather allegorically backing Mr. Balfour in the thenGovernment; the villain was to be Joseph Chamberlain who had madethe war. The sub-villain was to be Leopold II, King of the Belgians.”

Thus in one novel, speculation on the Boer War, contemporary Britishpolitics, and Conrad’s experiences in the Belgian Congo were united.Ford argued that all of these things were indications of a disturbing newtrend characteristic of the new century.

The novel is the story of how a “new order” had begun to replacethe “old order.” The “old order” includes people like Arthur Balfour,the leader of the Conservative Party. The “new order” is the work ofnew imperialist politicians like Joseph Chamberlain (with the aid of aset of science-fiction type villains from the “Fourth Dimension”) whoare practical, cynical, and immoral. They are “cold, with no scruples,clear-sighted and admirably courageous” and care more for efficiencythan for suffering, emotion, or beauty. They wish, above all, to destroythe “old order’s” decency, honesty, heroism, self-sacrifice, and altruism,in order to run the world like a mechanical, soulless machine. The mem-bers of the “new order” come up with a plan for how to do this. Allthey must do is to reveal to the world that the humanitarian motivesof the “old order” when dealing with the empire, masked true evil and“that all the traditional ideals of honour, glory, conscience, had beencommitted to the upholding of a gigantic and atrocious fraud.” Forexample, the villains will show that the “System for the Regenerationof the Arctic Regions” which the Balfour character unwittingly hadsupported and which proclaims to be bringing the benefits of civiliza-tion to Greenland (“the model state, in which washed and broadclothedEsquimauxwould live, sideby side, regenerated lives, enfranchised equals

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of choicely selected younger sons of whatever occidental race”) had reallyonly brought “flogged, butchered,miserable natives . . . famines . . . vices,diseases, and . . . crimes.” Having proved this, English people would nolonger believe in the old politicians and their morality, and would will-ingly accept a new efficient, cold, heartless, and artless world.

The years immediately after the publication of The Inheritors simplyserved to support the ideas Ford had expressed in the novel. The near-defeat of the forces of the British empire against a handful of Boer farm-ers, and news of the inefficiency and complacency with which the warhad been carried out, in addition to reports of atrocities against the Boerpeople and the deaths of women and children in British concentrationcamps, only could have confirmed Ford’s belief that the principles of theold order had died.

This seemed supported in the next few years when “efficiency” ingovernment began to be demanded by former imperialists on both theright and the left as well as by the general public. These were the sortsof people calling for and writing the reports, and gathering the statistics,that so alarmed many contemporaries. Even the Fabian socialists weredeeply involved in this new “social efficiency”movement.What all hopedfor was that, with more information and better organization (especiallyby the government), innumerable problems could be solved and Britainagain could be a healthy, effective, and militarily well-prepared nation.

Ford increasingly began to associate the desire for efficiency with thecollectivism of socialism and especially of the Fabians. For the next sevenyears Ford continued to protest against the war, the jingoism of thephilistine British public, the growing sterility of efficient collectivism,and the lack of old and noble principles in modern life. In Fordpresented his most disturbing picture of a possible future Fabian state inwhich people have numbers rather than names, wear masks so that therewill be no discrimination because of looks, and have portable homes forsanitation and efficiency.

From his consideration of the British Empire Ford, therefore, wasmoved to examine domestic politics. Both imperial and domestic con-cerns helpedmake his thinking becomemore concrete. He was now ableto pinpoint a specific cause for all of British problems. A government byand for a people who are stupid and selfish eliminated higher ideals, sup-ported cold, cruel behavior, and encouraged the destruction of beauty,individualism, and diversity.

Yeats’s reaction to developments in Irish politics was similar to Ford’sinmanyways.This is not surprising because, as part of theBritish empire,Ireland faced problems in the late nineteenth century that were related

Modernism

to those of imperialism in general. As has been mentioned, Yeats was in-timately involved with Irish nationalist hopes for greater independencefrom Britain since the beginning of his career. Originally nationalismfilled him with much satisfaction and optimism. As with Ford’s initialacceptance of imperialism, this may have been due to the nature of theIrish political situation at the time. In the late s, when Yeats beganwriting, there was a real possibility that Ireland would be granted a formof independence when Charles Stewart Parnell on the Irish side, andW.E. Gladstone on the English side, worked together to try to gain sup-port for a Home Rule Bill in . This likelihood of achieving indepen-dence encouraged Yeats and many others to complement the politicalmovement with a cultural one, in which a great Irish art and the re-membrance of the Irish past would help a newly independent nationsucceed.

The situation changed significantly in the s. The split in theLiberal Party over the issue of devolution, the scandal about Parnell’spersonal life followed by his death in , the retirement of Gladstonein , and the victory of the Conservative Unionist Party in , ontop of the upsurge in imperial enthusiasm, all meant that any hope fora peaceful political solution to the Irish problem was very remote in thes. These developments did not discourage Yeats. According to thehistorian,RobertKee, “the period that followed the death of Parnell . . . isoften described as a political vacuum.” This may have been disturbingto Irish politicians who had hoped for a parliamentary solution to Irishproblems, but it did not stop other nationalists. In fact, this was still atime of great excitement for Irish artists and intellectuals and was theheight of the Celtic Revival.

Yeats accepted this situation with enthusiasm. As he would later write,“Ireland was to be like soft wax for years to come.” The new-foundfreedom tomold a novel type of nationalism was very exciting to Yeats asan artist. It was in this period that Yeats developed his theory of culturalnationalism. He believed that the time had finally arrived in Irelandwhen the previous divisiveness and ineffectiveness of purely politicalparties could be overcome by an intellectual and artistic movement. Thismovement would simultaneously sponsor and promote the creation ofan Irish art of the highest caliber and would unify the country by givingthe Irish a pride in themselves and in the heroic past they all shared.Moreover, this superior culture would enable the Irish to compete withEngland on its own terms and would ultimately return the golden ageto Ireland by making her a nation not only politically independent but

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also respected by all European countries for her spiritual, ethical, andintellectual superiority.With this inmind, in and Yeats foundedIrish Literary Societies in London and Dublin. And in , with thehelp of Lady Gregory, whom he had met a few years earlier, he foundedthe Irish National Theatre Society, which was permanently housed inthe Abbey Theatre in .

Yeats’s optimism that artists who produced and promoted an art ofthe highest quality by international standards could contribute to Irishindependence and respect was soon to be shattered. It was destroyed pri-marily because of the controversies that surrounded the Irish NationalTheatre, which was Yeats’s main hope for a free and proud Ireland.At first, it seemed that the theater might be a popular success. Manyplays were well attended by enthusiastic audiences. However, from thestart public controversies arose over the theater and its plays. The firstproduction in , of Yeats’s The Countess Cathleen, elicited a pamphletdenouncing the play on religious grounds and in subsequent productionsthe playwas hissed by the audience.Thiswas only the beginning. Increas-ingly in newspapers and journals Irish nationalists savagely criticized theAbbey plays for political as well as religious reasons. In accordance withYeats’s aesthetic theories and goal of promoting art of the highest quality,the plays that were produced did not always have overt political mes-sages, and occasionally they had what the nationalists believed were thewrong messages.

Originally Yeats took this criticism calmly. He was encouraged bythe vitality of the controversy and believed that the Irish poor were stillenthusiastic. But as the attacks from the press continued,Yeats grewmoreand more bitter. This was especially true when in , after renewedcontroversies, it became clear toYeats that only simplistic, propagandisticplays sentimentally idealizing the Irish people would be greeted withgeneral enthusiasm. When Yeats produced plays other than these hewas accused of not being a true nationalist. One result of this controversywas that two of Yeats’s friends who had initially inspired his nationalism,Maude Gonne and Douglas Hyde, withdrew from the Society. All of thissimply supported Yeats’s increasing disillusionment with the quarrels hewitnessed among various Irish political groups since before the turn ofthe century.

The problems came to a head in with the controversy overSynge’s Playboy of the Western World described at the opening of this chap-ter. As was mentioned, Yeats regarded Synge as one of the greatest livingplaywrights, but his plays were very controversial. This was especially

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true of Playboy. Many of the nationalists and the general public, as well,were deeply offended by what they thought was a disparagement of theIrish character. By they were willing to cause a great deal of troubleto protest against the play and Yeats’s theater in general.

This situation was very disturbing to Yeats. As he admitted at the timethe societies he founded had disappointed him and “became quicklyor slowly everything I despised.” In actuality, Yeats had misjudged thenature of the newnon-parliamentary nationalism.Despite the popularityof the Cultural Revival, nationalists were not unified in their goals andplans, and they were far less interested in an ideal of Irish culture thanthey were in immediate practical independence. Moreover, the mostvocal nationalists, and the ones who were to gain the most support,thought that Yeats’s program of a superior culture was a compromisewith England and English values. It did not help that Yeats wrote inEnglish, spent much time living in London, and looked to the Englishart world for approval. More important to nationalists than aestheticallysound art inEnglish termswas an art that glorified all things Irish in orderto inspire a confidence that would make the people act against England.They were not interested in a vague future unity produced by a superiorEuropean art, but in immediate victory. Art, therefore, in their eyes hadto be subordinated to didacticism and propaganda for the cause. It soonbecame clear that the majority of the Irish people preferred this simplemessage to the distant goals of Yeats.

With the victory of the Liberal Party in there was once againa strong possibility of achieving Home Rule. The passage of the ThirdHome Rule Bill through the House of Commons in made it almostcertain that some formof independence for Irelandwould become lawby. This, however, did not make the situation better. In fact, it madeit worse. Faced with the hostility of the majority of Irish Protestantswho opposed Home Rule, Catholic nationalists grew more extreme andviolent. Suspicion of Yeats also increased because, in addition to beinga problematic nationalist, he was a Protestant by birth. By this pointYeats’s ideal of cultural nationalism not only was irrelevant, it also wassuspect. When the threat of civil war followed the introduction of theHome Rule Bill, the creation of a unified Irish culture for which Yeatshoped seemed very remote.

Because of these problems and the reaction to his theory of art, Yeatsgrew to believe that not only the nationalists, but also the Irish people as awhole, had betrayed his dreams for Ireland. They were more concernedwith their different, selfish, divisive immediate desires for political change

Contemporary political problems

than with Yeats’s higher and broader goals for the future of all of Irelandin the long term. As Yeats commented in , the Irish had “become soabsorbed in the politics of the hour . . . that we have forgotten the moreeternal and ideal elements of nationality.” At this point Yeats finallyadmitted that “Ireland’s great moment had passed.” And, in , hepoignantly expressed his disillusionment in the passage quoted at thebeginning of this chapter, that the “stones and vapour, pedantry andhysteria, rhetoric and sentiment” of the majority of the Irish peoplehad destroyed his noble vision of heroism and spiritual fulfillment in anindependent and unified Ireland.

This feeling was expressed quite clearly the next year in his play TheGreenHelmet, the setting of whichwas “intentionally violent and startling.”The play’s action centers on the growing jealousy and arguments amongthree great Irish heroes and old companionswhen a supernatural “spirit”offers a prize of aGreenHelmet to the bravest of the three.Thedissentionsoon spreads to their families and followers and threatens to destroy themall. In the end it is Cuchulain who wins the helmet when, despite beingbetrayed by all the others, he transcends his bitterness and even offershis life to save theirs – perhaps as Yeats himself wished to do for the Irishnationalists of his own day.

Once again, as with Ford, it was the majority of the people, who hadtaken charge of governments and public opinion, that was the greatestdisappointment for Yeats. Their selfish, shortsighted attitudes were pre-venting theworld from improving. Politicians and thepolitical parties thatmight have provided more guidance did little to help. In fact, they madematters worse by catering to the public in order to gain power, which wasthe only way they could advance themselves within a mass democracy.

In T.E. Hulme also began to express serious dissatisfaction withdemocracy, because of the nature of the public towhich it catered.His ini-tial political comments were made in response, not to imperial problemsas with Ford and Yeats, but to a domestic constitutional crisis that furtherextended the democratic nature of British politics. These developmentswere also of concern to Ford and led to an expansion of his politicalthinking as well. Again, the fact that Ford and Hulme were interestedin domestic politics between and is not surprising consideringthe events of the time. It was precisely in those years that a decisive ques-tioning, and ultimate modification, of the English constitution occurred,centered around the “House of Lords crisis.”

This constitutional crisis originated with the success of the LiberalParty in the election that ended nearly ten years of Conservative

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rule. Change was inevitable when a landslide victory put into power anumber of younger members with innovative ideas. Their new politicaltheory, called the “New Liberalism,” promised justice and governmenthelp for those who could not help themselves. Although these ideasmay have been inspired by socialism, they also were intended to deflectthe working class from other, more extreme forms of the same politi-cal doctrine. In one of these young Liberals, David Lloyd George,Chancellor of the Exchequer, introduced into parliament what was com-monly referred to as the “People’s Budget.” The taxes in this Budgetseemed to many people to be a socialist attempt to redistribute wealthfrom the rich to the poor. This opinion certainly was held by the greatmajority of the members of the House of Lords who rejected the Budgetafter it had been passed by the House of Commons. Although techni-cally the House of Lords had the right to veto any legislation, it hadnot stopped a financial bill for almost fifty years, and there was a tacitassumption that it would not do so. The Lords’ veto of the Budget in, therefore, seemed an act of great audacity.

After somewhat disappointing Liberal victories in the elections ofJanuary and December , which were fought on the issues of whetherthe House of Lords should have the right to reject budgets and whetherit should be reformed so that it could not do so, the Budget finally waspassed and the Liberal Party sponsored a plan to alter the powers of theHouse of Lords. In February they introduced the Parliament Bill,which would modify the veto of the House of Lords so that it could notapply tomoney bills at all, and only delay other legislation for two years –in effect removing the veto altogether. The Bill passed the House ofCommons on May , and then went to the House of Lords.The Conservative Party in the Commons and the majority of the Lordswere firmly opposed to the Bill. But in July the Liberal Party re-vealed that they had received the King’s consent to create hundreds ofLiberal peers, if necessary, to flood the House of Lords and forceacceptance of the Bill if the existing Lords refused to pass it. On learn-ing this, the Conservative leadership abandoned its opposition to theBill. There was, however, still a great deal of uncertainty about whatthe Lords would do. Some peers claimed they would accept defeat anda reduction of their powers, while others declared they would abstainfrom voting on the issue. But there was a vocal movement of “diehards”lead by Lord Willoughby de Broke who were determined to fight theParliament Bill to the bitter end, despite the threat of the creationof new peers. Up to the last minute it was uncertain what would bethe outcome. Finally, on August , the Bill was passed by a very

Contemporary political problems

small majority, with well over half the Lords abstaining. The power ofthe House of Lords, the last bastion of aristocracy, thus was effectivelyabolished.

Although these events may be interpreted in many different ways, onething is clear – they effected a fundamental change in British politics.

With the removal of the absolute veto power of the House of Lords allremaining obstacles to full democracy were gone in Britain. Nothingcould stop “the people,” the majority of whom were in the working andlower middle classes, from using their right to vote to change Britain intheir own interests. And nothing could prevent politicians of all partiesfrom putting their efforts into opportunistically catering to this majority.In short, Mill’s “tyranny of the majority” was now a reality. Consider-ing the Modernists’ opinions of the intelligence of the British public ingeneral, it is hardly surprising that this development provoked quite areaction among some of them.

T.E. Hulme certainly had a strong opinion about these events. Hehad shown little concern with politics early in his career and was muchmore interested in philosophy and aesthetic theory. Moreover, in ,the year before the Parliament Bill, Hulme seemed to have run out ofthings to say even about philosophy and art, and published nothingof substance. But after that year of near silence, suddenly and with nowarning, Hulme started writing numerous articles about political theory.Politics now consumed him so much that he gave up writing poetryaltogether. Hulme was very much concerned with the contemporaryconstitutional crisis. He made it clear that he believed any change in theHouse of Lords would be disastrous; it would signal the final introductionof “pure,” “unrestrained” democracy in Britain and the destruction ofwhatever was still valuable in British society.

Hulme was opposed to pure democracy because he was convincedthat it could not possibly work. As he commented in , “historically,it has always been a failure, for it has never succeeded in maintainingfor any length of time a healthy social order.” The reason for this hadto do with human nature itself. Hulme accepted a Hobbesean view thathumans were fundamentally flawed:

Man is by his very nature essentially limited and incapable of anything ex-traordinary. He is incapable of attaining any kind of perfection, because . . . heencloses within him certain antinomies. There is a war of instincts inside him,and it is part of his permanent characteristics that this must always be so.

Because of this nature, to let the majority of people free to do as theywished and make the decisions they desired without any restraint or

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controlwould be disastrous.This hadbeen avoided in the past specificallybecause the aristocracy in the House of Lords had acted as a force inde-pendent of, and superior to, themasses of voters. Its veto powermade theHouse of Lords a check on the elected governments that otherwise wouldcater to themajority’s desires. It was, therefore, the last of “the traditionalrestraints, the hierarchy, that makes social life possible and healthy.”Because of this, Hulme argued that it should be preserved in all itspower.

Of course, the House of Lords was not preserved in its powers andalmost complete democracy was soon a fact in Britain. This simplyencouraged Hulme to continue his political speculations and studies.The House of Lords crisis also provoked a reaction in FordMadox Ford.Ford like Hulme agreed with the idea that “any tampering with thepresent Second Chamber would be exceedingly dangerous. Its abolitionI should regard as absolutely calamitous.” But Ford’s main responsewas not only to express his fear of democracy, but also to criticize moreseverely all political parties.

Ford began to discuss domestic, rather than imperial, politics aboutthe time of the House of Lords veto of the “People’s Budget.” Before thistime Ford viewed themoderates in the Conservative Party under Balfouras representatives of the political ideas of altruism and idealism that headmired, and the extremists on the right and the left – the imperialistwing of the conservatives under Chamberlain and the Fabian socialists –as representatives of the new trend he detested. His dislike of extremismmay have led Ford to support another middle-of-the-road position andto join the Liberal Club in . But he was not satisfied with that partyeither and he resigned in .

Between April and February , as editor of the English

Review, Ford wrote a monthly editorial titled “The Critical Attitude.”The majority of these articles concerned contemporary politics and inthem, rather than implicating one political group, Ford began to criticizeallmembers of all the parties.He thought that theweakness, stupidity, op-portunism, and greedof theirmembers prevented all parties fromdealingeffectively and responsibly with themajor problems of the day. TheCon-servative Party was so feeble that it was unable to rally reaction againstthe House of Lords crisis and break the small Liberal majority at thepolls. The Liberals were no better; their actions towards the Suffragettesexhibited “the sheer stupidity of weight . . . discourtesy . . . indifference,”while Lloyd George’s Budget revealed “a timid brain” and a lackof courage and imagination. Moreover, neither party had any real

Contemporary political problems

principles: “The Conservatives of to-day are no more Tories than theLiberals are Whigs. They are the Opportunists ‘out’ just as the Liberalsare the Opportunists ‘in’.” This was bound to have devastating results.One example of opportunism that particularly appalled Ford in Aprilwas the current “panic-stricken fear of the German Empire” whichhe believed had been “carefully engineered by the two Front Benchesin the House of Commons” in order “to force on, at as early a momentas possible, a war with Germany” and appeal to the sensation-lovinglower-classes. Not only might this lead to the devastation of war, it alsocould result in lower-class revolution. More so than ever, Ford feared theconsequences of the power and problems of the lower classes. He beganto call them the “blackly hating proletariat” and “mob rulers,” and hewarned that their emotionalism might lead to hysteria, chaos, or “classwar.”

Therefore, rather than effectively dealing with problems, accordingto Ford both parties had abandoned their principles and were acting ir-responsibly for their own interests and without regard for the well-beingof the country as a whole. As a result, on the one hand, they had be-come stupid and timid amateurs, taking part in “the English doctrineof muddling through in matters of State.” While on the other hand,they were greedy opportunists: “there is no talk at all of the old tra-ditions or of the finer things . . . from both sides come perpetual criesof ‘Grab’.” Ford concluded that “with the two dominant parties sink-ing always to lower levels of appeal, there seems to remain no scin-tilla of hope for anything not purely materialistic in the concerns of theState.”

Contemporary domestic politics, thus, added to Ford’s dissatisfac-tion with the developing British system. It increasingly appeared thata government without higher ideals was catering to an ignorant andviolent population. As a result, politicians made serious mistakes on allissues. There seemed little possibility of improvement. The other twoModernists, Pound and Lawrence, did not express many political opin-ions in this period. Lawrence, however, was increasingly upset by whathe thought was the majority of the British people. In , having leftEngland for Germany with his future wife, Lawrence wrote letters to hisfriends at home in which he was vehement about how he “loath[ed] theidea of England” because of its “enervation,” “hopelessness,” “resigna-tion,” “grubbiness and despair.” In July of that year, Lawrence expressedhis feelings about his native country in a manner that was perhaps morebrutal than any of the other authors:

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Curse the blasted, jelly-boned swines, the slimy, the belly-wriggling inverte-brates, the miserable sodding rotters, the flaming sods, the snivelling, dribbling,dithering palsied pulse-less lot that make up England today. They’ve got whiteof egg in their veins, and their spunk is that watery it’s a marvel they can breed.They can nothing but frog-spawn – the gibbers!

Although this tirademayhavebeenpromptedby reactions tohis personalaffairs rather than purely political considerations, it is an indication ofan increased dissatisfaction above all with the direction in whichmodernEngland was heading. However, Lawrence said little about what causedthis dissatisfaction.

Pound also began to write explicitly about politics for the first timein and he continued to do so throughout . Most of his initialthoughts about politics revolved around his hope for, and suggestionsabout how to effect, an American renaissance. Perhaps because he wasAmerican he did not despise the “mob” at first to the same extent asthe other three. Pound disliked certain elements of the middle and lowerclasses (“the idle rich” and “the idle poor”), but admired “the animalvigour,” the energy andwealth of plutocrats, and hewas particularly fondof the working classes whom he thought should be given more economiccontrol. Nevertheless, Pound concurred with Ford, Hulme, and Yeats,and perhaps was influenced by them to question democracy. He didnot necessarily believe that constitutional governments “founded on thetheory . . . that all men are alike” and demanding “the agreement of aninnumerable multitude of people” could guarantee freedom or couldwork. He thought that both the rich and the poor needed guidanceand direction and that “weak minded mediocrity” must no longer be“thrust . . . into positions of prominence.”

Thus, although Pound and Lawrence were not particularly concernedwith politics at this period, they did have opinions that would make themopen to the influence of the other, more politically minded, Modernists.Clearly they had a sense that some people in society were superior to oth-ers and that those people should direct or control the majority. This cer-tainly was a good basis from which to develop radical conservative ideas.

As historians has frequently pointed out, the period between the turnof the twentieth century and the First World War was one of disturb-ing changes and increased tension. The Modernists were aware of thesefeatures of the time in which they lived and were quick to pinpoint anunderlying cause of the problems. The vast majority of the populationwhich was now allowed to vote had fundamentally changed the politicalsystem, not only through their own stupidity, but also because politicians

Contemporary political problems

no longer restrained them and instead catered to them for their ownopportunistic ends. This, of course, was related to the growing lack ofinterest in art. The public no more paid attention to the higher ideals ofartists and intellectuals than they did to aristocrats and superior politi-cians. However, rather than simply be content to complain about theseproblems, all the Modernists who wrote about politics began to theorizeabout what would be a solution, and especially about what type of politi-cal and social system would be preferable to contemporary democracy.This led them back to the past once more. This time, however, they hadfar more content to add to their historical thinking. Moreover, they wereable to use the past to support their political and social theories, ratherthan merely as a form of aesthetic escape. This, in turn, helped them todevelop their creative writing. It also transformed their views of history.

“A certain discipline”: radical conservative solutions

The future condition of man, then, will always be one of struggleand limitation. The best results can only be got out of man as theresult of a certain disciplinewhich introduces order into this internalanarchy . . .Nothing is bad in itself except disorder; all that is put inorder in a hierarchy is good.

T.E. Hulme, “A Tory Philosophy,” April , .

In February of Ford Madox Ford made an astonishing statement:“I find myself wondering whether if the Deity were really beneficent, Hewould not send us a slaughter, famine or a pestilence that would sweepaway all [the] . . . purposeless populations.” He continued, “I should liketo see legislation introduced which would press hard upon, which wouldexterminate, all the purely parasitic classes.” A similar sentimentwas ex-pressed by D.H. Lawrence in when he concluded a tirade about thepeople of Britain with the comment: “God how I hate them! God cursethem, funkers. God blast them, wish-wash. Exterminate them slime.” Itshould be obvious that at least two of the fiveModernists were extraordi-narily disillusioned by the majority of the population among whom theylived. Although these are the two most extreme statements any made,they do illustrate a hostility common to all five authors.

However, the Modernists did not just express their discontent. Theyalso began to speculate on preferable political and social systems. This,in turn, drew them back to the past to find models with which to work.In doing so, they took a different approach than previously. Rather thansimply sentimentalize over the past or use it as a place to escape, theModernists began to look more critically at history, and attempted todiscern from it precisely what had gone wrong with the modern worldand what might be an alternative to it. The conclusion that all the Mod-ernists came to by the beginning of was that modern problemsbegan when a way of life dominated by a superior aristocracy, who pro-vided control and direction for the masses, and who respected great art,

Radical conservative solutions

ended. What replaced it was the chaos of a government and societythat guaranteed freedom to the selfish and ignorant middle classes and“mob”. The world would be a better place, theModernists concluded, ifthe values and structures of an aristocratic age of the past were returned.

Of all the Modernists after it was T.E. Hulme who wrote mostconsistently about politics and who outlined this belief most explicitly,although by it was clear that all of the others were in fundamentalagreement with him. Hulme did not develop his political theories on hisown. He was very much influenced by a climate of radical conservatismthat had emerged both in England and in France at the time. Hulmebecame aware of these ideas in at the same time as the House ofLords crisis. The “radical” conservatives of this period were differentfrom “traditional” conservatives. While the latter accepted the consti-tutional system and established order, which they wished to preserveby slowing down the process of change, radical conservatives dislikeddemocracy and hoped not to stop, but to accelerate, change to instituteentirely different, generally authoritarian governments and societies sim-ilar to ones that existed in the remote past.

It was writers of this type, both in Britain and France, who first sug-gested to Hulme that an aristocratic alternative to democracy was pos-sible and that it had existed and prospered in a pre-modern age. TheEnglish conservatives who inspired Hulme included two groups. Onewas a set of authors who were influenced by the ideas of FriedrichNietzsche and who wrote for The New Age, a journal to which manyof the Modernists also contributed. In fact, the most prominent Englishadvocates, explicators, and translators of Nietzsche’s thought at the timewere closely connected toThe New Age. Another group of writers formedthe basis of a journal for which Hulme and his friend and fellow-poet,Edward Storer, also wrote, The Commentator. This journal featured ideasvery much like those of the conservatives forming the “radical right” and“diehards” of the House of Lords crisis.

All of these writers shared similar political opinions. Although he ex-aggerated somewhat, Edward Storer was accurate in describing TheCommentator as “the only paper in London which is avowedly anti-democratic and Conservative which expresses its opinion that in demo-cracy we have the real evil of our time.” Storer himself, in a number ofarticles for the journal, argued for the need “to stem the evil-smelling tideof democracy which is destroying and vulgarising all the fine things of theworld.” Similar opinions were expressed by The New Age Nietzscheans.They claimed that Nietzsche was a genius because he “saw the dragon

Modernism

of anarchy and dissolution lurking” behind democracy, and because hehad no interest in equality or in allowing “the ‘greatest number’,” “themob,” “parasites”, or “the dregs of society” to rule the country. Rather,Nietzsche was a “lover of order and tradition” and advocated the returnof the manly disciple of an older aristocratic and hierarchic society.

But even more than by English conservatives, Hulme was influencedby French thinkers. Hulme was introduced to French writers on politicsthrough his early interest in the ideas of Henri Bergson. Soon Hulmewas aware of the ideas of the philosopher, Jules de Gaultier, of GeorgesSorel who was the leading advocate of syndicalism, and of the writersof the group known as Action Francaise, such as Charles Maurras andPierre Lasserre. These French thinkers shared many of the opinions ofthe English conservatives and many also were influenced by Nietzsche.

All opposed democracy and wanted to return to a preferable system thatexisted in the past. In addition the Action Francaise appeared to beeffecting real change along these lines. By it was a well-established,visible, and vocal organization with a daily paper, L’Action francaise, twojournals, an institute, and an action squad, the Camelots du Roi, whichhad been involved for three years in a highly visible campaign of demon-strations and violent intimidation against any person or movement op-posed to their ideas. They also had won the open support of GeorgesSorel and the syndicalist workers who accepted his call for a violent gen-eral strike to overthrow the government. Even the police at this date sawthe Action Francaise as a serious threat to the existing government.

Influenced by all of these writers, but especially by Pierre Lasserre ofthe Action Francaise, in March Hulme announced his conversionto Toryism. In describing his new political views Hulme relied heavilyon the Action Francaise’s rejection of the “Romantic” ideas of the lateeighteenth and nineteenth centuries and adoption of the “Classic” tradi-tion that had existed prior to it. According to Hulme, paraphrasing theAction Francaise, the “Classic” traditionwas better than the “Romantic”because it correctly realized the weakness of human nature and the factthat the majority need control and guidance that only an elite few arecapable of providing. Hulme especially liked the Hobbesean view that“man is an extraordinarily fixed and limited animal whose nature is ab-solutely constant. It is only by tradition and organisation that anythingdecent can be got out of him.” This was far wiser than the erroneous“Romantic” “conception of the infinite possibilities of man . . . impri-soned,” which leads to the very dangerous idea, particularly expressedby inferior thinkers such asRousseau, “that anything that increasesman’s

Radical conservative solutions

freedom will be to his benefit.” In other words, according to Hulme the“Romantic” point of view was wrong because it did “not think that manis by nature bad, turned into something good by a certain order anddiscipline, but that, on the contrary, man is something rather wonderful,and that so far he has been prevented from exhibiting any wonderfulqualities by these very restrictions of order and discipline that the classicpraised.” Rather, as Hulme argued in the quote heading this chapter,because of the unchangeable flaws of their nature, “the best results” werethe product of “a certain discipline” provided by an aristocratic elite.

Hulme also agreed with the Action Francaise that the political systemsthat best expressed these “Classic” truths were those that existed beforethe French Revolution, and especially in Capetian France. They werebased on a hierarchy of rights and privileges, rather than equality andpopular representation. These governments provided social order andpeace, ensured a well-directed economy, instilled spiritual and moralvalues, and supported exceptional aesthetic achievement. It was whenthese types of political system and the principles upon which they werebased were abandoned and a set of “Romantic” ideas that were “theexact opposite of this” were adopted, that the problems of the modernworld began.

Given their previous preferences and ideas it is not surprising thatsuch reactionary views were attractive to the other Modernists as well.Their sense of artistic elitism and desire for spiritual fulfillment, and theirdisappointment with the hysterical public who could not understandtheir concerns, all were problems that could be solved by the systemoutlined by Hulme. Ford certainly agreed, and between and he moved toward a similar conservatism. In February he explicitlydeclared himself “by temperament an obstinate, sentimental and old-fashioned Tory.” Ford expressed his distaste for “Protestantism and ademocratic instrument,” and claimed that “democracy [is] the stuff tofill graveyards.” By he announced that “parliamentary institutionsare discredited . . . and democracy is on its deathbed” because of theoverwhelming “discontent with existing modes of thought,” which is“almost uniformly reactionary.”

By Pound was also expressing a similar preference for an elitistand hierarchical political system. He remarked in late , that he pre-ferred “the theory of the dominant cell, a slightly Nietzschean biologyto any collectivist theories whatsoever.” He admired the theory of hisnew friend, Allen Upward, that “the Superior Man,” be he aristocrat,artist, or even religious figure, should control and direct all other people.

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This was in opposition to the “superstition . . . known as the Religion ofHumanity” that inspired thinkers like Rousseau to support democracyand equality.

Pound also shared Hulme’s negative view of human nature. He be-lieved that because “humanity was unbearably stupid,” any theorythat “tried to lead and persuade it; to save it from itself ” was wrong.More specifically, according to Pound “the great mass of mankind aremediocre, that is axiomatic, it is the definition of the wordmediocre” andthey have brought all of society down to their level by creating “a god intheir own image and that god is Mediocrity.” Therefore, “ ‘the religionof Humanity’ ” “ ‘is not the worship of the best man nor of the best inman’ ” but “ ‘the worship of the middling man’.” It contributed to the“pestilent” ideas of Rousseau and all others who believe “that every manis created free and equal with a divine right to become an insignificantpart of a social system.” As a result of all of this, Pound explicitly claimedin that he believed that “a ‘government, of the people, by the peopleand for the people’ is the worst thing on the face of the earth.”

The other Modernists who wrote about politics also agreed withHulme about a political system preferable to modern egalitarian democ-racy. As “a sentimental Tory and a Roman Catholic,” Ford admireda much older system – “the old feudalism and the old union ofChristendom beneath a spiritual headship” – and he hoped for thereturn of “Catholicism and the rule of the noble.” This would repairthe damage done by the American Revolution, which “was a stupiddigression from the broad course of history, an impasse leading to theobviousness of democracy and one that would never have come abouthad the Stuarts been – as they ought to have been upon the throne.”Ford concluded that “the feudal system . . . [is] themost satisfactory formwhether of government or of commonwealth.”

This indicates another reason radical conservatism also appealed tothe Modernists. It supported their previous admiration for the MiddleAges. Pound, in fact, claimed in that he had arrived at his politicalopinions by “a capricious study of mediaeval art and life.” Yeats madehis political inclinations and continued interest in the Middle Ages clearin when he wrote:

If we would find a company of our own way of thinking, we must go backwardto turreted walls, to Courts, to high rocky places, to little walled towns, to jesterslike that jester of Charles V who made mirth out of his own death; to the DukeGuidobaldo in his sickness, or Duke Frederick in his strength, to all those whounderstood that life is not lived, if not lived for contemplation or excitement.

Radical conservative solutions

He regretted that this older, aristocratic political and social “tradition hadbecome degraded, or rather because a spurious copy had been acceptedin its stead.”

Throughout this period Yeats, Ford, and Pound continued to con-template the Middle Ages, with two general results. They were able toprovide more details to support the radical conservative political posi-tions they were developing. And they were led to refine their historicalthinking, especially of the medieval period. More specifically, they be-gan to abandon the use of the Middle Ages for decoration, romance,and escapism. Their medievalism now much more resembled the lesssuperficial, if still idealized, practices of nineteenth-century authors suchas Cobbett, Carlyle, Southey, Digby, Ruskin, and Morris. Yeats, Ford,and Pound now looked more carefully at the political, economic, andsocial organizations of the Middle Ages and highlighted many of thesame features as had these more serious medievalists.

Occasionally these three Modernists could still be sentimental aboutthe Middle Ages in an aesthetic and decorative way. This was partic-ularly true of Yeats who called the period “Merry England,” and whodescribed it as a time “when men still wept when they were moved,still dressed themselves in joyous colours, spoke with many gestures,”and had “beautiful haughty imagination and . . .manners, full of aban-don and wilfulness.” Similarly, Ford agreed with the fifteenth-centuryDuke of Norfolk when he said that “it was merry in England” duringthe Middle Ages. Medieval England for Ford, thus, was a time of the“irresponsible enjoyment of life.”

But for the first time Ford explicitly criticized romantic medievalismand advocated a more realistic consideration of the period. He nowclaimed that in writing about the past an author “must be very carefulnot to sentimentalise over the picturesque.” In one book review of he even condemned an author’s representation of the Middle Agesbecause it “is no more mediaeval Europe than his Court of King Peteris at Yvetot or Brentford. It is a broad, sunlit, coloured, ruffled world ofhills and roads tucked somewhere away in a plane, a Fourth Dimension”known only to the author. Pound concurred. The representation of theMiddle Ages that he clearly favored was realistic rather than fanciful. In Pound explicitly expressed an admiration for writers such as Danteand Browning who showed themedieval world “blind with its ignorance,its violence, and its filth.” According to one literary critic this marked animportant shift in Pound’s work. Now “Provence, Tuscany, Villon’s Parisare real worlds to be presented for themselves,” used as a critical “mirror

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to hold up to Victorian England,” rather than as “dream landscapes, orsoul-scapes, to evoke vague yearnings.”

Thus, instead of inventing an entirely fantastical past, the three Mod-ernists tried to pinpoint in detail why the medieval period was preferableto the present. In general, they agreed with Hulme and the other radicalconservatives that medieval politics and society were better because theywere not based on ideas of the goodness of humans, their equality, orthe need to have freedom to flourish. Moreover, because there was nosizeable middle class, kings and aristocrats had the power to rule, con-trol, and direct all others. The period was, as a result, a time of unity,strength, order, and beauty, in opposition to the weakness, divisions, andhostilities of the stupid and ugly modern world. The Middle Ages, thus,provided what Yeats has desired for some time: “ ‘Unity of Being’ in theface of modern chaos.”

Underlying their acceptance of this view was the belief that the aris-tocrats who dominated medieval life were superior to other people. Fordwas verymuch impressed by anypersonhemet, such asArthurMarwoodand Joseph Conrad, who he thought were living examples of the aristo-cratic continuity with the past. In most of his novels between and Ford’s heroes and heroines were members of an ancient Englisharistocracy. It was Ford’s admiration for the aristocracy that led him toaccept a hierarchical view of the universe:

The world seems to me to divide itself into a very few individuals who havea certain originating power whether in the provinces of thought or of action;into a larger number but still a comparatively few who have not only a powerof production but a delight in production; and into an immense proportion ofentirely unnecessary people whose only function in the world would appear tobe to become the stuff to fill graveyards.

Yeats also believed in the superiority and value of the aristocracy, es-pecially for Ireland. He was led to this belief partially because of hisreading of Nietzsche and partly because of his friendship with a livingIrish aristocrat, LadyGregory. She was the person who was instrumentalin finding the money for the Abbey Theatre, and throughout the con-troversies over it she was continually supportive of Yeats – intellectually,emotionally, and monetarily. Lady Gregory, the aristocrat, showed Yeatsonly courtesy, manners, style, and generosity at precisely the same timeas the Irish nationalists and Irish playgoers were acting particularly rude,vulgar, and disruptive in response to his ideal of cultural nationalism.

It was this manner of acting, and themorality and values of aristocrats,that especially appealed both to Yeats and Ford, not just because it was

Radical conservative solutions

more pleasant than the vulgar hysteria of the “mob”, but also because itprovided goals and direction for the entire society. As Yeats commentedin , modern problems began “because power has passed tomenwholack the training which requires a certain amount of wealth to ensurecontinuity from generation to generation, and to free the mind in partfrom other tasks.” The middle class and the “mob,” in other words,“small shopkeepers . . . clerks . . .men who had risen above the traditionsof the countryman, without learning those of cultivated life,” not onlydid not have the time and training, they did not possess the ability toprovide values for society because they were petty, vulgar, and exhibiteda horrifying “new ill-breeding.” The aristocracy, on the other hand, hascourage, courtesy, charm, and style, either through their “high breeding”or by inheritance. These values were essential in enabling aristocrats tocarry out their most important function, which was to provide superiorgoals for society and “to explain why the more difficult pleasure is thenobler pleasure.” As Yeats wrote in :

No art can conquer the people alone – the people are conquered by an ideal oflife upheld by authority. . . . We require a new statement of the moral doctrine,which shall be accepted by the average man, but which will at the same timebe plainly beyond his power in practice . . .A true system of morals is obviouslyfrom the first a weapon in the hands of the most distinguished.

By Pound also thought an aristocracy was necessary “to keepalight some spark of civilisation at the summit of things” and set “somemodel of life to the rabble and to ages to come.” But it was Ford whoexplainedmore clearly how an aristocracy upheld important values, andones inherited from a feudal past. Those people who were related to the“castes . . . ranks . . . classes to whom the shedding of blood had given analmost moral significance and stability,” had “a great ideal – an ideal ofsolidarity, of self-sacrifice, of co-operation – an ideal of a Greatness dis-tinct from the acquisition of riches.” In addition, aristocrats had inheriteda systemof belief, a code of honour andduty that enabled them to be cer-tain about the best ways to think and act. As one of Ford’s characters ex-plains, aristocrats “forma standard, a rule of conduct, and then . . . live upto it.” They live “a life in which every man and woman knows exactly hispart and has exactly his ideas.” Moreover, they are not slaves to passion,but have great self-restraint and thus give an impression of “tranquillity,of opulence and strength.” All of this made them eminently capable ofleading and directing society. As Ford wrote in , “your true aristocratis one who analyzes things from a height. But just because he is an aris-tocrat he is scrupulous, and just because he is scrupulous he is just.”

Modernism

Aristocrats, thus, provided a strong and fair government. This is notto say that they were always kind. Neither Ford, nor his ideal aristocrats,accepted a contemporary political ideology that was corrupted “withhumanitarian sentimentalism” and “such watchwords as Fraternity andEquality.” According to Ford, the “old Toryism” of the Middle Ages“was in any humanitarian sense utterly remorseless in its dealing withthe weak.” In those better times, politicians did not share the modernproblem of having “our fingers too much on our moral pulse when itcomes to enacting regulations for the relief of the Unfortunate in themass.” According to Ford, “it is only because our rulers since then havewavered between statecraft and mercy that we have with us still” thisgreat problem of the poor.

By Ford was pinpointing humanitarianism as one of the funda-mental problems of modern government. He claimed that “because hu-manitarianism came creeping in, our modern State is defective,” and heeven went so far as to suggest that politics, “though it need not be activelyinhuman, must, as far as possible, put aside sympathy with human weak-ness.” Other Modernists agreed with him. As early as , in his poem“Picadilly,” Pound admitted about “The gross, the coarse, the brazen,/God knows I cannot pity them, perhaps, as I should do.” Even Lawrence,who wrote little about politics or society in this period, believed that itwas necessary to instill “a bit more flame” in the “cold ash of humanity,”and reject “Humanitarianism and suchlike forms of not-being.”

But Ford went well beyond the other Modernists in describing theconsequences of his anti-humanitarianism, as indicated in the openingof this chapter. In fact, Ford believed that in theMiddle Ages the problemof the poor was solved simply by getting rid of them and he thought thatthis perhaps might be a good idea to revive in the present. He evencommented that he “should like to see all men, except the few that areabsolutely necessary . . . all men swept away who make a profit out ofother men’s labour.” Ford had a few other plans for the unnecessary partof the population:

the necessity for dealing stringently with the non-productive will become im-perative. It is incredible that any statesman to-day should venture to say thatthe unhealthy shall by law be prohibited from breeding . . .Yet some such lawrigidly enforced would go very far towards solving the social problem . . . For allof these in the modern State the only logical remedies would be starvation, theaxe or the lethal chamber. Civilisation has not time to deal with the criminal orthe diseased in any form. . . . degenerates should be either executed or relegatedto pest colonies as in the mediaeval time the lepers were.

Radical conservative solutions

This anti-humanitarianism may be disturbing to a modern mentalitybut it was important, according to Ford, for the strength and stability oftheMiddleAges.The success ofmedieval governmentswas also providedby effective, even remorseless, leadership. In Ford claimed that “trueToryism . . . aim[s] at the establishment of a strong State made up ofefficient individuals.” This was done with a parliament composed ofaristocrats who ruled on the “principle of heredity,” but who also, whennecessary “bow to the will of strong individual rulers” and allow thegovernment to be runby the “actual or virtual dictatorship” of one leader.Aristocrats could do this because they rejected “the modern ideal thatthe State is great where individuals are happy” and correctly understoodthat “before individuals can be happy the State must be strong and soconstituted as to suit the needs of strong individuals.”

While it may appear that Ford had moved away from his former con-cern to protect individuals from coldly efficient collective governments,this is not really the case. Ford made it clear that the type of state he de-siredwas neither collective nor cold. Likemedieval governments it wouldbe strong, yet decentralized and personal. Ford was still very much wor-ried that “The Anglo-Saxon-Teutonic-industrial-commercialism that isModernity” had such a faith in social organization that the central gov-ernmentwould continually increase in size andpower, and that reformers“would make our corporations more vast, our nations still more bound-less, for the sake of fiscal efficiency.” In the Middle Ages this could nothave happened because the central government was limited by the inde-pendence and strength of the aristocrats who ruled the countryside andoften even “made and unmade Kings.”

Pound had a similar admiration for medieval-type political systems,which were strong and ruthless, but also decentralized and personal.He admired small states run by the enlightened, educated rich, whowere helped by a body or church of subsidized artists, and in whichall people worked for themselves and owned their own means of pro-duction. And he hoped that “the nations of Europe” could find “somemethod of cleansing / the fetid extent of their evils” and return to sucha system.

Yeats also disliked overly powerful central governments. He thoughtthat the development of a state, with its “parliaments and law courts,”“which desires all the abundance for itself ” was a grave modern mistakebecause it did away with the independence, individualism, and strengthof thought of former ages. Even artists succumbed to the power of thestate. Edmund Spenser, for example, allowed his art and independence

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of mind to suffer because of his involvement with a centralizing govern-ment. He

had learned to look to the State not only as the rewarder of virtue but as themaker of right and wrong, and had begun to love and hate as it bid him. . . .Likean hysterical patient he drew a complicated web of inhuman logic out of thebowels of an insufficient premise – there was no right, no law, but that ofElizabeth, and all that opposed her opposed themselves to God, to civilisation,and to all inherited wisdom and courtesy, and should be put to death.”

Medieval governments and life in general, therefore, were preferableto any modern system for the Modernists. An additional reason for theirsuperiority was the absence of the middle classes. According to Yeats,modern problems began when “the counting-house had created a classand a new art without breeding and ancestry and set this art and this classbetween the hut and the castle, and between the hut and the cloister.”In Yeats claimed that “Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone” becauseof the increasing predominance of people who “fumble in a greasy till /And add the halfpence to the pence” and because of “the fumbling wits,the obscure spite / Of our old Paudeen in his shop.”

Themiddle classes, according to theModernists, contributed to manymodern ills, but they had an especially negative impact on politics. Fordbelieved that with the advent of the middle classes politics became therealm of “men of the lowest birth and of the highest arrogance” –who re-lied on diplomacy, spies, and torture rather than the swift and honorableuse of “the sword”. He suggested that this happened in England duringthe reign of Henry VIII. Between and Ford wrote a trilogy ofhistorical novels about the period that began with The Fifth Queen. Thesenovels depict the decline of noble values and the rise of a politics of sordidintrigues and plottings, which occurred when bourgeois politicians suchas Thomas Cromwell (“who had been an attorney for ten years afterhe had been a wool merchant”) determined to increase the power ofthe king at the expense of the aristocracy. Yeats agreed that the middleclasses contributed to disorder in politics. The bourgeoisie, who shared“the mob’s materialism and the mob’s hatred of any privilege which isan incommunicable gift,” engendered “the born demagogue,” who “hasalways a passion for some crowd, is always deliberately inciting themagainst somebody.” The chaos caused by these power-hungry preach-ers, in turn, destroyed the stability of the aristocratic political system.

Not only were the middle classes responsible for corrupting politics,they also destroyed a preferable medieval economic and social system.According to Yeats, the vulgarity of “the hot-faced bargainers and themoney-changers” introduced selfishness and competition, and upset the

Radical conservative solutions

harmony that had existed between noble, clergy, and peasantry. Theyalso fundamentally altered the distribution of wealth; it was only when“the world surrendered to the competition of merchants” that the ex-tremes of great wealth and poverty were created.

Ford agreed about the negative consequences of the “free competi-tion” and selfishness of themiddle classes after themedieval period, whenthe altruistic “ideals of the chivalric age” were replaced by “individualist-opportunist” values. One crucial development was that when “men ofthe lowest birth” entered government for profit rather than public servicethe physical and spiritual well-being of the mass of the population wasignored. For example, the disasters of the Reformation sale of churchproperty and the enclosure process forced peasants off the land they hadtilled for centuries so that landowners, many of them from the newlyrich middle class, could raise sheep and make great profits from the ex-panding wool trade. Thus, wealth that formerly had been used to givematerial and moral assistance to the poor was divided instead betweenthe new central state and the middle classes who were a part of it. At thesame time, according to Ford, the government abandoned those controlson the economy that prevented the “sudden fluctuations of prices thatare so unsettling to the labourmarket” and adopted a policy of economicfreedom.Once again, the profits of themiddle classes weremaximized atthe expense of workers’ wages. Pound expressed a similar concern aboutthese features of the modern capitalist system when he declared in :

I have no objection to wealth,the trouble is the acquisition,

It would be rather a horrible sellTo work like a dog and not get it.

In opposition to capitalist economics, Pound, Hulme, and Ford (likeHitler and Mussolini at a later period) all grew interested in a newtype of socialist solution that combined elements of right-wing and left-wing thinking. For example, Ford was quite pleased when introducedto the ideas of Georges Sorel because he found that Sorel’s “Syndical-ism . . . has become reactionary . . . even aristocratic” and was “violentlyanti-Parliamentary.” This confirmed his opinion that “true Toryism andtrue Socialism are the same.” It also gave him hope for the future because“what the extreme Left of France says to-day the rest of the world findsitself repeating about thirty-nine years after.” Pound also admired Sorel’stheories especially because they reminded him of a decentralized me-dieval system. He liked the idea of a society organized into a hierarchyof syndicates or guilds through which “the community recognises the

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special aptitudes of groups of men and applies them.” A government,the only function of which would be to delegate “certain stupid andhonest people” “to look after our traffic and sewage,” also appealed toPound. But it was Hulme who was most interested in Sorel, so much sothat he translated into English Sorel’s most famous work, Reflections onViolence. He admired Sorel for much the same reason as did Ford andPound; Sorel was “a revolutionary in economics, but classical in ethics.”Because he adopted the “classical, pessimistic” and “religious attitude”of a pre-modern period, his theories provided direction and disciplinefor the economy and helped unify the elite with the working class.

Thus theMiddle Ages hadmuch that wasmissing from the contempo-rary world. The governments were strong and stable, and provided firm,but fair economic and political direction without interfering unneces-sarily in people’s lives. They, plus the absence of a middle class, ensuredthat society was unified and all members cared for. The medieval periodhad a few other features the Modernists liked; it was spiritually fulfilled,morally healthy, and aesthetically pleasing. Ford and Yeats particularlyadmired the role of religion in the Middle Ages. Both authors agreedthat medieval Catholicism was far superior to the Puritan Protestantismof the modern world. One reason was because it provided a standardof conduct, similar to that of the aristocrats, which made it easier for allmen to know how to act and feel correctly. According to Ford, “Catholic-ism . . . a religion of action and of frames of minds is a religion that mencan live up to” because it provides a simple and clear standard by whichpeople can judge their actions. For Yeats, medieval Catholicism was un-derstandable to the poor because of its semi-pagan mystical content, butit also acted like the aristocracy: “the Catholic Church created a systemonly possible for saints, hence its prolonged power. Its definition of thegood was narrow, but it did not set out to make shopkeepers.”

As Yeats’s remark suggests, it was Protestantism and “the religiouschange that followed on the Renaissance” that contributed to bourgeoismorality. While Catholicism encouraged the “humility” produced by“a soul shaken by the spectacle of its sins,” Protestantism was a reli-gion in which men “are troubled by other men’s sins.” It, thus, usheredin “the period of philanthropy and reform . . . pedantic composure . . .

rhetoric . . . [and] passionless sentiment.” In other words it encour-aged the “vulgar pride,” “moral enthusiasm,” and desire for “self-improvement” that were the fundamental characteristics of the middleclasses. Moreover, according to Ford, as “a religion of ideals and ofreason” Protestantism also created a nation of hypocrites; by allowing

Radical conservative solutions

each individual to invent impractical and grandiose goals, it forced itsfollowers to advocate a morality they could not ever follow.

Finally, medieval religion was partially responsible for a deep respectfor art. Yeats pointed out the importance of the Catholic church as apatron of the arts, in opposition to “Puritanism”, which because of “itszeal and its narrowness, and the angry suspicion that it had in commonwith all movements of the ill-educated . . . [was] a slanderer of all finethings.” Ford agreed, commenting that Puritanism did away “with theartistic spirit as a factor of life.” However, even more important for artwas medieval society. Rule by an aristocracy ensured that all of life wasbeautiful. According to Ford, the English gentry had inherited a love forthe best things in life and a desire to always surround themselves withthem. In fifteenth-century Italy, according to Yeats, the aristocracy andartists worked hand in hand to “breed the best.” At that time great dukesvigorously fulfilled their duty of patronizing the arts with little concernfor “minds without culture” or with what “the blind and ignorant town /Imagines best to make it thrive.” They correctly understood that theyshould give liberally to what is best, rather than do what is demandedby the mob. Thus, they actively supported the creation of art, libraries,and schools “where wit and beauty learned their trade.”

Yeats and Pound made even stronger connections between the aris-tocracy and artists. Yeats suggested that three social groups of theMiddleAges were key:

Three types of men have made all beautiful things, Aristocracies have madebeautiful manners, because their place in the world puts them above the fear oflife, and the countrymen have made beautiful stories and beliefs, because theyhave nothing to lose and so do not fear, and the artists have made all the rest, be-cause Providence has filled them with recklessness. All these look backward to along tradition, for, beingwithout fear, they have held towhatever pleased them.

In fact, Yeats believed that artists were part of the ideal aristocracy ofthe past. He revised his and Ford’s previous Pre-Raphaelite belief thatartists were “priestly”. Now they were also “the proudest aristocracyupon earth, the aristocracy of artists.” And in he commented that“every day I notice some new analogy between [the] long-establishedlife of the well-born and the artist’s life. . . .We too despise the mob andsuffer at its hands.”

Pound enthusiastically agreed with this image of artists. In fact, hehoped for a new aristocracy in the future composed of artists as well as, orinstead of, hereditary peers.His understanding of Sorel’s theories led himto believe that it might be possible, not only to revive guilds for workers

Modernism

such as “joiners, etc.” or “guilds of more highly skilled craftsmen,” butalso to create “a syndicat of intelligence,” which would be composed of“enlightened men,” “thinkers and authors and artists.” This syndicatewould direct the others and would help solve “the traditional struggle”that has existed “from the beginning of the world . . . of driving the shaftof intelligence into the dull mass of mankind.”Moreover, it would do thisin an autocratic fashion; it “will be as fanatical almost as the mediaevalreligious” and “will hate and contemn the world.” Thus, “the modernartist,” who “knows he is born to rule but he has no intention of tryingto rule by general franchise” will be part of a new and powerful rulingelite.

Yeats summed up the change from the medieval to the modern worldwhen he criticized Oliver Cromwell. Yeats did not necessarily dislikeCromwell for the reasons that most Irish people did – for killing thou-sands of Irish Catholics, taking their lands, and giving them to EnglishProtestants. Rather, for Yeats Cromwell was responsible for the destruc-tion of the Middle Ages. According to Yeats, Cromwell and his “kingsof the mob” changed England and Ireland completely by destroying thearistocratic way of life:

the Great Demagogue had come and turned the old house of the noble into‘the house of the Poor, the lonely house, the accursed house of Cromwell.’ Hecame . . .with that great rabble who had overthrown the pageantry of Churchand Court, but who turned towards him faces full of the sadness and docility oftheir long servitude, and the old individual, poetical life went down, as it seems,for ever.

Fear about the direction in which the modern world was heading,therefore, led the Modernists to look for a preferable alternative in thepast. At the same time as they developed radical conservative politicalpositions, which emphasized discipline, restraint, and control, in opposi-tion to equality, democracy, and economic liberalism, the Modernistslooked again to history and found all they wanted in Europe after theRoman Empire and before the Renaissance. Although this new Mod-ernist medievalism still was as much a fantasy as their earlier medieval-ism, and hardly original, it served an important purpose. The MiddleAges no longer was just a place to escape. Rather, it provided solutionsto the problems the Modernists perceived around them. Not only didmedieval politics and society exclude or discipline the hysterical and ig-norant “mob” and provide a satisfying sense of order and direction,it gave artists a role of great importance. In this preferable system

Radical conservative solutions

of the past, artists were respected, listened to, and took their rightfulplace among the ruling aristocratic elite. In short, the “civic crown” wastheirs.

Their new medievalism also served another important role for theModernists. It made it easier for some of them to speculate that perhapsthe tradition of life they admired in the past, but that was absent in thepresent, might some day return – preferably in the near future. In thisthey took an important step towards a cyclic view of history. Hulmeand Ford both suggested this. Hulme clearly hoped that the “Classic”tradition of life would replace the current “Romantic” one. He wasoptimistic that the ideas of the Action Francaise, and the fact that theywere so popular among young people in France, indicated that this wasin the process of occurring. If these ideas were spread (for example byHulme) to England and the rest of the world, the return of a better wayof life would be undeniable.

Ford also fantasized about the return of an older way of life in his novel, The New Humpty-Dumpty. The hero is Count MacDonald, aRussian-Scottish aristocrat who acts “along lines of the traditions of agentleman of good breeding.” Like Ford, MacDonald had been a social-ist in the s, but since had developed the conviction that “Rome isburning” because parliament had proven to be “such a discredited in-stitution.” MacDonald now adopted the belief that “no men are equal,”that democracy had run the world too long “for the benefit of the weakand the unfit,” and that the best political system is one of strength andcomplete efficiency. MacDonald is also convinced that the only solutionto modern problems is a counter-revolution, and he organizes one as anexample in the small Republic of “Galiza,” where he will use the threatofmilitary violence to restore amonarchy under the BourbonKingDomPedro II.MacDonald’s counter-revolution is unsuccessful in the end.AndFord made it clear what was the ultimate cause of its failure; MacDonaldhad not abandoned his fundamentally Romantic view of human nature.MacDonald believed that at heart all people are as good and chival-rous as himself, and therefore can be trusted to do the right thing in theend. This conviction is proven wrong by two lower-middle-class char-acters. Their hypocrisy, selfishness, vulgarity, greed, and jealousy causethe failure of the counter-revolution and ultimately MacDonald’s death.Thus, while the novel ends in defeat, there is some hope for the future; aknowledge of the cause of the problems may provide the key for ultimatesuccess.

Modernism

For Hulme and Ford, therefore, a cyclic return to the past might bepossible with the spread of new ideas or a better organized revolution.In either case, it was this – a return to the past – rather than the hopefor continued progress along any existing lines, that was what the fiveModernists were coming to believe held out the only hope for the future.The development of their thinking and exploration of other areas ofinterest in the next few years would serve to support this assumption.

“A particularly lively wheel”: cyclic views emerge

Mr. Hulme launched forth on a diatribe against . . . all those whotake the Spiral as the symbol of the Nature of man, and declaredthat if ever he were made a Peer he would take as his insignia aparticularly lively Wheel, chastising a complacent Spiral.

Cambridge Magazine, March , .

One day in a devastatingly handsome young man, who looked agreat deal like Lord Byron, suddenly dropped from the sky onto a streetcorner in London. Police Constable L, whowitnessed themiraculousevent, could tell from the stranger’s impeccable evening dress and fromhis disturbingly eloquent speech that this was an aristocrat, despite hisodd name of Fybus Poldo. Unknown to PC L, this was no ordinarygentleman. He was, in fact, the Greek god Phoebus Apollo come fromheaven to twentieth-century England to determine if religion could bebrought back to the modern world. He was promptly arrested.

So goes the opening of Ford Madox Ford’s novel, Mr. Apollo.Despite his arrest, by the end of the novel Apollo is quite successful in histask. He meets a number of young people who are tired of the hopelessmaterialism of the scientific age in which they live, and who are lookingfor spiritual fulfillment. A new age of religion, similar to a better periodof the past was, therefore, in the process of returning – with the help ofan ancient Greek god-aristocrat, of course. As this indicates, Ford, likethe otherModernists had begun to hope for and speculate about a cyclicreturn to a preferable past tradition. In fact, at least one of them was leddirectly to an explicit cyclic view of history, as is suggested by Hulme’squote above.

It was no accident that Ford hadApollo dress and act like an aristocrat.In fact, this was one of the main differences between Ford’s novel and theworks that might have inspired it. In the s and s Walter Paterwrote three stories on a very similar theme; a Greek god (in two storiesthe god was Apollo and in one Dionysus) reappeared at a later period

Modernism

in time. The differences between Pater’s and Ford’s stories say muchabout the new concerns of theModernists in the early twentieth century.Pater’s gods are more Nietzschean than anything else. They return, notto themodernworld, but to theMiddle Ages (or to an eighteenth-centuryGerman dukedom not yet emerged from the medieval world), and whenthey take human form they do so, not as aristocrats, but as peasants orservants. Their aim is not to restore religion or the medieval values oforder and discipline, but to end the depressing oppression of Catholicismand to bring an Enlightenment-style revival of pagan light, and joy infree natural impulses and fine art. In the end, Pater’s gods do not suc-ceed. Rather, they are killed by the jealous people among whom theylive because they also bring misery and destruction in the wake of theirliberation. Pater, thus, was still struggling with the conflicting conse-quences of the Enlightenment – of how a new appreciation for reason,freedom, and democracy could contribute to positive intellectual, sci-entific, and artistic progress simultaneously with violent and destructiverevolution. Ford, however, had moved beyond doubt and uncertaintyto a new optimism; a medieval form of aristocracy and religion clearlywas preferable to any of the values of the Enlightenment, and radicalconservative politics indeed could effect its return.

It should come as no surprise that at the same time as they developednew conservative political opinions the early Modernists became moreinterested in circular views of the past and cyclic structures in general.Two important developments occurred in the Modernists’ views of his-tory at this time. First, some of the five authors openly rejected the ideaof progress and advocated circularity. In addition, while the others werenot so explicit, they none the less established the foundation for such aview. Their growing dislike of change and admiration for permanence,and their preference for making analogies between features of culturesseparated by space and time, rather than any interest in progressivechronology, indicate their increasing belief that history does not exhibitcumulative change in either a positive or negative direction.

Hulme was the Modernist who first and most openly abandonedprogress for circularity. He was led directly to this position by his newconservative political beliefs. Not only did the Action Francaise andother writers by whom Hulme was influenced posit the existence oftwo opposed traditions of life in the past, the Classic and Romantic,they also questioned the idea of progress. All these conservative authorsargued that theories of automatic, linear progress, whether they were“messianic,” economic or scientific, were “Romantic” and thus wrong.

Cyclic views emerge

According to the Action Francaise, the “Romantic” assumption of thegoodness of humans led thinkersmistakenly to believe that if people werefree of all restraint then progress would automatically occur without anyadditional effort. The “Classic” view of the unchangeable weakness ofhuman nature was considered far more realistic by the Action Francaise.This being the case, however, granting freedom in the hope of improve-ment is a facile and lazy optimism that will lead to chaos as human faultswould be given free reign. Progress is, in fact, a dangerous idea.

Hulme agreed. He explicitly rejected “the metaphysical notion of au-tomatic progress . . . you get in Hegel and Fourier,” which is identical to“the religious belief in absolute and inevitable progress.” Hulme blamed“the histories I had been brought up on” for leading him to this assump-tion; “one is handicapped, as far as clear-thinking about politics goes, bybeing educated in Whig histories. It takes strenuous efforts to get rid ofthe pernicious notion implanted in one by Macaulay.” In Hulmehad become so disillusioned with ideas of progress that he lost interest inalmost all modern philosophy.When he went to a philosophical congressat Bologna that year he was so fascinated by the pageantry and activityoutside – the aristocratic parading of princes and troops – that he didnot want to go inside. This was because

they would be certain to talk inside of progress, while the only progress I canstand is the progress of princes and troops, for they, though they move, makeno pretence of moving ‘upward.’ They progress in the only way which does notviolate the classical ideal of the fixed and constant nature of man.

In fact, Hulme’s rejection of progress was so fervent that it went wellbeyond the conservativewriters whohad suggested the idea to him.Noneof those writers abandoned progress altogether or developed theories ofhistorical circularity as did Hulme. While they proposed that progresswas not automatic, they did assume that it could occur through disci-pline, order, and reason. For example, thewriters for theActionFrancaiseargued that in the beginning of time men’s instincts and passions werefree. The result was a situation of chaos and barbarity. However, withthe imposition of order in civil society, and with the development of willand reason, man progressed out of savagery into civilization. Thus, whilethey did not believe in “Romantic” progress, the Action Francaise didsupport what Lasserre called the “other” progress – that developmentfrom barbarism to civilization through discipline. English Nietzscheansagreed and went on to claim that man could progress even further. AsA.M. Ludovici put it, “if it was possible for man to struggle up from

Modernism

barbarism . . .why . . . should he not surpass himself and attain to Super-man by evolving in the same degree volitionally and mentally?”

Because the conservative writers believed in progress, they also fearedthe decadence that would result if discipline and order were relaxed,as had occurred during the French Revolution. However, they did notconclude from this that history followed a circular pattern of alternatingreversals and advances. Few of the Nietzscheans, or a Modernist likeYeats who had read Nietzsche, discussed extensively or made use ofhis idea of Eternal Recurrence. Some even explicitly rejected it. Thereversals of progress, according to these writers, were mistakes; theywere not in the nature of history and they did not form a pattern.

Hulme, on the other hand, between the middle of and through-out , developed a different view. He completely rejected, not only“Romantic” theories, but all ideas of progress whatsoever. In Hulmemade it clear that in his opinion the movement from “barbarism” to“civilization” proposed by the conservative writers did not involve essen-tial change or fundamental progress. Hulme claimed that

[of ] course, man is capable of a certain kind of progress. He builds up sciencesand civilisation, but the progress is here rather one of accumulation than ofalteration in capacity . . . If you compare the intellect to a sponge, it is easy tosee that the sponge can be empty or full of water, without its “capacity” beingaltered. From the moment that the human species has been constituted, itsintellectual possibilities were fixed at the same time.

Hulme’s conviction about the absolute constancy of the human species,and the fact that he found “a tremendous consolation in the idea of fixityand sameness,” made a belief in any type of progress impossible. Inlate and , again departing from the other conservative writers,Hulme took pains to prove these points. Two arguments were especiallyimportant: the idea of original sin and an alternative view of evolution.

According to Hulme in April , man “is incapable of attaining anykind of perfection, because, either by nature, as the result of original sin,or the result of evolution, he encloses within him certain antinomies.”It is possible that Hulme was introduced to the idea of original sin bySorel or by Lasserre, or through his growing interest in Catholicism,which the French writers insisted was a necessary complement to the“Classic” tradition of control, restraint, and hierarchy. For Hulme origi-nal sin was a “sane classical dogma” and “absolutely identical with thenormal religious attitude” because it made people accept the existenceof a transcendent god, rather than assume, as did the “Romantics,” “thatman is a god” who can create “a heaven on earth.” Humans can never

Cyclic views emerge

act as gods or improve their world because their imperfections cannot beovercome. According to Hulme, this is an absolute truth wisely acknowl-edged in the past but forgotten in the present because of the attraction ofideas of progress. As he argued in a lecture at CambridgeUniversitytitled “Anti-Romanticism andOriginal Sin,” “repeat the word ‘Progress’often enough and it is easy to delude oneself into denying the truths ofthe doctrine of Original Sin amidst the mess of hypothetical Utopias,which ignore the principle of the constancy of Man.”

In November , Hulme found another support for his belief thatthe absolute unchangeableness of mankind precluded the possibility ofprogress in a new theory of evolution.His great discovery was the work ofthe scientist Hugo De Vries whose “mutation theory” of evolution was a“widely popular alternative” to that of Darwin. Hulmewas particularlyexcited about De Vries’s theory because it was a scientific alternative tothe idea of progress. Unlike original sin, which was a religious theory,De Vries’s theory enabled Hulme “to keep the classical view with anappearance of scientific backing.”

In particular De Vries enabled Hulme to argue against people who,using Darwin’s “antiquated theory of evolution,” “triumphantly assertthatmanhad evolved from the brute, and that therewas no reason to sup-pose that the evolution had finished.” Because Darwin holds that “eachstep in evolution has come gradually, by an accumulation of favourablesmall variations” people conclude “that man himself might, by the ac-cumulation of such variations, gradually change into something better.”De Vries’s “Mutation theory” proves this to be scientifically wrong: “itsupposes that each new species came into existence in one big variation,as a kind of ‘sport,’ and, that once constituted, a species remains abso-lutely constant.” Thus, Hulme concluded, “there would then be no hopeat all of progress for man.”

But not only did De Vries’s theory disprove the idea of progress, it alsoprovided scientific proof for Hulme’s political theories of radical conser-vatism. According to Hulme, because “each race of man once havingcome into existence, is created with a certain mental and moral capacity,which is fixed from the moment of its creation, and never changes orincreases,” theories of democracy that assume humans can govern them-selves wisely given a proper education or environment must be wrong.As Hulme concluded, “it is then no good planning out any state of soci-ety whose successful working would depend on the assumption that thepercentage of intelligent and disinterested people can be indefinitelyincreased.” Moreover, De Vries also supported Hulme’s views “onthe question of equality and hierarchy” because he argued that “Not

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only . . . is the average level of each species absolutely constant, but thepercentage of slight variations in different directions also remains con-stant.” As a result, certain groups in society will be superior to others andthe inferior groups cannot improve themselves to join the ranks of thesuperior. Thus inequality and a hierarchy of talents are scientific factsthat must be acknowledged.

Using De Vries, therefore, Hulme had supported his beliefs in theuniformity of human nature and the impossibility of improvement overtime. He was well aware that most people would not like these ideasbecause of the “moderndisease, thehorror of constancy” and the sicknessof having “ ‘dynamic’ on the brain,” which “makes a man contemplatethe idea of a constant world with such repugnance, so that he insists, inspite of all evidence, in believing that progress is continuous, and thatman may and does change.” Hulme, on the other hand, believed that“there is nothing absurd or repugnant in the notion of a constant world,in which there is no progress.” Rather, “there is great consolation in theidea that the same struggles have taken place in each generation, andthat men have always thought as we think now.”

Thus Hulme had provided himself with supernatural and scientificproof of the impossibility of any type of progress. At this time as wellhe was given a suggestion for a different pattern of history. This camefrom his reading of the book, by “the celebrated Egyptologist”Sir Flinders Petrie, The Revolutions of Civilisation. Hulme thought that thiswork definitively answered the question of whether it is a fact that “theprogress and civilisation of humanity have been slowly and steadily in-creasing.” According to Hulme, “Dr. Petrie gives an emphatic negative”and finds a different “regular structure behind it all.” Drawing on newarchaeological evidence from Egypt and Crete, Petrie was able “to tracethe rise, growth, and decay of fourteen civilisations of equal length withthe classical one.” “The result of his inquiry,” Hulme claimed, was “thatcivilisation is a recurrent phenomena, and not an ever-sweeping onwardmovement.”

Here was historical proof that the universal pattern of history wasof cycles, not progress. Or so Hulme concluded. Petrie, however, wasnot so unequivocal. While he did claim that “civilisation is a recurrentphenomenon” with alternating cycles of growth and decay, Petrie alsoproposed that over time the best features of each cycle had increased inquantity and quality, while the collapse after each cycle had grown lessdestructive. Petrie believed that “there are lesser intervals of barbarismbetween the civilisations, and that the civilisation phase in each period is

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longer at each recurrence. This is in accord with the common idea thatthe world is getting more civilised as the ages go on.” And Petrie con-cluded that “this is the real nature of human progress.” Petrie, thus, likethe conservative writers, did not abandon the hope for progress or hap-pily accept the idea of circularity. In fact, his pattern was like the Roman-tic spiral, but with many loops. Moreover, in the conclusion to his bookPetrie proposed that the science of eugenics might even ensure a morelasting progress. Hulme, however, ignored the progressive element inPetrie’s work and viewed the book only as a proof of the idea of circularity.

Withhis scientific and religious proof of the constancyof humannatureacross time, and his historical proof of the pattern of past civilizations,Hulme was entirely convinced that the best characterization of historywas not progress but circularity. And he was very careful to insist that bycircularity, hemeant strict circularity. He tolerated absolutely no conceptof progress in his theory of history – either linear automatic progress ora combination of recurrence and progress in a spiral view. Both weresigns of a weak “Romanticism”; only strict circularity was an indicationof “Classic” strength. This is why in the description of the lecture Hulmegave at Cambridge in February that heads this Chapter, he was re-ported as saying that “it never occurred to the Classicists to have any illu-sions about Progress.” It is also the reason whyHulme wished to “take ashis insignia a particularly livelyWheel, chastising a complacent Spiral.”

Hulme’s theory of the cyclic nature of history by was the mostwell-developed of all the Modernists, but it was not complete. He haddone no more than state that history moves in cycles rather than pro-gresses. Certain important developments that took place in Hulme’sthinking in the end of and throughout would enable him toadd depth, scope, and content to his theory of history and would makethis theory evenmore attractive to the otherModernists. AlthoughYeats,Ford, Pound, and Lawrence had not developed explicit theories of histor-ical circularity by they were already well prepared to do so. Becauseof their political opinions they also assumed the existence of an oldertradition of life that predated the changes they found so disturbing inpresent-day Europe. What all the Modernists liked most about this al-ternative aristocratic or “Classic” tradition of the past was the sense ofstability and permanence it engendered. As Yeats put it, aristocrats havea “preoccupation with what is lasting and noble” and “come from thepermanent things and create them.”

A desire for permanence and stability in opposition to change in-formed almost all of the ideas of the Modernists at this time. This is

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clearly evident in their thinking on spiritualism and religion. As we haveseen, since the beginning of their careers, all the Modernists soughtdeeper spiritual fulfillment to counter modern materialism and deter-minism. At first their spiritualisms were similar to their assumptions ofprogress in the material world; the more important spiritual reality thatexisted beyond or behind the distasteful modern world was character-ized by movement and evolution, and especially by a progress to truth,perfection, or a union with the divine.

However, at about the same time that they began to consider politicsmore carefully, the representation of the “other” spiritual reality changedfor Yeats, Hulme, and Lawrence, and even Pound and Ford expressedreligious views that were very much like the others. With unusual simi-larity, all the Modernists began to describe the true deeper reality, not asprogressive, but as a permanent and unchanging realm that contains allof the past simultaneously. Moreover, analogies were made occasionallybetween this world and the alternative aristocratic tradition they pre-ferred in politics. In this they were expressing attitudes similar to thosethat provided the basis for Hulme’s cyclic theory.

Perhaps the best example of this change in spiritual beliefs was thatof Yeats. As we have seen, his first involvement in spiritualism was withgroups like the Theosophists and his own Order of the Golden Dawnwho promised an evolutionary ascent to oneness with the divine. Afterthe turn of the century, however, Yeats lost interest in both groups andbecame involved in experiments to communicate directly with the super-natural world. More important, this “other” world that Yeats wished tocontact was characterized as the unchanging place where souls go afterdeath, and a storehouse of all knowledge that can be accessed by theliving.

Yeats had always been interested in a supernatural world filled withbeings, such as ghosts and fairies, who interactwith humans in the naturalworld. Now he focused more than ever on the Neo-Platonic idea of the“Great Memory” or “Anima Mundi.” This Great Memory containedall knowledge of everything that had existed, including facts of natureas well as the experiences and insights of individual souls who had died.As Yeats described it, “the AnimaMundi . . . has a memory independentof embodied individual memories, though they constantly enrich it withtheir images and thoughts.” It also is “a memory of nature that revealsevents and symbols of distant centuries.”

There were a number of ways in which this Great Memory could beaccessedby the living.Occasionally it occurred spontaneously.According

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to Yeats, it was the “dwelling-house of symbols” which periodically floatup into imaginative men’s minds. Yeats, however, wished to tap intothis knowledge on demand, and to do this he turned in to anothertype of spiritualism – seances and automatic writing. Automatic writingperhaps was most important to Yeats, as it was the foundation for hismost notable philosophical work, A Vision, in . By both methodsYeats was convinced that he could receive answers to his questions, aswell as be sent messages, from a vast number of souls who once lived inmany different places and ages in the past. Communication with spirits,in turn, was certain proof that the Great Memory existed and that Yeatscould learn truths from it about the past, present, and future.

In Yeats’s spiritual reality, therefore, there was no progress and nochronological time. Thoughts and symbols from all ages and places ex-isted together without significant difference between them. As one com-mentator put it, Yeats had established “the timeless and spaceless linkbetween the living and the dead.” Ideas similar to those of Yeats’s GreatMemory were apparent in the work of the other Modernists as well. Aswe have seen Hulme at first was deeply impressed by Henri Bergson’stheory of creative evolution and of the flux of the deeper reality of con-sciousness. However, in , Hulme began to change his interpretationof Bergson. This was undoubtedly because he had discovered that manyradical conservatives disliked Bergson because of “the pernicious politi-cal deductions which may be drawn from his more purely philosophicalideas.” It was pointed out to Hulme that Bergson’s concept of the fluxas constant change and evolution could be interpreted to mean that thepresent and future are so different from that past that there can be nocomparison between them.Hulme was warned that Bergson’s claim that“the present moment is a uniquemoment and can be paralleled by noth-ing in the past,” meant that truths from the past could not be appliedto the present and therefore a return to an older historical tradition wasimpossible.

This argument encouraged Hulme, not to abandon Bergson, but togradually alter his interpretation of Bergson, to emphasise permanencerather than change. Hulme now described Bergson’s ideas as a “reli-gious interpretation of the universe” and perhaps the most “legitimatespiritual interpretation of the world.” Moreover, Hulme claimed that abelief in religion was the same thing as “a ‘belief ’ in the conservationof values” that are eternal. More important, Bergson’s flux, as Hulmenow explained it, became more like Yeats’s Great Memory. It was a re-ality alternative to the material world, and “a permanent, continuous

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and enduring entity” that was collective, and that connected the mindsof all people to each other and extended beyond each. This could bebest understood, according to Hulme, with the metaphor of the LondonUnderground system. Individual consciousness was like the various sta-tion clerks who, above ground, appear to be isolated and unconnected,but who can communicate with one another and are fundamentally con-nected beneath the surface by the train lines that run underneath themto which the stations have access. Hulme concluded:

if a man could go to the centre of his own mind and penetrate beneath thesurface manifestations of his consciousness he would feel himself joined to aworld of consciousness which is independent of matter; he would feel himselfjoined on to something which went beyond himself, and in no sense an isolatedpoint at the mercy of local changes in matter.

This is little different from the Great Memory. In fact, in Hulmedid believe in the existence of a realm where the souls of men go whenthey die, and that the “ultimate reality is a republic of eternal souls.” Hewas, according to a friend, becoming increasingly religious. Moreover,he admitted his acceptance of “the immortality of the soul” and “theDogma of the Resurrection of the Flesh.” Hulme made it clear why heliked these views of religion; they were similar to an aristocratic politicaltradition because they contained values that had been handed downthrough the ages. This, in turn, gave Hulme the feeling that he was “nolonger afloat on a sea . . . in which all the support I can get depends onmy own activity in swimming, but joined by a chain of hands to theshore.”

Lawrence also suggested the existence of a type of Great Memory.In April he claimed that he believed in “a God, but not a per-sonal God,” and that “when we die, like raindrops falling back againinto the sea, we fall back into the big, shimmering sea of unorganisedlife which we call God.” Two years later Lawrence began to formulatemore clearly his own, unique view of a “great religion,” which he called“a belief in the blood.” He predicted that “the return of the blood”would bring “hope and religious joy” to the modern scientific and secu-lar world. This “blood” was transcendent and universal; it was “the greatimpersonal flesh and blood, greater thanme.” Like theGreatMemory, itincluded “everything that everwas thought and everwill be thought” and“contains all of the future.” Moreover, it was stable and fixed. Lawrencemade clear that his religion was “just the opposite” of “the eternal tri-umphing over the moment, at the moment, at the very point of sweeping

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it into the flow.” Rather, it is “themoment triumphant in its eternality.”

Thus, instead of suggesting that the “other” world was an evolutionaryprogression in “the right direction” as he had in , Lawrence nowdescribed it as unchanging. He admitted that his “soul [was] hungry” for

somethingof the eternal stillness that lies under allmovement, under all life, like asource, incorruptible and inexhaustible. It is deeper than change, and struggling.So long I have acknowledged only the struggle, the stream, the change. Andnow I begin to feel something of the source, the great impersonal which neverchanges and out of which all change comes.

Pound did not elaborate on his spiritual views as much as did theothers, but again similarities are apparent. As the heading to his book of poems, Exultations, illustrates, Pound admired those things thatare eternal and enduring, and transcend the mutability of nature: “I aman eternal spirit and the things I make are but ephemera, yet I endure:Yea, and the little earth crumbles beneath our feet and we endure.”Moreover, Pound preferred the stability and calm of the place to whichthose who “are grown formless, rise” above the turmoil and change ofa world that is like an “overflowing river . . . run mad.” This stable andeternal realm also may have been a timeless community of souls similarto Yeats’s Anima Mundi and to Lawrence’s God; Pound wrote of how“the pale stream/ Of the souls of men” are “fused” into a greater “sea.”Poets especially may be able to tap into this sea of souls or eternal spiritsbecause, according to Pound, “the souls of all men great/ At times passthrough us,/ And we are melted into them.”

Thus, at the same time the Modernists posited the existence of an un-changing political tradition of the past different from that of the present,they also claimed that an alternative, and more important, spiritual real-ity also existed, which was timeless and permanent and which containedall of the past simultaneously. Clearly a sense of progress, in which cu-mulative change over time makes the past and present fundamentallydifferent, was absent from both views.

Perhaps the most concrete description of this superior spiritual worldwas provided by Ford Madox Ford, the Modernist who wrote the leastabout religion, in his novel of , The Young Lovell: A Romance. The bookis set in fifteenth-century England, and it implicitly accepts the idea thata world of spirits, fairies, or ghosts exists and interacts with the naturalworld of humans. At the end of the novel Ford gives a glimpse into the“other” world these spirits inhabit. After much trouble because of hispossession by a witch, the main character, the young Lovell, becomes

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a hermit and his soul is transported to the other world. In this worldall of the past, present, and future exist simultaneously. The gods andgoddesses are entertained by watching a battle between a Greek heroand amedieval knight. They discuss “times past . . . times to come” whilelooking out over a sea in which ancient Greek and Renaissance Venetianships sail. Moreover, according to Ford, “the cities of the plains theysaw, and Rome and Delphi and Tyre, and cities to come that appearedlike clouds of smoke, with tall columns rising up and glittering.” Thesupernatural world, again, was one of permanence and the collectiveresidence of the divine and of the souls of all the dead.

Ford’s picture of the supernatural world also points to another de-velopment in the Modernists’ spiritualism. The gods in Ford’s universe,like Phoebus Apollo in his earlier novel, were not Christian, but fromanother religious tradition – that of ancient Greece. Like Ford, mostof the other Modernists were interested in finding a form of religiousexpression that was different from modern British Protestantism, whichthey found distasteful because of its association with democracy and ma-terialism. Moreover, they wanted this alternative religion to contain theuniversal core of all great religious beliefs from a wide variety of timesand places. This led some of the five Modernists to a study of compara-tive religion, which, in turn, supported their belief in the existence of analternative tradition of life, thought, and politics, and of the identity ofcultures across space and time.

The Modernists were not unique in their interest in comparative reli-gion at this time. Around the turn of the twentieth century many peoplehad begun to study a wide variety of religious beliefs, both Christian andnon-Western, in an attempt to find a new type of spiritual experience.This was another aspect of the spiritual revival of the time, which thehistorian, Janet Oppenheim, has argued was part of an effort to return“some sense of meaning, purpose, design, and beneficence in the uni-verse” after nineteenth-century science and positivism hadmade a literalbelief in the divine revelation of Christianity impossible.

One person involved in this project whowas particularly important forthe Modernists was G.R.S. Mead, the founder of the Quest Society andeditor of The Questmagazine. He was an old friend of Yeats, a new friendof Hulme, and was particularly important for Pound. Mead wished toshow how a universal mystic religion that was “identical in its fundamen-tals with the Esoteric Philosophy of all the great religions of the world,”existed at many different times in the past. This spiritual tradition wascondemned by the Catholic Church and therefore often ignored but,according to Mead, it formed an equally valid religious alternative to

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modern Christianity. Just as important, especially for the Modernists,was the lack of a sense of progress in Mead’s comparative religious stud-ies. Unlike most agnostic comparative religionists and folklorists at thetime, some of whom, such as J.G. Frazer and E.B. Tylor, would later be-come the founders of modern anthropology, Mead did not study olderreligions in order to point out the roots of modern Christianity in prim-itive superstition and the ultimate triumph of the progress of sciencein destroying that superstition – indicating a presupposition of religiousevolution. Rather,Mead had no real sense of chronology or evolutionaryprogress when it came to different types of religion; he regarded all agesof true spiritualism as analogous and as positive regardless of whetherthey appeared earlier or later in time.He believed in a universal traditionof religious thinking, which takes different forms in different periods andcountries, but is essentially the same across time and space.

Pound especially was impressed by Mead’s “comparative study of themany attempts throughout the centuries that have been made to realise”the divine. In and he echoed Mead’s ideas about religion.Pound believed that “there are . . . only two kinds of religion. There isthe Mosaic or Roman or British Empire type, where someone, having tokeep a troublesome rabble in order, invents and scares them with a dis-agreeable bogie, which he calls god.” On the other hand there are muchpreferable “forms of ecstatic religion” such as were held by the medievaltroubadours, who took their beliefs and deities from all major religions.They combined Christianity with ancient pagan mysticism, “memoriesof Hellenistic mysteries,” cults like that of Bacchus, Isis, or Dionysus,and perhaps an oriental cult from Rome. Pound’s own religious beliefswere much the same:

Our creed may run riot somewhat as follows:-I believe in the Divine, the ruler of heaven and earth, and in his most

splendid protagonist, Christ Jesus our Lord, born of theVirginDiana, succouredof Pallas Athene, Lord of Horus, Lord of Raa, Prince of the House of Angels.

Lawrence concurred with Pound and developed a strikingly similar“creed”:

I worship Christ, I worship Jehovah, I worship Pan, I worship Aphrodite. ButI do not worship hands nailed and running with blood upon a cross, nor licen-tiousness, nor lust. I want them all, all the gods. They are all God.

Lawrence’s religion, therefore, like Pound’s, had many different ex-pressions in different times and places but was not altered funda-mentally by the passing of time. As he wrote to a friend, “whatever

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name one gives Him in worship we all strive towards the sameGod . . .Christians, Buddhists, Mrs. Dax, me, we all stretch our hands inthe same direction.”

Thus for the Modernists, religion was not progressive. Neither thesuperior spiritual world, nor the preferable tradition of worship incor-porated any cumulative change over time. As a result, there could be noanachronism in juxtaposing references to souls or forms of worship thathad existed in vastly different times and places. This attitude to religion,which was similar to an unchanging aristocratic political tradition, wasgradually translated into a new sense of history.

It was in his discussion of the history of art that Pound first beganformulating a new theory of history in general. Art, in fact, was describedby Pound much like the superior spiritual realm; it was permanent andunchanging, and contained all of the past simultaneously. Pound came tothis view in by adopting the Bergsonian concept of the existence oftwo types of time, the “apparent” external time of thematerial world andamore “real” internal time of human consciousness, and by applying it toart. However, he reversed Bergson’s conclusion that “real” time was oneof constant change and flux. According to Pound, while “apparent” timemight include linear progress, the “real” time of literature is unchangingbecause “art and humanity . . . [remain] ever the same” even though“much change had swept over the world.”

Pound also adopted another theory of Bergson. Bergson claimed thatreal time is also characterized by amixture of the past and present; “innerduration is the continuous life of a memory which prolongs the past intothe present.” Pound agreed and concluded that this means there is“basis for comparison” of all sorts of systems and styles of literature.

As a result, according to Pound, in art

All ages are contemporaneous. It is , let us say in Morocco. TheMiddle Agesare in Russia. The future stirs in the minds of the few. This is especially trueof literature, where the real time is independent of the apparent, and wheremany dead men are our grandchildren’s contemporaries, while many of ourcontemporaries have been already gathered into Abraham’s bosom, or somemore fitting receptacle.

According to literary critic, Stan Smith, in this quote “ ‘real time’ isan eternal present where all that is truly living exists.” It is “a time-less ‘tradition’ where all art coexists” and to which “literature providespriviledged access.” Because of this different, more ‘real’, sense of timein art, artists can use material from a wide variety of ages and placeswithout anachronism.

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Yeats had a theory very similar to that of Pound. As he wrote in :“Supreme art is a traditional statement of certain heroic and religioustruths, passed on from age to age, modified by individual genius, butnever abandoned.” Because the tradition of great art is permanent andcontains all that was best in the past, the artist who uses it in the present isnot limited by linear chronology. He can appreciate and use the traditionas it appeared in any agewithout anachronism; he “can know the ancientrecords and be like somemystic courtier who has stolen the keys from theGirdle of Time, and canwander where it please him amid the splendoursof ancient Courts.”

Thus, in art as in religion, progress did not exist for Pound or Yeats.Moreover, when Poundwrote about subjects other than art he also beganto treat them in a non-progressive manner. For example, in describingcontemporary America in Pound compared political, social, andartistic features of vastly different ages and places but gave no indica-tion that chronological time produced any differences. The features ofAmerica that Pound disliked also were found in “the Dark Ages” and“Spain . . . in the timeof theSenecas.”What he admired remindedhimof“Imperial Rome,” “Europe, in the day of Clodovic,” medieval Tuscany,“the baths of Diocletian,” and “the spirit of the Pyramids.” Pound’shistorical sense, therefore, emphasized the contemporaneity of past andpresent, rather than cumulative development or progress.

It was thinking about politics rather than art that led Ford, as it hadHulme, to a similar rejection of historical progress. For example, in Ford explicitly abandoned his previousWhig view of history. He realizedthat the type of history he, his grandfather, and most English schoolboyswere brought up with had an implicit assumption of positive evolution:“the Englishman sees his history as a matter of a good-humoured broad-ening down of precedent to precedent, a broad and tranquil stream ofpopular advance to power,” “to the Protestant, individualist, free speech,free thought, free trade, political economics of the Victorian era” whichwas the time of greatest benefit to England. Ford both criticized thisWhig assumption of progress and ridiculed those reformers and opti-mists who “maintain that the world is perfectible.” According to Ford,those people who attempt to change the world to effect progress createdisasters.

In opposition to progress, Ford, like Hulme, began to consider thepossibility that history was cyclic. In Ford admitted that he had adifferent view of history than previously and claimed that “for me, myprivate and particular image of the course of English history in these

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matters is one of waving lines. I see tendencies rise to the surface of thepeople, I see them fall again and rise again.” Two years earlier he hadwritten that

in the arena ofTriumphant Principle pendulums swingbackwards and forwards:the undisputed right of to-day becoming the open question of to-morrow, andthe unquestioned wrong of the immediate future. This is a platitude becauseit is one of the indisputable verities. In the country they say that large clockswhen they tick solemnly and slowly, thud out the words: “Alive – Dead; Alive –Dead” – because in this world at every second a child is born, a man dies. But,in London, a listener to the larger clock which ticks off the spirits of successiveages, seems to hear above the roar of the traffic, the slow reverberation: “Never –Again; Never – Again,” as principles rise and die, and rise and die again. . . .Arts rise and die again, systems rise and die again, faiths are born only to die andto rise once more; the only thing constant and undying is the human crowd.

There are a number of other instances in which Ford made it moreclear that his view was in fact circular. In his poem “Grey Matter,”published in The Face of the Night (), Ford presented a conversa-tion between a man and a woman. The woman despairs over “thisdead-dawning century that lacks all/ faith,/ All hope, all aim, and allthe mystery/ That comforteth.” The man responds that she should bepatient “Since, by the revolution of the wheel,/ The one swings under,let us wait content.”

Finally, in in his novel Mr. Apollo, Ford connected his religiousand political beliefs to a possible cyclic view of history. As we have seen,the Greek god Apollo was an aristocrat who was attempting to revive abelief in true religion that had been destroyed by the atheism of scien-tific and evolutionary ideas of Darwin, Huxley, and Spencer, and by theconcomitant rise ofmiddle-class avarice and lower-class poverty. Accord-ing to Apollo, atheism first made its appearance in Greece with Plato,and along with this atheism went a belief in progress. However, the lastbelievers in the true religion of the Hellenic divinities had a differentview of history. Their most esteemed philosopher was not Plato, but thenow-forgotten “Egathistothepompus.” Apollo explains that

he it was who especially had promulgated the theory that mankind was per-fectible, but moved in cycles, that there had been a Golden Day in Egypt thatdeclined, till in Athens the wheel of humanity was again exalted, and so inRome, and so doubtless onwards into the unknown future and back into theunchronicled past.

Throughout the novel Ford indicated that perhaps this prophecy soonwould be proven true. Apollo is encouraged to start a new age of religion

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by the openness of the younger generation of the s to his ideas,and the fact that they have begun to find the atheism and evolutionaryideas of nineteenth-century scientists distasteful. The young people aremuch more interested in the religious ideas of Apollo. It appears that thependulum might be swinging back again from atheism to belief, and anew cycle started. As onemember of the older generation, who had spenthis life promoting atheism, laments, “ ‘It’s all coming back’.” In otherwords, a preferable religious tradition in the past that is also aristocraticmight return in the future. This, plus the rejection of progress, is essentialto a theory of circularity.

The other three Modernists did not make explicit statements thathistory was cyclic at this time, but there are indications in their workthat they were increasingly attracted to cyclic theories. For example,Lawrence’s new religion of blood may have been based on a sense ofcircularity. He hoped for the “return of the blood” and a revival of hisalternative religion. Moreover, this religion of the blood also “gives usjoy,” according to Lawrence, because “it is not the falling rose, but therose for ever rising to bud and falling to fruit” in imitation of the cyclicpattern of nature.

In Pound’s poetry also increasingly included the theme of thecyclic renewal of nature in spring time and the hope that a similar re-birth or “newmetamorphoses” might apply to the death of other impor-tant things such as love, poetry or life in general. Perhaps influenced byNietzsche (“There is no comfort being over-man”), Pound counseled res-ignation to a cyclic force that humans cannot control: “Love and desireand gain and good forgetting/ Thou canst not stay the wheel, hold nonetoo long!”Like Ford, Poundalso suggested thatGreek gods currentlymaybe returning, awakened from their sleep as the spring emerges from win-ter, only with a greater potential for Paterian vengeance because they are“the swift to harry” with “souls of blood.” Finally, Pound experimentedwith the image of advancing and receding waves and of the revolvingneedle of a compass to depict history. In his poem “The Needle” hesuggested that while history had until the present been positive (“we havehad our day, your day andmine”) it was about to change (“this land turnsevil slowly”) and start “the hour of its decline,” because what “The wavesbore in, soon they will bear away.” The only hope is to wait until thetide and compass cyclically return to a preferable time – “Abide/ Undersome neutral force/ Until this course turneth aside.” It was perhaps thishope for the cyclic renewal of a better historical period that encouragedPound at this time more frequently to “sing of risorgimenti.”

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Yeats also expressed a preference for the circular over the linear. Inhis article “Discoveries” he wrote that artists must imitate neithersaints who seek to go directly to the permanence of the absolute, normiddle-class materialists who are concerned only with the impermanentworld. Both follow a linear “arrow” either up to the center of god ordown to the natural world. Artists, rather, should take a middle positionand concern themselves with those things that are a combination of “thestill and fixed,” in other words, with things that recur. They must stayon “the ring where everything comes round again” and which is outsideof, and in between, both. This will make their work supremely religiousbecause, according toYeats, “God is a circlewhose centre is everywhere.”It also will make their work noble because aristocrats also act cyclically;they “create now and again for some brief moment” an ideal society.

Finally, the Modernists’ developing historical sense was also reflectedin their creative writing. The result was that they were led closer to asolution to the problem they had grappled with since the beginning oftheir careers – how to create a new art that combined the best featuresof their predecessors while avoiding the worst. Those Modernists whowrote about aesthetic theory at this time were still concerned with thesame issues as before. They wanted their writing, as Pound put it, tobe “explicit and precise” and “a vital part of contemporary life,” butalso beautiful, symbolic, and spiritual. Hulme was the first to discovera way to achieve this, and it was closely related to his new historicalviews.

Even before the change in his political beliefs, Hulme realized that akey feature of “Romantic” art was a reflection of an admiration for fluxand change. Hulme learned this from Bergson who suggested that to re-cover or approximate the flux of internal consciousness literature shouldemphasize the element of movement; nothing should halt the flow of thewords, especially not an individual image. As in his religious interpre-tation of Bergson, Hulme came to exactly the opposite conclusion. Hesuggested that a visual image should be a “clear and precise descriptionof external things,” intended to “arrest you, and to . . . prevent you glid-ing through an abstract process,” rather than an approximation of theflux in which things “run into one another in inextricable blurs, and arenot separate and distinct.” Hulme called the theory of aesthetics thathe developed from this insight “Imagism”. It was based on an “Image”that was fixed, stationary, and isolated. A poetry of images, according toHulme, “arrests yourmind all the time with a picture” rather than allow-ing the mind “to run along with the least possible effort to a conclusion.”It “attempts to fix an impression” rather than to tell a story. In distinction

Cyclic views emerge

fromBergson, he thought that “this new verse resembles sculpture ratherthan music.” It also was similar to the method of a “cinematograph”which Hulme knew Bergson disliked because “a series of static sectionsare taken, none of which expresses movement.” According to Hulme,however, the poet should “regard each word as a picture, then a succes-sion of pictures.” Thus, Hulme’s new poetry avoided change and, withit, progress.

The use of static images could create a new type of poetry, according toHulme, because they were “not the vain decorative and verbal images ofthe ordinarypoets” of themodernworld.Rather, they resembled anoldertradition of “Christian Mystics” and “Neo-Platonic philosophers” whowere his “true kindred spirits.” This return to an older poetic traditiondid something else as well. As did the religious and political traditionHulme admired, it helped provide a comforting sense of permanenceand order in the midst of chaos. As Hulme put it,

[i]t is as if the surface of our mind was a sea in a continual state of motion,that there were so many waves on it, their existence was so transient, and theyinterfered so much with each other, that one was unable to perceive them. Theartist by making a fixed model of one of these transient waves enables you toisolate it out and to perceive it in yourself. In that sense art merely reveals, itnever creates.

Good art for Hulme, therefore, resembled his new political and religiousideas. It provided stability and a sense of a more important realm ofunchanging values, in direct contrast to the confusing surface of fluxand change. In this theory Hulme had completely reversed his previouscritique of thinkers who “wished to create a static fixity where their soulmight rest.” This is precisely what Hulme was now aiming at in art aswell as politics.

Pound developed a very similar theory in , perhaps under the in-fluence ofHulme,which he named “Imagisme” andwhichwas describedas an art that was both precise and suggestive because it expressed emo-tions or truths of a higher reality with visual concrete images. It too wasinspired by artists Pound considered Christian mystics – the medievalTroubadours. Pound particularly admired the Troubadours becausethey had found a “middle way” between monks in the cloisters whowere concerned with “registering movement in the invisible aether” and“grasping at the union with the absolute,” and those poets who only rep-resented “the mortal turmoil” of the material world. The Troubadours,rather, took “something of the manner, and something of the spirit” ofthe monks and transferred it “to the beauty of life as they found it.”

Modernism

In February in the first explicit “Credo” of his aesthetics Poundreiterated his belief that “the natural object” is the “proper and perfectsymbol.” He also added something more. In the same year he pub-lished a series of articles titled “I Gather the Limbs of Osiris.” As the titlesuggests, Pound, like Isis, was attempting to gather the scattered frag-ments of all past literatures to rebuild a new literature for his own day.Pound made it clear that he held “no brief for any particular system ofmetric”; he liked early Greek, Provencal, Anglo-Saxon, Spanish, Latin,and French verse equally well. And he continued, “it is not beyondthe pales of possibility that English verse of the future will be a sort oforchestration taking account of all these systems.” In fact, elsewhere heclaimed that “the artist should master all known forms and systems ofmetric.” However, if all forms of verse that Pound liked were “orches-trated” and static visual images were employed, the result would be anart form that could not have a progressive structure. Forms and images ofvastly different time periods and countries would have to be juxtaposedwith no sense of movement or chronology.

By Pound had changed his poetry to reflect his new theory. Notonlywas the dictionmuch closer to common speech and the imagesmoremodern, but Pound also began to experiment with the juxtapositionof images without concern for chronology or distance. For example,section III, “Further Instructions” of his poem “Lustra” begins and endsas follows:

Come, my songs, let us express our baser passions.. . . .But you, newest song of the lot,You are not old enough to have done much mischief.I will get you a green coat out of ChinaWith dragons worked upon it.I will get you the scarlet silk trousersFrom the statue of the infant Christ at Santa Maria

Novella;

Lest they say we are lacking in taste,Or that there is no caste in this family.

Thus, not only have archaic medievalisms and vague symbols been re-placed by concrete images in this poem, an assumption of progress,which would find an analogy between ancient China and medieval Italyunrealistic, is absent.

Cyclic views emerge

Ford’s creative work also reflected his new sense of the past. Here hetoo abandoned progress for circularity. In his novels Ford developedwhatwould become his most characteristic mature theme – an aristocrat whobelongs to the alternative tradition of the past, is out of place in the mod-ern world, and wishes to return, cyclically, to the past. This was certainlythe case with CountMacDonald inThe NewHumpty-Dumpty. At the sametime as he developed this theme, Ford also began to experiment with thevarious plot structures that would eventually characterize his matureworks. In particular he abandoned the linear progressive structure of hisprevious novels for a “time-shift technique” and even circularity.

A circular structure is evident in Ford’s novel of , Ladies Whose

Bright Eyes. In this novel the hero, Mr. Sorrell, a middle-class publisher ofthe twentieth century, is transported back to the fourteenth century bya train accident. Although Sorrell is disturbed by some of the materialinconveniences of the fourteenth century, he finds himself more at homeamong the aristocracy there than he felt in his own time period andwith his own class. Ford presents Sorrell’s ease of communication andunderstanding of the people and their society in such a way as to suggestthat no fundamental progress occurred over the course of the centuries;the only progress was the superficial change of material conveniences.The novel ends where it began – in the twentieth century – when Sorrellwakes up in a hospital bed and proceeds to recreate his life in the presentto reflect the best of both worlds; he adopts fourteenth-century values,ideals, and style but with modern plumbing and electricity. Thus, in thisnovel, not only did Ford deny the efficacy of progress, he adopted acircular structure to do so.

InTheNewHumpty-Dumpty (), althoughFord did not use circularity,he did experimentwith a time-shift technique.The events of the novel arenot reported in a linear chronological fashion. Ford follows one characterthrough part of a day, then moves to another character at the beginningof the same day and follows that person’s reactions to the same events.This continues with a number of different characters throughout thenovel. In this way, although Ford is telling a story that moves through alinear series of events, he does it without regard to strict chronology.

Ford returned to a circular structure in Mr. Fleight (). In thisnovel the hero is Mr. Blood, a lazy but brilliant aristocrat who is “ananachronism” and would have been more at home “a hundred yearsago.” He is aroused out of his inaction by the incompetent but verywealthy lower-middle-class upstart, Mr. Fleight, who had been with himat Oxford and who desires Blood’s help to get into politics. As the names

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suggest, Blood represents the tradition of stability andpermanence,whileFleight represents the alternative one of flux and change. Blood decidesto help Fleight in order to prove that politics has become such a sordidand pointless affair that money alone can buy success. Naturally Bloodis proven correct and Fleight succeeds in winning a seat in parliament.As with Ladies Whose Bright Eyes, the novel ends where it begins, but evenmore so – not just in the same century, but in the same exact place sixmonths later. And the sense that nothing fundamental had happened ismuch greater. In Ladies Whose Bright Eyes there is some suggestion thatMr. Sorrell’s life is better at the end than at the beginning – he has thebest of both worlds. InMr. Fleight this is not the case – although middle-class Mr. Fleight’s life is radically transformed, aristocratic Mr. Blood’slife has not changed in any way.

In commenting on Ford’s novels between and , literary criticRobert Green has suggested that they are flawed by Ford’s inability tocreate a sense of time passing. In particular, inMr. Fleight, Greenmentionsthat “a year has passed but Blood still occupies the same chair, thinkingthe same thoughts at the end as at the beginning. None of the interveningevents seemed to have affected him in any way. Nothing seems to havechanged.” This may be a fault, but, as Green concurs, because ofFord’s previous ability to express time and his experiments with time inhis other novels of this period, it is unlikely that this was simply a technicaldifficulty. Ford, like the aristocrats in his novels, had rejected the idea ofprogress and reacted against the impermanence of change. Both werefeatures of an unappealing middle-class way of life. As a result he wasattempting to find an effective alternative to the chronological narrativethat expresses an acceptance of fundamental progress. His sense of analternative aristocratic tradition of fixity and permanence, therefore, hadmade achronicity and circularity a much more of important part of hiswork.

TheModernists, thus, increasingly abandoned theories and represen-tations of progress because their desire for constancy and permanencenow informed their thoughts on almost all subjects – on aesthetics andreligion, as well as politics. This admiration for stability, in turn, was aresult of their fear of the chaos that would follow democracy in an agein which there were no higher spiritual or aristocratic values to providedirection, and no role for artists to promote either. Cyclic structures pro-vided stability and continuity with the past, they were able to provideorder amidst the flux of the modern world, and if they characterized thepattern of history they provided hope for a return to a better past.

Cyclic views emerge

In the next few years, from to , the five Modernists wereintroduced to a number of new artistic styles and theories that servedto confirm all of these ideas. What was to be the first of these newdevelopments in the arts was referred to by Pound in his poemquoted above – “Further Instructions.” One of his instructions was toget for his new poem “a green coat out of China.” An introduction to thearts of Asia was the next important step in the Modernists’ developmentof their mature thought and art.

“Our own image”: the example of Asian

and non-Western cultures

A whole people, a whole civilisation, immeasurably strange to us,seems to have been taken up into this imagination; and yet we arenot moved because of its strangeness, but because we have met ourown image . . . or heard, perhaps for the first time in literature, ourvoice as in a dream.

Yeats, “Preface to Gitanjali,” September .

“I seem to be getting Orient from all quarters.” When Ezra Poundmade this remark in he was not alone. Many participants of theLondon art world first were made aware of a variety of products fromnon-Western cultures at this time. Indian and Japanese poets arrived inthe city, amidst much publicity in artistic journals, to give readings oftheir work and lectures about the arts of their nations. Art exhibits wereorganized and catalogs written by British critics with the help of a newlyhired Asian staff. Numerous books and articles outlining the nature andvalue of non-Western art forms were published. Clearly “immeasurablystrange” civilizations, such as the one referred to by Yeats in the quoteabove, were attracting much attention.

It is hardly surprising that the five literaryModernists would take noteof these “strange” civilizations.They could serve just aswell as theMiddleAges for an escape from the ugly philistinism of the modern world.However, by , as is clear in the quote heading this chapter, a differentattitudehad emerged among theModernists.Yeats specifically noted thathe was “not moved because of [the] strangeness” of the distant culture,but because he felt a real sense of familiarity with it. The civilizationto which he was referring was contemporary Bengal, but he could havemeant any part of India, China, or Japan in the present or the past.Moreover, any of the other fourModernists could havemade this remarkbecause at roughly the same time they joined Yeats in a new interest in,and identification with, the art and culture of the non-Western world.

Example of Asian and non-Western cultures

An exploration of non-Western civilization served above all to clarifyand unify the ideas of the five Modernists. It solidified their new po-litical, social, and religious thinking. It also helped them theorize moreclearly about aesthetics and it gave them practical suggestions abouthow to make their creative work do all they had hoped. Moreover, theirknowledge of non-Western culture supported and expanded the fiveModernists’ developing theories of history. The “voice” Yeats heard inBengali civilization was much like that of all ages in the European pastthey admired, especially the Middle Ages. This encouraged the Mod-ernists to believe that an alternative tradition, which they found moresympathetic than their own, did in fact exist, and its existence was farmore widespread than they had imagined hitherto. Clearly, the modernEuropean way of life was not universally valid but might indeed be theexception rather than the rule. Perhaps it also might appear and dis-appear in many ages and places. In short, non-Western art and cultureinspired the five Modernists to innovate in their creative work, and itreinforced their developing cyclic views of history.

This is not to say that the “Orient” was unheard of in Britain be-fore this period. However, when the Modernists became interested in itthey were introduced to an entirely new interpretation, which markedan important development in the history of Western knowledge of Asia.Not only did Edwardian Britain witness the revival of spiritualism andemergence of radical conservatism, it was also a period of innovation inthe study of Asian culture. There had been, of course, a great fascinationwith the “Orient” throughout the nineteenth century among British andEuropean artists.ManyRomantic andVictorian literary figures believed,like Friedrich Schlegel in , that “it is in the Orient that we mustsearch for the highest Romanticism.” The strange mystery and exoticbeauty of the Middle East and India inspired poems such as Coleridge’s“KublaKhan,”Southey’s “Thalba theDestroyer,”Arnold’s “SohrabandRustrum” and “The Sick King of Bokhara,” and Tennyson’s “Persia,”“Timbuctoo,” and “Fatima.” Some artists were so taken by the “Orient”that they agreed with Gustave Flaubert who claimed in that “mod-ernman is progressing, Europewill be regenerated byAsia.”They hopedthat the spiritual values of the East might redeem the rationalism andmaterialism of modern Western civilization.

However, this admiration for Asia was not unequivocal. Fear of thebrutality and degeneration of Asian culture, and anxiety about its poten-tial effect on Europeans, underlay much Orientalist work. Moreover,

Modernism

the influence of the “Orient” was usually superficial. It was the “entireharvest of new, vague, and symbolic landscapes,” according to RaymondSchwab, that most interested European authors about “the gorgeousEast” (to use Milton’s term), rather than any serious political, social,or aesthetic ideas that could be incorporated into their own culture.

Or, as John MacKenzie put it about De Quincy and Coleridge, theylargely “conceived of the East as a repository of desirable hedonism” or“heightened sensibilities.” In fact, for most of the nineteenth centuryvery little that was truly Asian was evident in British art. Orientalimages and themes might appear in poems and paintings, but they weresuperimposed on fundamentally European styles. Some artists evenacknowledged this. As Southey put it about his poem, “The Curse ofKehama,” “the spirit of the poem was Indian, but there was nothingOriental in the style. I had learnt the language of poetry from our owngreat masters and the great poets of antiquity.” The first stanza ofTennyson’s “Recollections of theArabianNights,”makes this quite clear:

When the breeze of a joyful dawn blewFree

In the silken sail of infancy,The tide of time flow’d back with me,

The forward-flowing tide of time;And many a sheeny summer-morn,Adown the Tigris I was borne,By Bagdat’s shrines of fretted gold,High-walled gardens green and old;True Mussulman was I and sworn,

For it was in the golden primeOf good Haroun Alrashid.

One reason for the superficial attitude toward Asia may have beena lack of deep knowledge about its culture. Prior to the “Orient”which was most extensively researched by European scholars was theMiddleEast.While themost important religious and philosophical worksof India, China, and Japan had been translated and studied by the end ofthe nineteenth century, far less was known of the artistic theory andpractice of South and East Asia. Of the visual arts, Japanese crafts andapplied arts were most popular in mid-nineteenth-century Britain, forexample among Impressionist painters, Symbolist poets, WilliamMorrisand his Arts and Crafts Movement, and the public in general. However,as art critics have pointed out, this nineteenth-century “Japonisme”or “Japanism” was not based on a serious study or a comprehensive

Example of Asian and non-Western cultures

knowledge of the real scope and history of Far Eastern aesthetics.The Japanese art available in the West at the time was mainly wood-block prints and contemporary decorative arts, such as ceramics, lac-quers, and fabrics that the Japanese knew were of inferior quality. Thebest examples of painting and drawing and the works of the great clas-sical ages of Japan were not widely available. The fine arts of India andChina were even less well known.

The limited British and American knowledge of Asian art in the nine-teenth century was due to the fact that, while many people, includinggreat art critics like Ruskin and Morris, admired and collected the craftsand applied arts of Asia and hoped that Asians would continue to pro-duce them in traditional ways, few believed that Asians were capableof creating sophisticated works of “fine” art such as painting, sculpture,poetry, or drama. For example, George Birdwood, the curator of Indianholdings at the South Kensington museum and a great exponent ofIndian crafts and handiwork, claimed in that “sculpture and paint-ing are unknown, as fine arts, in India.” The American, James JacksonJarvis, who wrote “the most extensive account of Japanese art availablein the West in the s,” also believed that the “fine arts” “in theirsupreme significance . . . are not found in the aesthetic constitution ofthe Japanese.”

A change in this condescending attitude toward Asian art and in thesuperficial use of Asian images first occurred at the end of the nineteenthcentury in the visual arts. Inspired by an exposure to Japanese printsand crafts, and by the work of French artists with similar interests (suchas Degas, Monet, Van Gogh, and Toulouse-Lautrec), British painterssuch as J.M. Whistler, D.G. Rossetti, and Aubrey Beardsley, were ledto alter their own work in important ways. Often, like previous artists,they merely included Japanese objects or copied Japanese signatures inEuropean-style naturalistic paintings. But in some cases theywent furtherto adopt Japanese aesthetic forms, such as simple linear compositions, flatpatterning, and decorative and asymmetric arrangements. As a result,they were able to transform Western art in the direction of lightness,delicacy, and abstraction.

It was at the same time as “Japonisme” in visual art, and perhapsbecause of it, that an understanding of Asian fine art also began to grow.The visual artists themselves were not aware of the aesthetic theoriesunderlying the art they admired, or of the greatest works of the visualarts of Asia. However, this changed in the s and s when theAmerican art critic, Ernst Fenollosa, organized the first comprehensive

Modernism

collection of the best art of Japan and China at the Boston Museum ofFine Arts, and for the first timemade a truly intensive study of the historyand techniques behind these works. Inspired by Fenollosa, in the yearsaround British art critics working both in Britain and Asia began acampaign to promote the understanding and appreciation of the finearts of Asia.

The most important of the new Asian art critics included the English-man, E.B.Havell, who lived in India from the s andworked to revivetraditional Indian art through his writings, and through themuseum andart school he founded in Calcutta. AnandaK. Coomaraswamywas an-other significant figure because of his publications, and also because hestraddled both worlds; he was of British and Indian descent, broughtup and educated in Britain, and worked and lived both in Englandand India. The person called one of the two “chief English expertsin Far-Eastern Art,” however, was Laurence Binyon who was crucialin extending the British Museum’s collection after in his capacityas assistant keeper of prints and drawings. Finally, Roger Fry was apainter as well as an art critic who helped to popularize Asian culture inthe British art world.

The five Modernists were very much aware of the ideas of these artcritics and of their innovative perspective on Asian art. While the newcritics did hold some nineteenth-century attitudes toward Asian culture,such as the belief that Asians were more spiritual than Westerners, theyalso approached Asian art in a very new way. Their most importantinnovation was the abandonment of one key assumption that formerlyhad made it impossible to consider Asian culture seriously – the ideaof historical progress in art. Before the early twentieth century, theoriesof the progressive development of human culture up an evolutionaryladder from “primitivism” to “civilization” were crucial in explainingthe cultural differences between peoples. For example, this usually wasthe explanation for why traditional Asian fine art looked very differ-ent from that of Classical Greece or the Renaissance in Italy; becauseAsians had not advanced through enough of the stages of civilization,they had not developed the technical ability and scientific knowledge thatenabled more sophisticated cultures to mirror nature realistically. Theabsence of naturalism in artistic productions, therefore, according tomost nineteenth-century art critics, was an indication of the lack of ma-terial progress of a backward or primitive people, or of those in a civili-zation in decline, who did not have significant talent or great skill. Inshort, because of an underlying belief in a theory of historical progress,

Example of Asian and non-Western cultures

nineteenth-century Europeans assumed that, while Asians might be ableto produce pretty objects for practical use, they were entirely incapableof creating fine art.

An example of this type of nineteenth-century aesthetic thinking canbe found in the works of the writers for the Action Francaise that had soinfluenced Hulme. Because of their sense that progress in politics wasachieved by order and willpower, the Action Francaise assumed thatthere was a similar progress in art. According to Lasserre, the primitivenature of man is stupid, soft, inert, morose, feminine, and apathetic. This“imbecillite originelle” could only be overcome by the passage of time,and the development of the skill, order, and discipline that builds civil-izations. Supreme art, like anything else that is great, therefore, can existonly in the most advanced civilizations, such as in classical Greece andRome, and especially in the “most excellent” art of seventeenth-centuryFrance. It was, therefore, a competent, realistic mirroring of nature.

It was this nineteenth-century assumption of the technical incompe-tence of the non-naturalistic art of chronologically earlier civilizations –an evolutionary view of art – that was precisely the sort of position thenewAsian art critics abandoned. They explicitly denied the assumptionthat non-Westerners are incapable of producing fine art, and claimed,rather that there had been and still was great Asian fine art, as good asthat of the West. They could hold this opinion, they claimed, becausethey had studied the great works of art, not the inferior crafts exportedto the West and because they realized, as Roger Fry put it, that Asianart works “must be judged in themselves and by their own standards.”This deeper knowledge led them explicitly to reject theWestern assump-tion of the alliance of naturalism and progress. The new art critics, likeHavell, took pains to explain to their readers that, despite the lack of na-turalism, Asian art is hardly “primitive” or unskilled. Rather, it is basedon ancient and sophisticated aesthetic principles that require “perfectcontrol of technical methods” and demand extensive training. It can beachieved, therefore, only by artists of “consummate skill.” If understoodproperly, as Fry concluded, Europeans should be able to appreciate “therestraint, the economy of means, the exquisite perfection of quality, ofthe masterpieces of Eastern art.”

The reason that Asian artists do not use naturalistic forms, therefore, isnot because they are unable to do so. Rather, they havemade a consciouschoice. They, in fact, believe that naturalism in art is simplistic and evenchildish. Their art is much more complex and sophisticated than amere mirroring of the natural world. Asian artists attempt to represent

Modernism

far more than the surface of nature. As Binyon put it, it is “the inner andinforming spirit, not the outward semblance” of things that concernsthem. According to the German art critic, Wilhelm Worringer, whowas to have a major impact on Hulme, “the stylistic peculiarities of pastepochs are, therefore, not to be explained by lack of ability, but by adifferently directed volition.” Or as Hulme explained it, paraphrasingWorringer, “the difference between archaic and later art is [not] due to adifference of capacity” or “because the artist had not the technical abilitynecessary for . . . themore natural representation” of nature.Rather, “thecreators of art had in view an object entirely different from that of thecreators of a more naturalistic art.” In fact, “in pure technical ability inmastery of rawmaterial” non-representational, non-Western artists suchas the Egyptians, “have never been surpassed.” Moreover, as Hulme putit, “it is quite obvious that what they did was intentional.”

Because of its skill and higher goals, Asian art is, in fact, superior to theart of the modern West, according to the new art critics, and Europeanscould learn much from it. Binyon, for example, claimed that the nat-uralistic “scientific aim . . . has warped and weakened certain phases ofmodern painting in Europe.” While Coomaraswamy commented: “Icannot think it possible for great art to flourish again in England, or inIndia either, till we have all once more civilised ourselves and learnt tobelieve in something more real and more eternal than the external faceof nature.” This might not be that difficult to accomplish because, asall the Asian art critics pointed out, European art once had the sameaims and style of Asian art. This was the case in the Middle Ages. Itwas only during the Renaissance that the “scientific aim” of naturalismbecame predominant. Therefore, as Fry put it, if Occidental artists adopta non-naturalistic style similar to that of Asian art “Western artists willbe merely returning to their own long forgotten tradition.”

At the beginning of their careers the five literary Modernists did notquite share these views. Lawrence and Ford said nothing about the East.Hulme accepted the fundamentally nineteenth-century position of theAction Francaise. And the Asia that Yeats and Pound knew was the mys-terious East of mystics and exotic religions, not of fine art. It was onlyafter that an interest in Asia became very strong, especially for Yeats,Pound, and Hulme. This may have been due to their introduction to theideas of the new art critics. Some of the new critics were known person-ally by the Modernists; Binyon and Fry were old friends of Yeats’s andwere introduced to Pound soon after they met. Moreover, the ideas ofAsian art critics were easily accessible both in the journals and books the

Example of Asian and non-Western cultures

Modernists read, and through public lectures they attended. For exam-ple, Binyon lectured at the Quest Society, he and Havell wrote for TheQuest, and both, plus Coomaraswamy, appeared in the same issue of TheNew Age. Yeats, Pound, and Hulme all are known to have heard Binyonlecture about art, and to have had read his books, by . In Pound even knew enough about the new Asian art critics to review abook by Coomaraswamy. Finally, at roughly the same time Hulmeand Lawrence read and admired art critics who shared similar non-progressive theories about Asian art as the ones influencing the otherModernists. As we have seen, in Hulme openly admitted the pro-found impact on his ideas of the German art critic, Wilhelm Worringer.Lawrence was influenced by the classicist, Jane Ellen Harrison, and herwork on archaic art.

An introduction to actual works of the art in the Asian tradition alsohelped theModernists in understanding the critics’ newpositions.Hulmewas tremendously impressed in the spring of when he saw his firstexample of archaic and non-Western visual art in the Byzantine worksof Ravenna. Yeats also visited Ravenna in and so admired themosaics he saw there and during a later trip to Sicily in that heincluded them in his poem “Sailing to Byzantium.” Around Yeats and Pound also were interested enough in Asian art to go morethan once to theBritishmuseum to study Japanese andChinese paintingswith the help of Binyon. Pound even began purchasing examples ofvisual art and in this way helped his other friends pursue a new interestin it. One friend, Edgar Jepson, later recalled going with Pound to buya T’ang jade lion that was inexpensive because the seller thought it wasso ugly: “I remember well the contempt on that expert’s face as he heldit out and looked at it, and Ezra Pound’s astonished delight when he saidthat he had not known that there was anything like it in Europe.”

Living Asian artists began to travel to London and exhibit and ex-plain their art firsthand. The two most important Asian artists for theModernists at this time were poets. Rabindranath Tagore, who was con-sidered the premier poet of Bengal, and Yone Noguchi, who was called“Japan’s greatest living poet” in The Quest magazine of July , bothvisitedLondon in . Yeats andPoundwelcomed thementhusiastically.They introduced them to fellow artists, wrote articles about them, ar-ranged for them to give lectures and readings, and helped them publishtheir works in English. The journals in which the Modernists pub-lished soon included an increasing numbers of articles about Asian art,as well as reviews of books and exhibitions. In places the Modernists

Modernism

frequented as well, such as the Poetry Bookshop, Asian poetry was readin translations and lectures were given with increasing frequency.

The interest of theModernists in Asian art continued throughout and . Pound, for example, collaborated on an English translation ofthe fifteenth-century Hindi poet, Kabir, with a pupil of Tagore’s, andexpanded his studies to the visual and literary art of China and Japan.

Pound’s reputation for admiring Asian art was strong enough that in he was chosen by the widow of Ernst Fenollosa to edit and pub-lish his notes posthumously. This simply gave Pound more knowledgeand examples, especially of Japanese and Chinese art, which he sharedwith Yeats and others. Pound began to work on Fenollosa’s notes inDecember , while staying with Yeats in a cottage in Sussex. BothYeats and Pound especially were fascinated with Fenollosa’s discussionand examples of the Japanese Noh drama. By Pound’s interestin Asian art was such that his wife began to address him as “BelovedMao” and adorn her letters with Chinese ideograms. Ford even feltcompelled to include an amiable parody of Pound as the writer, ClunyMacpherson, in his novel,Mr. Fleight. Macpherson’s home is deco-rated with Asian art objects, he writes poems about “Kwang Su,” and heis the founder of a club, the chairman of which is the Chinese artist “PalHo Pi” who invented the art of enameling on copper in the fourteenthcentury .

Once again, Pound shared his interest in Asian literature with hisfriends. One friend, John Gould Fletcher, remarked that “Pound hadspoken to me enthusiastically about the beauty of these old poems of theTang dynasty.” Fletcher’s reaction to them could have reflected Pound’s:“As I listened to them, it seemed to me that the poem I was now writingwas the same poem so many of these old Chinese poets had alreadywritten. My modern loneliness, exile, despair fled across centuries oftime and thousands of miles and was joined in theirs.” This closeidentification with ancient Chinese poetry felt by a twentieth-centuryartist illustrates the extent to which this was a time when new approachesto Asian culture spread beyond professional art critics to the British artworld in general. Asia was no longer valued by laypeople only for itsexotic images, alternative religions, or useful crafts. Its fine arts werefinally taken seriously. In fact, Pound grew tired of Tagore, specificallybecause “his entourage has presented him as a religious teacher ratherthan as an artist.”

Like Pound’s friend, J.G. Fletcher, all five Modernists had a greatadmiration for the quality and skill of non-Western art. For example,

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when Yeats was first introduced to Tagore’s prose translations in he claimed that they “have stirred my blood as nothing has for years.”Both he and Pound thought that Tagore’s art was as great as the bestof Western art. Pound claimed that his “poems are cast . . . in metresperhaps the most finished and most subtle of any known to us,” andwent even further to suggest that Tagore was far superior to him; hedeclared in October , that Tagore “is very fine & makes me feel likea painted pict with a stone war club.” A few months later Pound evencommented that “when I leave Mr. Tagore, I feel exactly as if I werea barbarian clothed in skins, and carrying a stone war club, the kind,that is, where the stone is bound into a crotched stick with thongs.” Theother Modernists were a bit less hyperbolic, but equally enthusiastic.D.H. Lawrence suggested that “in the great periods, when man wasgreat, he has faced the East.” Even Ford Madox Ford, who showed theleast interest of all the Modernists in the non-Western world, praisedJapanese poetry and suggested that “Japan is ever on the threshold”because its literature, unlike that of the contemporary West, shows theability to “think clearly.”

Not only did the early Modernists admire non-Western art, theyviewed it not as mysterious or unusual, but as very much like their ownwork. Hulme expressed this feeling best when he commented on the arthe saw inRavenna. He claimed that he “was impressed by thesemosaics,not as by something exotic, but as expressing quite directly an attitudeI agreed with.” Hulme extrapolated from himself to others at the time.He claimed that the “extraordinary interest” in Asian art works around and was due to the fact that they were “liked directly, almostas they were liked by the people who made them, as being direct expres-sions of an attitude you want to find expressed.” Yeats agreed when heclaimed that Japanese dramatists he admired “were more like ourselvesthan were the Greeks and Romans, and . . . even . . . Shakespeare.”

Non-Western works not only were like those of the Modernists, theyalso reminded them of the art they admired in their own Europeanpast. Like the art critics, the Modernists made direct analogies betweenAsia and the European Middle Ages. Pound, for example, noted the“resemblance to medieval conditions” in the way Tagore “teaches hissongs and music to his jongleurs, who sing them throughout Bengal.”As a result, Pound thought that Tagore came from “a culture not whollyunlike that of twelfth-century Provence.”

The Modernists admired and identified with Asian art for many rea-sons. First, they liked the new art critics’ interpretation of its spiritual

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nature. According to Binyon, Eastern artists attempt to imitate, not thesurface of material life, but “amore profound reality,” which is “the innerand informing spirit, not the outward semblance” of life. In other words,“a picture is conceived as a sort of apparition from a more real worldof essential life,”that of the infinite, the universal, the divine. The rea-son given for why Asian artists do this also appealed to the Modernists;they consider the stability and permanence of the supernatural worldmuch preferable to the flux of the natural world. Non-Western peoples,according toHulme’s paraphrase ofWorringer, have a “feeling of dishar-mony with the world” because they fear or dislike the “lack of order andseeming arbitrariness” of nature and humanity. Modern Western man,on the other hand, has a “feeling of confidence in the face of the world”and, as Worringer put it, “is at home in the world and [feels] himselfits centre,” thus, he has less interest in the supernatural than do archaicand Asian people.

Their relationship to the natural world, in turn, was used to explain thedifference in the type of art produced by each people. Because of their op-timism, modernWesterners like a “vital”, “empathetic”, or “Romantic”art that presents a realistic image of themselves and their world. Non-Western people, however, prefer a non-naturalistic, “geometric,” or“Abstract” art which, according to Hulme, “being durable and per-manent shall be a refuge from the flux and impermanence of outsidenature.” In this art, therefore, “the changing . . . [is] translated into some-thing fixed and necessary,” eternal and timeless, and is “distinct from themessiness, the confusion, and the accidental details of existing things.”Thus, as Lawrence could have learned from Jane Ellen Harrison’s book,Ancient Art and Ritual, archaic and Asian art did not originate in an “im-itative” desire to mirror external nature and the absence of ability todo so. Rather, the lack of naturalism reflected a distrust of the naturalworld and a deeper concern for the gods and spirits of a more perma-nent world who were responsible for the order of nature. It was onlywhen people had more faith in their own ability to control nature, as inclassical Greece, that man became “the measure of all things” and artistsattempted a naturalistic depiction of the changing deeds of humans andhumanized gods.

As Harrison’s analysis suggests, the new art critics claimed that it wasnot just a distrust of nature, but also of humans, that lay behind archaic,non-representational art. Lawrence was impressed by these arguments.He admired an “art coming out of religious yearning” like that of Egypt

Example of Asian and non-Western cultures

or Assyria because it made clear that what matters “is not the emotions,nor the personal feelings and attachments,” but “the tremendous non-human quality of life,” “the tremendous unknown forces of life.”

The lack of humanism in Asian art also appealed to Yeats andPound. Yeats was introduced to this concept by Binyon and the theater-producer, Edward Gordon Craig. Binyon explained in that “theWestern spirit is full of an overpowering sense of the sublime capacitiesof mankind,” and that “the Italian Renaissance, and all the art derivingfrom its inspiration, represents the glorification of man.” Asian art,however, is different because “the ideas of Buddhism saturate” it, and“to the Buddhist the world is transitory, vile and miserable; the flesh is aburden, desire an evil, personality a prison.” Therefore, “not . . . humanform . . . [or] personality; but . . . the universal life . . . the infinite” isrepresented in their art. According to Craig, Asian drama was farmore powerful than that of the modern West for a similar reason. Byusing masks or inanimate puppets, the “weak and disturbing,” “fleetingemotions” on actors’ faces were absent and thus the audience did not seeindividual, human “Personality”. Instead, they witnessed the “likenessof the spirit” or “likeness of God” represented on the stage. Thus, theywere able to transcend themselves and their transient emotions, evenlife itself, and bend their “thoughts forward towards the unknown.”

In , having read Binyon and having discussed the theater withCraig, Yeats developed a very similar theory. He admired ancient andAsian art because it depicted, not individual human personalities, but“all that makes one man like another.” Yeats now concluded that greattragic art must “deny character” and that in “the great periods of drama,character grows less and sometimes disappears.” In addition to character,this type of art also suppresses human vitality and activity. For example,Yeats commented that in “the old tragic paintings, whether it is in Titianor in some painter of mediaeval China” there is in the faces “sadnessand gravity, a certain emptiness even,” instead of the “ ‘vitality’ . . . theenergy . . .which . . . sings, laughs, chatters or looks its busy thoughts” inmodern art. As a result, “the masks of tragedy contain neither characternor personal energy. They are allied to decoration and to the abstractfigures of Egyptian temples.”

Pound may have been introduced to a similar theory about the anti-humanism of Asian art by Coomaraswamy. In his book Art and Swadeshi,which Pound reviewed in September , Coomaraswamy describedhow in Indian religious sculpture “variation of feature” and “individual

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characteristics” of facial expression are not found. This is done in or-der that “a perfect type” and a “likeness to God” can be achieved. A“lack of humanism in the Indian ideal of facial expression,” according toCoomaraswamy, thus creates a “strange un-humanness of expression,”“remoteness and repose,” a “wonderful stillness,” and “beautiful imper-sonality” that is not “merely the reflection of ourselves” but “the visionof something beyond us.” Before reading Coomaraswamy, Pound hadregretted that with “the introduction of humanism at the time of theRenaissance, ‘Man is concerned with man and forgets the whole andthe flowing.’ ” Indian art now showed him “the balance and corrective”to “this sort of humanism.” It was the spiritual and “ritualistic” qualitiesof the art of Asia, with its “mystical stillness,” Pound concluded, which“takes a man more quickly from the sense of himself and brings him intothe emotion of ‘the flowing,’ of harmonic nature, of orderly calm andsequence.”

Far from being “primitive”, therefore, archaic and Asian art exhibitedthe characteristics of an art for which the Modernists had been search-ing. It was spiritual and ideal without being evasive or vague. Moreover,it came from a social and political tradition they also preferred – onethat was radically conservative and aristocratic. According to Hulme the“geometric” or “abstract” tradition of archaic and Asian art reflected theorder and control of superior “organic” societies. Pound agreed whenhe was introduced in to a description of politics and society inConfucian China from his friend Allen Upward. According to Up-ward, Confucius did not accept modern Western humanism, or whatUpward called “anthropolatry,” and he “nowhere introduces the ideasof democracy or political freedom.” Rather, he taught “the Religion ofthe Overman” or of “the superior man” and advocated a political sys-tem in which the people were “ruled and civilised by paternal emperorsand sages,” for whom they showed “filial reverence.” Thus, “the idealwhich K’ung placed before his countrymen,” according to Upward, wasof “an empire governed by the wise, under the shield of a sacred dy-nasty, in the interest, and for the happiness, of the humble.” When thisideal was put into practice, Upward concluded, “the Chinese Empire[became] . . . the greatest and most enduring of human societies, underwhose shelter nearly a third of the human race have lived in compara-tive civilisation and happiness . . . known to those who inhabit it as theHeavenly Kingdom.” Pound learned an additional detail aboutChinese politics, possibly from a study of Chinese literary history byHerbert Giles; artists were included in the ruling elite. According to

Example of Asian and non-Western cultures

Giles, poets and thinkers often even held government posts in China.The artist Chu Yuan, who soon became a favorite of Pound’s, for exam-ple, had been “both a statesman and a poet.” This, of course, wasexactly what Pound had been searching for – an aristocracy of thearts.

The Modernists also learned that the elitism of Asian politics, andthe greatness of its art, was related to the aristocratic character of itssociety. For example, they became aware that Asian art incorporateda sense of tradition very similar to that of aristocracies who inherit anancient way of life and thought, as well as a title and position. Binyon hadshown Yeats that Far Eastern art was “far more traditional than with us”because “an individual style, once perfected and matured by an artistor group of artists, has been considered as an instrument of expressionavailable for any who will learn its use, not as a phase which has passedinto history and become a thing of the past.” In , after readingBinyon, Yeats could conclude that “supreme art is a traditional statementof certain heroic and religious truths, passed on from age to age,modifiedby individual genius, but never abandoned.” Like aristocrats,moreover,Eastern artists often even inherit their positions and form a hereditarycaste. Yeats was particularly pleased in September of when “theother day the curator of a Museum pointed out to me a little dark-skinned man who was arranging their Chinese prints and said, ‘Thatis the hereditary connoisseur of the Mikado, he is the fourteenth of hisfamily to hold the post’.” When Yeats read Tagore’s work, he notedsimilar aristocratic qualities; Tagore’s way of thinking was “hereditary,a mystery that was growing through the centuries like the courtesy of aTristan or a Pelanore.”

But not only was Asian art traditional and hereditary like aristocracies,at its best it was intended only for them. Both Yeats and Pound were par-ticularly impressed when they were introduced to Japanese Noh playsthrough Ernst Fenollosa’s notes, because, as he described it, the Nohwas a form of art both religious and aristocratic. It was performed bypriests “at Shinto shrines in honour of spirits and gods or by young noblesat the court,” and at its corewas, not only the “god-dance, or . . . local leg-ends of spiritual apparition,” but also aristocratic “gestesofwar and feats ofhistory.” Moreover,Yeats andPoundwere fascinated by the fact that theNoh could be performed and viewed only by nobles and priests. This wasbecause, as a non-naturalistic form of drama, only an elite could appre-ciate it. According to Yeats, “realism is created for the common folk andwas always their particular delight.” Pound agreed, adding that “the

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common theatre, the place of mimicry and direct imitation of life, hasalways been looked down upon in Japan.” Because of this, the “youngnobles and princes, [were] forbidden to attend the popular theatre . . . ofmimicry and naturalism.” Conversely, the masses were excluded fromseeing the Noh because they could not possibly understand such anon-naturalistic form of art. This was because, in Pound’s opinion, only“the few . . . the nobles” are “trained to catch the allusion” of “the sym-bolic and ritual stage.” Yeats agreed. He claimed that in great art “apoetical passage cannot be understood without a rich memory, and . . . atradition . . . for the ear must notice slight variations upon old cadencesand customary words,” and he concluded that only the aristocracy andpriests have “thememory of beauty and emotional subtlety” that enablesthem to do this.

Thus, according to Yeats, “ ‘Accomplishment’ the word Noh means,and it is their accomplishment and that of a few cultured people whounderstand the literary and mythological allusions and the ancient lyricsquoted in speech or chorus, their discipline, a part of their breeding.” Asthis comment indicates, Yeats believed that the Noh was not merely aform of entertainment; it also served society as a whole. He learned fromFenollosa that theNohwas “a greatmoral force for thewhole order of theSamurai.” This was because, according to Yeats, it taught the elite abouthistory and morality, and it helped aristocratic warriors know their “rolein life” and accept death heroically. Moreover, it did this without beingrhetorical or didactic, and by ensuring that even the warriors developedrefined sensibilities. According to Yeats, Japanese nobles were trained tohave “natures . . . as much of Walter Pater as of Achilles.”

Finally, Asian art had an impact even beyond the aristocracy. It helpedtransmit noble values to all people. Yeats learned from Binyon that Asianart, unlike the art of themodernWest, is not “detached from the commonlife . . . dissociated from things of use . . . an affair of museums and exhi-bitions.” Rather it is linked to “the lives of humble men and women.”

When he met Tagore, Yeats thought he found an indication of how thiswas done. Yeats was impressed by the reverence shown for Tagore byother Indians, which reminded him of the esteem for great men duringthe Middle Ages. This respect gave artists the ability to influence com-mon people with a non-rhetorical form of propaganda. As one Indiantold Yeats, “ ‘in the villages they recite long mythological poems adaptedfrom the Sanskrit in the Middle Ages, and they often insert passagestelling the people that they must do their duties’.” The result was a fun-damental unity between all levels of society, such as existed during the

Example of Asian and non-Western cultures

age of Chaucer when, according to Yeats, “there was but one mind inEngland.” Yeats concluded about Tagore’s poetry:

These lyrics . . . display in their thought a world I have dreamed of all my lifelong. The work of a supreme culture, they yet appear as much the growth of thecommon soil as the grass and the rushes. A tradition, where poetry and religionare the same thing, has passed through the centuries, gathering from learnedand unlearned metaphor and emotion, and carried back again to the multitudethe thought of the scholar and of the noble. If the civilisation of Bengal remainsunbroken, if that common mind which – as one divines – runs through all, isnot, as with us, broken into a dozen minds that know nothing of each other,something even of what is most subtle in these verses will have come, in a fewgenerations, to the beggar on the roads.

For Yeats, therefore, this poetry was not “celebrating the ‘fall into di-vision’ ” like so much modern Western art, but instead promised “the‘resurrection into unity’.”

Asian art, thus, trained nobles, preserved great values of the past,transmitted them to the lower classes, and unified society as a whole.There was one final reason why the Modernists admired Asian art. Itgave them practical suggestions about how to improve their own workand make it something that was beautiful and suggestive, without beingescapist or vague. In doing this the five Modernists were the first literaryfigures to follow the visual artists of the Aesthetic movement and find inAsian art the methods to innovate in their own artistic practice. As EarlMiner describes what he considers a very significant innovation, ratherthan “using Japanese materials or posing in pseudo-Japanese manners,”as was done in the nineteenth century, theModernists employed “forms,images, and techniques modelled upon Japanese” and other Asian art.

The five Modernists first learned of the practical techniques of Asianart through the visual arts. As we have seen, they understood that aspiritual and aristocratic art must be non-naturalistic, carefully ordered,and lacking in humanism. Hulme was shown how to create such worksby Worringer and the Byzantine art he saw in Ravenna; the key was“deorganicising the organic” in order to create an art that is “rigid andforeign to life.” This was done by avoiding the impression of three di-mensional space, of soft, curved organic lines, and precise or complexdetail. Instead the focus was on flatness, distortion, and simple, regu-lar, uniform, straight, and stiff geometric lines, in order to achieve thecompactness and solidity of inorganic cubes and crystalline forms.

Yeats used similar techniques first in his theater productions, inwhich he hoped to create “a form of drama, distinguished, indirect and

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symbolic.” He learned especially from Binyon how Asian visual artists,“the more to concentrate on this seizure of the inherent life in whatthey draw,” avoid light and shadow or perspective, and instead use “flat”and “linear designs.” In addition, they also “will obliterate or ignore atwill half or all of the surrounding objects with which theWestern painterfeels bound to fill his background. By isolation and themere use of emptyspace they will give . . . a sense of grandeur and a hint of the infinity oflife.” Yeats was impressed by this, and in and planned tostage plays in which “if the real world is not altogether rejected, it isbut touched here and there, and into the places we have left empty wesummon rhythm, balance, pattern, images that remind us of ” another,more important world. Or, to put it another way, he “would like to keepto suggestion, to symbolism, to pattern like the Japanese.” He realizedthat this meant also replacing human form with stylized rhythm and de-sign, and “neglecting relief and depth.” He summed up his new feelingsabout the theater when he claimed that “there is a need for surroundingswhere beauty, decoration, pattern – that is to say, the universal in form –takes the place of accidental circumstance.”

Craig helped Yeats translate this idea into practice by explaining howto create sets and stage action that do not approximate reality. Theproduct of their collaboration was first seen in the Abbey Theatre inJanuary . Elaborate and realistic backdrops, which resembled easelpaintings with painted perspective and “painted light and shade,” wereabandoned. Rather, they adopted Japanese techniques that “simplifiedscenery” by copying only interiors realistically, and that suggested ex-teriors by symbolic patterns or perhaps one image or a natural object,such as a pine tree. The stage also was to be restricted to real light andreal perspective so that the audience could see “the beauty of the movingfigure.” Moreover, “at the climax [of the play] instead of the disorderedpassion of nature” there was a stylized dance in which “the interest isnot in the human form but in the rhythm to which it moves.” In thisdance as well, ghosts and gods appear and can be seen by, or even com-municate with, the living. Thus, the timeless, permanent world becomesimmanent in the flux of the natural world.

Finally, Yeats also experimented with another idea suggested byCraig – the use of masks. While he did not adopt physical masks inhis theater until after , the idea of a figurative mask became moreimportant to Yeats before that date. Yeats understood that by obliter-ating individual personality and character, masks made art symbolic,suggestive, and non-naturalistic in a way similar to the absence of “re-lief and depth” in Asian painting. Moreover, by removing individual

Example of Asian and non-Western cultures

differences, masks point to what is universal among all people. In thetheater thismakes the “persons upon the stage . . . greaten till they are hu-manity itself.”This universality, in turn, enables people to transcend theirindividual, petty desires and needs, and, by “drowning and breaking ofthe dykes that separate man fromman,” helps unify society as a whole.

Thus, Asian art supplied Yeats with practical suggestions for how tocreate a drama he had desired for years. But not only was Modernisttheater influenced by Asian art, so too was poetry. This was especially thecase for Hulme and Pound. As we have seen, before both Hulme’sand Pound’s aesthetic theories had begun to change with the develop-ment of their theories of Imagism and Imagisme, respectively.While bothwere influenced by Christian mysticism, equally important was Asianpoetry. The poet, F.S. Flint, later recalled that in the Secession Club(of which “Hulme was ringleader” and where he “insisted on absolutelyaccurate presentation and no verbiage” and talked of “the Image”), themembers “proposed at various times to replace [modern English poetry]by pure vers libre; by the Japanese tanka and haikai.” It may have beenbecause of his early knowledge of Japanese poetry, therefore, that Hulmewas one of the first Modernists to write in a more direct and concretestyle. This also might explain his appreciation for Worringer’s ideas andhis ability to move beyond the Action Francaise to a real appreciation ofarchaic and non-Western art.

It was Pound’s poetic practice, however, that was most influenced bythe art of Asia. In , while he was developing his theory of “Imag-isme”, Pound realized that certain forms of Asian poetry did exactly whathe had always wanted. For example, one description of Indian poetryin the book by Coomaraswamy that Pound reviewed, closely resem-bled Pound’s Imagisme. According to Coomaraswamy, the “passionatesimplicity of the words” of certain Indian poems, which are “rather im-pressions or suggestions than of a descriptive character,” have a “veinof mysticism” running through them. And he added they “make frankand simple use of physical subjects to adumbrate the deepest spiritualexperiences.” It was these qualities of the poetry of Tagore that Poundalso admired. According to Pound, Tagore’s poems were spiritual, sim-ple, and precise; they had a “ritualistic strength,” “a specific word foreverything” and were free from “lusciousness” and “over-profusion.”This made Tagore quite modern. Pound claimed that many of Tagore’sverses were “comparable to the latest development of vers libre” and thatoften he “gives us pure Imagisme.”

Probably more important to Pound than Indian art was the influ-ence of Japanese poetry, especially the example and poetic theory of

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Yone Noguchi. In an article titled “What is a Hokku Poem?,” pub-lished in the journal Rhythm in January , Noguchi described thetechniques behind traditional Japanese poetry. Japanese poets reject theexcessive detail of naturalism and instead write short poems using com-mon, everyday natural images as symbols. According to Noguchi, “thesixteen syllables are just enough at least to our Japanese mind. And if youcannot express all by one ‘hokku,’ then you can say it in many ‘hokkus’;yes, that is all.” He continued to describe how recently he had written apoem using traditional haiku form but based on his contemporary expe-riences in the middle of the crowds in London’s Charing Cross. Threemonths later Pound published his first experiment with Japanese form,his poem “In the Station of the Metro,” and he explained its genesis abit later with a direct echo of Noguchi. Pound claimed that he had beenunsuccessfully trying to write a poem based on an experience he had inthe Paris Underground, when suddenly

it struck me that in Japan, where a work of art is not estimated by its acreageand where sixteen syllables are counted enough for a poem if you arrange andpunctuate them properly, one might make a very little poem which would betranslated about as follows:

‘The apparition of these faces in thecrowd:

‘Petals on a wet, black bough.’

And there, or in some other very old, very quiet civilisation, some one else mightunderstand the significance.

In Pound moved from an interest in Japanese to Chinese poetrybecause it also was simple and precise, and used natural objects as sym-bols for deeper realities. Moreover, as literary historian Herbert Gilesshowed Pound, Chinese poems were short:

a long poem does not appeal to the Chinese mind. There is no such thing asan epic in the language . . .Brevity is indeed the soul of a Chinese poem, whichis valued not so much for what it says as for what it suggests. As in painting, soin poetry suggestion is the end and aim of the artist, who in each case may bestyled an impressionist. The ideal length is twelve lines . . . the Chinese holdingthat if a poet cannot say within such compass what he has to say it may verywell be left unsaid.

In a letter of October , , Pound paraphrased Giles: “There is nolong poem in chinese. They hold if a man can’t say what he wantsto in lines, he’d better leave it unsaid. THE period was th cent.

Example of Asian and non-Western cultures

B.C. – Chu Yuan, Imagiste.” Thus, once again Pound expressed afeeling of close identity with a poet of a vastly different culture separatedfrom him by an immense amount of time. Twenty-four centuries hadchanged nothing.

But not only did Asian art show Pound how to write simple and con-crete poetry, it also helped himmove away from progressive structures inhis work. It was at this time that Pound decided he preferred poems thatsuperposed two images, often of disparate times and places, rather thanemployed moving time or discursive moralizing, as long as those imageswere drawn from the same intellectual tradition or conveyed the sameuniversal meaning or emotion. According to Pound, this sort of thingcould be seen inTagore’s poetry: “If you refine the art of the troubadours,combine it with that of the Pleiade, and add to that the sound-unit princi-ple of the most advanced artists in vers libre, you would get something likethe system of Bengali verse.” By Pound began to claim not onlythat his “ ‘Image’ ” was a concrete object symbolizing something higheror deeper, but also that it was “that which presents an intellectual andemotional complex in an instant of time.” The result was that the Imagegives the same “sense of freedom from time and space limits . . .whichwe experience in the presence of the greatest works of art.” Asian art,therefore, encouraged Pound to make instantaneousness and juxtaposi-tion, rather than progress and chronology, an integral part of his poetry.

In even Ford began to appreciate Asian art for similar reasonsto those of the other Modernists. In particular, he admired Pound’s newAsian inspiredwork, and identified itwith his ownprevious interests. Fordhad always admired “the French school of the seventies and eighties –Maupassant, Flaubert, the Goncourts and the rest” and he believed that,in their rejection of “journalese” and rhetoric in favor of “suggestion”,they were forerunners of and models for his own theory of Impression-ism. In late , for the first time he associated this sort of literature with“the Japanese poets who will get an epic into four lines” and warned hisreaders that “Japan is ever on the threshold” because their type of workshows the ability to “think clearly” which is missing in contemporaryEuropean literature. In May Ford described Pound’s poem“Liu Ch’e” as “a very perfect poem of a school that I have always de-sired to see” and claimed that works such as it and “in vers libre as it ispractised to-day . . . a new form has been found, if not for the novel, thenfor the narrative of emotion.” This is because this sort of poetic form“allows a freer play for self-expression . . . [and] at the same time it callsfor an even greater precision in that self-expression.”

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Many of theModernists, therefore, were inspired by Asian art to inno-vate in their ownartistic practice and theory.This, in turn, increased theirsense of identity with non-Western culture. In early twentieth-centuryBritain they had the same attitudes towards the world and art, andsimilar aesthetic practices, as people thousands of miles away and oftenseparated by hundreds or thousands of years. Here was proof that analternative tradition to the modern West existed. This might also be evi-dence that history was circular. Certainly it meant that progress was nota fact of reality.

Non-Western art, therefore, also encouraged those Modernists whohad begun to develop theories of historical circularity to believe evenmore deeply in its reality. This was true of Hulme who was led to breakfurther with the progressive ideas of the thinkers of the Action Francaise.Hulme’s admiration for archaic and non-Western art supported his beliefthat chronologically earlier civilizations were not necessarily inferior or“barbaric”, and that artistic ability, like intelligence, was fixed and con-stant over time. Progress, therefore,was not a feature of history.Moreover,Worringer’s interpretation of the history of art helped Hulme refine hisown cyclic view. Worringer proposed the existence throughout historyof two opposed traditions of art, “philosophy and general world out-look.” He rejected one very similar to the “Romantic” tradition, whichhe called “Empathetic.” But rather than “Classicism”, which includedonly the naturalistic art of ancient Greece and post-Renaissance Europe,Worringer preferred a tradition of “Abstraction.” Hulme agreed withWorringer’s definitions of the two traditions of art, although he inventedhis own names for them.Hulme now supported “geometric” (rather than“Classic”) art in opposition to “vital” or Romantic art. Moreover, theages Hulme assigned to the “geometric” tradition also differed from the“Classic” ages of theAction Francaise. Rather than claim that the best artwas found in classical Greece, Rome, and seventeenth-century France,Hulme followed Worringer and preferred the art of ancient Egypt, ar-chaic Greece, Byzantium, the earlyMiddle Ages, Asia, and other “prim-itive” peoples. Moreover, the turning point in the modern period awayfrom the “geometric” tradition and toward “Romanticism” was nowplaced at the Renaissance, rather than the French Revolution.

The other Modernists who discussed the existence of an alternativetradition of art and life also expanded upon it after their introductionto non-Western culture. Pound now explicitly denied that good art wasdetermined by an approximation to “classical models” or by the attemptto “mirrour [sic] natural forms.” Rather, the best art was from an

Example of Asian and non-Western cultures

abstract tradition that included certain primitive ages, “possibly . . . theSouth Seas,” Egypt, India, China, Japan, ancient Greece, the EuropeanMiddle Ages, and the early Renaissance. Like Pound, Yeats admiredand found similarities in the work of the peoples of ancient Babylon,ancient Ireland, and the Elizabethan period. He also liked Chinesepaintings, the Japanese Noh, and the writings of pre-Renaissance saints,Tagore, Chaucer, and William Blake. If Lawrence was impressed bythe art in the book by Jane Ellen Harrison he admired so much, thenhe would have preferred that of Greece, Egypt, Babylon, the indige-nous peoples of Australia, Japan, Fiji, East Africa, Mexico, and NorthAmerica, as well as contemporary agricultural workers in England,Eastern Russia, and central Europe. Finally, in Ford also ex-plicitly identified his own work and concerns with a past tradition thatincluded Japanese art, the work of Horace, Dante, the Provencal po-ets, the Meistersingers, and the Elizabethans in England, but excludedthe work of all English artists after the sixteenth century “since whomnothing of any particular value has been produced in these islands.”

It was the Asian art critic, A.K. Coomaraswamy, however, who mostsuccinctly described the two traditions of life which the early Modernistswere growing to accept when he commented: “I should like to classifyGothic, Egyptian, Indian, and Chinese art as Christian, and Greek,Roman, Renaissance, and modern European art as pagan, or to usemore general terms, as religious and materialistic respectively.” Thus,not only did Asian art encourage the Modernists’ belief in the existenceof an analogous tradition of art and life different from their own, it alsohelped them begin to identify when the preferable tradition disappearedfrom Europe. As it is clear from the changes Hulme made to the theoriesof the Action Francaise under the influence of Worringer, this occurredduring the Renaissance. Yeats also pointed to the Renaissance; it wasthen that realism and the use of realistic easel painting in backdropswere introduced in the theater. In this again, Hulme and Yeats wereconcurring with the Asian art critics, all of whom believed that modernWestern art and life began with a “fall” that had occurred with theintroduction of realism and humanism during the Renaissance.

It is important to note one final theory of the Asian art critics. Theyall were confident that the introduction of Asian art in the West wouldhave a beneficial impact and might herald the beginning of a funda-mental change. Roger Fry was confident that by learning from Asia “ourartists will develop a new conscience.” This might be true for the generalpublic as well. According to Havell, Asian art is “the opposite pole to

Modernism

the barbaric materialism of the present day” in the West. Its spiritualnature, as a result, might help the Western public transcend the petty,selfish concerns of everyday life and think of more important universalvalues and ideals. Or as Binyon argued, the example of non-Westernart may help “man . . . get rid of his devouring egoism, his belittling self-aggrandisement, [and] realise his true place in the universe.”

The art critics, therefore, were confident that an understanding ofthe values of non-Western art would herald the return of a superiortradition of life that had once existed in the European past and wasonly abandoned after the Renaissance. In other words, a better pastmight cyclically return in the future. Some of the Modernists agreed.Yeats believed that an art analogous to the Japanese Noh had existedin Europe in the past, but unfortunately had been abandoned in theWest in favor of constantly changing styles which create the “illusion ofchange and progress” and more specifically of “unbroken progress.” InJapan on the other hand they have “understood that no styles that everdelighted noble imaginations have lost their importance.” Yeats hoped,therefore, that the “Asiatic habit,” in which art “renewed itself at its ownyouth, putting off perpetually what has been called progress in a seriesof violent revolutions,” can be revived in the West. Yeats claimed that“Europe is very old and has seen many arts run through the circle . . . itis now time to copy the East and live deliberately.” That this actuallymight be happening was indicated by the fact that his new scenic design,according to Yeats, had “restored the theatre to its normal state” of thepre-Renaissance period.

Pound also thought the introduction of Indian art might be the be-ginning of another renaissance and possibly a new historical cycle. Heclaimed in December that “we feel here in London . . .much as thepeople of Petrarch’s time must have felt about the mysterious lost lan-guage, the Greek that was just being restored to Europe after centuries ofdeprivation.” And he concluded, “I speak with all seriousness when I saythat this beginning of our more intimate intercourse with Bengal is theopening of another period.” Finally, by early ,Hulme could now con-fidently assert that the course of history was characterized by the cyclicalternation of two traditions. One included the humanism and aestheticrealism of classical Greece andRome and the post-Renaissance period inEurope.The otherwas pessimistic, non-humanistic, and non-naturalisticand included “primitive,” archaic, medieval, and non-Western societies.This second tradition was about to return.

Example of Asian and non-Western cultures

Thus, for the five Modernists, archaic and Asian art contained every-thing they found lacking in modern art, but admired in the Europeanpast. It was beautiful, suggestive, and spiritual rather than rhetorical andmaterialistic. At the same time, however, it avoided escapism, softness, or“foam” by being precise and concrete. Moreover, Asian art was an aris-tocratic art that was not cut off from the everyday world; it was createdfor, and appreciated by an elite, it was ordered and controlled, and in-stilled a sense of a permanence and continuity, yet it also was understoodby the common people, and was able to provide political and spiritualdirection and values to society as a whole.

Were the Modernists still living in a fantasy world of their own in-vention? It is a surprising coincidence that non-Western art could doso much that the Modernists had wanted, well before they were fullyaware of its existence. The likelihood that they invented an “Asia” to suittheir needs, as they had a Middle Ages, thus, is quite strong. But whatabout the Modernists’ new optimism for the cyclic return of a bettertradition of art and thought in the future? Was there any objective truthto this claim, or was it just as much a product of their imaginations as thenature of non-Western cultures that suggested its possibility? Certainlythe Modernists did not invent the fact that many people were beginningto appreciate a different type of art in the Edwardian age. And evenmorethan the past existence of Asian art, this gave the Modernists hope thatan older way of life might be recreated in the present. Perhaps they wereright – a new frame of mind was, in fact, emerging that might herald thebeginning of a new age. Developments in the contemporary visual artsof Europe immediately before appeared to support this view.

In “the grip of the . . . vortex”: the proof

of Post-Impressionist art

All experience rushes into this vortex. All the energized past, all thepast that is living and worthy to live. . . .

The of the future is in the grip of the human vortex. Allthe past that is vital, all the past that is capable of living into thefuture, is pregnant in the vortex, .

Ezra Pound, “Vortex. Pound.,” .

In March , after much preparation, the Rebel Art Centre was fi-nally opened and ready, “by public discussion, lectures, and gatherings ofpeople,” to fulfill an importantmission – to “familiarize those who are in-terested with the ideas of the great modern revolution.” Revolutionariessoon did gather at this Centre. According to one account, they included“women with bare feet in black silver-latcheted shoes; women with haircut like sixteenth-century pages; women with hats once worn apparentlyby their less sophisticated Quaker great-grandparents; men with lilac-coloured trousers . . . very baggy over the ankle; men in green collars,with ebony walking sticks.” They listened to lectures held in rooms inwhich “the doors and chairs are painted a bright vermilion red . . . thewalls are lemon-coloured, and on the walls hang Cubist puzzles.”

The revolution that the Rebel Art Centre was promoting, of course,was one of aesthetics. In particular it supported the new visual art move-ment known as Post-Impressionism. The Modernists were directly inthe center of the revolution; both Pound and Ford gave lectures at theCentre, the funding for which was provided by Hulme’s fiancee, KateLechmere. In , but especially in , all five Modernists becamedeeply involved with, or grew very interested in, the latest developmentsin modern European visual art. As Ford later would write, “in the just-before-the-war days, the Fine, the Plastic and the Literary Arts touchedhands with an unusual intimacy and what is called oneness of purpose.”

Contemporary visual art served, like Asian art, to develop the fiveModernists’ aesthetic thinking and practice, and their cyclic views of

The proof of Post-Impressionist art

history. In fact, the new direction in which contemporaryWestern visualart was heading could be seen as certain proof that history moved incycles. It was part of the same tradition as archaic, Asian, and medievalEuropean art, and its appearance in the years around suggested thata way of thought and life that had disappeared with the Renaissance inthe West was in the process of cyclic return.

Before none of the Modernists was especially interested in Post-Impressionism. This was partially due to the fact that the works of thesenew artists were not widely available for viewing at that time. Post-Impressionism became well-known in England only beginning in late. FromNovember , to January , the exhibition, “Manetand the Post-Impressionists,” at the Grafton Galleries in London, intro-ducedmanyEnglishpeople for thefirst time to theworkof suchEuropeanartists as VanGogh, Gauguin, Cezanne, and younger artists working in asimilar style, such asMatisse and Picasso. A further exhibition inOctober, the “Second Post-Impressionist Exhibition of English, French andRussian Artists,” included the work, not just of mostly dead Continentalartists, but also of living artists working in the Post-Impressionist style inEngland. After this date, these artists began to exhibit their work withincreasing frequency.

The fact that theModernists became interested in this type of contem-porary art, especially in and , is not surprising.A step fromAsianart to Post-Impressionismwas not difficult to take. From their study of theformer, the Modernists grew familiar with art forms that were abstract,distorted natural objects, and used bright and non-naturalistic colors.Moreover, they could sense the similarity between their other artisticinterests and Post-Impressionism even before learning of how deeply in-fluenced the visual artists were by the art of places such as China, Japan,Africa, Oceana, Egypt, and Assyria. The five Modernists eventuallywere quite enthusiastic that modern Western artists were attemptingsomething similar to non-Western artists, and they identified their ownliterary work with visual Post-Impressionism.

In supporting Post-Impressionism the Modernists placed themselvessquarely in the avant-garde. The new art was greeted with what seemedto be a great controversy in the press. A number of art critics and muchof the English public were appalled by artists who disregarded estab-lished critical standards. Post-Impressionists were accused of acting likeincompetent children, madmen playing a joke at the public’s expense, oreven anarchists attempting to overthrow reason and civilization. Thesecriticisms, however, did not prevent quite a number of artists in Britain

Modernism

from adopting similar styles. Three main groups, with slightly differentemphases, eventually emerged. The “Bloomsbury” group of Roger Fry,Duncan Grant, Vanessa Bell, Desmond MacCarthy, and Eric Gill ad-mired Matisse, but not the abstraction of the Cubists and Picasso. Afew English artists, in particular C.R.W. Nevinson, supported the workand ideas of the Italian Futurists lead by F.T. Marinetti (although all butNevinson soon abandoned them). Finally, there was the group that in-cluded Wyndham Lewis and his friends Edward Wadsworth, FrederickEtchells, and Cuthbert Hamilton, and a number of other artists suchas Henri Gaudier-Brzeska and Jacob Epstein, who admired Picasso andwere willing to make experiments in more extensive abstraction.

Until all of these artists and groups had been included underthe term “Post-Impressionist”, but after that date they grew increasinglyhostile to one another as they attempted to define their own positionsmore clearly. The Rebel Art Centre, for example, was founded by Lewis,Etchells, Hamilton, and Wadsworth, after they split with Roger Fry andhis group, and decided to form an alternative to Fry’s OmegaWorkshopto which they all had belonged previously. It was this group of Post-Impressionists that the literary Modernists eventually supported morethan, and often in opposition to the others.

TheModernists’ interest in contemporary visual art did not occur im-mediately after the introduction of Post-Impressionism in England, notonly because they had seen little of it, but also because they were not wellprepared for it before their study of archaic and Asian art. Pound’s firstreaction to it, for example, was quite like that of the public in general. In he wrote sarcastically of artists “who beseech their ladies to let downslate-blue hair on their raspberry-coloured flanks.” Hulme especiallywas confused about this revolution in visual art when first introduced toit. He became aware of Post-Impressionism in early , while still underthe influence of the Action Francaise and before he had readWorringer.Hulme was “very surprised, after seeing the Post Impressionists,” tolearn that some of them, in particular the French painter,MauriceDenis,claimed that their new formof art was classic. His surprise undoubtedlyresulted from the fact that theAction Francaise disliked the abstraction ofthe Post-Impressionists, as much as they rejected the non-naturalistic artof “barbaric” peoples. According to their chief aesthetic theorist, PierreLasserre, “Classic” art is real and natural. It does not create absurd,impossible, or chimeric characters that are false to reality.

When he learnt more about Post-Impressionism, however, Hulmefound that its advocates did make some arguments that appealed to

The proof of Post-Impressionist art

him. The new art was described as simple and precise, orderly and hie-rarchical, spiritual and idealistic. Above all, Post-Impressionism wassaid to abandon the scientific and mechanical view of the universe. Itwas not content with the mere imitation of “the complexity of the ap-pearances” of nature, but represented a true and deeper “other” world,either of universal essences or of “the realities of our spiritual nature.”

Hulme’s friend, Edward Storer, even made a direct connection betweenPost-Impressionism and the Classicism of the Action Francaise as earlyas January . He claimed that Post-Impressionism, rather than be-ing revolutionary, could be compared to “the art of ancient Greece andEgypt and Assyria.” European avant-garde artists are “enthusiastictraditionalists” who favor “a more classical and rigid type of art, a typeintellectual and conscious, rather than emotional and self-abandoning”like that of the Romantics. Storer concluded that “the signal for a re-turn to classicism in art” and “the first signs of the anti-romantic reactionwill come . . . from the young men now occupying themselves with theviolent and individual methods of Post-Impressionism.”

Post-Impressionism, thus, must have appeared to be all that Hulmewanted in art, and yet it was rejected by his political mentors, the writersfor Action Francaise. However, after his introduction to Worringer and hisexplanation of non-naturalistic archaic and non-Western art, Hulmewasbetter able to understand Post-Impressionism. Soon Hulme activelypursued a knowledge of the new art and openly praised it in print. Thesame was true of the other four Modernists.

There were many ways in which the Modernists could learn of, andsee examples of, contemporary avant-garde art. Because they lived inLondon, they were able to attend art exhibitions. They also could readarticles about Post-Impressionism in the journals for which they wrote.In , for example, Lawrence contributed to the journal, Rhythm, andbecame friends with its editors, John Middleton Murry and KatherineMansfield. This was one of the first journals ardently to support and ex-plain themeaningofPost-Impressionism, aswell as reprintworks by somekey artists. In its pages Lawrence could learn that by being “interpreta-tive” and by not relying on “the tricks of a representative realism” avant-garde artists were expressing “a new faith . . . a new vision.” Moreover,“youth is with the new movement . . . the vital work of the day is beingdone by youngmen who are under the Post-Impressionists’ influence.”

In addition, avant-garde art soon infiltrated many of London’s placesof entertainment. Hulme, Pound, and Ford all saw the Russian ballet ofSergei Diaghilev featuring Vaslav Nijinsky, which one contemporary art

Modernism

critic described as “a glowing corroboration of the ideas that had alreadyfound ripe expression in the so-called Post-Impressionist movement inpainting.” The abstract, vivid colors of the sets and costumes, the styl-ized dancing, the atonal music, “the exotic decors,” and what somecalled “barbaric splendor” and “primitiveness” of the production wereall extraordinarily innovative and impressed many contemporaries.

Another forum for Post-Impressionism was the first nightclub inLondon called “The Cave of the Golden Calf,” which was open be-tween June and early and featured dancing, drinking, food,and stage entertainment. The Golden Calf was intended to be morethan just a place of entertainment; it was also “a center of experimentalartistic activity.” The shows and decoration of the club were carried outby some of the most avant-garde artists of the time, such as WyndhamLewis, Jacob Epstein, Spencer Gore, and Eric Gill, who were respon-sible for brightly colored, non-naturalistic paintings on the walls andstage curtain, sculpture around the pillars in the form of caryatids, andthe abstract design of menus, announcements, stationery, and posters.Ford, Pound, and Hulme attended the club regularly, as did the artistswho helped decorate it. Ford even contributed his own art; he wrote ashadow play for the club that he acted himself.

Soon most of the five Modernists got to know, and developed friend-ships with, Post-Impressionist artists. Hulmewas greatly impressed whenhe saw the works of Jacob Epstein in , and the two had become such“great friends” the next year that Wyndham Lewis was led to comment:“remember Hulme is Epstein and Epstein is Hulme.” In July Pound attended an art exhibition where he was so taken by the work ofHenri Gaudier-Brzeska that he sought out Gaudier’s name and addressand visited him in his studio. They also became close friends. Pound, inturn, introduced Gaudier to Ford, who was enthusiastic about his work.At the same time, Pound and Ford renewed an old acquaintance withWyndham Lewis, who they then introduced to Hulme. Hulme reci-procated by helping Pound and Ford get to know Epstein. Both wentto Epstein’s studio, perhaps with Gaudier, to see some work in progress.Even Yeats was drawn into this world of artists. Ford later recalled thathe “organised a really swell meeting in the studio of Mr. Jacob Epsteinat Chelsea” to help Yeats raise money for his Irish theater.

Visual and literary artists began to socialize together regularly. Manyattended Hulme’s Tuesdays. Visual artists also were invited to Ford’sgatherings at South Lodge, the home of Violet Hunt, where Fordentertained his friends. It is possible that Lawrence became aware of

The proof of Post-Impressionist art

modern art through his connection with “the Hueffer-Pound faction”whom he claimed in late was leading him “round a little as oneof their show-dogs.” He certainly might have met visual artists at Ford’sSouth Lodge parties that he also attended.

The involvement of visual and literary artists went beyond friendshipto collaboration and mutual influence. For example, Epstein sculpteda head of Hulme, and Hulme compiled an album of photographs ofEpstein’s works and began to write a book about him. Hulme wroteabout Gaudier in a series of articles on contemporary art, and in Gaudiermade him a number of brass toys and a knuckle-duster which hecarried around to use in his violentmoods. Pound also helped publicizeGaudier’s talents and secured him commissions. Gaudier repaid Poundby giving him brass toys similar to those he gave Hulme and by doinga huge bust of him subsequently called “The Hieratic Head of EzraPound,” that found a resting place until well after the war at Ford’s SouthLodge. In Ford commissionedLewis to decorate the drawing roomat South Lodge.

The literary artists also contributed to the ideas of the visual artists. Bythe Spring of Gaudier was writing articles that echoed the theoriesof Hulme. It was Lewis, however, who was most indebted to Hulme,despite the fact that Lewis was jealous of the closer friendship betweenHulme and Epstein than existed between Hulme and himself. Lewislater recalled:

It was mainly as a theorist in the criticism of the fine arts that Hulme wouldhave distinguished himself, had he lived. And I should undoubtedly have playedTurner to his Ruskin.

All the best things Hulme said about the theory of art were said about myart. . . .We happened, that is all, to bemade for each other as critic and ‘creator’.What he said should be done, I did. Or it would be more exact to say that I didit, and he said it.

In addition, in not only did Lewis “do” what Hulme said, he oftenalso wrote what Hulme said; many of Lewis’s articles on art were almostparaphrases of Hulme’s ideas. The commonality of ideas of visual andliterary artists was made clear when, on January , , Lewis, withHulme and Pound, spoke on contemporary visual art at G.R.S. Mead’sQuest Society.

The height of the collaboration between literary and visual artistscame when Pound and Lewis founded a new movement in order to dis-tinguish their work and ideas from those of other avant-garde artists atthe time. They called it “the Great English Vortex” or Vorticism. The

Modernism

Rebel Art Centre was seen as one way to advertise this new movement,as was Lewis’s new journal Blast that appeared in . Pound took itupon himself to designate which visual and literary artists could be con-sidered part of the Vorticist movement. In the visual arts only the work ofartists such as those who appeared in the pages of Blast – Lewis, Gaudier,Epstein,Wadsworth, Etchells, Roberts, Hamilton, Bomberg, andGore –were Vorticist. Hulme concurred that this group “included everyone inEngland who is doing interesting work” and who was “working in thedirectionwhich alone contains possibilities,”whenhe included reproduc-tions of the work of all of them, excluding Gore, in the “ContemporaryDrawings” series he edited for The New Age in April .

Pound also defined literary Vorticism, which was his “own branchof vorticism.” He, of course, included his own work and claimed that“ ‘Imagisme’ in verse,” his previous literary theory, was the literarybranch of Vorticism. But Pound also tried to include Yeats and Fordas well. In , although he would not specifically answer the question“ ‘is Yeats in the movement?’,” Pound declared that Yeats was “the bestpoet in England,” that there was “a manifestly new note in his laterwork,” and that “he has written des Images,” all of which would qualifyhim as a Vorticist. Ford, according to Pound, also was “significant andrevolutionary” and “has given us, inOnHeaven, the best poem yet writtenin the ‘twentieth-century fashion’.” Although Pound acknowledged thatFord had his own unique theory of art, called “Impressionism”, that wasdistinct from Imagisme or Vorticism, he did propose that Ford’s Impres-sionism was a forerunner of Imagisme, and therefore of Vorticism aswell. Moreover, Ford’s short story, “The Saddest Story,” later to becomeThe Good Soldier, was considered Vorticist enough to be included in thefirst issue of Blast.

While Yeats and Ford were not entirely enthusiastic about the youngerauthor’s attempts to co-opt their work for Vorticism, they were neverthe-less supportive of the new art. Ford wrote that he did “take a very seriousview of the movement” and he openly admired the work of Vorticist vi-sual artists. Yeats claimed that Pound and the group of younger poetsassociated with him were attempting precisely what he and the Rhymershad advocated more than twenty years previously.

There were many reasons why the literary Modernists admired andfelt sympathy for the work of the new avant-garde visual artists. At firstwhat struck some of the Modernists was the sheer energy and noveltyof the new art and the controversies surrounding it. Initially Ford wasattracted to Post-Impressionism because he believed that “we of are

The proof of Post-Impressionist art

a fairly washed-out lot and . . .we do desperately need a new formula.”As a result, Ford claimed that “what we want most of all in the literatureto-day is religion, is intolerance, is persecution, and not the mawkishflapdoodle of culture, Fabianism, peace andgoodwill.Real good religion,a violent thing full of hatreds and exclusions!” He found this violentreligion in modern art and admitted that “personally I am entirely onthe side of Les Jeunes,” because “one wants to be reckless nowadays.”What Lawrence particularly admired about contemporary avant-gardevisual art was the fact that the artists were calling for “the purging of theold forms and sentimentalities,” “for . . . saying – enough of this sicklycant, let us be honest and stick by what is in us,” and for pointing out“the weary sickness of pedantry and tradition and inertness.” Aboveall, Lawrence admired the “revolt against beastly sentiment and slavishadherence to tradition and the dead mind.”

Eventually the Modernists considered the new art more seriously andfound that it fitted well with their other theories. They were soon madeaware of the resemblance of this new art to the archaic, medieval, andnon-Western art they admired. For example, according to his friend,D.L. Murray, Hulme was impressed by the Russian ballet especiallybecause of its similarity to “the non-humanistic ideals that inspiredEgyptian, archaic Greek and Polynesian art.” Another of Lawrence’sfriends, J.M. Murry, also made it clear that the art to which Post-Impressionism was most analogous was that of Assyria, Egypt, Asia,and pre-Renaissance Europe. This could be confirmed by the interestshown by Epstein, Lewis, andGaudier-Brzeska in archaicGreek, Indian,Egyptian, Asian, Polynesian, and African art.

As with archaic and non-Western art, the Modernists admired con-temporary avant-garde art because it was not soft, vague, or romantic.According to Hulme, Post-Impressionism was not “feeble romanticism”but “the genuine expression of abhorrence of slop and romanticism”and “the exact opposite of romanticism,” because it was a “hard anddurable,” “clear cut,” expression of “austerity and bareness.” This alsois how Lawrence’s friend J.M. Murry described it; the best qualities ofthe new art were its strength, decision, vigorousness, and determination,and the fact that it understood that “before art can be human it mustlearn to be brutal.”

The strength of the new art was related to the relationship of thecontemporary artists to the world around them, which they shared witharchaic and non-Western peoples; they felt hostility and fear in face ofa world out of control, and had no faith in human ability to improve it.

Modernism

This art was, therefore, non-naturalistic and anti-humanist. Accordingto Hulme, modern geometric art was an “inhuman, pessimistic” art ofuncompromising bleakness based on a feeling of “disharmony or sepa-ration between man and nature.” Ford agreed that the “representationof nature” was abandoned because the new art had “a quite proper con-tempt of nature.” Or, as Pound put it even more strongly, the modernartist accepts “the fact that the war between him and the world is a warwithout truce.” But not only did modern artists dislike nature, they alsodistrusted humans. They had nothing to do, according to Hulme, withthe “flat and insipid optimism” that posited the goodness of humans andthe possibility of their improvement, which began with the Renaissanceand “passing through the first stage of decay in Rousseau, has finallyculminated in the state of slush in which we have the misfortune to live.”Again Pound agreed. The best avant-garde art was not part of a traditionthat believes “that man was the perfect creature, or creator, or lord ofthe universe or what you will, and that there was no beauty to surpassthe beauty of man.” Because of this, in the “New Living Abstraction,” ashe and the Vorticists described it, “ . It now, literally, much less.” Inshort, “Dehumanization is the chief diagnostic of the Modern World.”Even Lawrence agreed that “that which is physic – non-human, in hu-manity, is more interesting . . . than the old-fashioned human element.”And he found this in the art and ideas of one Post-Impressionist – theleader of the Italian Futurists, F.M. Marinetti.

To express their distaste for the natural and humanworld, avant-gardeartists, like archaic and Asian artists, avoided representing anything vital,organic, complex, or changeable. For example, in Lewis’s pictures ofhumans, according toHulme, “all that detail that makes [the living flesh]vital . . . is entirely absent.” Instead, Lewis transforms “man into somegeometrical shape which lifts him out of the transience of the organic”and translates “the changing and limited into something unlimited andnecessary.” Epstein’s sculptures on the subject of birth were perhaps evenmore striking; according to Hulme, they take a subject, “generation,which is the very essence of the . . . organic” and turn it “into somethingas hard and durable as a geometrical figure itself.” As in all great art, thehuman body and natural objects are purified “of their characteristicallyliving qualities” by being “distorted to fit into stiff lines and cubicalshapes.”What results are “austere” and “bare,” “dead, crystalline,” “stiffand lifeless forms” that Hulme found particularly pleasing.

But these modern artists did not just express their contempt for theworld around them by removing the organic or living elements from

The proof of Post-Impressionist art

their art. They did it also by reordering nature altogether. The mainfault of the older naturalistic art for Hulme was that it merely mirroredthe “messiness” and “confusion” of the “accidental details of existingthings.” Or as Pound put it, it passively reflected received sensations.According to Hulme, the new art, by “the selection and production ofabstract form,” was doing something quite different; it was “strivingtowards structure.” The artist, as a result, could be far more creativebecause “he is not bound by the accidental relations of the elementsactually found in nature, but extracts, distorts, and utilises them as ameans of expression, and not as a means of interpreting nature.” Poundagreed. By extracting and selecting forms and colors from nature, thenew artist could actively rearrange them into a new pattern that conveysa more intense emotion. He, therefore, is an active person “a certain fluid force against circumstance” and “ instead ofmerely observing and reflecting.”

That this was not just a form of creativity, but also an expression ofa contempt for nature was made clear by Lewis in his description ofVorticism. According to Lewis, the Vorticist is like a hairdresser who“attacks Mother Nature for a small fee,” “makes systematic mercenarywar on this ,” and “trims aimless and retrograde growths into and ,” “correcting the grotesqueanachronisms of our physique.” In other words, according to Lewis,“the Vorticist is not the Slave of Commotion, but it’s [sic] Master. TheVorticist does not suck up to Life. He lets Life know its place in a VorticistUniverse!” Thus, Vorticists, according to Lewis, attempt to control andorganize nature that they perceive as “a chaos of imperfection, discord,etc.” rather than as pleasing, fresh, and rich. They have a “desire forstability” and a “love of order.”

In fact, for the Modernists what was especially innovative aboutavant-garde art was not its abstraction, but the fact that it controlled andreordered chaos. None of the Modernists advocated a purely abstractart that denied nature entirely. Ford, for example, disliked artists who“rendered no material object” and who did not represent life at all; theirextreme “anti-materialist” stance resulted in the presentation ofpure emotions or visionary states that robbed their art of intensity.Rather, Ford preferred artists who “are really realists” because “theyrender . . . concrete objects” and utilize literary content as well as form.Hulme also did not believe that art based only on “abstract form, i.e. formwithout any representative content, can be an adequatemeans of expres-sion.” He admitted “that the artist cannot work without contact with,and continual research into nature” and he claimed that in abstract

Modernism

painting “there is much greater research into nature . . . than in anyrealist painting.”

However, it was the Vorticists, Lewis and Pound, who best summed uptheModernists’ position on the question of abstraction in art. Accordingto Lewis, “the finest Art is not pure Abstraction, nor is it unorganisedLife.” In Pound’s opinion, “the vorticist can represent or not as he like.He depends . . . upon the arrangement of spaces and line, on the primarymedia of his art. A resemblance to natural forms is of no consequenceone way or the other.” Thus, the creative and active control was key,not whether or not natural objects were used.

This reordering of nature was especially important, according to theModernists, because it made modern art supremely spiritual, again likearchaic and Asian art. It enabled modern art, in Hulme’s opinion, toreflect the “fixed and necessary,” eternal and unchanging realm outsidethe relativity and impermanence both of time and the flux of life. It was,therefore, an art with a “religious attitude” and a supreme “profundityand intensity.” Ford, echoed Hulme, when he claimed that the best con-temporary avant-garde art was “becoming more and more geometric,mystic, non-material” and that it “seems to point the moral of the im-permanence of matter, of human life.” It was, thus, a “reaction frommaterialism,” “Samuel Smiles . . . pseudo-Darwinians and other deniersofmystery,” and it represented “a frame ofmind that, scientifically speak-ing, is religious – that is, at least, other-worldly” because the artist “setsdown, in making a portrait, the image of his emotions in seeing his sit-ter, and not a representation of the sitter – this painter is, scientificallyspeaking, trying to paint his sitter’s soul. He is trying to paint the soul ofthe world.”

Pound and Lewismade similar arguments about Vorticist art. Accord-ing to Pound, it took no account of “transient conditions,” but ratherrepresented “the immutable, the calm thoroughness of unchanging rela-tions” like that of “Gods . . . apart, unconcerned, unrelenting.”Vorticism,thus, was part of a religious tradition that believes “in something be-yond man, something important enough to be fed with the blood ofhecatombs.” Because artists were able to feel “the immanence of some more than any former beings can have felt it,” in Lewis’sopinion, the Vorticist age was an “age of religion.” In fact, Lewis ar-gued that Vorticism was a form of “spiritual realism.” He claimed thatVorticists act likeChinese geomancerswhonotice “super-sensible” forcesand meanings from the spiritual world at work in the shapes, forms, andcolors of objects in the natural world. The Vorticists’ art, therefore, is not

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a realistic representation of the natural world, but a realistic representa-tion of a spiritual reality that exists behind and is manifest in the shapesand colors of nature.

Finally, Lawrence also liked a modern art that employed a similartype of “spiritual realism,” and that represented not only natural or hu-man objects, but also “the inhuman will” that lies behind them. Ashe wrote to a friend in , “the vision we’re after . . . is something thatcontains awe and dread and submission, not pride or sensuous ego-tism and assertion.” He continued, “we want to realise the tremendousnon-human quality of life,” which is “the tremendous unknown forcesof life, coming unseen and unperceived as out of the desert to theEgyptians, and driving us, forcing us, destroying us if we do not sub-mit to be swept away.” Great art for Lawrence, therefore represented arealm of angry gods or of universal essences, not a world of comfortablehumanism.

Once again, it could be asked whether it was a happy coincidencethat the Modernists found all they wanted in a certain type of Post-Impressionist art, or if they interpreted that art specifically in a waythat made it fit with their previous ideas. In either case, the Modernistsbelieved that this type of art solved many problems of modern aes-thetics and the modern world in general. It was spiritual without be-ing vague, constructive without resorting to rhetoric, and it provided asense of order amidst an unfortunate chaos. A discussion of how con-temporary avant-garde art influenced the Modernists’ own work andtheories of history must wait for the next chapter. The general direc-tion in which it took their ideas and practice, however, should be clear.The latest developments of modern European art confirmed for theModernists their previous theory of the existence of two different tradi-tions of art, one that was naturalistic and the other that was geometric orabstract.

By or all fiveModernists had added contemporaryEuropeanart to the alternative tradition of aesthetics, politics, and society thatthey admired in the archaic, non-Western, and medieval worlds. Theywere not unique in pointing out similarities between the past they pre-ferred and contemporary art. The Russian artist and art critic, WassilyKandinsky, whom Pound read with interest, claimed that the spiritualnature of contemporary art made it fundamentally analogous with theart of the past created by archaic and non-Western peoples. Accordingto Kandinsky, “the close relationship of art throughout the ages, is nota relationship in outward form but in inner meaning,” and because of

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this “a rudely carved Indian column is an expression of the same spiritas actuates any real work of art today.”

This assumption that all art forms in one tradition are fundamentallyanalogous, regardless of when or where they were produced, soundsvery much like Hulme in and was a concept that was increasinglyimportant for the Modernists. Pound, for example, also claimed thatthere is “not a difference in degree but a difference in kind; a differencein intention” between the two traditions. In March Gaudier agreedthat art in the abstract tradition differs from that “of the late Greeks”“not in tendency but in kind.” Ford also believed that an artist of thepresent could feel fundamentally the same as one in the past. As he putit, “his attitude towards life will be theirs; his circumstances only will bedifferent. An elephant is an elephant whether he pours, at an Africanwater-hole, mud and water over his free and scorched flanks, or whether,in the Zoological Gardens, he carries children upon his back.”

A belief that artists of the present and the past could have the sameattitudes and ideas, in turn, led to the assertion that it was perfectly ap-propriate for amodern artist to be influenced by, and use images or formsfrom, any of the other ages or places within the same tradition. This wasnot an idea that was accepted universally. In fact, Epstein’s work wascriticized for its “deliberate imitations” of ancient, non-Western, and“primitive” art, and it was dismissed as a form of escapist romanticismbecause it attempted to evoke “ ‘vague memories of dark ages as distantfrom modern feeling as the loves of the Martians’.” Hulme took painsto defend this practice of Epstein. He made it clear that contemporaryavant-garde art was not “a mere imitation of an exotic or a romanticpast” or a “romantic revival” because modern artists like Epstein didnot consider non-Western and archaic works of art to be fundamentallydifferent from their own. This was a result of the “real change of sensi-bility [that was] occurring now in the modern mind.” The emotions andfeelings of artists had changed. Modern artists had returned to an oldertradition and, therefore, they liked past works in that same tradition, notbecause they were different, but “directly, almost as they were liked bythe people who made them, as being direct expressions of an attitudeyou want to find expressed.” In short, as Hulme put it, if “a belief in‘Progress’ ” is abandoned, it is easy to accept the appreciation and use ofarchaic forms inmodern art. Because the attitudes and feelings of peoplewithin the same tradition do not change over time, “there are certainbroad ways in which certain emotions must, and will always naturallybe expressed.” Therefore, “given the same emotion, the same broad

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formula comes naturally to the hands of any people in any century.” Asa result, Epstein and artists like him had every right to use similar formsas those of artists of a distant past.

This did not mean the new geometrical art should be identical toarchaic art. Worringer had shown Hulme that the feelings of separationfrom, or fear or distrust of, the outside world that were constant inthe abstract tradition, took different forms in different ages. The artof various periods within a tradition, therefore, was slightly different;Egyptian art was identical to neither Indian nor Byzantine art. ThusHulme believed that the art and emotions of different ages within thesame traditionwere analogous – not identical. As he put it, “both the newWeltanschauung and the new geometrical art will have certain analogieswith corresponding periods in the past, yet it is not for a moment to besupposed that there is anything more than analogy here,” in fact the newart will “not in the least resemble archaic art.” When a cyclic return tothe past occurs in the future, therefore, it will not take the form of exactrepetition.

In fact, Hulme believed that the similarities with archaic art soonwould lessen. Modern art would take on its own unique characteristics,which Hulme predicted would be more influenced by machinery thanin the past; “the new ‘tendency towards abstraction’ will culminate, notso much in the simple geometric forms found in archaic art, but in themore complicated ones associated with the ideas of machinery.” Yeatsmay have considered something similar in when he speculatedabout the imminent coming of a historical cycle that would resemble“Plato’s Republic with machines instead of slaves” or that would witnessa civil war with soldiers “riding their machines as did the feudal knightstheir armoured horses.” For Hulme, however, despite any differ-ences from the past, the art of the near future would still express emotionsanalogous to, and be more similar to, the art of the tradition to which itbelonged, than to the art of vital, naturalistic, humanistic ages. It wouldnot, therefore, involve any progress upon the past, even in the form of aspiral.

Pound and the Vorticists also believed that the art they admired andwere currently in the process of producing was analogous to, and a partof, the return of an abstract tradition. According to Gaudier, because heand his fellow artists have a concern with “abstraction of intense feeling”and “have sympathy and admiration” for “archaic works” which areoften considered “barbaric,” they have been “continuing the tradition”of “the barbaric peoples of the earth.” Pound agreed and insisted that the

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feeling of identification that the Vorticists had with ancient abstract artwas not a Romantic attempt to escape from the present into a preferablepast such as was the case in “Paterine sentimentalesque Hellenism.” Italso was not the same as the use of archaic art by the Bloomsbury group,as described by Hulme, which was not serious, but “a sort of aestheticplaying about” – a “cultured and anaemic,” “aesthetic archaism.”

Rather, theVorticists believed they weremotivated by the same funda-mental needs and desires as were the artists of the past abstract tradition.Their relationship to the natural world united artists separated by vaststretches of time and space in a way that made their intentions nearlyidentical. According to Pound,

the [modern] artist recognises his life in the terms of the Tahiytian [sic] savage.His chance for existence is equal to that of the bushman. His dangers are assubtle and sudden. Hemust live by craft and violence. His gods are violent gods.

Because of this identity of feeling, Pound believed that contemporaryartists “turn back . . . to the powers of the air, to the djinns who were ourallies aforetime, to the spirit of our ancestors.” According to Lewis inBlast, the Vorticists were “Primitive Mercenaries in the Modern World”because, like “primitive” peoples, they are extremelywell-trained soldiersin the battle against their environment. In Lewis’s opinion “the artist ofthe modern movement is a savage (in no sense an ‘advanced,’ perfected,democratic, Futurist individual of Mr. Marinetti’s limited imagination)”because he is responding to similar external conditions; “this enormous,jangling, fairy desert ofmodern life serves himasNature didmore techni-cally primitive man.” Although Lewis would not claim that the environ-ment of the modern artist was identical to that of other peoples whoproduced abstract art in the past, he did believe that it was fundamen-tally analogous and that the reaction to it was essentially equivalent.

Lewis claimed that previous abstract artists worked within “the comp-lication of the Jungle, dramatic Tropic growth, the vastness of Americantrees.” But he also believed that “our industries . . . [have] reared upsteel trees where the green ones were lacking; [have] exploded in usefulgrowths, and found wilder intricacies than those of Nature.” The majordifference between the two environments is that in the former the “civi-lized savage” worked “in a desert city, surrounded by very simple objectsand restricted number of beings,” while the “modern town-dweller” livesin a more complex landscape and “also sees multitude, and infinite va-riety of means of life, a world and elements he controls.” Nevertheless,in the modern world “Life is really no more secure.” Rather, it is more

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“confused and . . . dispersed.” In fact, Lewis often argued that life wasdecidedly less secure. He believed that “human insanity has never flow-ered so colossally. Our material of discord is to an unparalleled extentforcible and virulent.” Regardless of the extent of insecurity, however,people in the present act in fundamentally the same ways as people didin the remote past: “we are proud, handsome and predatory. We huntmachines, they are our favorite game. We invent them and then huntthem down.”

It was because of this attitude of belonging to, and having agreat sense of identity with, a preferable past tradition that the fiveModernists differed from other avant-garde artists at the time. It es-pecially made them dislike the Futurists and take pains to distinguishthemselves from them. Hulme, Pound, and Lewis felt especially threat-ened by Futurism. In fact, their hostility was such that in June of they, with Epstein,Gaudier, Etchells, andWadsworth, disrupted a lecturegiven by Marinetti. The next day in a public statement Lewis, Pound,Gaudier, Etchells, Wadsworth, Hamilton, Bomberg and a few othersdissociated themselves from Futurism and any English Futurists.

One reason Hulme, Pound, and the Vorticists were opposed toFuturism was because they did not think that it was an entirely new formof art. Although the Futurists said they rejected naturalism, Hulme andPound argued that they did not; their work was still a passive reflection ofsensations received from nature, rather than an active reorganization offorms. Pound claimed, as a result, “Futurism is the disgorging sprayof a vortex with no drive behind it, .” It was thus the “stateof flaccidity, of elaboration, and of secondary applications” that camebefore and after the intensity and concentration that Vorticism achievedby rigorous control and organization of the flux.

Moreover, Futurism exhibited a fundamental admiration for changeand progress. As Hulme put it, Futurism was “the exact opposite of theart” that he admired, because it was “the deification of the flux.” Inthis interpretation of Futurism Hulme was quite accurate. The Futu-rists were very much influenced by Henri Bergson and his idea “of alife force or vital impulse seeking freedom in the face of the resistanceof matter.” They did not want to represent “ ‘a fixed moment in universaldynamism’ ” but simply “ ‘the dynamic sensation’ ” itself. Therefore theydisliked anything stationary, fixed, or durable, and wanted to representchange, motion, and speed. Above all they admired a representation ofthe progress towards the future – “futurism” – as opposed to a concen-tration on the static past – “passism.”

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The Futurists’ admiration for change and flux led them to accept aview of the past and of history that the fiveModernists rejected. This didnot mean that the Modernists disliked all Futurist comments on history.Pound and the Vorticists, as well as Ford and Lawrence, all admiredthe fact that the Futurists insisted that artists concentrate on the present,rather thanona romantic or sentimentally idealizedpast. Itwas about theFuturists that Lawrencewaswritingwhen he claimed to like “the purgingof the old forms” and the revolt against “slavish adherence to tradition”inmodern art. As Pound put it, “we are all futurists to the extent of believ-ing with Guillaume Apollonaire ‘On ne peut pas porter partout avec soi lecadavre de son pere.’ ” Or, according to Lewis, “one of the functions of aman like Marinetti is to instil into people the importance of the Present,the immense importance of life.” Ford especially thought that “to haveyour poets perpetually chanting that your ownday is vulgar ormean, andthat beauty can be found only in other centuries or in other climates, is athing very enervating.” Moreover, he continued to insist as he had donesince at least , that “all great art has been produced by people inter-ested in their own age and their own climes.” This is just what the Futur-ists did; they were concerned with “our own time and our own clime.”

But the Modernists thought that the Futurists went too far. Lawrence,for example, criticized the Futurists because they “want to deny everyscrap of tradition and experience, which is silly. They are very young, in-fantile, college-student and medical-student at his most blatant.” Poundand Lewis also agreed that “it would be a cowardly and foolish thing forthe Futurists to destroy the Museums” because Futurism meaning “thePresent with the Past rigidly excluded” was wrong. According to Pound,“the vorticist has not this curious tic for destroying past glories.” Unlikethe Futurists, who “are evidently ignorant of tradition,” the Vorticists“do not desire to cut ourselves off from the past” or “from great art ofany period, we only demand a recognition of contemporary great art.”Finally, despite Ford’s admiration for an art that focuses on the present,he also claimed that he was “not so violently Futurist as to object to aman having any truck at all with old legends.”

Rather than abandon the past, the Modernists believed that the pastactively should informcontemporary art. Ford claimed that artists shouldstudy or soak themselves in the great art of the past because “we are theheirs of all the ages” and this sort of study would widen their “percep-tions.” As indicated in the quote heading this chapter, Pound felt that itwas important for “all the energized past” to rush into the Vortex of artand life because it serves as the momentum that charges “the ,

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- .” Lewis agreed that Vorticists “must have thePast and the Future, Life simple, that is, to discharge ourselves in, andkeep us pure for non-life, that is Art.”

But as Pound made quite clear, although the Vorticists did not want“to evade comparison with the past,” they were not willing to acceptall of the past in that comparison. Only “the past that is living andworthy to live” was to be a part of Vorticism. According to Pound, “weprefer that the comparison be made by some intelligent person whoseidea of ‘the tradition’ is not limited by the conventional taste of four orfive centuries and one continent.” In other words, the past to be usedin contemporary avant-garde art was not just that of Europe since theRenaissance. It was the alternative tradition, which included archaic,medieval, and non-Western art, that was most appropriate to use in thepresent. And, of course, this was because of the close identity of feelingand thought that modern artists had with this other tradition.

Once again, it was the absence of an assumption of progress withina tradition of life and art that was underlying the Modernists’ attitudestoward the past – in general or as used in art in particular. The EnglishFuturist, C.R.W. Nevinson, made the different assumptions of theFuturists and the Modernists clear when he claimed that it was not“possible for an artist living to-day, travelling by tube, by bus, by taxi, sur-rounded by steel construction hoardings, petrol vapour and speed . . . tohave the sameemotions, thoughts or feelings as anEgyptian, early Italian,or Byzantine. It is obviously impossible.” He continued that the Futurists“don’t despise old work just because it is old; we simply say it is impossi-ble to get inspiration from it or let it dominate us, just because evolutionand change in vital art is essential, and it has no eternal truths.” It wasthe Futurist belief in historical progress, therefore, that inspired them toreject the use of the past in art and focus only on the present or future.Their resulting admiration for change and rejection of eternal truthscertainly could not have appealed to the Modernists.

Thus contemporary avant-garde visual art encouraged the literaryModernists to abandon traditional assumptions of progress and it sup-ported their belief in the existence of two unchanging traditions of artand life. Moreover, it made some of them optimistic that the traditionthey preferred, which had disappeared in theWest after the Renaissance,was in the process of returning. In short, modern art encouraged cyclicviews of history. If two traditions existed and alternated in appearancethroughout time without progress within either, then the shape of historyis one of cycles. Contemporary visual art seemed proof of this theory.

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Hulme made this claim explicitly. He declared that seeing “certainpieces of sculpture” by Epstein made him believe that the type of char-acter he admired in Byzantine art was “re-emerging in modern art.”Both the fact that there was a new interest in the non-naturalistic artof the past, and that an analogous art was being created in the presentday, led Hulme to believe that a new geometrical age of art and thoughtwas about to return. Hulme proposed that the best art of the past was“geometric” and that the new art of Epstein, Lewis, Gaudier-Brzeska,and a few others was a “new constructive geometric art.”

It was because of his belief that the new art was the same as pastgeometric art, thatHulmewas very upset when the critic, A.M. Ludovici,made “the stupidest criticism of all” of Jacob Epstein and called him “a‘minor personality – of no interest to him’.” To Hulme, Epstein andother contemporary artists working in the same vein were of supremeimportance. Their work, and the qualities it shared with ancient abstractart, was his proof of the circularity of history and his hope for a new andbetter future not only in art but also in all areas of thought and action.In fact, Hulme openly stated that the modern European “general stateof mind” or “Weltanschauung” “which has lasted from the Renaissancetill now” was in the process of “breaking up.” Avant-garde art was thebeginning of a new “era” which would be “animated by the spirit ofsome great order or scheme of life.”

Pound also believed that the “introduction of Djinns, tribal Gods,fetiches, etc. into the arts is . . . a happy presage” because it has led tothe creation of a great new movement. Pound was confident that thetradition of humanism had recently ended. As he put it, “this time isfortunately over.” The alternate tradition was in the process of returningin the “modern renaissance or awakening.” Lewis, of course, agreedand echoed both Pound and Hulme when he claimed that he had a“very genuine optimism” because he believed that “the Siberia of themind”ofmodernEnglandhad “touchedbottom in thematter of nationaldegradation” in the Victorian period. This is why “optimism is verypermissible. England appears to be recovering.”

Lawrence also was hopeful that the humanistic tradition of the recentpast would be replaced by an abstract, spiritual, and disciplined traditionvery similar to the one Hulme had described. Lawrence believed that“there is a dual way of looking at things.” One way is modern Westernhumanism, “which is to say ‘I am all. All other things are but radiationout from me.’ ” The other way, which he preferred, and which “putsaside the egotist,” tries “to conceive the Whole, to build up a Whole

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by means of symbolism.” This was a tradition of the past. For example,“that was how man built the Cathedral. He didn’t say ‘out of my breastsprings this cathedral’. But ‘in this vast Whole I am a small part, Imove and live and have my being’.” In the novel he was writing at thistime, The Rainbow, Lawrence expanded upon the nature of this medievalcathedral. It was a place that was “timeless,” containing “no illusionof time . . . but only . . . renewing, and . . . recurrence of ecstasy.” It was“a world . . .within a chaos; a reality, an order, an absolute within ameaningless confusion.” This sounds much like what the Vorticists andHulme thought was currently being returned in modern art. And in late Lawrence even suggested to a friend that he write a book on “thedeath of Egotism” perhaps in order to do something similar.

Finally, Yeats, who wrote the least about Post-Impressionism, also ap-pears to have been encouraged by the new movement in art. In heidentified the problems he had in his own work, with what was beingdone by “those ferocious youths who make designs for a Phallic Temple,but consider Augustus John lost amid literature.” He undoubtedly wasreferring to Epstein, Gaudier-Brzeska, and Lewis, all of whom in someway or other had created either phallic art or art based on temples bythat time. Like him they were attempting to find a form of art that didnot have “the sentimentality, the rhetoric, the ‘moral uplift’ ” of natura-listic art, yet was not a vague, abstract subjectivism (“the impression ofthe world upon the delicate senses . . . [of] poets”) or disconnected fromthe past and “some real situation in life.” Moreover, these new artistswere like Yeats in wishing to create an art based on “some symboliclanguage reaching far into the past.”

Yeats also believed that this new art provided some hope for the futurereturn of the abstract tradition. This optimism was encouraged by twofacts. Yeats was impressed that the old art from the previous traditionwas now admired. According to Yeats, “our appreciations of the olderschools are changing . . . becoming more simple.” We now find pleasurein “Chinese painting” and in “Rajput paintings.” In addition, Yeats wasencouraged by the fact that a new art in a similar style andwith analogousgoals to that of the past tradition was being created. This was evident,according to Yeats, in “the photograph of a picture by Guaguin [sic]”that hung over his breakfast table. This painting gave Yeats “religiousideas” in a way analogous to the religious art of the preferred traditionof the past.

Because of this, for the first time, in June of Yeats explicitly claimedthat the tradition in which “the fall of man into his own circumference”

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is the primary characteristic – in other words the humanist, democratic,and materialist tradition – “seems at an end.” In A Vision, in whichhe described his explicitly cyclic theory of history, Yeats would make asimilar statement.He claimed that he had begun “towonderwhether thenon-representative art of our own time may not be but a first symptomof our return to” a past attitude. In Yeats speculated more openlythat “perhaps now that the abstract intellect has split the mind intocategories, the body into cubes, we may be about to turn back towardthe unconscious, the whole, the miraculous; according to a Chinese sagedarkness begins at midday.” Thus, modern visual art encouraged Yeatsto believe that a new cycle of history was about to occur and that it wouldinclude an attitude with which he agreed completely.

Modern visual art, therefore, was a combination of all of the previousinterests of the five literaryModernists. It resembled the non-naturalisticfeatures of non-Western art that they admired, it suggested a spiritualismpointing to a permanent, unchanging “other” world, and it provided thesame sense of order and control as did conservative political views. TheModernists had finally found contemporary examples of a symbolic andsuggestive art that was neither vague nor cloudy. In fact, far from beingweak or soft, the work of modern visual artists like Epstein, Lewis, andGaudier-Brzeska was decidedly strong, hard, and aggressive.

This suggests yet another advantage this art had for the literary Mod-ernists. It could help remedy the unfortunate public image of artists,which had been of concern to theModernists since the beginning of theircareers. It would be difficult to call the Vorticists remote, weak, fragile, orto quote Ford, “effeminate . . . eunuch[s]”who could be “hardly regardedas men,” and who, therefore, did not deserve the respect of politiciansor business leaders. The vitality and strength of modern visual art wasunquestionable. The five Modernists all were very much drawn to thisnew image of strong, “masculine” art and artists. For example, Poundwas particularly pleased when it became clear that Gaudier-Brezska’ssculpted portrait of his head took on a phallic shape. Yeats had wantedhis own art to be harsh and “masculine” as early as and he cer-tainly would have found those characteristics in the work of modernvisual artists. This was especially the case in Epstein’s sculpture of a“Rock Drill” which Yeats, like a number of other literary Modernists,admired; in the remaining drawings of it, its phallic nature is difficult toignore. Lawrence, by the end of , as we will see in the next chapter,had even reduced the principles of life in general to two, the male spiritand the female spirit, and he was very much concerned that the male

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complement and counterbalance the female. Finally, Hulme and Poundtook their concern for masculinity one step further to active aggression.Both authors were much taken by the knuckle-dusters made for them byGaudier-Brezska, and Hulme was famous for his threats to throw fellowartists down flights of stairs when disagreeing over aesthetics or politics.

Moreover, because of their emphasis on masculine strength, theMod-ernists and their visual artist associates no longer suggested that their jobwas to provide a beautiful place to which a person could escape. Rather,modern artists now were going to change the world, and they would doso not merely by ennobling the audience or developing their faculties forsympathy. As Lewis and the Vorticists made clear, they were “primitivemercenaries in the modern world” willing to make “war” on whateverthey disliked. In fact, the Vorticists announced that they were planningto “Kill John Bull with Art” and violently destroy the philistine publicwho refused to pay attention to them. Modern visual art, therefore,made the literary Modernists confident that artists had finally earnedthe right to have “the civic crown” returned to them from the “reason-ers and merchants” who had held it for so long. Or maybe they wouldwrest it from their hands by force. In whatever way it would be done, theModernists were optimistic that they soon would take their place in thearistocracy – of artists and intellectuals. This, in turn, simply served tomake a cyclic view of history and the pattern of cycles in general seemeven more appropriate as an expression of the reality of life.

The “cycle dance”: cyclic history arrives

For it is as if life were a double cycle of men and women, facingopposite ways, travelling opposite ways, revolving upon each other,man reaching forward with outstretched hand, woman reachingforward with outstretched hand, and neither able to move till theirhands have grasped each other, when they draw towards each otherfrom opposite directions, draw nearer and nearer, each travelling inhis separate cycle, till the two are abreast, and side by side, until eventhey pass on again, away from each other, travelling their oppositeways to the same infinite goal.

D.H. Lawrence, “Study of Thomas Hardy,”.

Adorning the pages of the first issue of Blast in was the recurrentimage of a cone with a straight line running through its center. As Poundhad suggested that all great poets do, theVorticists had chosen a concretephysical object to symbolize the set of complex ideas and emotions thatcharacterized their newmovement. This image was, therefore, the visualrepresentation of the Vortex. In descriptions in the same journal viewersalso were made well aware that the cone was not stationary, but was inconstant motion. In other words, although the Vortex contained a stillcenter, its perimeter moved violently. It was, in short, a sort of whirlpool.One contemporary described it in the following terms:

The meaning of the Vortex and Vorticism as propounded by Lewis, was sim-plicity itself. “You think at once of a whirlpool”, he explained. “At the heart ofthe whirlpool is a great silent place where all the energy is concentrated. Andthere, at the point of concentration, is the Vorticist.”

According to Pound, “a ” is “a radiant node or cluster . . . fromwhich, and throughwhich, and intowhich, ideas are constantly rushing.”It is “the point of maximum energy” and of “the greatest efficiency.”

This Vortex represented the goals and ideals of all the Modernists in in art, politics, and life in general. It had great energy and move-ment, but energy that was controlled and directed rather than random.

Cyclic history arrives

It included the extremes of stability and change, and established an equi-librium between them. The Vortex when working properly, according toPound, was amiddle ground between the “stil [sic] spool or cone” and the“” or “the disgorging spray.” It had force enough to producemotion, but not so much undirected force that the motion was uncon-trolled. As Lewis put it, “our Vortex desires the immobile rythm [sic] ofits swiftness.”

The Vortex did all of this through its circular motion. The movementof the cone was not random because it was harnessed to a still center.However, as a result it could only turn in circles, with no possibility of anylinear progress. In short, by circularity became themost appropriate“Image” or symbol to represent all of the ideas and values of Pound andthe Vorticists. The same was true of the other four Modernists. WhenYeats chose a “gyre” or Lawrence a “male” wheel revolving arounda “female” axle, they were adopting remarkably similar images. If animage was not forthcoming, then explicitly cyclic views of history orcyclic structures employed in literary works did the same thing. All in-dicated the extent to which the Modernists had rejected progress andfound circularity to be the most accurate, as well as the most comforting,representation of their view of reality. Cycles provided order, stability,and hope for the future in the face of a chaotic world grown out of thecontrol of artists.

Cycles were clearly evident in the official Vorticist theory of history.This appeared in the last article of the first issue of Blast and was written,not by Pound, but by Henri Gaudier-Brzeska. Pound, however, admiredthis “splendid formulation of his views” and later described it as the“ ‘whole history of sculpture’.” In fact, he considered it so important thathe reprinted it in its entirety in his memoir of Gaudier. In thisarticle, titled simply “Vortex. Gaudier Brzeska.,” Gaudier argued thatthe best art was a proper combination of what he called the “sphere”and the “vertical”; the sphere represented the earth or natural worldand the vertical represented religion or the supernatural world. If thereligious impulse, which is usually the result of struggle with nature, wasmissing or if artists overemphasized the sphere of the natural and humanworld, the resulting works of art could only be weak. Gaudier continuedto plot the cyclic alternation of great and weak art on four continents. InAsia, Gaudier noted a gradual decline in artistic spirit after the Shangand Chow dynasties because the Chinese “accumulated wealth, forsooktheir work,” and “ .” On the other hand, in Africaand Oceania, Gaudier perceived a continual rise of the artistic spirit

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due to a sustained hostility to the natural world. In the Occident, thepattern was of a cyclic rise and decline. The “acute fight” against natureled to the greatness of the Egyptian, Assyrian, and Babylonian cultures.A decline ensued when the Greek “saw himself only” and “petrified hisown semblance.”Another rise, although not as great as the first, occurredwith “Gothic sculpture,” but this soon “wilfully divagated again into theGreek derivation” and continual decline ensued in Western art fromthat period “until the .” According to Gaudier,“ ! and it gave forth in the quattroe cinquo cento, until the seventeenth century, whistle tillnow.” Despite this modern decline, Gaudier was optimistic that a newgreat art would emerge again in the near future, similar to the besttraditions of the past, because contemporary artists have a relationshipto nature similar to that of past artists in great periods.

It should be obvious that this theory of history was nearly identical tothe one Hulme had already formulated. The other four Modernists alsobegan to develop similar views in . For example, while Pound did notexpound as coherent a position as either Hulme or Gaudier, he clearlyagreed with both views and accepted the basic premises of circularity.He claimed that in history there have been two traditions, and “alwaysone wave of one of these traditions has caught and overflowed an earlierwave receding.” Furthermore, he did believe in the possibility of the“recurrence” of great figures, and that “at certain recurring periods” thehumanist tradition was the ideal of the public, while at the present timethe alternate tradition of the past was returning. Pound also believed thatwhen this tradition did return, the democratic political and social systemwould be replaced by an aristocracy of the arts. He was confident thatthe artist “has dabbled in democracy and he is now done with that folly”;he is ready to “mount again into . . . [his] hierarchy.” In other words, “wewho are the heirs of thewitch-doctor and the voodoo, we artists who havebeen so long the despised are about to take over control.” Preparationsfor this takeover may have begun with the announcement in November of the founding of “The College of Arts,” which included Vorticistinstructors such as Gaudier, Lewis, Wadsworth, and Pound himself, andwhich aimed “at an intellectual status no lower than that attained by thecourts of the Italian Renaissance” so admired by Yeats.

However, rather than writing about the course of history itself, Poundwas more interested in his own literary theory and practice. It was herethat his preference for non-progressive and cyclic views of the past, aswell as cyclic structures in general, became quite apparent. In order

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to make his poetry approximate the non-naturalism of archaic, Asian,and Post-Impressionist visual art, and to make his previous theory ofImagisme conform more closely to his theories of Vorticism – creating akind of Vorticist Imagisme – Pound was led to a greater appreciation ofnon-progressive or cyclic structures.

Pound had been searching for ways to write a work of literature thatdid not realistically represent external nature since at least . By he had established explicit theories for how exactly this could be doneand why it would make a great work of art. First, Pound realized that theabsence of “romance and sentiment and description” and the removal of“extraneous matter,” such as ornament, rhetoric, and moralizing, couldmake a poem non-naturalistic. Hemade it quite clear that “the force thatleads a poet to leave out amoral reflectionmay lead a painter to leave outrepresentation.” Pound also understood that non-naturalistic literature,like visual art, could not passively mirror nature. Rather, by “rigorousselection,” it should “create form” and “cause form to come into be-ing.” He claimed that this was done in his literary Vorticism because,like its visual counterpart, it actively arranged primary pigments. Whilethe painter’s pigments are form and color, “the poet’s pigment[s]” areImages. Thus Vorticist Imagisme is a conscious arrangement of dis-crete Images. As such it is analogous to the “new school of . . . ‘non-representative’ painting” that “speak[s] only by arrangements in colour.”Moreover, like visual Vorticism, literary Vorticism was not entirely ab-stract. The Images must be directly known or felt by the author in a waythat “must make a picture.”

Pound learned from the painter Wassily Kandinsky why this madea powerful art. According to Kandinsky, the constructive arrangementor “counter-point” of “pigments” in a non-representative painting “hasa power of inner suggestion” and can evoke a corresponding “counter-point” of emotion inside the viewer. PoundbelievedVorticist poetry coulddo just this. Because “every emotion and every phase of emotion hassome toneless phrase, some rhythm-phrase to express it,” by arrangingthese phrases properly a Vorticist poem can “record the precise instantwhen a thing outward and objective transforms itself, or darts into a thinginward and subjective.” Thus this new art can evoke emotions with-out the use of realism or rhetoric. Moreover, this made Vorticist poetryprofoundly spiritual. Pound believed that the correspondence betweenImage and emotion implied a belief in the direction of “a permanentworld” and “grip[s] hold of Heaven” because it represents the univer-sal “free of space and time limits . . . existing in perfection, in freedom

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from space and time.” Vorticist poetry, thus, was like Epstein’s sculpture,which “is in the best sense realist” because “it takes no account . . . oftransient conditions” but, rather, presents “some austere permanence;some relation of life and yet outside it” in a manner resembling Platonic“ideas.”

In Pound elaborated on a technique to ensure that the arrange-ment or counterpoint of Images in a poem could evoke both internalemotions and a spiritualworld.Thiswas doneby abandoning progressivestructures. Pound reconfirmed his claim that an ‘Image’ “presentsan intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time,” but ex-plained further how this was accomplished. A work of literature mustavoid presenting “separate facts . . . each one in turn” such as was done ina “cinematograph” or a linear narrative because this progressive struc-ture emphasizes “transient conditions,” rather than the universal, andcreates “a spreading, or surface art.” One example of a novelist whocorrectly did this, according to Pound, was Ford, whose work was “notbound by the tiresome convention that any part of life . . .must be shapedinto the conventional form of a ‘story’.”

In poetry Pound suggested that to avoid transient temporality theartist should create a “one image poem,” which “is a form of super-position, that is to say it is one idea set on top of another.” In this waythe poem could become a vortex – a “radiant node” into which andthrough which Images and emotions simultaneously move without anysense of passing time. Moreover, this sense of simultaneity could beevoked best by superimposing images from all analogous ages and placesno matter how disparate in space and time. The result, according toliterary critic Reed Way Dasenbrock, is an art work that expresses the“congruence of past and present . . . as if no gap in time and space existedbetween them.” For example, Pound suggested that ideas could beadopted by Vorticists from Ibycus, Liu Ch’e, Dante, or a host of otherwriters in the abstract tradition. This in turn would create, as Poundcommented in , “a poem, wrought out of ages of knowledge” whichwould carry the reader “out of the realm of annoyance into the calmrealm of truth, into the world unchanging, the world of fine animallife, the world of pure form.” Super-position or simultaneity, therefore,could replace progressive chronological narrative to create a poem ofgreat intensity, control, and order, which evoked emotions and mirroredthe permanence of a more fundamental reality.

In the next few years Pound continued to develop this non-progressivetechnique of superimposed images and ideas from vastly different times

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and places. But one problem remained. In early Pound wasdisturbed by a feature of his theory of Vorticist Imagisme – how to writea long Imagiste poem. In order to be universal and free of space and timelimits, Imagiste poems can include only a few ideas superimposed on topof one another and thus must remain short. A longer poem may have torely on temporal sequence to connect various images and it may need aprogression of ideas to unify the different elements of the poem. Poundbelieved that this problem could be solved, once again by turning to theAsian art that was also part of the alternative tradition that includedVorticism. In September Pound claimed that the Japanese Nohplays led him to see “nothing against a long vorticist poem.” The Nohplayswere also important forYeats, perhaps evenmore so than forPound.And as with Pound, they too helped define Yeats’s mature artistic style.

In Yeats’s aesthetic ideas grew closer to Pound’s concurrent the-ory of Vorticist Imagisme. Yeats also proposed that the greatest poems“mould vast material into a single image,” are “the impression of asingle idea,” and contain “architectural unity and symbolic importance.”Moreover, these poems are as simple as prose, resemble pictures or“sensuous images,” and have an “instantaneous effect.” Yeats also madeclear that the best poetry is a spiritual art that is not divorced from thepast. It uses traditional religious symbols and themes because “the oldimages, the old emotions, awakened again to overwhelming life . . . by thebelief and passion of some new soul, are the only masterpieces.” More-over, if this sort of art was recreated in the present day, chronological timecouldbe abolished; peoplewhoexist in anageof travel “by steamboat andrailway” could once again “live amid” the same“thoughts” that existed ina time of “horseback or camel-back.” Thus, like Pound, Yeats wished tocreate a non-progressive, spiritual art that was unified around a singleimage with instantaneous effect. But, again like Pound, Yeats realizedthat this made the writing of long poems very difficult. He felt muchsympathy for those contemporary poets who wrote “little poems,” andhe believed that “it remains for some greater time . . . to create a ‘KingLear,’ a ‘Divine Comedy,’ vast worlds moulded by their own weight andenergy like drops of water.” Yeats solved this problem, as did Pound,with the help of the Japanese Noh theater.

Both Yeats and Pound proposed that the Noh was an Imagiste formof drama. According to Pound, “the better plays are all built into theintensification of a single Image,” such as “red maple leaves,” a “snowflurry,” waves and wave patterns or a “mantle of feathers,” and their“unity lies in the image – they are built up about it as the Greek plays

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are built up about a single moral conviction.” Yeats agreed that thereexists in the Noh “a playing upon a single metaphor as deliberate asthe echoing rhythms of line in Chinese and Japanese painting” and thatone can discover “the invention of images more powerful than sense;the continual presence of reality.” Moreover, the images around whichthe Noh plays were unified were universal and intended to point topermanence, rather than to the flux of change. Pound, for example, waspleased to discover that the painting of “a pine tree,” so often seen at theback of the stage, was “the symbol of the unchanging.”

But most important, because the “manner of construction” was basedon the “intensification of a single Image,” the Noh plays reinforced theidea that linear narrative form was not necessary even in a long work.

The Noh, according to Yeats, was not the writing of “an industrial age”and thus did not use “a mechanical sequence of ideas.” He and Poundboth learned from Fenollosa’s notes that the Noh did not “imitate facts”or copy “facts point by point.” As literary critic Richard Taylor des-cribes it, “the ritual of No [sic] is not really dramatic.There is little conflictof any sort, and whatever logical progression does exist is determinedby associations of feelings and emotional states, not the inevitability ofcause and effect.” This is quite like the simultaneous emotional andintellectual complex of an Image.

Yet therewas a further feature of the construction of theNoh plays thathelped Pound in particular solve the problem of how to produce a longImagiste poem. This was the structure of a complete Noh performancein which six full plays on different subjects were included. Fenollosahad noted that this full performance generally included first a “godpiece,” then a “battle-piece,” a “female piece,” a “Noh of spirits,” apiece on the “moral duties of man,” and finally another “god piece”similar to the first. According to Fenollosa, this last piece is intended “toshow though the spring may pass, still there is a time of its return.”

Pound was very impressed by this. He believed that it was evidence that“the Noh holds up a mirror to nature in a manner very different fromthe Western convention of plot.” This is because “we do not find, aswe find in Hamlet, a certain situation or problem set out and analyzed.The Noh service presents or symbolizes, a complete diagram of life andrecurrence.” Thus for Pound a cyclic structure attained a deeper realismthan a progressive plot and was more true to the reality of life. And itsuggested a new technique to construct a long Imagiste poem.

Pound now had the confidence to write a long poem, which simulta-neously superimposed themes and images from all ages in the abstract

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tradition without reference to chronology, and whichmade circularity itsfundamental form and subject. The result was the Cantos. Pound beganthe earliest version of the Cantos in and published them as ThreeCantos in . The Three Cantos were dropped from the later versionof the Cantos, but literary critics have claimed that Pound “never reallyrepudiated many of the formal and thematic patterns” that the earlierwork began. In Three Cantos Pound decisively abandoned linear narra-tive and progressive time for repeated recurrent patterns, and for themesdrawn from all of the “living” past without regard to chronology – forexample, the Italian Renaissance, Medieval Provence, Rome, Egypt,Confucian China, Japan, archaic Greece, the age of the cave paintingsin the Dordogne, and twentieth-century Indiana.

The Three Cantos is a poem that addresses the question of how to writepoetry in themodernworld. Pound’s answer lies with his non-progressiveand cyclic view of history. He begins the poemwith a consideration of thenineteenth-century poet he most admired, Robert Browning, and notesthat Browning could be criticized for his use of history because he is notconcerned with accurate chronology; “half your dates are out, you mixyour eras,” “you turn off whenever it suits your fancy/ Now at Verona,now with the early Christians.” But Pound decides that this does notmatter “in the least” because poets“can be where we will be.” There isno need for them to botherwith the progressive time of the natural world;rather they should imitate the timelessness of the supernatural world.Poets should, like Odysseus in the underworld or the English mystic,JohnHeydon, in a trance, join the communication that exists in the animamundi between the dead of all ages and places. And Pound’s declarationthat “Ghosts move about me/ Patched with history” announces that hetoo will abandon chronology and present all that is valuable in the pastsimultaneously. The type of poetry that results, and that rejects theprogressive nature of history, has particular value in the contemporaryage, according to Pound. Not only does it ensure that the past is notlost (“ ‘It is not gone.’ Metastasio/ Is right – we have that world aboutus,”), but also it enables the modern poet and his audience actually tore-live that past (“Was I there truly?/Did I knewOr SanMichele?/ Let’sbelieve it.”). Thus, a vast storehouse of knowledge can be restored fromthe past for use in the present in poetry and life in general (“How manyworlds we have!”). With this confidence, Pound then continues thepoem that juxtaposes so many vastly different times and places.

When he wrote the later Cantos Pound used many of the same devices.In that poem also Odysseus became one of the key characters. Not only

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was the theme of his descent into the underworld and reconstruction ofthe past through the communication with ghosts as important as in theThree Cantos, so toowas the cyclic nature of his voyage.Thus Pound addeda new element in this much longer poem and it became the controllingstructure of the entirework. As Poundmade it clear in a letter to his fatherin , the “repeat in history” was key to the fugue-like organizationof the Cantos. The poem not only juxtaposes vastly different times andplaces, as in the earlier work, but it also returns cyclically to various ageswhile emphasizing slightly different themes in each.

In fact, literary critic Daniel Pearlman argues that cycles not only in-form the structure of the Cantos, but also are fundamental to its overalltheme. According to Pearlman, in the Cantos Pound was pointing outthe fact that linear or mechanical time, “which is unidirectional andirreversible,” is “the fundamental enemy of life” and the cause of themodern decadence, moral disorder, and chaos. A cyclic concept of timeis much preferable for Pound because it provides order for the chaosof life and it gives people “freedom from any sense of history as a se-ries of unique and unrepeatable events and allows [them] to live in anunceasing present.” As a result, according to Pearlman, Pound believedthat “history, whenever meaningful, is marked by recurrence rather thannovelty,” and this is why he used recurring, timeless myths and coevallayers of civilization in the Cantos. Moreover, Poundmight have intendedto revive the past cyclically in the present day in order to exhibit per-manence over time, to ensure order and a fundamental continuity withthe past, and to provide hope for the future. Thus, in his mature stylePound not only implied that circularity was a preferable view of life andhistory because of the order it imposed, but by creating an art form thatprovided a fundamental connection with the tradition of the past thathe preferred, Pound also was cyclically returning that tradition in thepresent day.

It is likely that Yeats had the same goal in mind. He too might havebeen attempting to bring about a return of the past tradition he preferredby writing plays inspired by the Noh and by having them produced ina manner similar to the Noh. This was especially the case in his FourPlays for Dancers (–). According to Richard Taylor, these playswere designed to instill a sense of order, permanence, and universalityin opposition to change and flux. As Taylor explains, “universal rela-tionships or conditions” assume more importance than “objective plotdevelopment” in these Noh-inspired plays. One way this was accom-plished was by a lack of humanism, in which “the depersonalization of

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the characters renders them representative types and focuses attentionon the universal rather than the particular.” As a result, Yeats was able toabandon a narrative style. He was “more or less unencumbered by causeand effect relationships between the motives and actions of characters”and could begin to experiment “with suprapositioning of discontinuousscenes and visual images.”As he himself put it, hewas imitating Japanesedrama, which involves “a playing on a single metaphor” rather than “amechanical sequence of ideas.”

Yeats’s plays inspired by the Noh, therefore, were very similar toPound’sThree Cantos. In these plays Yeats, like Pound, abandoned a senseof progress and presented various ages in the past contemporaneouslywith the present. The plays were a unique amalgam of contemporaryEuropean, classical Japanese, and ancient Irish themes and techniques.The settings and costumes combined Japanese stage design, masks, andmusic with the latest Post-Impressionist styles. The characters includedghosts, aristocrats, and peasants, and the subject was often based onJapanese tales, but transposed into themythic Ireland of Cuchlain, Emer,and the Sidhe, or to the Ireland of . Thus progress was abandonedfor a sense of circularity, or for a superpositioning of elements from nu-merous ages in the past and present with no sense of chronology. Andall of Yeats’s previous interests past and present were included in an artform that provided a great sense of order and a fundamental connectionwith a past tradition.

In late , at the same time that he was working on his Four Plays forDancers, Yeats began to gather the basic concepts contained in A Vision,partially from contact he believed he had established with the “other”world of spirits. In fact, Yeats thought that the spirit world had providedhim with knowledge of the entire scheme of life and history. It was inthis way that he cameupwith themost complete andmost complex cyclictheory of history of all the five Modernists under discussion. A Vision,like Yeats’s artistic endeavors, provided an ordered pattern within whichhe could include all of his previous concerns and goals. This pattern wasvery similar to the one developed by Hulme, Pound, and the Vorticists.In fact, the central image of A Vision is a type of vortex. Yeats explainedthat the “fundamental symbol” of A Vision is “a double cone or vortex”(also called a gyre) that describes the “Great Wheel” of history. Morespecifically, the symbol was of two interpenetrating vortices that are inconstant motion, expanding and contracting inwards and outwards. Inhis introduction to the book, Yeats even wrote that he regarded “thesystem” of A Vision “as stylistic arrangements of experience comparable

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to the cubes in the drawing of Wyndham Lewis and to the ovoids in thesculpture of Brancusi.”

According toRichard Ellmann, “Yeats thought that he had discoveredin this figure of interpenetrating gyres the archetypal pattern which ismirrored and remirrored by all life, by all movements of civilizationor mind or nature.” These gyres represent the various dichotomiesor extremes composing all of life and thought which eternally moveinwards to a point and meet and then separate outwards again. Whentransposed to the course of human history, this symbol becomes theGreat Wheel. The dichotomies cyclically alternate with one another –one growing in strength while the other diminishes until they meet andthe opposite movement begins. Thus ages in which different principlesare predominant will alternate as they follow an endless cycle.

Although in A Vision Yeats tried not to indicate whether he had a pref-erence for any specific ages or dichotomy of principles, his descriptionof the cycle of the present day and of the near future clearly indicatedhis optimism. As he made it most clear in his edition of the work,Yeats believed that the current age was “dogmatic, levelling, unifying,feminine, human, peace its means and end.” On the other hand, theapproaching age “for which the intellectual preparation had begun” willbe one which “obeys imminent power, is expressive, hierarchical, multi-ple, masculine, harsh, surgical” and aristocratic. These are all featuresof civilizations for which Yeats had expressed his admiration for years.

Later in his life Yeats did occasionally express some concern aboutthe period of transition to the future cycle; he feared that the end of thecurrent agewould involve destruction and violence, even civil war. Thiswas best expressed in his poem “The Second Coming” in which“mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,/ The blood-dimmed tide isloosed, and everywhere/ The ceremony of innocence is drowned” as a“rough beast” approached with the new cycle. However, this fear didnot alter Yeats’s fundamental optimism. At times he claimed that he “didnot take literally” the destruction he predicted. Elsewhere he suggestedthat it was necessary, and thatmodernmenmust “lovewar” because “thedanger is that there will be no war, that . . .European civilisation . . .willaccept decay.” Finally, he also claimed that it was “laughing, ecstaticdestruction” he anticipated, and that when civilizations “approach thephoenix’ nest” of renewal, despite any violence “we who have hated theage are joyous and happy.” As he wrote in , “All things fall and arebuilt again/ And those that build them again are gay.”

Thus, with his cyclic view of history, Yeats had formulated a viewof the universe with the authority of a religion that provided the order

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and stability, connection with the past, and hope for the future that hehad always desired. This theory also could serve as a basis for a non-progressive aesthetic form founded on the art of past cycles, such as hehad begun to experiment with in his Four Plays for Dancers. Yeats himself,therefore, could have been part of “the intellectual preparation” for thecyclic return of the tradition he preferred.

With cyclic literary techniques and cyclic theories of history Poundand Yeats, like Hulme, had found a structure for art and the universeas a whole which provided a continuity with the past, and an optimismabout a better future. Ford, on the other hand, did not elaborate such anexplicitly cyclic theory of history at this date. Ford’s historical opinionswere often implicit in his ideas, but more evident in his artistic practice.Because of his acceptance of political opinions very much like those ofHulme, Ford openly rejected the “Whig” views of history he had sup-ported in the beginning of his career. He became particularly concernedwith the fallacy of historical and political theories that proposed thatfreedom would result in automatic progress. Again like Hulme, he pin-pointed both the ideas of Whig historians and of Rousseau as primeexamples of this mistake. In a statement almost paraphrasing Hulme, in Ford claimed that what he “really do[es] desperately want to see isa good Tory history in use in schools in this country, to take once andfor all the place of stuff of the Whig type.” And Ford believed that inaddition to “Whig cant of the greatest good of the greatest number,” “itis really time that the idea of precedent broadening down to precedentshould be got out of the heads of this afflicted people.”

Ford’s replacement of progress with a cyclic pattern was more clearlyseen, however, in his creative writing. As withYeats, in Ford’s literarytheory grew close enough to Pound’s to appear very much like VorticistImagisme. Ford considered Impressionism to be the literary aspect ofFuturism in the same way that Pound considered Imagisme to be theliterary side of Vorticism. Like Pound as well, Ford also redefined histheory of Impressionismwhen he identified it with the visual arts. In fact,Ford made the association of his “Imagiste friends” with his own goalswhenhe claimed that they toowere “realists”who “rendered . . . concreteobjects” with precision, clearness, and hardness to arouse or conveydefinite emotions. In a statement echoing both Pound and Hulme, Fordthought that the best art used “a very clear and defined rendering of anymaterial object . . . to convey to the beholder or reader a sort of quiveringof very definite emotions.”

In addition, Ford, like Pound and Yeats, believed that progressive nar-rative must be abandoned in favor of a simultaneous or instantaneous

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style. As we have seen, as early as Ford had begun to experimentwith non-linear plot structures for his novels. But it was only in and that he theorized about this type of structure and made it thekey to his artistic technique. Ford had always claimed that he wishedto “render those queer effects of real life” in his art. In and ,he came to a new understanding of how to do this. He concluded that“real life” could not be depicted in a linear fashion because it involveda complex movement between a surface reality and a more importantdeeper reality. More specifically, he argued that all people, all the time,experience a variety of thoughts, emotions, and feelings at the sametime; on the surface they may be carrying on a conversation with some-one, but simultaneously they are thinking about their physical feelings,about another discussion they are overhearing, or about past emotionsand conversations. According to Ford “the mind passes . . . perpetuallybackwards and forwards between the apparent aspects of things and theessentials of life.” Impressionism, therefore, if it is a true representationof the “vibrating” reality of the mind, must “give a sense of two, of three,of as many as you will, places, persons, emotions, all going on simultane-ously in the emotions of the writer” and a sense of “that balancing of themind between the great outlines and the petty details.” It is, therefore,an “attempt to render those superimposed emotions.”

According to Ford, if this is carried out in a novel the result will beanalogous to a Futurist collage:

you will have produced something that is very like a Futurist picture – not aCubist picture, but one of those canvases that show you in one corner a pairof stays, in another a bit of the foyer of a music hall, in another a fragment ofearly morning landscape, and in the middle a pair of eyes, the whole bearingthe title of “A Night Out.” And, indeed, those Futurists are only trying to renderon canvas what Impressionists tel que moi have been trying to render for manyyears.

This last statement is not entirely true. Ford had not been trying torender superimposed impressions for years. The idea of simultaneitywas new to him in and . It was only when he developed his“Futurist” Impressionism, analogous to Pound’s Vorticist Imagisme, thatFord claimed in order to truly render “real life,” progressive narrativemust be abandoned in a novel.

In and , however, Ford made quite clear that he believed“certain quite strong canons, certain quite rigid unities . . .must beobserved” to create this new sort of art form. Whether in prose, verse,

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painting, or sculpture, Impressionism “is the record of the impression ofamoment; it is not a sort of rounded, annotated record of a set of circum-stances.” In other words, it does away with a linear chronicle of events.Ford explicitly rejected the dogma of the s “that it was necessaryto have a story, ‘with a beginning, a middle, and an end’ all complete.”Futurist Impressionism could not be an “ordinary ‘plotted’ short story.”It could not have “the economically worded, carefully progressing setof apparently discursive episodes, all resolved, as it were, in the coup decannon of the last sentence.”

Thus, in Ford’s new novels movement, change, narrative, and progres-sive action would be abandoned in favor of simultaneity and superimpo-sition.The flux ofmodern lifewould be frozenwhile a deeper, permanentreality beneath the surface would be exhibited by rigorous selection. Assuch this new style was very similar in its goals andmethods to Vorticism.According to Robert Green, when Ford applied this method to his ownwriting he created “a patterned design that was neither chronologicalnor linear.” Like the Imagiste intellectual and emotional complex in aninstant of time, Ford’s technique produced “an impression on his readeranalogous to that of a sculpture whose shape can be perceived in a frac-tion of a second.” To accomplish this sculptural lack of chronologicallinearity, according to Green, and again in a manner similar to Pound,“aspects of past and present are continually juxtaposed . . . so that theyare fused in one comprehensive view that attempts to transcend historicallimits and encompass all time.”

Ford’s first application of this technique was in “The Saddest Story”which he began on December , . This work was not out of placein the first issue ofBlast and easily could be described as aVorticist story.

The theme is best presented in Ford’s own words from his book HenryJames, which was written in the same year. It was a work that intendedto render “the world of to-day, with its confusing currents, its incompre-hensible riddles, its ever present but entirely invisible wire pulling, andits overwhelming babble.” In other words, it was an attempt to exhibitand control the same “messiness and confusion” that the Vorticists andHulme perceived in modern life, and it was intended to express Ford’sregret for the “Permanence . . . Stability” which is gone.

In describing the life of two couples from the upper classes, Ford clearlydepicted the chaotic reality hidden beneath the facade of civilization.Onthe surface both couples are proper, cultivated, responsible members ofsociety at “the pitch of civilization,” and they lead “the most desirabletype of life in the world” with “an almost unreasonably high standard.”

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But underneath is anarchy, cruelty, and immorality, or, as Ford put it,“a prison full of screaming hysterics.” To present this dichotomy, Fordused a technique closely resembling that of Pound and Yeats, and onethat is reminiscent of Vorticism. The narrator of the story, one mem-ber of the quartet, acts as the still center at the heart of the flux ofmovement around him that he does not understand and cannot control.He attempts to organize and direct the flux by retelling his story. Butin retelling it, he uses a more “real” non-linear and non-chronologicalmethod. Not only does the narrator superimpose emotions from differ-ent time periods rather than chronicle events in a linear manner, he alsochanges chronology completely and moves backwards and forwards intime randomly. Moreover, in the complete version of The Good Soldier,published in , the narrator returns cyclically to one date, albeit indifferent years – August . This date, the start of the First World War, isthe key date of the novel – all the important events occur on it. Thus in“The Saddest Story” and The Good Soldier there is no sense of progress.A sense of the contemporaneity of past and present, and of circularityare the controlling structures.

Furthermore, in this novel Ford associates the disintegration of thelife of the two couples with the wider course of history. It is, in fact, thestory of the breakdown of the ancient aristocratic tradition in modernlife. The key event of the novel, and the cause of the ultimate declineof the couples, and analogously of the aristocratic tradition, is identifiedas the Protestant Reformation. This event had led to the dichotomyof sterile Catholicism and meddling Puritanism represented by LeonoraandFlorencewho endupdestroying the trueEnglish country gentleman,Edward Ashburnham. Moreover, Ford implies that this sort of thing hashappened repeatedly in history. It is a story of “the falling to pieces of apeople” such as happened with “the sack of Rome by the Goths” and inthe FrenchRevolution. Thus Ford suggests that the disintegration of anaristocratic tradition had occurred cyclically in the course of history, andis oncemore occurring in the present day – the age of the FirstWorldWar.

Finally, it is likely that in this novel Ford provided an answer to aquestion he posed in Henry James. In that essay Ford suggested that oneof the most important questions an Impressionist writer could discusswhen writing about the upper classes is:

are the prizes of life, is the leisured life which our author has depicted for us,worth striving for? If, in short, this life is not worth having . . . if this life, whichis the best that our civilisation has to show, is not worth the living; if it is not

Cyclic history arrives

pleasant, cultivated, civilised, cleanly and instinct with reasonably high ideals,then, indeed, Western civilisation is not worth going on with, and we had betterscrap the whole of it so as to begin again.

Ford’s answer in The Good Soldier is clearly in the negative. Not only isthis civilization “not worth going on with,” but it has been in a state ofdisintegration for centuries and is on its last legs. It should be “scrapped”and a new cycle, and a new aristocratic tradition should be begun.

Ford did not continue from these suggestions to outline explicitlya cyclic theory of history right away. He did, however, think that“Mr. Brzeska’s” article in Blast, in which the Vorticist cyclic theory wasoutlined, “is . . . themost pleasurable piece of writing of the lot.” Never-theless, Ford had expressed all the ideas that went into Hulme’s, Pound’s,and Yeats’s cyclic theories. Like all of the fiveModernists, Ford expresseda great hostility to the chaos of nature and humanity and a desire for acontrol and order of the dichotomies he perceived in both. This led him,as it did the others, to feel a commonality of purpose with a traditionof art, politics, and thought in existence in Asia and in pre-RenaissanceEurope. He also had rejected theories of progress and found a means tocontrol and order the chaos with a literary technique of superimposingideas from the past and the present and an implicit circularity. FinallyFord was encouraged by a similar effort in the latest developments inthe visual and literary arts – perhaps suggesting to him that the traditionof order which he preferred might in fact be cyclically returning in thepresent day. All of this provided a firm foundation for the explicitly cyclicview of history he developed after the First World War.

Like Pound, Yeats, and Ford, in Lawrence was inspired by con-temporary and ancient visual art to alter his literary technique. In partic-ular, like Ford, Lawrence identified his own new work with the theoriesand techniques of the Futurists. He even claimed that the book he wascurrently writing, published in as The Rainbow, “is a bit futuristic –quite unconsciously so.” Lawrence particularly likedMarinetti’s idea that“ ‘the profound intuitions of life added one to the other, word by word,according to their illogical conception, will give us the general lines of anintuitive physiology of matter.’ ” And he realized that this suggested theneed to abandon a logical progressive structure. Lawrence now decidedthat the novelist should not “conceive a character in a certain moralscheme and make him consistent” or present “the moral scheme intowhich all the characters fit.” Instead of representing “the old stable egoof the character” or “trace[ing] the history” of individual personalities

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in a linear manner, Lawrence wanted to use a technique in which “thecharacters fall into the form of some other rhythmic form, as when onedraws a fiddle-bow across a fine tray delicately sanded, the sand takeslines unknown.” In other words, he wished to invent an abstract design,rather than rely on a naturalistic, progressive plot development.

Lawrence may have found a way to construct this non-linear “otherrhythmic form” through his interest in symbolism. The type of symbol-ism Lawrence especially liked did not use “only the symbol as a subjectiveexpression: as an expression of ourselves,” but rather used symbols inorder “to grasp . . . the Complete Whole” and to make an “attempt at for-mulating the whole history of the Soul of Man.” In other words, headmired a spiritual symbolism. Lawrence may have discovered exam-ples of this type of symbolism when he came across Mrs. Henry Jenner’sChristian Symbolism, which he “liked very much, because it puts me moreinto order.” Christian symbolism as described by Jenner not only was“used for religious purposes” because “it is not possible to express spiri-tual things adequately in words,” but also it was reserved only for an elite.According to Jenner, “the earliest Christian symbolism was for the mostpart constructed so that it should be understood fully by the initiatedonly.” Moreover, it incorporated the myths and assimilated “the vari-ous good points of earlier religions,” for example, of Greek, Egyptian,Assyrian, Persian, Indian, Chinese, Jewish, and Celtic religions. Jennerhad shown, therefore, that an older type of symbolism existed, which wasspiritual and elitist, and which was part of the alternative tradition of lifeLawrence and the otherModernists already admired. It is not surprising,therefore, that Lawrence took such an interest in the book.

But Jenner did something more for Lawrence. Her analysis ofChristian symbolism may have helped him develop a new literary style.In fact, symbolism as described by Jenner was very much like Pound’sImagisme. According to Jenner, “the function of symbolism in art isto portray to the mind, by means of visible images, conceptions of thesoul.” It used, therefore, concrete visible objects to portray internal ordeeper emotional and intellectual complexes. In addition, this symbol-ism excluded linear progress and chronological narrative. In Christianart “the choice of subjects . . .was of a wholly symbolical interest; histor-ical sequence was absolutely ignored.” In other words, “chronology andhistory are subservient to symbolism and spiritual meaning.” Finally,Jenner reiterated an idea that Lawrence first may have read in Jane EllenHarrison’s work; many Christian symbols, like archaic and non-Westernones, represented the eternal with images of circularity or resurrection.

Cyclic history arrives

According to Jenner, in both pagan religion and early Christianity, thecyclic “revival of Nature at the vernal equinox” was extremely importantand could be expressed by symbols such as “the Resurrection of Christ,”the swastika (“a conventional representation of the ‘wheel of the sun,’the sequence of developmental being”), the peacock and the phoenix(both signify resurrection and eternal life), or simply the circle (which“from very ancient times has been held to represent Eternity withoutbeginning and without end”).

After reading Jenner, Lawrence adopted a number of these ideas.He proposed that all religions that use symbolism “have the same innerconceptions, with different expressions.” And he increasingly stressed theconcept of resurrection as one of the key features of older and better sym-bolic religions. According to Lawrence, contemporary people, because“we think we are very great” cannot get any further than enumerating“the smarts of the crucifixion.” While people of a different tradition ofthought, who employed the “central symbols, from the oldest vision,”wisely “did not insist on the Cross: but on the Resurrection.” Lawrencehoped that this sort of spiritual belief could be revived in the presentday. He proposed that “Christianity should teach us now, that after ourCrucifixion, and the darkness of the tomb, we shall rise again in the flesh,you, I, as we are today, resurrected in the bodies, and acknowledging theFather, and glorying in his power, like Job.” If this were done, then mod-ern people would be able to “grasp and know again as a new truth, truefor ones own history, the great vision, the great, satisfying conceptions ofthe world’s greatest periods.” In other words, there would be a cyclicreturn of the past abstract, symbolic, and spiritual tradition that hadexisted in archaic Greece, Egypt, Assyria, the Middle Ages, and in Asia.

In late Lawrence finally found a perfect symbolism to represent“the great vision” and the “whole history of the Soul of Man,” andperhaps also contribute to the return of a past tradition. This symbolismwas of cycles. It was contained in two very important works with whichLawrencewas occupied in and – his “Study of ThomasHardy”and his novel The Rainbow. Lawrence completed his “Study of ThomasHardy” at the end of November before finishing his final version ofThe Rainbow, and claimed that it was “supposed to be on Thomas Hardy,but in reality [was] a sort of Confessions of my Heart.” In fact, it is oneof the most complete outlines of Lawrence’s philosophical and historicalposition of .

The study is founded on the theory that a dichotomy of extremesexists, which must be brought into harmony and equilibrium for any

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sort of healthy society or human beings to emerge. These two extremeswere the principles Lawrence summed up under the terms “male” and“female.”Themaleprinciple is “endlessmotion, endless diversity, endlesschange,” and Lawrence believed that it was best symbolized by a wheelthat constantly moves but without direction. The female principle, onthe other hand, is one of the will-to-inertia, fixity, eternality, “of infiniteoneness, of infinite stability,” and it was symbolized by a motionless axleor hub. When these two principles are brought into equilibrium, or“married”, as they should be, the male wheel revolves around the femaleaxle. The result is an energetic motion, but one which is controlled anddirected. And it is “motion that is utter rest, a duality that is sheerlyone.”

As can be seen by this description, Lawrence’s key symbols for his phi-losophy of life closely resembled those of the Vorticists. Both Gaudier’sidea of the sphere and the vertical, and the symbol of a vortex as awhirlingcone surrounding a stationary line are very similar to Lawrence’s wheelmoving around a fixed axle. The intended implication of all these sym-bols is also the same. They indicate that a coordination of extremesof change and rest is crucial because it produces a controlled and or-derly motion. Like the Vorticists, Lawrence distrusted the endless flux ofnature and progress. As he wrote, themale principle is “like a wheel, if heturns without his axle, his motion is wandering neutrality.” But alterna-tively, he distrusted complete rest; the female principle needs the male to“convey her static being into motion.” If the two are combined, how-ever, the stability of the female impulse, like a gravitational pull, forcesthe straight line of the male inwards and the result is an orbit, circle, orwheel which combines both motion and rest. The circle, therefore, is thebest representation of a harmonious equilibrium of opposites.

Lawrence expanded upon this philosophy to develop a cyclic theoryof life by using two related metaphors. In one metaphor, quoted at thehead of this chapter, Lawrence claimed that life was a “cycle dance.”Like Yeats’s scheme in A Vision, this “dance” consisted of two wheels, themale and the female, that move towards one another, meet at a certainpoint, move away again, only to begin the process all over. Lawrencealso described this cyclic motion of life in a way resembling a vortex.The two cycles of male and female are combined but the male acts ina “centrifugal” way “fleeing . . . away from the centre,” while the femaleis “centripetal” “fleeing into the eternal centre of rest.” He continuedthat “a combination of the two movements produces a sum of motionand stability at once satisfying.” Thus, as in Yeats’s conception, the two

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principles could be like double vortices, constantly moving inwards andoutwards, occasionallymeeting, and thenmoving apart as far as possible,but destined to repeat the process eternally. But, according to Lawrence,there would be no “meeting andmingling” of the two principles as mightoccur in a spiral view of history. Rather there was “an equilibrium, a purebalance.”

In his “Study of Thomas Hardy” Lawrence applied this philosophyof life to history. He explicitly rejected the idea of progress. For exam-ple, he claimed that the ideas of evolution of Darwin, Spencer, andHuxley, which posit “one spirit or principle starting at the far end oftime, and lonelily traversing Time,” were wrong because “there is notone principle” evolving in a single direction, but “two, travelling alwaysto meet.” History is characterized by alternating male and female prin-ciples as their intersecting cycles draw closer, “meet, combine, [and]always . . .withdraw again.” As one principle grows in dominance, theother declines, but when the height of dominance is achieved, the pro-cess is reversed. At certain periods, the declining and growing principlesare equivalent in strength. There is an equilibrium that characterizesthe best periods in history. But eventually the principle, which had beenrecessive in the previous period, grows in strength and the former dom-inant one weakens, and the cycle repeats itself again. Thus history isthe cyclic alternation of female and male periods with brief interludes ofperfect harmony.

It is important to note, however, that although this scheme of history isclearly cyclic, Lawrence did not accept what he believed was Nietzsche’sidea of eternal recurrence. Lawrence claimed that “each cycle is dif-ferent. There is no real recurrence.” In this sentiment he agreed withHulme and the Vorticists who also believed that although the underlyingessential attitude of the two traditions that alternate remain the same,their attributes change in different ages. Repetition will be analogous,not exact.

Lawrence was not entirely clear or consistent about which periods inhistory fit into this pattern, but he did give some indications. He believedthat the female principle of stability and rest, which he also called theprinciple of “Law,” was the original impulse. The first historical ages,thus, were unadventurous and conservative; they emphasized strict laws,transcendental religion, absolute universal values, and a passive life cen-tered on the bodily feelings and senses. This clearly was the case in theearly Jewish period, the Middle Ages, and perhaps also Babylon, Egypt,and archaic Greece. In ages of “Love” the male principle of movement

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and change encouraged attempts at improving the world through free-dom and individualism, and it engendered a humanistic religion and amorality that denied bodily concerns in favor of rationalism and intel-lectual knowledge. The era of Christ, the Victorian period, and perhapsalso late Greece and Rome were these sorts of ages. Finally, accord-ing to Lawrence, there had been two periods in which an equilibriumbetween the principles had been reached; the fifteenth-century ItalianRenaissance and fifth-century Greece.

This cyclic scheme of history enabled Lawrence to comment fully onthe characteristics of the day in which he lived, and provide an implicitprophecy for the future. Like Hulme, Pound, and Yeats, for LawrencetheRenaissance was an age of transition between cycles. The present daywas part of the post-Renaissance cycle. It was, therefore, a male age ofLove. Lawrence indicated that for England specifically the developmentof this new cycle began when the aristocratic lifestyle of the Cavaliers,which stressed law andorder, and life of the bodily senses, was replaced bythe Puritan morality of the mortification of the flesh, admiration for thedisembodied mind, and concern with the public good. This Puritanismhad grown and had culminated in Victorian moralism, materialism, andrationalismwith its concomitant emphasis on democracy, education, andevolution. All these characteristics indicate an age primarily concernedwith movement and change and an improvement of public life.

AlthoughLawrence, likeYeats, attempted tomake no value judgmentsabout the two types of principles and ages in history in this study, fromhis previous statements it is clear that he did prefer and felt more at homein female ages of Law. These are ages that reject the chaos of democracy,humanism, and intellectualism for the stability and order of aristocracy,transcendental religion, and the bodily senses – all of which Lawrencehad been arguing was missing from and necessary in the present day.

Lawrence believed that at the time he was writing, it was clear that themale spirit of love had reached its height. He saw an indication of thisin contemporary visual art. Lawrence, like Hulme and the Vorticists,believed that both the Futurists and the Impressionists were “the maleextreme of motion.” It was clear, therefore, to Lawrence that the malespirit must soon begin to decline and the female one to rise. Law andorder, religion and aristocracy would assumemore importance, resultingeventually in a brief period of equilibrium in which the best art, life,and thought possible would be produced, before the female spirit tookcomplete control once more. As a result Lawrence must have been quiteoptimistic about the future.

Cyclic history arrives

In his “Study of Thomas Hardy,” therefore, Lawrence had accom-plished a task that was extremely important to him. As he wrote to LadyOttolineMorrell in late January , “it is an Absolute we are all after, astatement of the whole scheme – the issue, the progress through Time –and the return – making unchangeable eternity.” He himself had ef-fected an equilibrium between change and motion in his cyclic theoryand the result was a satisfying sense of order, continuity, and permanence.

Having outlined this theory of history, Lawrence then applied it to hiscreative writing. In his “Study of Thomas Hardy” Lawrence declaredthat “every novel must have some background or the structural skeletonof some theory of being, some metaphysic.” As literary critics havenot failed to note, the “Study of Thomas Hardy” is the “metaphysic” or“structural skeleton” of the novel Lawrence rewrote in , and finishedin , titled The Rainbow. That structure is cyclic. The Rainbow plotsthe recurrent struggles of the Brangwen family to achieve a balancebetween the male and the female principles, while at the same time itidentifies their struggles with the overall course of human history. Thenovel opens by suggesting that in the past, generations of Brangwens hadin fact achieved an equilibrium. However, it concentrates on the periodafter , and the attempts to effect the same balance of three moderngenerations.

In The Rainbow Lawrence presents the female characters as embody-ing characteristics of what he had described in the “Study of ThomasHardy” as the “male” spirit, and the male characters represent the“female” principle. This is perhaps because each is searching for theopposite of their real being in order to achieve the equilibrium thatis a marriage of opposites. The female Brangwens in the novel alwayswant change, progress, and improvement. They seek this change in thechaotic outer world of civilization, business, education, and activity. Themale Brangwens prefer the stability and permanence of the home, ofthe bodily senses, and of transcendent religion.

The first part of the novel examines the marriages of the first twogenerations – Tom and Lydia, and Will and Anna – and their efforts toreconcile their opposite spirits. The struggle between Will and Anna inparticular is very difficult. Will desires to remain either at home (parti-cularly in the bedroom) or in a church where there is “a world . . .withina chaos: a reality, an order, an absolute, within ameaningless confusion.”Anna, on the other hand, needs the activity of the outside world, a com-munication with humanity, and the rationalism brought by knowledge.

Both couples eventually manage to reach an equilibrium and the

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marriage and the home become the axle or still center around which thechaotic flux of the outer world revolves. This equilibrium is representedby the symbol of the rainbow that appears at the end of the story of eachgeneration. As Keith Sagar remarks “the rainbow is an image of theperfect balance of the great polar opposites which go to make up life –sunshine and rain, air and water, light and dark, heaven and earth.”

It is also half of a circle of life and death, and it must be achieved beforethe entire cycle of existence can be complete. Moreover, it is the hope forthe future – hope that a new generation will once again cyclically repeatand succeed at the same struggle.

In describing these two generations, Lawrence also made an analogywith the broader course of human history. Tom and Lydia represent theprimeval pagan world. They have a simple agricultural life on a farm,close to the natural cycle of existence. They live “through a mystery oflife and death and creation.” Will and Anna, however, have moved toa cottage and Will is a craftsman with a passion for church architecture.They both live in harmony with the cycles of the Christian year. Theyrepresent, therefore, the medieval cycle of history. Thus in each gen-eration the same struggle and equilibrium is cyclically repeated. Whenaccomplished, both find peace by living in harmony with the fundamen-tal cycles of life – of the natural world or the Christian year.

The third generation of the novel moves on into the modern periodand makes up the last half of the book. The novel, therefore, is primarilyconcernedwithdiscussing the struggle for equilibrium in themodernage.Will’s andAnna’s daughter,Ursula, is the focus of this struggle, and by thetime she is an adult she is livingwith her parents in amodern suburb of anindustrial, coalmining town. Like all Brangwen women, Ursula desiresto take part in the male world of civilization outside the home. But thisworld, in the modern age, has become one of materialism, democracy,equality, imperialism,moral relativism,mechanism, ugliness, cruelty, andabove all chaos.Ursula feels an instinctive hatred for all of themaleworld.She, like all the Brangwens, despite any social classifications, is by naturean aristocrat, and finds herself out of place with the modern world.Nevertheless, Ursula feels that she must face the world and conquer it.She attempts to do this by getting an education, securing a job, andfinding a mate. In Anton Skrebensky she discovers a soldier, imperialist,and democrat, who is an embodiment of the male principle, the spirit ofthe age, and the established order of things.

In the end Ursula does conquer the male world around her andSkrebensky as well. But she remains unsatisfied. She has not effectedan equilibrium because she has merely added further male principles

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to the male spirit she already embodied. She needs her opposite – thefemale principle of stability, transcendence, absolute, impersonal will toprovide an axle and direction to the wheel of the world of chaos in whichshe lives. When Ursula realizes this the novel ends – once again with arainbow. Ursula, although she has not yet found her opposite to marry,has realized the path she must take to effect once again an equilibriumand begin a new cycle.

In the last scene of the novel, Lawrence provides a key for what theentire book has been about, and in explicitly relating it to the broadercourse of history, he clearly indicates his optimism about the future.The novel’s structure, in addition to plotting the cyclic struggle of threegenerations, is cyclic in its overall design. The novel begins where itends, with a Brangwen looking out over the local church. Ursula is inbed ill, and in her delirium she perceives herself as the kernel of an acornwhich had freed itself of its winter husk. She knows that “the kernel wasfree and naked and striving to take new root, to create a new knowledgeof Eternity in the flux of Time.” In other words, she is prepared toeffect the equilibrium between permanence and change, and as suchshe would cyclically repeat the process that had gone on in nature and inhumanity for generations throughout the course of history. Ursula thenlooks out of her window at the coalmining town in which she lives andshe sees “a dry, brittle, terrible corruption spreading over the face of theland.” But beyond that she also perceives “a rainbow forming itself.”Lawrence concludes the novel with the following hope:

And the rainbow stood on the earth. She knew that the sordid people who crepthard-scaled and separate on the face of the world’s corruption were living still,that the rainbow was arched in their blood and would quiver to life in theirspirit, that they would cast off their horny covering of disintegration, that new,clean, naked bodies would issue to a new germination, to a new growth, rising tothe light and the wind and the clean rain of heaven. She saw in the rainbow theearth’s new architecture, the old, brittle corruption of houses and factories sweptaway, the world built up in the living fabric of Truth, fitting to the over-archingheaven.

Lawrence’s cyclic theory of history, therefore, enabled him to writehis first Modernist work. This work, like that of other Modernists, had acyclic structure. It posited both the reality of cycles and their importancein effecting a combination of extremes and a universal stability that isessential to control the chaos that is life. His cyclic theory of historyalso gave Lawrence, as it did all five Modernists, a reassuring sense ofcontinuity with the past and a hope for the future. It was a means toprovide order and meaning in an age of “messiness and confusion.”

“The Nightmare” and beyond: the First World War

and mature cyclic theories

Such a war-time that let loose the foulest feelings of a mob . . . totorture any single, independent man as a mob always tortures theisolated and independent.

D. H. Lawrence, Kangaroo, .

On August , what D.H. Lawrence later described as “TheNightmare” began. Being part of the “aristocracy of the arts” did not pro-tect the five Modernists from the life-changing and often devastatingevents of the First World War. This does not mean that they all livedthrough it in the same ways. In fact, like the population of Britain in gen-eral, their experiences of, and reactions to, the war varied greatly. Themost tragic case was that of T.E. Hulme. Immediately after the decla-ration of war Hulme enlisted. He fought at the front from late toSeptember , with an interval of a few months in when he wasrecovering from wounds. Hulme was killed on September , .According to an obituary in The Cambridge Magazine, “the shell which issupposed to have blownhim to pieces burst unobserved, and its explosionleft no trace of his remains.”

Ford’s war also was dominated by active military service, but with lessdevastating results. He enlisted in the army in July , fought at theSomme in the summer of and was hospitalized for illnesses causedby shell-shock and gas. He returned to the battlefield in , and onceagain was hospitalized and remained as an enlisted soldier in Britainfor the rest of the war. The other three Modernists did not participateactively in thewar. Pound volunteered twice butwas rejected both times –initially by the English because he was American and America had notyet joined the war, and later by the Americans for an unknown reason.

Neither Yeats nor Lawrence had any desire to enlist. Yeats showed littleinterest in the war and his age ( in ) made him exempt. Lawrence,on the other hand, was actively opposed to the war; he claimed that he

First World War and mature cyclic theories

would never put on a uniform and would die before he would followorders or shoot a weapon. He had to do neither. When conscription wasinstated, he was rejected for medical reasons.

As their experiences of the war were different, so too were the reac-tions of the five Modernists to it. Ford and Hulme, the two who fought,both grew very supportive of the Allied cause. Pound, the only otherModernist to volunteer, also supported the Allies but with slightly lessenthusiasm. Yeats made little comment about the war and seemed al-most entirely indifferent. Lawrence was completely pessimistic about theentire affair. Despite the fact that all five experienced and reacted to thewar differently, this disturbing international conflict did little to changetheir thinking about art, politics, or history. In fact, while theModernistsdid alter some of their ideas slightly, the war served to support all of theirprevious positions. Thus, what is more interesting than the changes thatthe war brought to the authors is the similarities of their post-war andpre-war ideas.

Ford was the first of the five to make any comment about the war.Initially Ford approached the war with the political theories he had de-veloped by , and which one might expect to be the attitude of allfive Modernists. His opinion was quite cynical. He thought that “whatis senseless, what is imbecile, are the ideas for which people are dying”because he believed that the war was a product and “an indictmentof the Parliamentary system and of democracy.” As a result he did notdespise the enemy and claimed that he “should feel intensely any mor-tification to Germany.” He did “not mind who cuts whose throat” be-cause “the greater part of humanity is merely the stuff with which to fillgraveyards.” Moreover, Ford thought that ultimately the war might bebeneficial for Europe because it would help destroy the parliamentarysystem.

But by the end of the month of August and throughout Ford’s attitude toward the war had changed dramatically. His final opin-ions were best expressed in two books commissioned by the Ministryof Propaganda and published in , When Blood is Their Argument andBetween St. Denis and St. George. In these two works Ford enthusiasticallysupported the Allied cause. Germany had become, for Ford, the per-sonification of everything he despised in the modern world. In fact, itbecame the inferior of two traditions that Ford believed had existed inthe past and present day.

Ford claimed thatGermany, which had started thewar for the purposeof territorial expansion in order to increase its wealth, was dominated

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by Prussian culture which was diametrically opposed to that of England,France, and southern Europe (including southern Germany). In fact,echoing Hulme, Ford claimed that the Prussian point of view is entirelydifferent from the British one, and “it is a difference not of degree, butof species.” Prussia, according to Ford, was materialistic, egotistical, me-chanical, scientific, anti-religious, ostentatious, morally corrupt, cruel,and lacking in any great art, thought, or culture. The Prussian politicalsystem also was truly evil. It valued the state above the individual, and thestate it so valued was absolutist and despotic, militarist and aggressivelynationalistic, coldly and strictly organized, and repressive of individualfreedoms. In fact, Ford’s description of the Prussian state’s involvementin and repression of individual life made it almost resemble a totalitariangovernment. Citing the cases of Poland and Alsace under Prussian dom-ination, Ford believed that if Prussia were allowed to expand any furtherinto Europe dictatorial oppression would be the fate of all nations.

In opposition to Prussianism, Ford entirely supported the existingBritish system. Ford once again showed an admiration for democracy.He thought that the British state is “an almost perfect organ for theregulation . . . of human intercourse.” Ford now entirely agreedwith “theEnglish ideal of ‘freedom slowly broadening down from precedent toprecedent,’ or in other words, constitutionalism” that he had previouslyattacked so vehemently. And he thought that “probably constitutional-ism is the best rule-of-thumb organisation for human beings who desireto live at peace with one another and to pursue the ordinary avocationsof humanity.” Ford admired British culture once again for its humanist,chivalrous, and altruistic values, and for its concern with the freedomand happiness of individuals. Finally, according to Ford, Germany wasactively seeking world dominance and thus “the German nation [was]the greatest menace to humanity that the world has ever seen, or thathas, at least, been chronicled in recorded history.” Ford believed that thefundamental issue of the war was “whether the future of the race shallbe that of organised, materialist egoism, or that of what I would call theall-round sportsmanship of altruistic culture.” Thus, it was essential thatthe Allies win because “the fate of humanity and of civilisation is to bedecided forever.”

Hulme’s reactions to the war and his opinion of Germany were verymuch the same as Ford’s. In a number of articles he wrote in and titled “War Notes” he echoed many of Ford’s ideas. Hulme tookpains to make clear to his readers the malevolent nature of Germanyand the serious threat it posed to England and Europe as a whole

First World War and mature cyclic theories

because of its lack of liberalism and freedom, its statism, and its mili-tarism. Hulme believed that “England is really in danger” becauseGermany is “anti-democratic” and a menace to democracy. Germanilliberalism was exhibited for Hulme by her bureaucracy and belief in“ ‘the omnipotence of the State’ ” in which the life of the state is moreimportant than the life of the individuals who comprise it. It was also in-dicated by the German glorification of “ ‘militarism . . . [as] the Germanspirit itself ’ ” and by the German sense of cultural superiority in science,technology, art, and literature. Germans unrealistically believe that theyare “God’s people” superior to “ ‘all the other peoples whom [they see]at infinite depth below [them]’.”

Like Ford, Hulme also claimed that Germans seriously thought thatthey needed to expand territorially in order “to find room for theirincreasing population” and that they were willing to dominate and takepossession of all of Europe and establish “German hegemony” to accom-plish this. They wanted to create “a Macedonian military empire, inwhich Germany would play the same part that Prussia plays to-day inGermany itself.” And finally, according to Hulme, if the Germans win,“Europe will be really altered in structure by this war.” There will be “aGerman Europe” under the tyranny of Germany and “all we mean bydemocracy will certainly take a second place in our daily lives.” In short,“the liberties of Europe” – “free thought, free speech, free culture” willdisappear.

Pound’s reaction to the war was a bit more complex than that ofFord and Hulme. Like Ford, Pound was not initially enthusiastic abouteither the Allied cause or the war itself. In fact, he condemned bothsides. In November Pound claimed that “this war is possibly aconflict between two forces almost equally detestable. Atavism and theloathsome spirit of mediocrity cloaked in graft.” Moreover, his mainconcern throughout the war was the effect it had, and would continueto have, on art and culture. He spent much of his energy during theseyears complaining about the difficulty of publishing works of literatureand trying to help various writers get their work into print.

For the first year of the war, Pound tried to ignore it as much aspossible. He claimed that the war was “a species of insanity” and hecontinued to develop the ideas of the period immediately prior to thewar in order to provide a counterbalancing “species of quiet and sobersanity.” Pound persisted in propagandizing for Vorticism and the artistsassociated with it, as well as developing his interest in Chinese poetry.

But neither Pound nor the other Vorticists could entirely ignore the war.

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Pound heard a great deal about the experience of it in letters he receivedfrom Gaudier who was fighting in the trenches. And Gaudier joinedthe Vorticists in contributing to the second number of Blast, which waspublished in July . In many respects the editorials for Blast, No. echoed Ford’s and Hulme’s ideas. In agreement with Ford, the editori-als assumed that German civilization was entirely different from that ofEngland and France and that it was composed of all the elements thatwere disagreeable in the contemporary world. Germany was roman-tic and sentimental, culturally inferior, materialistic, nationalistic, andmilitaristic. It was an egotistic, bourgeois brigand seeking complete con-quest, world power, commercial exploitation, and endless interferencein individual life. France and England were correct in fighting for theirliberty, were doing a good job, and their assured victory would preventthese characteristics from dominating the future of European society.

Nevertheless, in opposition to Hulme and Ford, the contributors toBlast did not go on to support liberalism and parliamentarianism. Infact, Germany was also described as democratic and vulgar. And echo-ing Pound, Blast did not admire the “unsatisfactory democracy” thatwas fighting “teutonic atavism.” Rather, in a sentiment close to that ofthe Action Francaise, Blast still claimed that aristocracy, order, and disci-pline were necessary and that superior individuals must master the weakcrowd.

The death of Gaudier on June , may have brought the war evenmore to Pound’s consciousness. Pound was deeply upset by this eventand it remained one of the most disturbing experiences of his life. It alsomay have prompted him to express his views of the war more explicitly.Again his ideas echoed those of Ford, but even more so of Blast. In Pound claimed that the German temperament was in complete op-position to that of England and France. He despised Germany becauseof its “desire to coerce others into uniformity” and because of its “per-sonal tyranny . . . oppressions and coercions.” He disliked the Germanstate-controlled educational system of specialists whomust propagandizefor the state. German statism was equally despicable because it was in-formed by “the idea that man is the slave of the state, the ‘unit’, the pieceof the machine” and the state is the slave of the Emperor. Finally, Poundcriticized German nationalism and racism, and the idea of Kultur, of“obedience, Deutschland uber Alles, infallibility.”

In opposition to these German characteristics, Pound believed in thenecessity of “human liberty, personal liberty.” He claimed that “Englandand France are civilisation” because they have “kept some real respect

First World War and mature cyclic theories

for personality, for the outline of the individual.” Moreover, Pound be-lieved that it was essential for individuals to be free from any interferencein order to preserve and develop their own personalities. The rights andprotection of individual personality, especially of “men of unusual intel-ligence,” were paramount. Only in this way would civilization be pre-served. Nevertheless, Pound was not as enthusiastic about democracy asFord or Hulme. Although he did agree that the German political systemwas far worse than democracy, he thought that there could be slavery todemocracy as much as slavery to an all-powerful state.

Yeats was the Modernist who was least affected by the war and whomade the fewest statements about it. In September Yeats was askedby his friend Gilbert Murray to sign a “Declaration by British Authors”who supported “the cause of the Allies with all their strength.” They con-demned the German aggression and believed that Allied victory was es-sential to guarantee Belgian neutrality, to prevent the ruin of France, and“to maintain the free and law-abiding ideals of Western Europe againstthe rule of ‘Blood and Iron’ and the domination of the whole continentby a military caste.” Hulme, Ford, and Pound would have rushed tosign such a declaration, but Yeats refused. He explained to Murray thatwhile he longed “for the defeat of theGermans,” hewas unsure “whetherEngland or Germany brought on this war.” Moreover, the declarationseemed too much like propaganda. Yeats claimed that he would muchrather sign a declaration against secret diplomacy or demanding a re-sponsible investigation of claims of German atrocities – hoping to findthem false and to find “that great numbers of German commanders andsoldiers have behaved with humanity.” Yeats, therefore, was unwillingto condemn either side and had no great hatred for the Germans.

In a letter to his father in the same month, Yeats was a bit more clearabout his feelings – he was disgusted by the entire affair, and blamedthe English as much as the Germans. He claimed that “the war willend I suppose in a draw and everybody too poor to fight for anotherhundred years, thoughnot toopoor to spendwhat is left of their substancepreparing for it.” He disliked the “mob” enthusiasm of the Londoncrowds during a Zeppelin raid cheering every bomb and every shotfrom an anti-aircraft gun. And he claimed that “England is paying theprice for having despised intellect.”

Yeats made few comments about the war after this except to complainabout its effect on his Abbey Theatre productions and on the poverty ofauthors such as James Joyce. Yeats was, at this time, most preoccupiedwith writing and producing his plays based on the aristocratic Japanese

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Noh. Although Yeats still claimed in August that he wished theAllies victory, his attitude towards that war was best summed up in apoem he sent to Henry James in the same month, which he stated “isthe only thing I have written of the war or will write.” The title of thepoem is “A reason for keeping silent” and it begins, “I think it better thatat times like these/ We poets keep our mouths shut; for in truth/ Wehave no gift to set a statesman right.”

InMay of Yeats did sign a letter of Irish writers protesting againstconscription, andhewas greatly disturbedby thedeathofLadyGregory’sson, Major Robert Gregory, but this did little to break his silence.

Rather Yeats was more concerned with strictly Irish problems. He wasparticularly upset by the Easter Rebellion of . And again, as withthe European war, Yeats condemned the English. He thought the Britishgovernment handling of it was incompetent and unjust and he wrote toLadyGregory: “I had no idea that any public event could so deeplymoveme – and I am very despondent about the future. At the moment I feelthat all the work of years has been overturned, all the bringing togetherof classes, all ‘the freeing of Irish literature and criticism from politics’.”In a letter to John Quinn he commented: “We have lost the ablest andmost fine-natured of our young men. A world seems to have been sweptaway.”

In contrast to Yeats, Lawrence was the Modernist who was perhapsmost personally disturbed by the war. Lawrence’s initial reaction wasvery much like Ford’s. He had no great hostility for Germany, which heviewed as “a young, only adolescent nation” that did not “know what todo with themselves.” But he did think that war was a “colossal idiocy,”and he had “never come so near to hating mankind.” He thought that“they are fools, and vulgar fools, and cowards” andhe did not “evenmindif they’re killed.” Nevertheless, Lawrence, like Ford, did have some hopefor the future. He believed that “we shall all come through, rise again andwalk healed and whole and new, in a big inheritance, here on earth.”

As the war progressed, however, Lawrence became more and morepessimistic. He despised the war for the horror of the killing and thuswould not participate in any way to help it. But he also believed thatwar was an essential part of the human race, so he would not becomea conscientious objector. Above all Lawrence simply wanted to be leftalone and to remain aloof. But this was not an attitude that was verywell accepted at the time, and he was forced to become involved.

Lawrence’s hostility to the war became especially extreme between and when it began to affect his life intimately andpersonally.He

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and his wife Frieda were under suspicion by the military authorities for anumber of reasons. Lawrence appeared healthy but was doing nothingfor the war effort. Even worse, Frieda was the daughter of a Germanarmy officer, Baron Friedrich vonRichthofen, and the cousin ofManfredvonRichthofen, the “Red Baron,” whowas gaining increasing attention.Lawrence and Friedawere put under surveillance – theywere spied uponby local authorities with the help of neighbors, their house was searched,they were forced to leave the Cornish coastal village in which they wereliving, they were followed constantly by the police, and they were notpermitted to leave England. On top of this Lawrence’s novelThe Rainbowhad been suppressed by the police for obscenity, and he had an extremelydifficult time making any money because few journals or publisherswould take his work. Lawrence’s experience of the war, therefore, wasone of poverty, suspicion, surveillance, and the interference of authoritieswith the help of the population in his freedom ofmovement and thought.This experience simply served to embitter him toward humanity and allforms of control. By , in his novel Women in Love, Lawrence evenwent so far as to have the main characters fantasize about a “clean,lovely, humanless world” in which people “were just wiped out.”

Lawrence described his feelings about the war most clearly in his novel, Kangaroo. Like Pound’s initial reaction, Lawrence had cometo condemn both sides. He “detested the German military creatures:mechanical bullies they were . . .But then the industrialism and com-mercialism of England, with which patriotism and democracy becameidentified: did not these insult a man?” “They wanted to bring him toheel even more than the German militarist did.” Lawrence viewed thesituation in England during the war as “a reign of terror, under a set ofindecent bullies” who were supported by “the criminal public and thecriminal government.” This made Lawrence grow increasingly hostileto humanity in general and in particular to “the will of the obsceneherd.” The worst part of the war for Lawrence, as the quote begin-ning this chapter indicates, was that it enabled the “mob . . . to tortureany single, independent man.” As a result “everybody in London wasfrightened . . .who was not a rabid and disgusting so-called patriot” and“no man dared open his mouth” because “the lowest orders of mankind[were] spying on the upper classes, to drag them down.”

In short, Lawrence’s reaction to the war was a very intense fear of gov-ernmental and societal restrictions on his own liberty and independence.He very much resented the threats to “the freedom of the individual”and especially to the freedom of speech, thought, and movement of

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the superior members of society. Ford, Hulme, and Pound also sup-ported this sort of liberty. But while they believed Germany to be themain danger to freedom, Lawrence saw this danger both at home andabroad.

Thus, although the Modernists had different experiences of and re-actions to the war, a certain underlying similarity in their opinions isevident. All five Modernists were still disturbed by the same featuresof the modern world as before. They still disliked materialism, mecha-nism, egotism, bourgeois philistinism, romanticism, and a lack of respectfor religion and for the best thought, art, and individuals. While Yeatsand Lawrence continued to perceive these features as characteristic ofEnglish society and politics as they had before the war, Ford, Hulme, andPound remained silent about England and transferred their criticisms toGermany. But all agreed on the fundamental problems of the contempo-rary world that they believedmust be fought and overcome. The only sig-nificant development that the war had on the thinking of theModernistswas a lessening of the anti-humanism and illiberalism of Ford’s, Hulme’s,Pound’s, and Lawrence’s political opinions. All four clearly felt that theprimary threat to the world was tyranny and coercion, and they real-ized that liberty and individual freedom were necessary. They were not,however, in complete agreement about where this liberty could be found.

When the war was over the four Modernists who survived continuedto share the same general reactions to the contemporary world. Despiteany support of Britain during the war, none of the four Modernists wasentirely happy with the country. In fact, all were so dissatisfied with post-war life in England that they chose to live elsewhere. Yeats settled inIreland, Pound moved to Paris and then to Italy, Ford also moved toParis and then to America, and Lawrence moved to Italy, Australia, andfinally to America.

After the war, the most important development in the Modernists’ideas was an increased interest in politics. Again, despite any differ-ences their ideas remained quite similar to one another and to theirpre-war opinions. Their post-war thinking about politics also had animpact on their ideas of history. Once again, it served to encourage theircyclic views. None of the Modernists was entirely satisfied with any ofthe political structures of Europe in the immediate post-war period. Allwere unhappy with the existing democracies and all disliked Russiancommunism. Aside from this agreement, there was a degree of differ-ence in the Modernists’ political opinions in the s and s. Thesedissimilarities can be related to the varying experiences and effect thewar had on the different Modernists.

First World War and mature cyclic theories

Ford and Lawrence were the Modernists most affected personally bythe war. They were also the two who were particularly hostile to Germanand Italian fascism in the s and s. In opposition to fascismand communism, both authors showed a certain amount of sympathyfor democracy, much more so than they had in the immediate pre-warperiod. Expanding on the position he had formulated during the war, inthe s and s, Ford commented upon the importance and value ofconstitutionalism. He was particularly concerned with individual free-dom. Nevertheless, he did not enthusiastically support any of the govern-ments of the existing European democracies, and he still believed thata new type of political system was necessary. Unlike Ford, Lawrencecontinued to inveigh against the idea of democracy after the war, but hetoo had become a bit more sympathetic to many of its features. Thiswas also true of Hulme, the Modernist most deeply involved in the war.Before his death, his ideas had been heading in a similar direction.

In fact, even before the war ended both Lawrence and Hulme sug-gested the possibility of creating a new form of democracy. In and, rather than rejecting democracy entirely as he had before thewar, Hulme began to develop what he called a “different conception ofdemocracy.” According to Hulme, this new democracy would be vir-ile and anti-humanitarian, and it would demand strict discipline andmilitary values; people would be required to fight to acquire, and to usediscipline to retain, the democratic ideals of liberty, justice, and equality.

Lawrence had a similar conception of a new elitist democracy. He be-lieved that “the purest aristocrats . . . have taught democracy” and thushis new democracy would be an aristocratic one. It would recognizethe importance of a hierarchy of intelligence and a natural aristocracy ofthe superior members of society. It also would choose and unite arounda great hero. But because of its superiority, this elite and hero would havethe strength to be fair, to preserve liberties, and to interfere little in thelives of the people. Lawrence even seriously considered establishinghis own community like this (perhaps in Florida), which he called the“Order of the Knights of Ranamin,” and in which an intellectual elitewould work together in harmony, equality, and cooperation. Thus,those Modernists who had been deeply affected by the war, not only de-sired strong, disciplined, and elitist governments after the war, but theyalso saw the need of preserving freedom and justice.

Pound and Yeats, the twoModernists least involved in the war, did nothave the same reaction to the politics of the s and s. Neither hadany interest in democracy and both, to varying degrees, were attracted toItalian fascism. Yeats was briefly interested in “the politics of the so-called

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‘IrishMussolini’,KevinO’Higgins” and the fascist IrishBlueShirtMove-ment led byGeneral O’Duffy in . However, he had rejected all typesof fascism by . Pound’s support of Mussolini was far more long-lasting and notorious, including radio broadcasts from Italy during theSecond World War, an arrest, and a trial for treason after the war.

Although the greater commitment of Pound to fascismmight indicatethat hehad less respect for thedemocratic ideals of liberty and justice thandid Yeats, this is not necessarily the case. Rather, the degree of interestin these aspects of liberalism, again, reflected their relative experiencesof the First World War. Although personally Pound had been affectedby the war very little, he had been disturbed by it and by the death of hisfriends, and he had participated in thinking and writing about it morethan did Yeats.Moreover, while he supportedMussolini to the bitter end,his interpretation of Mussolini’s goals and type of government, at leastuntil , had a great deal of similarity to the political systems desiredby the other Modernists who had been more intimately involved in theFirst World War.

As Pound wrote in , “any thorough judgment of Mussolini will bein a measure an act of faith, it will depend on what you believe the manmeans,what youbelieve that hewants to accomplish.” AndPoundhim-self had quite a unique interpretation of what Mussolini meant. Pounddid not admire Mussolini because he was a dictator, and he disagreedvehemently with those people who claimed that Mussolini’s governmentwas coercive or restricted individual liberties. Rather, Pound admiredMussolini as a strong ruler who appreciated and used the most intelli-gent and superior members of society in his government. Moreover,Mussolini was very benevolent; he cared for his people deeply and pro-vided them with a fair and equitable economic system. And he did thiswith a minimum amount of state interference in individual liberty. Hewas a strong, kindly, intelligent, equitable, and paternal ruler who hadestablished “the fascist policy of intellectual freedom and free expressionof opinion for those who are qualified to hold it.” Thus Mussolini’sgovernment resembled the new “virile” and aristocratic democracies ofHulme and Lawrence – with one major exception; Pound’s increasinglyvirulent anti-Semitism ensured that Jewswould not be considered “quali-fied to hold” any opinion or share in the freedom or equality he believedMussolini guaranteed all others.

Yeats was the Modernist who had shown the least interest in the FirstWorld War. After the war, although his flirtation with fascism was brief,he was also the Modernist who had the least admiration for liberty

First World War and mature cyclic theories

or democracy. Yeats had no concern for “ ‘the decomposing body ofliberty’ ” or freedom of the individual. He preferred an “authoritativegovernment” that was “the antithesis of democracy.” This was because“the modern State is so complex . . . it must find some kind of expertgovernment – a government firm enough, tyrannical enough, if youwill, to spend years in carrying out its plans.” Being a bit more specific,Yeats advocated “the despotic rule of the educated classes as the only endto our troubles” and believed that “force” or violence by the governmentmight be necessary to ensure that its plans were enacted. In Yeatseven went so far as to insist on the necessity of a program of eugenics toprevent the inferior members of society from breeding. Pound agreedon this point; he advocated “: as opposed to race suicide” andsuggested that “the breeding of human beings deserves care andattention than the breedin’ of horses.”

Thus, the five Modernists had varying responses to, and suggestionsfor, post-war politics. Nevertheless, there is a common thread runningthrough all of their ideas. First, all of the Modernists feared a repe-tition of the violent disorder of the First World War in the form ofrevolution or internal anarchy. As is not surprising considering the prob-lems of post-war Europe, the sense of the chaos, “messiness and con-fusion” of modern life that the five Modernists had felt before the warwas equal, if not stronger, after the war. As a result, in the same wayas before the war, they all believed in the necessity of the imposition ofsome kind of order and authority on European society. The Modernistsalso still were concerned that the control of politics and society had beenplaced in the hands of persons or groups who did not have the intelli-gence to provide the necessary order or to promote the development ofthe greatest possible art, thought, and culture. Thus, they believed thatit was essential for power to be held by the most intelligent members ofsociety, who necessarily were only a few and an elite.

In addition, because of the experience of the war, all but Yeats had de-veloped an aversion to an over-powerful and interfering state, whethercontrolled by the mob or by a single individual, that would deny anymember of society the freedom to express differences or that might forceall people to become identical units conforming to identical opinions.

Finally, the war and the post-war period also encouraged the five Mod-ernists to become much more concerned with the economic hardshipsof the population of Europe and the inequality of wealth. As a result,they all saw the need for a new economic structure that would be morefair and egalitarian.

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The five Modernists, therefore, after the war as before desired a po-litical order that combined elements of the right and the left. It wouldconsist of a strong government capable of providing stability and order,and it would be run by an elite of the most intelligent members of society.This, in turn, would institute a more controlled economic system to pro-vide for the needs of all the people, and promote the greatest possibleculture. At the same time, however, this state would also interfere as littleas possible in the lives of its members and ensure individual liberty anddiversity (except, in Pound’s system, for Jews). In short it would be adecentralized government of a paternal and intelligent elite acceptingsocial hierarchy and economic justice.

Thus, the political ideas of the five Modernists during and after theFirst World War remained quite similar to one another and were not farremoved from their pre-war positions.More important for our concerns,however, is the fact that even if they did find a contemporary politicalsystem to admire, the Modernists still looked primarily to the past fortheir ideal civilization. They found it again in the alternative traditionthey had preferred before the war. All the Modernists continued to the-orize about the existence of two different traditions of the past. Hulme,for example, claimed there were “two ideas of democracy.” One waspracticed in the present day, but the other that he admired far morehad existed from the Middle Ages to the seventeenth century. The newdemocracy that he wished to see returned in the contemporary worldwould resemble the practice of seventeenth-century England. This typeof democracy “had a certain virility and had not fallen into the sen-timental decadence of humanitarianism.” In fact, rather than accept anycontemporary political designation,Hulme claimed that “I should preferto call myself a Leveller.”

After theWar Lawrence also continued to express a preference for thetradition of the past that included the Middle Ages, as well as the pre-Christian, pagan civilizations of the Egyptians, Assyrians, and Etruscans.In all of these ages, according to Lawrence, much more so than in thecontemporary world, society was unified and a proper balance betweenindividual freedom and collective action was achieved. Natural power,ability, and intelligence were recognized, the weak were protected, andthere was the “true possibility of fulfillment” for all. Ford agreed. Inthe inter-war period he, like Hulme and Lawrence, wrote of preferableperiods of the past, such as the Middle Ages, especially in Provence andIceland, and Confucian China. He particularly liked a feudal system oflittle towns protected by innumerable counts, governed by viscounts, and

First World War and mature cyclic theories

only nominally under a king, because it established a decentralized, well-fed, well-housed, highly decorated society with a maximum amount offreedom from outside interference. Ford still held out some hope thatthis sort of system might return in the future. In he fantasized inhis novel Vive le Roy about the re-creation of a monarchy in a country “ofsmall hamlets, each self-contained, each potentially self-supported, self-governing . . . almost without central government.” Ford even claimedthat his politics was of a person “who had no party leanings save towardthose of a Tory kind so fantastically old fashioned as to see no salvationsave in the feudal system as practiced in the fourteenth century – or insuch Communism as may prevail a thousand years hence.”

Despite the fact that Pound had found a political system he admiredin contemporary Europe, his ideal civilizations, like Ford’s, were also ofa feudal order, small city-states, and Confucian China. These societieswere organic wholes, opposed tomercantilism and the profit motive, andworking for the good of the people by providing themwith the necessitiesof life and at the same timea sense of proportion andahierarchy of values.Pound hoped that a similar system could return in the present day. It ishighly likely that one of the primary reasons Pound admired Mussoliniwas that he believed Mussolini was effecting a return to a preferablepolitical system, especially of Confucius. Pound claimed that evidencethat “the Chinese . . .method of countin’ cycles of years . . . seems towork somehow,” could be found in “the Italian rise . . . the change ofphase: from material to volitional.”

This belief that Mussolini was the herald of a cyclic return to the pastwas certainly held by Yeats as well. In Yeats admired Mussolini’sideas of an authoritative government controlled by an elite primarilybecause he thought that they were analogous to ideas of the periodprior to the French Revolution. In fact, these ideas suggested thata reversal of the process begun by the Revolution was taking place.

Yeats’s admiration for Mussolini, therefore, was, as with the other fourModernists, an indication of his continued preference for the civilizationsof the past. He too still admired past ages in which a military aristocracypresided over a hierarchy in “the small ancient town serrated by itsgreen gardens.” And, aside from theMiddle Ages and Renaissance, heclaimed that “if I could be given a month in antiquity and leave to spendit where I chose, I would spend it in Byzantium a little before Justinianopened St. Sophia and closed the Academy of Plato.”

Thus, the political opinions of the five Modernists in the post-warperiod were, as they had been before the war, a response to a perceived

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situation of injustice and chaos. They still looked primarily to the past forpreferable ideals, and they still were inspired by the alternative traditionthey had admired for so long. It is not surprising, consequently, that theircyclic views of history were reinforced and expanded after the war. Inthe s and s thoseModernists who had developed cyclic theoriesbefore the war continued to add details to them, and those who hadonly established a foundation for similar views were now prepared toelaborate.

It is impossible to know how the war and its aftermath would haveaffected Hulme’s concept of history. Nevertheless, there is some indica-tion that the experience of the war did not change it fundamentally. In and , while fighting in the trenches, Hulme still fully supporteda cyclic view of history. His position was almost identical to that of theyears immediately before the war. He believed that two uniform tra-ditions of thought alternated throughout history. A humanist tradition,which accepted the goodness of humans and the possibility of their per-fection and progress, had existed in classical Greece and the period afterthe Renaissance. A religious tradition, which believed in original sin,discipline, permanence, stability, and the subordination to a hierarchy ofvalues, was evident in earlyGreece, Egypt, Byzantium, Polynesia, Africa,and the Middle Ages. Hulme still believed that this religious traditionwas in the process of cyclically returning in the present day.

But in and , Hulme added a further thought to this theory.Because it was so important to him that the war be pursued actively topreserve democracy in England, Hulme claimed that he did not believein a “mechanical view of history” and in “an inevitable alternation . . . ofperiods.” In other words, if people did not fight actively for a new cycle itmight not come about. Nevertheless, Hulme still vehemently rejected theidea of progress because he believed that perfection could not be attainedin the natural world. Moreover, he still thought that the idea of a spiralwas a “devastating stupidity” because with it “you disguise the wheel bymaking it run up an inclined plane; it then becomes ‘Progress,’ whichis the modern substitute for religion.” Thus, although considerationsbrought on by the war may have modified Hulme’s views slightly, thecyclic pattern of history that he had elaborated in Edwardian Britainremained essentially the same until the end of his life.

Yeats’s post-war historical views were also a continuation of his pre-war position. In he published “a little philosophical book,” Per AmicaSilentia Lunae. In this book he reiterated his theory of about thecontrast between the way of the poet and the way of the saint. Yeats

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claimed that there was a “difference between the winding movementof nature and the straight line.” The poet and the hero must follow theformer – “theWinding Path called the Path of the Serpent.” The naturalworld and history are characterized by “heaving circles” and “windingarcs” that “aremathematical” and that enable somepeople “in theworld,or beyond the world” to foretell the future. The poet and hero must beconcerned with nature in this world and thus with cycles. According toYeats, “only when we are saint or sage, and renounce Experience itself,can we . . . leave the sudden lightening and the path of the serpent andbecome the bowman who aims his arrow at the centre of the sun.”

Between and this sort of thinking resulted in Yeats’s the-ory of history in A Vision, which was first published privately in and then revised and republished in . In that work Yeats pro-posed that there was a “mathematical law of history,” which was thealternation of two contrary principles that he described as Discord andConcord, war and love, the tearing apart and conflict of Subjectiv-ity and the bringing together and unity of Objectivity. Furthermore,Yeats claimed that this alternation was also cyclic. According to Yeatsin , “a system symbolising the phenomenal world as irrational be-cause a series of unresolved antinomies, must find its representationin a perpetual return to the starting point. The resolved antinomyappears . . . in the whirlpool’s motionless centre, or beyond its edge.” Inother words, because the resolution of the contrary principles of life can-not occur in the natural world, they must ceaselessly alternate in a cyclicmanner.

Accordingly, Yeats proposed that history moved in a number of cycles.There was a “Great Wheel” of twenty-eight phases, a smaller wheel thatcomposed two sets of three phases, and finally each phase itself wasa wheel. The Great Wheel took approximately two thousand years tofinish in its entirety. Phase One of this Wheel involves a movement fromcomplete subjectivity towards the complete objectivity, which is reachedin Phase Fifteen. This had occurred twice in the past two thousandyears, from the year to and from to . The years and , according to Yeats, were the height of Phase Fifteen; theyembodied “Unity of Being” and were the periods in which “the greatestbeauty of literary style becomes possible.” They were best representedby “Byzantium a little before Justinian opened St. Sophia and closedthe Academy of Plato” and by the Italian Renaissance. Phases Sixteento Twenty-Eight mark a decline from objectivity to subjectivity. Thisoccurred from the years to and after until sometime in the

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future. According to Yeats, the years in which he wrote A Vision are atthe end of Phase Twenty-Two and are a time of increasing subjectivitythat will reach its height in Phase Twenty-Eight. Then the process willreverse and objectivity will grow again, until Phase Fifteen and “Unityof Being” return once more.

Thus, although it would be centuries before the perfection of PhaseFifteen in the Great Wheel was reached again, and conflict and disunityhad not yet achieved their height, Yeats did not believe this should because for pessimism. Rather, the beginning of any smaller cycle was apositive time. According to Yeats, “a civilisation is a struggle to keepcontrol” but “the loss of control over thought comes towards the end”of each phase. This is indicated by the fact that all phases end with weakdemocracies while they begin with strong aristocracies and heroes. Thus,the new phase about to be entered will be one of control and order. Oras Yeats later put it, “a hieratical society returns, power descending fromthe few to the many.” Perhaps because of this Yeats was led to declare,“the new gyre begins to stir, I am filled with excitement.”

In Yeats still was firmly convinced of the reality of a cyclic viewof history over the idea of “progress as we understand it . . . the straightline.” And he made it clear that his view of history, although not oneof exact repetition, was strictly cyclic. Like Hulme, Yeats did not thinkthat the similarity between cycles would involve more than analogy.As he put it, “we cannot do the same thing twice, and the new thingmust employ a new set of nerves or muscles.” However, he did notbelieve this meant that any element of cumulative improvement, eitherin a progressive or spiral fashion, or in an apocalyptic purging of evilat the end of history, would occur. Yeats openly objected to any theorythat suggested that the opposites, which cyclically alternate in history,could be overcome or transcended as in spiral views. As he wrote in, “could these two impulses, one as much a part of the truth as theother, be reconciled, or if one or the other could prevail, all life wouldcease.” Instead of attempting to overcome the struggle of opposites,Yeats believed the struggle should be accepted as part of reality; “hewho attains Unity of Being is some man, who, while struggling withhis fate and his destiny . . . is content that he should so struggle withno final conquest.” Yeats also made it clear that he was “no believerin Millenniums” because of their progressive nature. He specificallydisagreedwith “the Japanese labour leader andChristianSaintKagawa”because his “millennium-haunted mind breaks Vico’s circles” which arealso Yeats’s circles.

First World War and mature cyclic theories

Yeats, therefore, never abandoned his strictly cyclic view of history andhe remained confident throughout the s that “a new beginning, anew turn of the wheel” was about to occur. He agreed with “a Chinesesage” that “darkness begins at midday” and believed that perhaps now“we may be about to turn back towards the unconscious, the whole, themiraculous.” And he hoped that “the slow preparation for the greatest,perhaps themost dangerous, revolution in thought Europe has seen sincethe Renaissance” was occurring and that it was “a revolution that may,perhaps, establish the scientific complement of certain philosophies thatin all ancient countries sustained heroic art.” As late as Yeats stillexpected “a counter-Renaissance” to occur imminently. And in ,the year of his death, he had not lost this faith. Thus, as with Hulme,the cyclic view of history that had been in preparation well before theFirst World War and more fully elaborated during and after it providedYeats with a fundamental optimism until the end of his life.

Pound was one of the five Modernists who had not explicitly elabo-rated a cyclic view of history before the war, although with the Vorticistshe had established a firm foundation for one. During the war Poundcontinued to accept and to develop the historical views of the Vorticists.In and , in particular, Pound fully supported Gaudier’s theoryof history as expressed in Blast, No. . He greatly admired Gaudier forhis ability “to ‘arrange in order’ not only the planes and volumes” of hisvisual art, but also of history. And Pound thought that Gaudier’s historyof the “Vortex” was “a remarkable arrangement of thought.” In and as well, Pound continued to develop his belief in the existenceof two unchanging traditions of art in the past. He still claimed thatthe post-Renaissance tradition was inferior to the alternative one thatincluded China, Egypt, Assyria, and the Middle Ages. Moreover, Poundstill believed that a Renaissance was about to occur in the near future,of which the best new artists were precursors, and which would consistof a return to the values and ideals of the tradition he preferred.

In addition, in Pound expanded upon his pre-war assumptionthat analogy across space and time was acceptable. Like Hulme, herejected the idea that the world could get progressively better or worse.Rather, he believed that “the general order of nature would seem tobe . . . constant.” There is fundamentally the same amount of generalstupidity and the same small number of superior individuals at all times.Thus, it is possible for those superior people to communicate with and tounderstand one another, regardless of the amount of time that has passedsince they lived. It was this belief that enabled Pound to continue to

Modernism

develop and apply his method of analogy across space and time, and touse cyclic structures as he continued writing his Cantos.

In the late s and throughout the s Pound’s thinking aboutpolitics clarified his historical views. He now believed that “type-cycles” had existed in history and that it “is possible to study certainrecurrences.” And he admired those people who recognize “an his-toric process, including the alternating periods of order and confusion.”

More specifically, Pound was led to the conclusion that two political sys-tems had functioned in history.One systemembodied chaos and anarchy.In it the life of the people was split into bits, literature had little to dowith life or government, and usury in economics was accepted. It ex-isted in the Jewish and early Christian ages, and in the modern periodbeginning after the Renaissance and especially with the Reformation.The other system was one of order and harmony. It was characterizedby unity, a hierarchy of values, proportion and fairness in economics,and a respect for and utilization of intelligence. It has been in place inConfucian China, in Sparta, and in the Middle Ages. Furthermore, ithad returned with Mussolini’s regime in contemporary Italy.

Thus, by the end of the s Pound had complemented his pre-warVorticist sense of the existence of two alternating traditions of art, with anidentical belief in two traditions of politics. Moreover, he was convincedthat the tradition he preferred had in fact returned in the present day.Pound had, therefore, elaborated a cyclic theory of history equivalent tothat of Hulme and Yeats, with one difference. Pound did not think thatthe preferable tradition of the past would soon return or was even in theprocess of returning. It actually had arrived.

Ford, like Pound, had not explicitly formulated a cyclic view of historybefore the war, although he too had established the foundation for oneand had experimented with non-progressive time in his novels. But onceagain, like the other Modernists, by the end of his life Ford had providedhimself with an optimistic view of the cycles of history. In , oneyear before his death, he published his history of the world – The Marchof Literature from Confucius’ Day to Our Own. In this work Ford proposedthat two constant and permanent traditions had alternated cyclically inthe past. One tradition embodied form and the other formlessness inall areas. The tradition of formlessness existed when Nordic races werestrongest. It was characterized by materialism, imperialism, industrial-ism, atheism, coercion, and a disregard for artists and intellectuals. Theliterature of the period was artificial, profuse, and sentimental, and it wasloved mainly by the plebeian elements of society. The tradition of form,

First World War and mature cyclic theories

on the other hand, took over when Mediterranean races grew in power.It established decentralized feudal systems, concentrated on agriculture,valued religion and individual freedom, and respected and provided forartists. Its literature was simple, realistic, and highly controlled. It wasadmired by the aristocratic and superior members of society.

Ford also carefully plotted the ages in which each tradition predomi-nated. His preferred tradition of form had existed in early Egypt (before ), in Confucian China (sixth and fifth centuries ), in ClassicalGreece, in the seventh and eighth centuries in China, in Europe ofthe Middle Ages, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and in theperiod between and . The formless tradition had alternatedwith the tradition of form and was dominant during the Empire ofShi Hwan Ti in the third century in China, in Europe during theRoman Empire and the Dark Ages, during the Renaissance and Refor-mation, and in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

From this summary of Ford’s cyclic theory, it should be evident that,unlike the other fourModernists, he had included theEdwardian age as acycle that had finished, and he speculated that a new age of formlessnesswas in the process of returning. He saw the period in which he was livingas a time of chaos “infinitely more ferocious” than had existed at anytime in the past. But this does not mean that his theory was any lessoptimistic than that of the other Modernists. Ford suggested that a studyof history can provide hope because “we have no reason to imaginethat our Western savagery will be any more permanent . . . than werethe savageries and superstitions that have preceded our day.” In otherwords, by the end of his life Ford, like the other Modernists, could stilllook forward to a better age in the future when the wheel of historyturned once more.

Finally, in the years after the war, Lawrence, like the four otherModernists, had reinforced and continued to develop the view of his-tory he had begun to formulate in the Edwardian period. During thewar Lawrence’s optimistic historical sense had provided him comfortamidst the horrors of the experience. He was confident that “we mustwait for the wheel of events to turn on a little” and the situation wouldimprove. Between and Lawrence elaborated on his fun-damentally optimistic theory. He proposed the existence of the “greatsystole diastole of the universe” which is eternal and to which people arealways subject. According to Lawrence the universe is composed oftwo contrary principles – creation and decay, a “coming together” and a“going apart.” In agreement with Yeats, Lawrence believed that these

Modernism

two principles cannot be combined and neither can they be overcome.Rather they must be brought into a stable equilibrium. This, in fact, isthe principle informing the cyclic pattern of nature, in which “the un-doing of autumn can only follow the putting forth of spring” because“if there is no autumn and winter of corruption there is no spring andsummer.”

Lawrence believed that history followed the same pattern as nature ingeneral. It is the story of the alternation of opposites, or of “the fight ofopposites which is holy” and which cannot be stopped. He proposedthat the war years were a historical period in which humanity was atan “autumn in the world, in the autumn of a human epoch, [when]the desire for death becomes single and dominant.” But he also wasconfident that a new epoch of creation and strength would emerge fromthis decay, and that man and all things will be “utterly different.” Infact, Lawrence proposed that “Now all the hosts are marching to thegrave,” what would soon occur was “A frail white gleam of resurrection”and a “sweet returning from the sleep of death” to “Another epoch inanother year.”

After the war, in a textbook on the history of Europe published in, Lawrence reiterated this belief that “mankind lives by a twofoldmotive: the motive of peace and increase, and the motive of conquestand martial triumph.” And he claimed that “as soon as the appetitefor martial adventure and triumph in conflict is satisfied, the appetitefor peace and increase manifests itself, and vice versa. It seems a law oflife.” In his novel published about the same time,Women in Love, one ofLawrence’s central characters expresses this cyclic view of the universein general; he believed the universe was “a system, an activity of pureorder, pure mechanical repetition, repetition ad infinitum.” It was “onepure, complex, infinitely repeated motion like the spinning of a wheel,but a productive spinning . . . a productive repetition through eternity, toinfinity.”

Lawrence’s cyclic thinking culminated in his book Apocalypse whichwas published in , the year after his death. In this work Lawrenceproposed that history was the cyclic alternation of pagan and Christianimpulses, which again embodied the antinomies of creation and decay.According to Lawrence, the Christian impulse glorified the humble andpoor who are always jealous of those better than they. The poor, in turn,destroyed the rich, strong, and powerful in order to force all people tobe like them and to sink down into the mass, the mob, the herd. TheChristian was, therefore, a destructive impulse. It was predominant in

First World War and mature cyclic theories

classicalGreece andRome, and in themodern period beginning after theRenaissance and especially with theReformation. The pagan impulse,on the other hand, upheld the aristocratic ideal of free individualityand diversity, self-renunciation, heroism, and service of the higher tolesser beings. As a result it was constructive and unifying. Moreover,this aristocratic tradition was in tune with, and appreciated, the cyclicreality of the cosmos – the alternation of day and night, and of theseasons. It had existed in the civilizations of the Egyptians, Chaldeans,Minoans, Persians,Hindus, Assyrians, Etruscans, and in theMiddleAgesin Europe.

Lawrence believed that a new pagan age would soon return toEurope. There would be “a return to the cosmos” and an appreciationof cyclic reality. Lawrence was convinced a cyclic view of reality, likeAnaximander’s cosmic wheels, “is a piece of very old wisdom, and it willalways be true.” He also was assured that “time still moves in cycles, notin a straight line. And we are at the end of the Christian cycle.” Thisnew age would be helped along if people learn to think cyclically again,as did the pagans, rather than with linear progressive reason. Accordingto Lawrence

to appreciate the pagan manner of thought we have to drop our own mannerof on-and-on-and-on, from a start to a finish, and allow the mind to move incycles, or to flit here and there over a cluster of images. Our idea of time as acontinuity in an eternal straight line has crippled our consciousness cruelly. Thepagan conception of time as moving in cycles is much freer, it allows movementupwards and downwards, and allows for a complete change of the state of mind,at any moment. One cycle finished, we can drop or rise to another level, andbe in a new world at once. But by our time-continuum method, we have to trailwearily on over another ridge.

Thus, as with all fiveModernists, Lawrence had provided himself untilthe end of his life with a consistent form of optimism through a cyclictheory of history. In an age that he found extremely disturbing it providedhim, not simply with the hope, but with the absolute conviction that “anew world” was on the horizon.

Conclusion

Four days after her marriage to the -year-old poet W.B. Yeats, GeorgeHyde-Lees began to have some strange experiences. Spirits from anotherworld spoke through her when she was unconscious. They even madeher write down their messages and give them to the middle-aged manshe had just married. She, like everyone who knew him, was well awareof why Yeats had married so late in life. For over twenty years he hadbeen desperately in love with another woman, Maude Gonne. But by Yeats finally decided to give up and marry someone else beforehe was too old to transmit his heritage to a new generation. His wife’sautomaticwriting thrilledYeats and turnedwhat promised to be a tedioushoneymoon into an exiting adventure that the couple shared for manyyears to come. The resulting messages were organized and published byYeats as his seminal work of philosophy, A Vision.

What is striking to an outside observer is how similar the messagessent from the spirit world were to Yeats’s previous ideas and theories.For Yeats, this similarity simply confirmed that he had, independently,stumbled onto the truth about the cyclic nature of history and of life ingeneral. One might ask, however, whether the spirits were speaking thetruth, or whether Yeats had already invented that truth and brought itback to himself bymeans of an intelligent new bride determined to dispelthememory of an old love and ensure her own future happiness. A similarquestion might be asked of all five Modernists’ theories of history. Werethese theories the objective truth that theModernists’ were intelligent, orlucky, enough to discover, or were they the products of the imagination ofcreative thinkers with ulterior motives – of supporting their other ideasand suggesting a brighter future? In either case, whether it was Yeats’struth about the spirit world or that of the five Modernists about historyin general, it is likely that most people would be inclined to accept thelatter explanation – although, of course, there is no way to tell for sure.But even if their origins were in imagination, this does not mean that

Conclusion

either A Vision or the cyclic theories of the Modernists can tell us nothingand should be ignored. Yeats’s marriage to Hyde-Lees was, in fact, along and happy one.

The Modernists’ discovery, or imaginative invention, of a theory thathistory moves in cycles undoubtedly helped them provide meaning, or-der, and a fundamental connectionwith the past that alleviated their fearsabout the direction of historical change and their uncertainty about thefuture. They were not the only ones to do this. The same was also trueof two later Modernists, T.S. Eliot and James Joyce. According to Eliot,in Joyce’s Ulysses:

in using myth, in manipulating a continuous parallel between contemporaneityand antiquity, Mr. Joyce is pursuing a method which others must pursue afterhim . . . It is simply a way of controlling, of ordering, of giving a shape and asignificance to the immense panorama of futility and anarchy which is con-temporary history. It is a method already adumbrated by Mr. Yeats, and of theneed for which I believe Mr. Yeats to have been the first contemporary to beconscious.

This method, moreover, is also common to traditional societies. Ac-cording toMircea Eliade, by suspending “the flow of profane time, of du-ration” and of sequential progressive chronology, through the juxtaposi-tion of archetypes and symbols from various ages of the past, and througha belief in periodic cyclic regeneration, “archaic humanity . . . defendeditself to the utmost of its powers, against all the novelty and irreversibilitywhich history entails.” “Archaic man,” Eliade continues, “is powerlessagainst cosmic catastrophes, military disasters, social injustices bound upwith the very structure of society, personal misfortunes, and so forth.”Because of this he fears change and he “tends to set himself in opposi-tion, by every means in his power, to history, regarded as a successionof events that are irreversible, unforeseeable, possessed of autonomousvalue.” As an alternative, these societies form “an optimistic view of lifein general” by proposing that “everything takes place cyclically, death isinevitably followed by resurrection, cataclysm by a new Creation.”

Thus, as they themselves had suggested, the five Modernists’ beliefswere analogous to those of an alternative society and culture of thepast. They too sensed that the contemporary world was characterized bycatastrophe, disaster, and injustice. In response, theydefended themselvesand were able to overcome their fear by abandoning the progressivetime that cut them off from the past and put them at the mercy ofan unknowable future. By adopting cyclic views of history they wereultimately provided with an optimism about the future to counter their

Conclusion

pessimism about the present. Yet it was an optimism different from whatthey viewed as a naive and unrealistic belief in linear progress. A cyclicviewof history, thus, allowed theModernists to accept change confidentlybecause it ensured a permanence and stability underlying the flux, andbecause it inspired the conviction that the past was always present andwould soon return.

The period in which the Modernists first began to write was partic-ularly bewildering because it was a time in which a great number ofchallenges to established ideas in all areas of thought came to a climax.It was in Edwardian Britain that the Victorian ideal, which graduallyhad been eroded throughout the nineteenth century, was finally laid torest. In the period between and it had become almost entirelyimpossible for an intelligent observer to believe that Britain was a uni-fied nation of god-fearing, morally upright gentlemen, who had createdthe greatest culture and civilization with the highest degree of materialprosperity and comfort in the world, and who could protect the weak,civilize savages, and rule the waves. This simplistic vision of Britain un-doubtedly was believed in its entirety by very few Victorians and it hadbeen questioned frequently in the nineteenth century. But it was an idealin the back of many minds that could provide a sense of purpose and adirection for change. By the Edwardian age, however, the implausibilityof this ideal and its distance from actuality could not be denied; it had tobe abandoned altogether. In the vacuum that remained, a wide varietyof alternative ideals were proposed.

The five Modernists, in particular, were well aware of most of thesechallenges and alternatives.Thehorrors of Imperialism, the difficulties ofthe Boer war, and the growing violence in Irelandmade them realize thatthe ideal of British civility, and cultural andmilitary superiority, had littlefoundation in reality. The Parliament Bill, which removed the lastvestiges of aristocratic government, also destroyed for good the fantasyof paternal rule by British gentleman. And the varieties of socialism, thenew conservatisms, as well as the Suffragette movement added furtherconcerns – perhaps democracy should be granted to an entirely newspecies of humans or done away with altogether. The deleterious effectsof a nearly complete industrialism and urbanization on the material andphysical well-being of the population had been discussed and examinedfor so many years that it was extremely difficult to continue believingthat the highest degree of comfort and health possible could characterizeBritain in the present or even in the near future. And one could hardlyassume that the British were the most god-fearing nation on earth when

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the revealed religion of Christianity had been definitively challenged andthemore intimate beliefs of non-Western and evenprimitive nationswerebeing applauded by the numerous new spiritualist groups. Finally, theaesthetic realism that would mirror andmemorialize this Victorian idealfor all times, initially challenged by the Symbolists and Impressionists,finally had been destroyed by the Post-Impressionists. The vast influxof information about the quality and nature of the art of non-Westerncultures simply served to support the inadequacy and anomaly of theVictorian cultural and even political vision.

The Edwardian age was, therefore, a period in which the Victorianideal was abandoned formany reasons, and in which a vast array of alter-natives was proposed and examined. It is not surprising, therefore, thatone group of observers such as the Modernists might sense a great dealof confusion, even chaos, amid this welter of challenges to old ideas andemergence of new options. The Edwardian age may not have witnessedthe very real and physical horrors of the inter-war years – depression andunemployment, socialist and fascist violence, the persecutions of Hitler,Mussolini, and Stalin. But this does not mean that the period was notone of great intellectual uncertainty and fear. Perhaps most frighteningof all to a creative artist was the thought that the only power providingdirection to control all this confusion was the mob of the uneducated,philistine people who were the majority of the population, and who hadbeen put into power by the triumph of a democratic system that hadnever before been tried in Europe on such a scale.

Moreover, it is hardly surprising that in response to this perceivedconfusion the Modernists could think of nothing better than to turnto the past. Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries manythinkers looked to the past and developed universal theories of historyto find solutions for the problems of the present, and to search for somehope for the future. The belief in progress formulated in these centuries,however, could no longer be sustained by the Modernists amidst thechallenges of the Edwardian age. Progress had been awaited for toolong and simply had not arrived. Cyclic views of history served far betterat this time than progressive ones to provide a sense of optimism.

Despite the devastation of the First World War, the five Modernists’ideas of history were not changed significantly. Rather, they came tofruition. If any change in the Modernists’ views of history from thepre-war to the post-war period can be discerned, it is that they grewmore unified and simplified. During the Edwardian period each of thefive Modernists had elaborated upon a wide range of dichotomies that

Conclusion

he perceived between two historical traditions. Yet in the inter-war yearsthese dichotomies had been narrowed down to a single essential one –history was the story of the alternation of Chaos and Harmony. Yeats’sDiscord and Concord, Pound’s confusion and order, Ford’s formlessnessand form, and Lawrence’s destruction and creation all were differentexpressions of the same simple idea; sometimes the world was chaoticand at other times it was harmonious. All the other characteristics of anage emanated from these fundamental principles.

This simplification of theModernists’ views of history could have beena result of years of thought on the same problem. Alternatively, it couldreflect a difference between the Edwardian age and the inter-war period.The First World War and the decades that followed it certainly were aperiod of discord and disharmony. But at the same time the issues invol-ved could appear quite simple. Supporters of democracy, communism,and fascism alike often saw their cause simply as a battle of good againstevil. Itwould not be surprising if theModernists’ views of history reflectedthis intellectual simplification. But their historical thinking originated inan age that, if less physically chaotic, was more intellectually confusing.And although their cyclic views may have reflected the relative simplicityof the inter-war period, they were in fact developed as a response to thecomplex Edwardian age.

TheModernists’ cyclic views of history have been criticized by certainliterary critics as the cause of the unfortunate support some of them gaveto the fascist dictators such as Hitler and Mussolini. This, however, isa bit simplistic. As we have seen, their political views were developedbefore, or simultaneously with, their historical ones. It is difficult toargue, therefore, that one caused the other. Instead, both were re-sponses to other features of a difficult age. Moreover, neither Hitler andMussolini, nor a totalitarian dictator such as Stalin, shared the Mod-ernists’ cyclic views of history. In fact, Hannah Arendt has argued con-vincingly for the fundamentally progressive assumptions of totalitarianleaders. They might look to history for some of their images, but ulti-mately they were attempting to make radical changes to the past, createan entirely new type of human being, and force the world to move to acompletely different and better future. Theirs was a deeply progressiveutopia. This is exactly the sort of position that theModernists rejected inthe ideas of Futurist artists such as F.M. Marinetti. It is also what Hulmewas referring towhen he criticized peoplewho accepted the “complacentspiral” pattern of history. Hitler’s and Mussolini’s views were disguisedas cyclic when in reality both assumed “that man is a god” and wishedto create a “heaven on earth” as any good progressive thinker would.

Conclusion

The Modernists, therefore, certainly did not support fascism becauseof a close identity of their historical thinking with that of the fascistleaders.

Rather, it could be argued that it was precisely their strictly cyclic viewsof history that prevented the Modernists from becoming full-fledgedsupporters of fascism, such as was the progressive Marinetti. The fiveModernists’ theories of history were developed from, and allied to, otherassumptions that were fundamentally different from those of fascists.

For example, the fact that non-Western cultures were integral in theircyclic views and own literary practice indicated that, aside from Pound’santi-Semitism, the five Modernists had very little interest in national-ism or racism – especially not the “mystic” nationalism of fascists thatwas allied to racial purity in order to achieve future greatness. Nor didthe Modernists like the idea of mass politics, or “mob” hysteria aboutanything, including nationalism. The Modernists appreciated culturaldiversity and individualism, not ethnic or mass uniformity. In additionthe Modernists all were very suspicious of the irrationality that is an im-portant element in any mystical sense of nationalism or racial belonging.The Modernists saw themselves as reviving a tradition of order, control,and reason, and they disliked the “romantic” emphasis on intuition,emotion, and irrationality because it was weak and sentimental. Finally,in the end, it was freedom, especially for artists that mattered most to theModernists. The realization that fascism often led to the creation of anexceedingly powerful government that denied creative individuals theability to express their ideas did not dawn on Pound, but it was enoughto make the otherModernists question who best expressed their politicalideas.

Although cyclic views of history may have lead some Modernists tomistake the new fascist political regimes for a happy turn of the wheelback to the past, they made themmore cautious thanmany people at thetime about accepting the fascist leaders’ offers of an easy road to eternalbliss. While they were attracted to strong rulers or heroes, because theylacked a sense of progress, nationalism, and irrationalism, or a desire foruniformity, it would have been difficult for any of the Modernists to fullysupport a messiah-like leader’s attempt to create an intellectually andracially pure utopia. In fact, far from being dangerous, cyclic views ofhistory have some advantages over progressive ones. They can preventpeople from too rapidly accepting simplistic versions of progress – suchas the promise of a quick utopia, the coming apocalyptic end of history, orthe culmination of progress in an imminent paradise – that are attractiveto desperate people living through difficult times.

Conclusion

Cyclic views of history may appear simultaneously naive and pes-simistic to observers who are deeply influenced by modern thought. Itshould not be forgotten, however, that they were considered eminentlysensible by many more thinkers in the pre- and post-Enlightenmentperiods and the non-Westernworld. As Yeats argued, the idea of progress“is only two hundred years old” and if one finds any value in the past,an older and more-widely accepted theory should be considered morereasonable. Moreover, cyclic views of history are realistic and optimistic.By positing an eternal equilibrium between opposites, they accept thefact of evil and avoid a fruitless and wasteful struggle to overcome aninevitable truth of life. And yet evil and strife are never permanent – abetter future is always on the horizon.

History can be used in many ways to justify or support a wide varietyof positions. The cyclic views of history invented by the literary Mod-ernists to provide a sense of order and control in the “curious drama” ofEdwardian Britain may seem farfetched to many people today. But theydid provide some of the most creative writers of the twentieth centurywith confidence and optimism. They allowed them to expand the hori-zons of Western art beyond contemporary Europe and accept the in-fluence of widely different cultures. And they helped them effect somefundamental innovations in aesthetic theory and practice. These are notthe worst of all possible uses of the past.

Notes

GeorgeDangerfield,The Strange Death of Liberal England (NewYork: Putnam’s,), p. vii.

Ibid., p. viii. Ibid. For definitions of Modernism, see Malcolm Bradbury and James

McFarlane, eds., Modernism (Harmondsworth: Penguin, ); AlistairDavies, An Annotated Critical Bibliography of Modernism (New Jersey: Barnes andNoble, ); Sanford Schwartz, The Matrix of Modernism: Pound, Eliot, andEarly Twentieth-Century Thought (Princeton: Princeton University Press, );Michael H. Levenson, A Genealogy of Modernism (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, ).

Georg Lukacs, quoted in Irving Howe, “Introduction,”The Idea of the Modernin Literature and the Arts (New York: Horizon, ), p. .

T.S. Eliot, “Ulysses, Order, and Myth,” Dial˙ (November ): ;John B. Vickery, The Literary Impact of the Golden Bough (Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press, ), p. ; Harvey Gross, The Contrived Corridor: Historyand Fatality in Modern Literature (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press,), p. .

See, for example, Gross, Contrived Corridor; James Longenbach, ModernistPoetics of History: Pound, Eliot, and the Sense of the Past (Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press, ); JeffreyM.Perl,TheTradition of Return;The ImplicitHis-tory of Modern Literature (Princeton: Princeton University Press, ); FrankKermode, The Sense of an Ending (London: Oxford University Press, );ThomasWhitaker, Swan and Shadow: Yeats’s Dialogue with History (Chapel Hill:University of North Carolina Press, ); Daniel Perlman,The Barb of Time:On the Unity of Ezra Pound’s Cantos (New York: Oxford University Press, ).

Ford Madox Ford was born Ford Madox Hueffer. He changed his nameafter the First World War.

See John J. Slocum and Herbert Cahoon, A Bibliography of James Joyce – (London: Rupert Hart-Davis, ); B.J. Kirkpatrick, A Bibliographyof Virginia Woolf (Oxford: Clarendon Press, ); Donald Gallup, T.S. Eliot,A Bibliography (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, ).

Notes to pages –

For definitions of a generation see Robert Wohl, The Generation of (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, ), pp. –.

Schwartz,Matrix of Modernism, pp. –. Frank E. Manuel, The Shapes of Philosophical History (Stanford: Stanford

University Press, ), p. . Michael Stanford, A Companion to the Study of History (Oxford: Blackwell,

), p. ; W.H. Dray, “Philosophy of History,” in Paul Edwards, ed.,The Encyclopedia of Philosophy (New York: Macmillan, ), vol. , p. .

Dray, “Philosophy of History,” p. . Manuel, Shapes of Philosophical History, p. . See Stephen Toulmin and June Goodfield, The Discovery of Time (New York:

Harper & Row, ), pp. –; Nathan Rotenstreich, “The Idea ofHistorical Progress and its Assumptions,” History and Theory , ():–; Manuel, Shapes of Philosophical History, pp. –; J.W. Burrow, ALiberal Descent: Victorian Historians and the English Past (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, ), pp. & , –.

Burrow, Liberal Descent, pp. & . The Poetic and Dramatic Work of Alfred Lord Tennyson, ed. W. J. Rolfe (Boston,

MA: Houghton Mifflin, ), pp. & . Quoted in Gillian Beer, Darwin’s Plots (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul,

), p. . Daniel Pick, Faces of Degeneration, A European Disorder, c. –

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ), pp. & . Tennyson, forexample, wrote of “the troughs of Zolaism” and “Reversion ever draggingEvolution in the mud” in “Locksley Hall Sixty Years After,” Poetic and Dra-matic Work, p. .

See, for example, Pick, Faces of Degeneration; J.E. Chamberlain, “An Anatomyof Cultural Melancholy,” Journal of the History of Ideas , (Oct.–Dec. ):–; A.E. Carter, The Idea of Decadence in French Literature –(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, ); Ian Fletcher, ed., Decadence inthe s (New York: Holmes & Meier, ).

M.H.Abrams,Natural Supernaturalism (NewYork:Norton, ), pp. –. JohnD. Rosenberg,The Darkening Glass: A Portrait of Ruskin’s Genius (NewYork:

Columbia University Press, ), p. . See for example, Matthew Arnold, “Function of Criticism,” and “Culture

and Anarchy,” in A. Dwight Culler, ed., Poetry and Criticism of Matthew Arnold(Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, ), pp. – & –; ThomasCarlyle, “Signs of the Times,” in Thomas Carlyle: Selected Writings, ed. AlanShelston (Harmondsworth: Penguin, ), pp. –; Thomas Carlyle,“Book , Ch. Pedagogy,” in Sartor Resartus (New York: Scribners, ),p. ; Walter Pater, “Winckelmann,” “Postscript to ‘Appreciations’,” “TheMarbles of Aegina,” “Aesthetic Poetry,” in Essays on Literature and Art, ed.JenniferUglow (London: J.M.Dent, ), pp. , ,, &, ;DenisDonoghue,Walter Pater: Lover of Strange Souls (NewYork:Knopf, ), pp. ,– , , ; Michael Tanner, Nietzsche (Oxford: Oxford University

Notes to pages –

Press, ), pp. –. For views of history of Browning, Hallam, Arnold,Tennyson, and Ruskin see Isobel Armstrong, Victorian Poetry: Poetry, Poetics,and Politics (London & New York: Routledge, ), pp. & , , ,, , & , –; John Ruskin, “The Nature of Gothic,” inJohn D. Rosenberg, ed., The Genius of John Ruskin (London: Routledge &Kegan Paul, ), pp. –.

This definition of “aufheben” is fromAbrams,Natural Supernaturalism, p. . Arnold, “The Function of Criticism,” p. . Arnold, “Culture and Anarchy,” p. . Carlyle, “Signs of the Times,” pp. & . Toulmin and Goodfield, Discovery of Time, p. ; see also pp. –,

. CeciliaMiller,Giambattista Vico: Imagination andHistorical Knowledge (NewYork:

St. Martin’s Press, ), p. . Mircea Eliade,TheMyth of the Eternal Return (Princeton: PrincetonUniversity

Press, ). Manuel, Shapes of Philosophical History, pp. & . See also Burrow, Liberal

Descent, pp. & ; Stanford, Companion, pp. –; Milic Capek,“Change,” in Edwards, ed., Encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol. , pp. –;W.K.C. Guthrie, “ Pre-Socratic Philosophy,” ibid., vol. , pp. –;Charles H. Kahn, “Empedocles,” ibid., vol. , pp. –; Michael C.Stokes, “Heracitus of Ephesus,” ibid., vol. , pp. –; Philip Merlan,“Plotinus,” ibid., vol. , pp. –.

Yeats, A Vision ( ; rpt. New York: Macmillan, ), pp. –. This terminology is adopted from Manuel, Shapes of Philosophical History,

p. . Charles Trinkhaus, Review of G.W. Trompf, The Idea of Historical Recurrence

in Western Thought, History and Theory , (): . See Tanner, Nietzsche, pp. – ; Capek, “Eternal Return,” Encyclopedia of

Philosophy, vol. , p. . ForNietzsche’s evolutionary assumptions, see “ThusSpoke Zarathustra,” in The Portable Nietzsche (New York: Penguin, ),pp. –, & ; Nietzsche, “Eternal Recurrence,” in The Twilightof the Idols, trans. Anthony M. Ludovici (Edinburgh & London: T.N. Foulis,), pp. –; –.

W.H. Dray, “Oswald Spengler,” Encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol. , pp. &.

Patrick Gardiner, “Toynbee, Arnold Joseph,” in Encyclopedia of Philosophy,vol. , pp. & . See also Manuel, Shapes of Philosophical History,pp. –; Dray, “Philosophy of History,” pp. & .

G.W. Trompf, The Idea of Historical Recurrence in Western Thought: From Antiquityto the Reformation (Berkeley: University of California Press, ), p. .

Tennyson, “Oı ξεoντες” in Poems, Chiefly Lyrical, quoted in Armstrong,Victorian Poetry, p. .

Rotenstreich, “Idea of Historical Progress,” p. ; see also pp. – &Toulmin and Goodfield, Discovery of Time, p. .

Notes to pages –

Manuel, Shapes of Philosophical History, p. . For further discussions of cyclic views of history see Eliade, Myth of Eternal

Return; Toulmin and Goodfield, Discovery of Time; Trinkhaus, “Review ofTrompf ”; SiegfriedKracauer, “Time andHistory” inHistory and the Concept ofTime (Middletown,CT:WesleyanUniversity Press, ), pp. –; DonaldJ. Wilcox, The Measures of Time Past (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, ).

Toulmin and Goodfield, Discovery of Time, p. . Capek, “Change,” pp, –. See for example, John Fletcher and Malcolm Bradbury, “The Introverted

Novel,” inModernism, pp. –. Brigit Patmore,My Friends When Young: the Memoirs of Brigit Patmore (London:

William Heinemann, ), p. . Noel Stock,The Life of Ezra Pound (San Francisco: North Point, ), pp. –

. Ford Madox Ford, Return to Yesterday (; rpt. New York: H. Liveright,

), pp. & , . Stock, Pound, pp. –. AlunR. Jones,The Life andOpinions of Thomas ErnstHulme (London:Gollancz,

), pp. –; Levenson, Genealogy of Modernism, p. . Jacob Epstein, An Autobiography (London: Hulton, ), pp. & . For

more on Hulme see Ashley Dukes,The Scene is Changed (London:Macmillan,), pp. & .

“Introduction,” to T.E. Hulme, Further Speculations, ed. SamHynes (Lincoln:University of Nebraska Press, ), p. xvi; Jones, Hulme, pp. –; Stock,Pound, p. .

Richard Ellmann, Eminent Domain (New York: Oxford University Press, ), p. ; Stock, Pound, p. .

Patricia Hutchins, Ezra Pound’s Kensington: An Exploration – (London:Faber & Faber, ), p. . See also Stock, Pound, pp. & .

Richard Ellmann, Yeats, The Man and the Masks (New York: Norton, ),p. .

Arthur Mizener, The Saddest Story, A Biography of Ford Madox Ford (New York:World, ), p. ; Stock, Pound, p. .

See Jeffrey Meyers, D.H. Lawrence (New York: Knopf, ), pp. –; HarryT. Moore, The Priest of Love, A Life of D.H. Lawrence (New York: Farrar,Straus & Giroux, ), pp. –.

For reminiscences of the London literary scene and the five Modernists be-fore the war see: Dukes, Scene is Changed; Epstein, Autobiography; Patmore,My Friends; Jones, Hulme; J.B. Harmer, Victory in Limbo, Imagism – (NewYork: St.Martin’s Press, ); FordMadoxFord,Return to Yesterday(New York: H. Liveright, ); Richard Curle, Caravansary and Conversation(New York: Frederick A. Stokes, ); Douglas Goldring, The Last Pre-Raphaelite (London: Macdonald, ); Douglas Goldring, South Lodge: Rem-iniscences of Violet Hunt, Ford Madox Ford and the English Review Circle (London:Constable, ); Nina Hamnett, Laughing Torso (London: Virago, );

Notes to pages –

Violet Hunt, I Have This to Say: The Story of My Flurried Years (New York: Boniand Liveright, ); Edgar Jepson,Memories of An Edwardian and Neo-Georgian(London: Richards, ); C.R.W. Nevinson, Paint and Prejudice (New York:Harcourt, Brace, ); Ernest Rhys, Wales England Wed, An Autobiography(London: J.M. Dent, ); Ernest Rhys, Everyman Remembers (London: J.M.Dent, ).

See Wallace Martin, The New Age Under Orage (Manchester: ManchesterUniversity Press, ).

See F.S. Flint, “Biographical Sketch,” The Collected Poems of Harold Monro, ed.Alida Monro (London: Cobden-Sanderson, ); Harold Monro Papers,British Library, Add. Mss. D-G; , , A.

Harriet Shaw Weaver Papers, British Library, Add. Mss. &.

“ ” :

Ford Madox Ford, Ancient Lights (London: Chapman and Hall, ),pp. & .

Ford Madox Ford, Memories and Impressions (New York: Ecco Press, ),p. .

Ford, Ancient Lights, p. xi. Ibid., p. . See Yeats, “Mr. Arthur Symons’ New Book” (April, ),UPII, pp. –; D.H. Lawrence to Blanche Jennings, October , December , Letters I, pp. & , ; Pound, The Spirit of Romance(; rpt. New York: New Directions, ), p. .

SeeYeats, “Autumn of the Body” () and “Symbolism in Painting” (),E&I, pp. – & –.

FordMadox Ford,The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (London: Duckworth, ),p. .

See, for example, Robert Browning, “Essay on Shelley” (), in SimonNowell-Smith, ed., Browning Poetry and Prose (Cambridge, MA: HarvardUniversity Press, ), pp. –; P.B. Shelley, “A Defence of Poetry,” inDavid Lee Clark, ed., Shelley’s Prose, or the Trumpet of a Prophecy (Albuquerque:University of New Mexico Press, ), pp. , , ; Arthur Hallam,“On Some of the Characteristics of Modern Poetry, and on the LyricalPoems of Alfred Tennyson,” in The Writings of Arthur Hallam, ed.T.H. Motter (London: Oxford University Press, ), pp. & , .See also Armstrong, Victorian Poetry, pp. –, –, –, –,– .

T.E. Hulme, “Searchers After Reality. Jules De Gaultier.-.,” New Age(December , ): & ; “The Philosophy of Intensive Manifolds”(), in Speculations, ed. Herbert Read (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul,), p. .

FordMadoxFord, “Literary Portraits.. –Mr.RichardWhiteing,”Tribune(October , ): ; “Modern Poetry,” Living Age ( January , ):

Notes to pages –

& ; Rossetti: A Critical Essay on His Art (London: Duckworth, ),p. ; Ezra Pound, “Victorian Eclogues,” Exaultations (), CEP, p. .

Ezra Pound, “The Science of Poetry,” Book News Monthly (December), p. ; Spirit of Romance, pp. & ; Yeats, “The Celtic Elementin Literature,” Cosmopolis ( June ): pp. & ; Lawrence to BlancheJennings, December , October , December , Letters I,pp. , , ; Lawrence, “Rachel AnnandTaylor” (), in Ada Lawrenceand G. Stuart Gelder, Young Lorenzo, Early Life of D.H. Lawrence (New York:Russell & Russell, ), p. .

Yeats, “The Treasure of the Humble” ( ), UPII, p. . On the Rhymers’Club see R.F. Foster,W.B. Yeats: A Life. I: The Apprentice Mage (Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, ), pp. –; Richard Ellmann, Yeats, The Man and theMasks (NewYork: Norton, ), p. ; Armstrong, Victorian Poetry, pp. – .

Yeats, “William Blake,” Academy ( June , ): ; “John Eglinton andSpiritual Art” (),UPII, p. ; “The Poetry of A.E.” (),UPII, p. .See also, “Mr. Rhys’ Welsh Ballads” (), UPII, p. .

Hulme, “Bergson’s Theory of Art,” in Speculations, pp. , , , .This article was probably written in November and December . SeeStock, Pound, p. .

Yeats, “Mr. Lionel Johnson’s Poems” (), UPII, p. ; Yeats, “JohnEglinton,” p. ; Ford, “ModernPoetry,” p. ; Pound,The Spirit of Romance,p. .

Ford, The Spirit of the People ( ), in England and the English (New York:McClure, Phillips, ), p. .

Formore on the idea of Sympathy, see Shelley, “Defence of Poetry,” pp. – ;M.H. Abrams,Mirror and Lamp (Oxford:OxfordUniversity Press, ),pp. – , –; Walter Jackson Bate, “The Sympathetic Imagina-tion in Eighteenth-Century English Criticism,” ELH, ( June ): –; Bate, From Classic to Romantic (New York: Harper & Row, ); JamesEngell, The Creative Imagination, Enlightenment to Romanticism (Cambridge, MA:Harvard University Press, ); Ernst Tuveson, The Imagination as a Meansof Grace (New York: Gordian Press, ).

Hulme, “Bergson’s Theory,” p. ; Pound, Spirit of Romance, p. . Yeats, “William Blake and the Imagination” ( ), E&I, p. ; Yeats, “The

Dominion of Dreams” ( July ), UPII, p. ; Lawrence, “Art and theIndividual” () in Young Lorenzo, pp. & .

Ford, “Literary Portraits. . – Mr. Dion Clayton Calthrop,” Tribune(October , ): ; Yeats, “The Irish LiteraryTheatre” (),UPII, p. ;Ford, “Literary Portraits. . –Mr. JosephConrad,”Tribune (September , ): ; Lawrence, “Art and the Individual,” p. .

Ford, Ancient Lights, pp. , , . Ford, “Literary Portraits. .,” p. ; Yeats, “The Autumn of the Body”

(), E&I, p. ; Pound, Spirit of Romance, p. . Lawrence, “Rachel Annand Taylor,” pp. & .

Notes to pages –

Ezra Pound, “Purveyors General,” A Quinzaine For This Yule (), in CEP,pp. & .

Pound, Spirit of Romance, p. ; Lawrence, “Rachel Annand Taylor,” p. . Pound, Spirit of Romance, pp. & ; Hulme, “Notes on Language and Style”

(–), in Further Speculations, pp. , , . Yeats, “Irish National Literature ” (August ), UPI, p. ; Yeats,

“Aglavaine and Selysette” ( ), UPII, p. ; “A Symbolic Artist and theComing of Symbolic Art” (), UPII, p. ; Hulme, “Notes,” p. .

See Yeats, “Coole Park and Ballylee” () in Richard J. Finneran, ed., ThePoems of W.B. Yeats (New York: Macmillan, ), p. ; Graham Hough,The Last Romantics (London:Duckworth, ); FrankKermode,TheRomanticImage (NewYork:Macmillan, ); EdmundWilson,Axel’s Castle (NewYork:Scribners, ).

Yeats to Katherine Tynan, , quoted in Ellmann, Yeats, p. ; Pound,Spirit of Romance, p. ; Lawrence to Blanche Jennings, January ,Letters I, p. ; Lawrence to Blanche Jennings, July , ibid., p. ;“Rachel Annand Taylor,” pp. & ; Hulme, “Notes,” pp. & .

Lawrence to Blanche Jennings, October , November , and January , Letters I, pp. , , , & ; Hulme, “A Lecture onModern Poetry” () in Further Speculations, p. (for the dating of thislecture seeLevenson, p. ; SamHynes, “Introduction” toFurther Speculations,p. xii); Pound, “The Science of Poetry,” Book News Monthly (December ):; Yeats, “Edmund Spenser” (), E&I, p. ; Yeats to KatherineTynan, March , quoted in John P. Frayne, “Introduction,” UPI,p. .

W.B. Yeats, “The Wheel and the Phases of the Moon,” in George MillsHarper and Walter Kelly Hood, A Critical Edition of Yeats’s A Vision ()(London: Macmillan, ), p. ; Yeats to Fiona Macleod, , quoted inEllmann, Yeats, p. ; Lawrence, “Art and the Individual,” p. ; Lawrenceto Blanche Jennings, November , in Letters I, p. ; Hulme, quotedin Jones, p. ; Pound, Spirit of Romance, p. .

Lawrence, “Art and the Individual” (), p. ; Lawrence to BlancheJennings, November , in Letters I, p. ; Pound, Spirit of Romance,p. ; Hulme, “Lecture,” p. ; Ford, Ford Madox Brown: A Record of HisLife and Work (London: Longmans, Green, ), pp. , , ; Ford,“Modern Poetry,” p. ; Ford, “The Making of Modern Verse,” Academyand Literature (April , ): , (April , ): ; Ford, Review of TheCollected Poems of Christina Georgina Rossetti, Fortnightly Review (March ): & ; Ford, Rossetti, pp. , .

See Thomas F. Grieve, Ezra Pound’s Early Poetry and Poetics (Columbia:University of Missouri Press, ), pp. –, –, , & , & .

Ibid., p. . Ford, Ancient Lights, p. ; Yeats, The Autobiography of William Butler Yeats

(New York: Macmillan, ), p. ; Pound, “M. Antonius Flaminius and

Notes to pages –

John Keats; A Kinship in Genius,” Book News Monthly (February ),p. . See also Foster, Yeats, pp. & ; & .

Ford,Memories, pp. & ; “Modern Poetry,” p. . Ford, Memories, pp. , & , ; Yeats, “Ireland and the Arts” (),

E&I, p. . Yeats, “The Philosophy of Shelley’s Poetry” (), E&I, pp. & .

According to Shelley the “civic crown” was resigned to “reasoners andmechanists,” not “merchants.” Shelley, “Defence of Poetry,” p. .

W.B. Yeats, “The King’s Threshold” () in The Collected Plays of W.B. Yeats(New York: Macmillan, ), pp. –.

See Yeats, “If I Were Four-and-Twenty,” in Explorations (New York:Macmillan, ), pp. & ; Foster, Yeats, pp. & ; Ellmann,Yeats, p. ; Mizener, Saddest Story, pp. – ; Max Saunders, Ford MadoxFord: A Dual Life, Vol. I (Oxford: Oxford University Press, ), pp. &, –; Robert Green, Ford Madox Ford: Prose and Politics (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, ), pp. –; Lawrence, “Art and the Indi-vidual,” pp. –;Hulme, “TheArt of PoliticalConversion,”Commentator(April , ): . The entire Yeats family was involved with Morris. Hissisters, for example, worked on textile projects with Morris’s daughters.

Ford, Ford Madox Brown, p. ; Yeats, quoted in Ellmann, Yeats, p. . Lawrence to Blanche Jennings, October , in Letters I, p. ; Ford, Ford

Madox Brown, p. ; Ford Madox Hueffer, The Cinque Ports: A Historical andDescriptive Record (Edinburgh and London: Blackwood, ), p. vii; Ford,Ford Madox Brown, p. ; Yeats, “A Postscript to a Forthcoming Book ofEssays by Various Writers” (), UPII, p. ; Yeats, The Countess Cathleen(), in Collected Plays, pp. –.

Yeats, “Philosophy of Shelley’s Poetry,” p. ; Ford Madox Hueffer, The Soulof London (), in England and the English, p. . See Shelley, “A Defence ofPoetry,” p. . For Ruskin see Rosenberg, Darkening Glass, pp. –; forMorris see Alice Chandler, A Dream of Order: The Medieval Ideal in NineteenthCentury English Literature (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, ).

Yeats, “Discoveries” (),E&I, p. . See also Grieve, Pound’s Early Poetry,p. ; Rosenberg, Darkening Glass, pp. , & , , .

Yeats, “Discoveries,” p. ; Pound, “I Gather the Limbs of Osiris,” New Age( January , ), pp. & ; Ford, Ancient Lights, p. ; Ford, “ModernPoetry,” p. .

Ellmann, Yeats, p. . Yeats, Poems, p. . Even “The Two Titans” (), subtitled “A Political

Poem,” does not approximate the simplicity Yeats desired; the language isso indirect that even the action of the poem is unclear. See Yeats, “The TwoTitans; A Political Poem,” ibid., pp. –.

ThomasH. Jackson,The Early Poetry of Ezra Pound (Cambridge,MA:HarvardUniversity Press, ), p. .

Pound, CEP, pp. & . Grieve, Pound’s Early Poetry, p. .

Notes to pages –

Pound, “In Morte De” and “To the Dawn: Defiance,” from A Lume Spento(), CEP, pp. & .

D.H. Lawrence, “Night Songs,” English Review (April ), p. . T.E. Hulme, “Autumn,” For Christmas MDCCCVIII (London: The Poet’s

Club, Women’s Printing Society, January ). Lawrence, “Guelder Rose,” The Complete Poems of D.H. Lawrence, Vol. II, ed.

Vivian de Sola Pinto and Warren Roberts (New York: Viking, ), p. . Hulme, “Notes,” p. . For Yeats’s and Ford’s early interest inMorris, see Yeats,Autobiography, pp. ,

–; Yeats, “If I Were Four-and-Twenty,” Explorations, pp. & ;Ford, Memories, pp. , –, ; Ford, Ancient Lights, pp. & ;Foster, Yeats, pp. –.

Peter Stansky, “Morris,” in Victorian Thinkers (Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress, ), p. . Later in life Morris became much more practical. Seeibid., pp. –. For more on the “ethical socialism” that was popularat the time, see Stanley Pierson, British Socialists: The Journey from Fantasy toPolitics (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, ), pp. –, –; Ian Britain, Fabianism and Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, ). Oscar Wilde had a similar belief that under socialism peoplewould be able to freely develop their unique personalities and express themthrough art. See Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man Under Socialism (; rpt.London: Journeyman Press, ).

Ford, Ancient Lights, pp. & ; Yeats, “The Happiest of Poets” (),E&I, p. ; Yeats, “John Eglinton,” p. .

Ford, Ancient Lights, pp. , , . See also Saunders, Ford, pp. –. Ibid., pp. , , , . Ford Madox Ford, The Queen Who Flew: A Fairy

Tale (London: Bliss, Sands & Foster, ). Ford called himself an anarchist inOctober . Letters of Ford Madox Ford, ed. Richard M. Ludwig (Princeton:Princeton University Press, ), p. .

See Elizabeth Cullingford, Yeats, Ireland and Fascism (New York: New YorkUniversity Press, ), pp. –; Foster, Yeats, pp. , – , , &, –; Ellmann, Yeats, pp. , –. For more on Irish nation-alism, see F.S.L. Lyons, Culture and Anarchy in Ireland – (Oxford:Oxford University Press, ); John Hutchinson, The Dynamics of CulturalNationalism: The Gaelic Revival and the Creation of the Irish Nation State (London:Allen & Unwin, ); Declan Kiberd, Inventing Ireland (Cambridge, MA:Harvard University Press, ); Robert Kee, The Green Flag: A History ofIrish Nationalism (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, ).

Yeats, “Ireland and the Arts,” pp. ; Yeats, “Emmet the Apostle of IrishLiberty” (), UPII, p. ; Yeats, “Irish Language and Irish Literature”(), UPII, p. .

See, for example, D. George Boyce, “, Interpreting the Rising,”in The Making of Modern Irish History: Revisionism and the RevisionistControversy, ed.D.GeorgeBoyce andAlanO’Day (London:Routledge, ),pp. – .

Notes to pages –

Dorothy M. Hoare, The Works of Morris and Yeats in Relation to Early SagaLiterature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ), pp. & ; seealso pp. –.

Ellmann, Yeats, p. . Yeats, “Emmet,” p. .

“ - ” :

Yeats, Poems, pp. & . Yeats, “Edmund Spenser,” p. . Ford, Cinque Ports, pp. . Yeats to Bertrand Russell, , quoted in Ellmann, Yeats, p. . See Yeats, “William Blake,” The Academy ( June , ): & ; E&I,

pp. –, –. Pound, A Lume Spento () and Personae (), in CEP, pp. & . Yeats, “Mr. Rhys’ Welsh Ballads,” p. . Ford M. Hueffer, “St Æthelburga,” in Poems for Pictures and for Notes of Music

(London: John Macqueen, ), p. . Similarly, Pound thought that thepoet should leave to the world “new-old runes/ and magic of past time/Caught from the sea deep of/ the wholeman-soul.” Pound, “Beddoesque,”Quinzaine for this Yule (), in CEP, p. .

Pound, “Epilogue” (), in CEP, p. . Pound, “To The Raphaelite Latinists” (), in CEP, p. . Yeats, Autobiography, p. ; Pound, “[Shalott]” from San Trovaso Notebook

(), in CEP, p. . Chandler, Dream of Order, pp. , . Ford, Ford Madox Brown, p. . See also Ford H. Madox Hueffer, The Brown

Owl: A Fairy Story (London: T. Fisher Unwin, ); Ford H. Madox Hueffer,The Feather (London: T. Fisher Unwin, ); FordMadoxHueffer,The QueenWho Flew: A Fairy Tale (London: Bliss, Sands & Foster, ).

Lawrence to Blanche Jennings, March , in Letters I, p. . See Yeats, UPI, pp. –; UPII, pp. –, –, –, –;

E&I, pp. –. Pound, Spirit of Romance, p. ; Yeats, draft of letter to United Irishman (),

quoted in Foster, Yeats, p. ; Ford, Cinque Ports (), p. . See Chandler, Dream of Order. Ford, Ancient Lights, pp. & ; Foster, Yeats, pp. –. Ford, Cinque Ports, pp. & , . Pound, Spirit of Romance, pp. & ; Ford,Cinque Ports, p. ; Yeats, “Edmund

Spenser,” p. . Ford, Cinque Ports, p. viii; Pound, Spirit of Romance, p. . Lawrence, “Art and the Individual,” p. ; Lawrence to Blanche

Jennings, October , in Letters I, p. ; Pound, Spirit of Romance,pp. & .

Notes to pages –

Pound, Spirit of Romance, pp. & ; Lawrence to Blanche Jennings, March, in Letters I, p. ; Ezra Pound, “Burgos. ADreamCity ofOldCastile,”Book News Monthly (October ), pp. , , .

Ford, Ancient Lights, p. . Lawrence to Rachel Annand Taylor, ? November , in Letters I, p. . Lawrence, “Rachel Annand Taylor,” pp. & . Rachel Annand Taylor, Poems (London: John Lane, Bodley Head, ),

p. . Lawrence was also excited by the novels of Maurice Hewlett (a friendof Ford’s, Yeats’s, and Pound’s), which also idealized and romanticized theMiddle Ages. Lawrence to Blanche Jennings, March , in Letters I,p. .

Pound, “The ‘Brunhild’ of Frederic Manning,” Book News Monthly (April): ; Yeats, “Lionel Johnson’s Poems,” p. .

Pound, “Canzon: Of Incense,” English Review (April ): . Stuart Y. McDougal, Ezra Pound and the Troubadour Tradition (Princeton:

Princeton University Press, ), p. . For Browning’s influence on Pound, see Grieve, Pound’s Early Poetry. Pound, “Marvoil,” CEP, p. . For other poems emphasizing medieval

strength and violence see “Sestina: Altaforte,” “Piere Vidal Old,” and“Ballad of the Goodly Fere,” CEP, pp. –.

Ford Madox Hueffer, “The Cuckoo and the Gipsy,” Speaker (August ,): .

Ford, Poems for Pictures, p. . It is difficult to discern any pattern of universal history in the work of Pound

during this early period. See Janet Oppenheim, The Other World: Spiritualism and Psychical Research in

England, – (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ). Yeats, Autobiography, p. . Yeats to John O’Leary, July , quoted in Ellmann, Yeats, p. . See also

Yeats, Autobiography, pp. , –, –, –; Ellmann, Yeats, pp. , & , –, –, –; Foster, Yeats, pp. –; George MillsHarper, Yeats’s Golden Dawn (New York: Barnes & Noble, ), pp. –;Morton Irving Seiden,William Butler Yeats, The Poet as Mythmaker (New York:Cooper Square, ), pp. –; William H. O’Donnell, “Yeats as Adeptand Artist,” in George Mills Harper, ed., Yeats and the Occult (Canada:Macmillan, Maclean-Hunter, ), p. .

Oppenheim,OtherWorld, pp. & ; see also pp. –; Ellmann, Yeats,pp. –; Foster, Yeats, p. ; Graham Hough, The Mystery Religion of W.B.Yeats (Sussex: Harvester, ), pp. –; Frank Kinahan, Yeats, Folklore, andOccultism (Boston, MA: Unwin Hyman, ), p. .

See Abrams, Natural Supernaturalism, pp. –. It has been argued thatYeats already had a cyclic view during this period because of his two worksThe Wanderings of Oisin and The Secret Rose, his study of Theosophy, and theinfluence of Vico. However, both works deal with the supernatural worldrather than history in the natural world, and Vico and the Theosophists had

Notes to pages –

spiral not cyclic views. See Ellmann, Yeats, pp. –, ; Whitaker, Swanand Shadow, pp. & .

Yeats, “The Irish Literary Theatre, ,” UPII, p. ; “Autumn of theBody,” pp. & ; “Literary Movement in Ireland,” pp. , ;“The Theatre” (), E&I, p. . See also Abrams, Natural Supernaturalism,pp. – .

Yeats, “William Blake and his Illustrations,” p. ; “Autumn of the Body,”pp. & ; “Literary Movement in Ireland,” p. .

Whitaker, Swan and Shadow, pp. & . In his apocalyptic views Yeatswas very much influenced by Blake. See Rachel V. Billingheimer, Wheelsof Eternity: A Comparative Study of William Blake and William Butler Yeats(New York: St. Martin’s Press, ).

Yeats, The Land of Heart’s Desire (), in Collected Plays, p. ; The CountessCathleen (), ibid., p. .

Ford, Cinque Ports, p. . Ibid., pp. vii & viii, , , Ibid., pp. , , . Ibid., pp. , –, , , . Hulme, “Haldane,” pp. & ; “De Gaultier. - .,” p. . Hulme, “Lecture,” pp. & . Hulme, “The Philosophy of Intensive Manifolds,” in Herbert Read, ed.,

Speculations (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, ), pp. & . T.E. Hulme, “The New Philosophy,” New Age ( July , ), pp. &

; “De Gaultier. - .,” p. ; “Lecture,” pp. & . Although Hulmementioned Nietzsche, there is no indication that he was aware of his idea ofEternal Recurrence.

Lawrence to Blanche Jennings, December and June , inLetters I, pp. , ; Lawrence, “Art and the Individual,” p. .

Abrams, Natural Supernaturalism, pp. & . Lawrence to Blanche Jennings, June , in Letters I, p. ; Lawrence,

“Art and the Individual,” p. .

“ ” :

W.B. Yeats, “Journal” (), in Memoirs, ed. Denis Donoghue (London:Macmillan, ), p. .

Cullingford, Yeats, Ireland and Fascism, pp. –; Lyons, Culture and Anarchypp. –; Foster, Yeats, pp. –.

David Cannadine, The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy (New Haven,CT: Yale University Press, ), p. . See also Walter L. Arnstein, BritainYesterday and Today, to the Present (Lexington, MA: Heath, ), pp. –.

See Peter Cain, “Political Economy,” in Alan O’Day, ed., The EdwardianAge (Hamden, CT: Archon, ); Maurice Kirby, “Britain in the

Notes to pages –

World Economy,” in Paul Johnson, ed., Twentieth-Century Britain: Economic,Social and Cultural Change (London: Longman, ), pp. – ; CliveLee, “Regions and Industry in Britain,” ibid., pp. –; Peter Wardley,“Edwardian Britain: Empire, Income and Political Discontent,” ibid.,pp. –; H.C.G.Matthew, “The Liberal Age (–),” in KennethO.Morgan, ed.,The Oxford History of Modern Britain (Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress, ), pp. & .

See Hynes, The Edwardian Turn of Mind (Princeton: Princeton UniversityPress, ), pp. –, –; Arnstein, Britain, pp. –; Matthew,“Liberal Age,” pp. –; Bernard Porter, The Lion’s Share: A Short Historyof British Imperialism, – (London: Longman, ), pp. –;T.O. Lloyd, The British Empire – (Oxford: Oxford University Press,), pp. –; Martin Kitchen, The British Empire and Commonwealth: AShort History (New York: St. Martin’s Press, ), pp. –; P. J. Marshall,“–: TheEmpireUnderThreat,” in P. J.Marshall, ed.,The CambridgeIllustratedHistory of the BritishEmpire (Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress,), pp –.

Reba N. Soffer, “The Revolution in English Social Thought, –,”American Historical Review (December ): ; Hynes, Edwardian Turnof Mind, pp. –; E.P. Hennock, “Poverty and Social Reforms,” inJohnson, ed., Twentieth-Century Britain, p. ; Arnstein, Britain, p. .

See Wardley, “Edwardian Britain,” p. ; Arnstein, Britain, pp. & ,–; Matthew, “Liberal Age,” pp. –, & , –.

See Matthew, “Liberal Age,” pp. –. See Robert Kee, The Green Flag, Vol. II: The Bold Fenian Men (London:

Weidenfeld & Nicolson, ), pp. –. See Lloyd, British Empire, pp. –; Porter, Lion’s Share, pp. –;

Ronald Robinson and John Gallagher, Africa and the Victorians (New York:Doubleday, ); John Gallagher, The Decline, Revival and Fall of the BritishEmpire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ).

See Lloyd, British Empire, pp. –; Richard Jay, Joseph Chamberlain(Oxford: Oxford University Press, ); Bernard Semmel, Imperialism andSocial Reform (Cambridge,MA:HarvardUniversity Press, ); G.R. Searle,The Quest for National Efficiency (Berkeley: University of California Press, ).

Ford, Cinque Ports, pp. & , . Ford, Ancient Lights, pp. , & . FordMadox Ford, Joseph Conrad, A Personal Remembrance (; rpt. NewYork:

Octagon Books, ), pp. & ; –; & . Ford also claimedto have read some letters that Conrad wrote while he was in the Congo thatcontained “a great deal of the body and substance of ‘Heart of Darkness’,”ibid., p. . See also Saunders, Ford, pp. –.

Ford, Conrad, p. . See A.N. Porter, The Origins of the South African War (Manchester: Manchester

University Press, ); Robinson & Gallagher, Africa, pp. –; Jay,Chamberlain, pp. – ; Searle, Quest for National Efficiency, pp. –.

Notes to pages –

Ford, Ancient Lights, p. . Yeats also was a pro-Boer because he believedthe British were suppressing the liberty of the Boers in the same way theyhad that of the Irish. He and Maude Gonne joined the Irish NationalistTransvaal Committee in which had been organized to support theBoer cause. See Cullingford, Yeats, Ireland and Fascism, p. ; Foster, Yeats,pp. – , & .

Ford, Spirit of the People, pp. , . Ibid., p. . Joseph Conrad and Ford M. Hueffer, The Inheritors: An Extravagant Story.

(London: William Heinemann, ). Although Conrad’s name appears onthe title page,Mizener argues convincingly thatConrad’s contributionswereminimal. Mizener, Saddest Story, p. .

Ford, Conrad, p. . Ford, Inheritors, pp. , , , , . See Searle, Quest for National Efficiency. Ford Madox Hueffer, The Soul of London (; rpt. in England and the English,

), pp. –. See Foster, Yeats, pp. –. Kee, The Green Flag, Vol. II, p. . Ibid., pp. –; Lyons, Culture and Anarchy, p. . Yeats, Autobiography, p. . Ibid., pp. –; ; –; – ; Foster, Yeats, pp. – , –,

–; Ellmann, Yeats, pp. –; – ; Lyons, p. . Foster, Yeats, pp. –, – . , & ; Cullingford, Yeats, Ireland

and Fascism, pp. –; Paul Scott Stanfield, Yeats and Politics in the s(Basingstoke: Macmillan, ), pp –.

Foster, Yeats, pp. –, –. Yeats, “Poetry and Tradition” ( ), E&I, p. . See John Hutchinson, The Dynamics of Cultural Nationalism: The Gaelic Revival

and the Creation of the Irish Nation State (London: Allen &Unwin, ), pp. –; Foster, Yeats, – ; Lyons, pp. –; –.

Yeats, “Emmet,” p. ; “Poetry and Tradition,” p. ; “Journal” (),p. .

Yeats, The Green Helmet (), in Collected Plays, pp. –. SeeBruceK.Murray,The People’s Budget / (Oxford:OxfordUniversity

Press, ); Walter L. Arnstein, “Edwardian Politics: Turbulent Spring orIndian Summer?” in O’Day, ed., Edwardian Age, pp. –; Gregory D.Phillips, The Diehards (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, ).

For various interpretations of these events see Arnstein, “EdwardianPolitics”; Alan Sykes, “The Radical Right and the Crisis of ConservatismBefore the First World War,”Historical Journal (): –; Alan O’Day,“Introduction,” in O’Day, ed., Edwardian Age, pp. –; G.R. Searle, “Criticsof Edwardian Society: The Case of the Radical Right,” in O’Day, ed.,Edwardian Age, pp. –; Dennis Dean, “The Character of theEarly Labour Party, –,” in O’Day, ed., Edwardian Age, pp. –.

Notes to pages –

Hulme [Thomas Grattan], “On Progress and Democracy,” Commentator(August , ): & .

Ibid.; Hulme, [Thomas Grattan] “A Tory Philosophy,” Commentator (April ,): .

Ford, “A Declaration of Faith,” English Review (February ): . Saunders, Ford, p. ; Green, Ford, p. . Ford, “The Critical Attitude,” English Review ( January ): & ;

(August ): ; ( June ): –; (April ): & ; (May): –.

Ford, “The Critical Attitude” (February ): ; ( January ): &, . See also (April ): –; (May ): .

Lawrence to Edward Garnett, July , Letters I, p. ; Lawrence toA.W. McLeod, October , ibid., pp. & ; Lawrence to EdwardGarnett, July , ibid., p. .

Pound, “The Serious Artist,” New Freewoman (October , ): ;“Patria Mia. ,” New Age (October , ): ; “Patria Mia. ,” New Age(September , ): ; “America: Chances and Remedies. ,” New Age(May , ): ; “Through Alien Eyes. ,” New Age ( January , ):.

“ ” :

Hulme, “Tory Philosophy” (April , ), p. . Didymus [Ford], “A Declaration of Faith,” English Review (February ): & .

Lawrence to Edward Garnett, July Letters I, p. . See Sykes, “Radical Right,” pp. –; Gregory D. Phillips, “Lord

Willoughby de Broke and the Politics of Radical Toryism, –,”Journal of British Studies , (): –; Martin Blinkhorn, ed., Fascistsand Conservatives: The Radical Right and the Establishment in Twentieth-CenturyEurope (London: Unwin Hyman, ); Eugen Weber, “The Right: AnIntroduction,” in Hans Rogger and Eugen Weber, eds., The European Right:A Historical Profile (Berkeley: University of California Press, ), pp. –.

See David S. Thatcher, Nietzsche in England – (Toronto: Universityof Toronto Press, ), p. –; John Carswell, Lives and Letters: A.R. Orage,Beatrice Hastings, KatherineMansfield, JohnMiddletonMurry, S.S. Koteliansky, – (London: Faber & Faber, ), pp. –.

See Sykes, “Radical Right,” pp. –; Phillips, “Willoughby de Broke,”pp. –; Searle, “Critics,” pp. –.

Edward Storer, “The Evil of Democracy,” Commentator (March , ): .

See Storer in the Commentator “The Conservative Ideal” ( January , ):; “On Revolution and Revolutionaries” (February , ): ; “SomeReflections on Rembrandt’s ‘Mill’ ” (March , ): ; “The Evil ofDemocracy” (March , ): & ; “The ‘All-British Shopping

Notes to pages –

Week’ and Other Matters” (April , ): ; “Democracy and Letters”(April , ): & ; “A Basis for Nationalism” (May , ): ;“From Democratic Liberalism to Positive Conservatism” ( June , ): & ; “Our Saviours” ( July , ): .

See Anthony M. Ludovici, Nietzsche: His Life and Works (London: Constable,), pp. , –; Oscar Levy, “Preface,” ibid., p. x; AnthonyM. Ludovici,Nietzsche and Art (London: Constable, ), pp. & , ; J.M.Kennedy, The Religions and Philosophies of the East (London: T.W. Laurie, n.d.[]), pp. –; “ ‘Peoples and Countries,’ by Friedrich Nietzsche,” trans.J.M. Kennedy, New Age (December , ): –.

Hulme may have learned of these authors while researching Bergson. SeeHulme, “Gaultier. - .,” pp. & ; Hulme’s bibliography of Frenchworks on Bergson in Henri Bergson, Time and Free Will, trans. F.L. Pogson(London: George Allen, ).

Reino Virtanen, “Nietzsche and the Action Francaise,” Journal of the Historyof Ideas , (April ): –; Eugen Weber, Action Francaise: Royalismand Reaction in Twentieth-Century France (Stanford: Stanford University Press,), p. ; Paul Mazgaj, The Action Francaise and Revolutionary Syndicalism(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, ), p. ; Jules deGaultier, De Kant a Nietzsche (Paris: Societe du Mercure de France, );de Gaultier, Nietzsche et la reforme philosophique (Paris: Societe du Mercure deFrance, ); Wilmot E. Ellis, Bovarysm, The Art-Philosophy of Jules de Gaultier.(Seattle: University of Washington Chapbooks, no. , ), p. .

See J.R. Jennings, Georges Sorel: The Character and Development of His Thought(London: Macmillan, ); Jack J. Roth, The Cult of Violence: Sorel and theSorelians (Berkeley: University of California Press, ); Michael Curtis,Three Against The Third Republic (Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press, ),pp. –; Mazgaj, Action Francaise, p. ; Weber, Action Francaise; MichaelSutton,Nationalism, Positivism, and Catholicism: The Politics of CharlesMaurras andFrench Catholics, – (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ).

The movement started in as a reaction to the Dreyfus affair, but it didnot become well organized until . See Mazgaj, Action Francaise; Weber,Action Francaise, pp. –, –.

Hulme, “A Note on the Art of Political Conversion,” Commentator (March ,): .

Hulme, “Romanticism and Classicism” (/), in Speculations, p. ;Hulme [Thomas Gratton], “A Tory Philosophy,” Commentator (April ,): ; “Tory Philosophy” (April , ), p. . In “Tory Philosophy”(April , ) many of Hulme’s sentences are almost direct translations ofLasserre. See Pierre Lasserre, Lamorale de Nietzsche (Paris: Societe duMercurede France, ), pp. & .

Hulme “Tory Philosophy” (April , ), p. . See also Hulme,“Romanticism,” pp. & ; Hulme [Thomas Gratton], “A Note on theArt of Political Conversion,” Commentator (March , ): & ; PierreLasserre, “La Philosophie deM.Bergson,”L’Action francaiseMensuelle, no.

Notes to pages –

( Mars ), p. ; Pierre Lasserre, Le Romantisme francais (Paris: Societede Mercure de France, ), p. –, , passim.; Jules de Gaultier,Le Bovarysme (Paris: Societe du Mercure de France, ), pp. , –, & , –; J.M. Kennedy,Tory Democracy (London: Stephen Swift,), pp. –, –, , –; Georges Sorel, The Illusions of Progress,trans. John and Charlotte Stanley (Berkeley: University of California Press,), pp. –, –.

Ford, “Declaration of Faith” (February ), p. ; “Critical Attitude”(February ), p. ; Ancient Lights, p. ; “Literary Portraits . –Les Jeunes and ‘Des Imagistes’,” Outlook (May , ): .

Pound, “The Approach to Paris. ,” New Age (September , ): ;Allen Upward, “Anthropolatry,” New Age ( January , ): ; AllenUpward, The New Word (London: A.C. Fifield, ), pp. – . Poundespecially liked Allen Upward, The Divine Mystery: A Reading of the History ofChristianity Down to the Time of Christ (Letchworth: Garden City Press, ).See Pound, “TheDivineMystery,”New Freewoman (November , ): .

Pound, “The New Sculpture,” Egoist (February , ): ; “WyndhamLewis,”Egoist (June , ): ; “AllenUpwardSerious,”NewAge (April ,): , quoting Upward,NewWord, p. ; “John Synge and theHabits ofCriticism,” Egoist (February , ): & ; [Herman Carl George JesusMaria], “On Certain Reforms and Pass-Times,” Egoist (April , ): .

Ford, “Critical Attitude” (February ): ; Ancient Lights, p. ; FordMadox Ford, Henry James (; rpt. New York: Octagon Books, ),pp. , , , ; “Historical Vignettes - . July , . The Product ofit All,” Outlook ( July , ): .

Pound, “Patria Mia. .,” New Age (October , ): . Yeats, “Poetry and Tradition” ( ), E&I, p. ; “Journal” (), p. . Yeats, “EdmundSpenser,” pp. & ; FordMadoxHueffer,HansHolbein,

The Younger: ACriticalMonograph (London:Duckworth, ), p. ; Ford, Spiritof the People, p. .

Ford, “Introduction,” England and the English, p. xx. Ford, “Literary Portraits. . –Mr. Dion Clayton Calthrop,” Tribune

(October , ), p. ; Pound, Spirit of Romance, p. ; Grieve, Pound’s EarlyPoetry, p. . Ford also wrote: “The passions of mediaevalismwere direct andsimple . . . it was only the Court costumes, the castles, and the vocabularythat were quaint. It was life or death; satisfaction or death; guilt and joyousescape; or discovery and death, or worse.” Ford, “Literary Portraits. . –Maurice Hewlett,” Tribune (October , ), p. .

Grieve, Pound’s Early Poetry, p. . Ford met Arthur Marwood around . Ford later commented: “I wrote

several novels with a projection of him as a central character.” Ford, Returnto Yesterday, p. . See also Mizener, Saddest Story, p. ; Saunders, Ford,pp. –. Ford also believed that Conrad’s family were “aristocrats to thebackbone.” Ford, Conrad, p. . See also Levenson, Genealogy of Modernism,pp. –.

Notes to pages –

Ford, “Declaration of Faith,” pp. & . On Yeats and Lady Gregory at this time, see Yeats, Autobiography, pp. –

; Foster, Yeats, pp. –, –; Ellmann, Yeats, p. ; Cullingford,Yeats, Ireland and Fascism, p. .

Yeats, “Journal” (), pp. , , , , ; “Poetry and Tradition,”pp. & , . See also Yeats, “The Controversy over the Playboy”( ), UPII, pp. –.

Pound, “Suffragettes,” Egoist ( July , ): & ; FordMadox Hueffer,An English Girl: A Romance (London: Methuen, ), pp. , –, ,, , ; Ford, “Literary Portraits. . – M. Anatole France,” Tribune(August , ), p. .

Ford, “Joseph Conrad,” English Review (December ): ; “CriticalAttitude” (February ), pp. , .

Ford, “Critical Attitude” (February ), pp. & ; Pound, “Picadilly,”Personae (), in CEP, p. ; Lawrence to Ernest Collings, November and January , Letters I, pp. , & .

Ford, “Declaration of Faith” (February ), pp. & ; “CriticalAttitude” (February ), pp. & .

Ford, “Declaration of Faith” (February ), pp. , ; “CriticalAttitude” (February ), pp. & .

Ford, The Heart of the Country (; rpt. in England and the English), p. ; Soulof London, pp. & ; The Fifth Queen (; rpt. in The Fifth Queen. NewYork: Ecco Press, ), p. . See also FordMadoxHueffer,The Benefactor, ATale of a Small Circle (London: Brown, Langham, ); English Girl; “LiteraryPortraits. . –Mr.H.G.Wells,”DailyMail (April , ), p. , for a criticismof Fabianism.

Pound, “Redondillas, Or Something of That Sort,”CEP, p. . For Pound’spolitical ideas in and , see Pound to Harriet Monroe, August, inThe Selected Letters of Ezra Pound, – , ed.D.D. Paige (NewYork:New Directions, ), p. ; “Patria Mia. –,” New Age (September, , , , October , , , , , ); “The Black Crusade,”New Age (December , ): ; “Through Alien Eyes. –,” New Age( January , , , February , ); “America: Chances and Reme-dies. –,” New Age (May , , , , , June , ); “The Orderof the Brothers Minor,” New Freewoman (October , ): . In thes and s Pound still liked the idea of rulers who were warriorsand patrons of the arts, for example, Sigismondo Malatesta in Cantos –. See Pound, A Draft of XXX Cantos (New York: New Directions, ),pp. –.

Yeats, “A Canonical Book” (), UPII, p. ; “Edmund Spenser,”pp. & .

Yeats, “What is Popular Poetry?,” p. ; “September ” and “Paudeen”from Responsibilities (), in Poems, pp. & .

Ford, Fifth Queen, pp. & ; Yeats, “Journal” ( January ), Memoirs,p. . See also Ford, Privy Seal ( ; rpt. in The Fifth Queen, ) and TheFifth Queen Crowned (; rpt. in The Fifth Queen, ).

Notes to pages –

Yeats, “Journal”(), p. ; “Edmund Spenser,” p. ; “A Postscript”(), UPII, pp. & .

Ford, Spirit of the People, p. , ; Fifth Queen Crowned, p. ; “Declarationof Faith,” pp. –; Pound, “Redondillas,” CEP, p. .

Ford, “Literary Portraits. .,” Outlook (May , ): ; “Decla-ration of Faith,” p. ; Ford, “Literary Portraits. .,” p. ; Pound,“AllenUpward Serious,” p. ; Hulme “TheTranslator’s Preface to Sorel’s,‘Reflections on Violence’,” New Age (October , ): & .

Ford, Spirit of the People, p. ; Yeats, “Journal” (), pp. & . Yeats, “Art and Ideas,” New Weekly ( June , ): ; Autobiography, p. ;

Ford, Spirit of the People, p. . Yeats, “Edmund Spenser,” p. ; Ford, Spirit of the People, p. ; Ford,

English Girl, pp. & ; Yeats, “To a Wealthy Man who Promised aSecond Subscription to the Dublin Municipal Gallery if it were Proved thePeople wanted Pictures” and note, Responsibilities (), in Poems, pp. &, .

Yeats, “Poetry and Tradition,” p. . Yeats, “Emmet,” p. ; “Journal” (), p. . Pound, “Allen Upward Serious,” p. ; “Suffragettes,” pp. –;

“Wyndham Lewis,” p. ; [Bastien von Helmholtz], “On the Imbecil-ity of the Rich,” Egoist (October , ): & ; “New Sculpture,”p. .

Yeats, “Edmund Spenser,” pp. & . Hulme “Political Conversion” (March , ), p. & (March , ),

p. . Ford [Daniel Chaucer], The New Humpty-Dumpty (London: John Lane The

Bodley Head, ), pp. , , , , , & . According to Ford,DanielChaucerwas “aquiet country gentlemanof ancient but impoverishedlineage”who had come from an “ancient and respectable” family that “fromtime immemorial, had its seat in the County of Kent.” Ford to Violet Hunt, April , in RichardM. Ludwig, ed., Letters of Ford Madox Ford (Princeton:Princeton University Press, ), pp. & .

“ ” :

“Original Sin – And Mr. T.E. Hulme,” Cambridge Magazine (March , ):.

Ford Madox Ford,Mr. Apollo, A Just Possible Story (London: Methuen, ),pp. –.

Walter Pater, “Apollo in Picardy,” inMiscellaneous Studies (; rpt. London:Macmillan, ), pp. –; “Denys L’Auxerrois” and “Duke Carl ofRosenmold,” in Imaginary Portraits ( ; rpt. New York: Macmillan, ),pp. –, –.

See Lasserre, Romantisme, pp. –; Georges Sorel, Reflections on Violence,trans. T.E. Hulme (; rpt. New York: AMS Press, ), pp. , –,

Notes to pages –

–, –, –; Gaultier, Bovarysme, pp. –, –;Kennedy, Tory Democracy, pp. –; A.R. Orage, Friedrich Nietzsche: TheDionysian Spirit of the Age (London: T.N. Foulis, ), p. ; Storer, “RomanticConcept of History,” pp. & .

Hulme, “Tory Philosophy” (April , ), p. ; “Political Conversion”(March , ), pp. & ; “Notes on the Bologna Congress,” New Age(April , ), p. .

A.M. Ludovici, Nietzsche: His Life and Works (London: Constable, ), p. .See also Lasserre, Romantisme, pp. , –; Lasserre, La morale deNietzsche, pp. –; Sorel, Illusions; Sorel, Reflections, pp. –, –,–, –, ; Gaultier, Le Bovarysme, pp. –, –;Orage, Nietzsche, pp. –; A.M. Orage, Consciousness: Animal, Human, andSuperhuman (London & Benares: Theosophical Publishing Society, ),pp. –; Mazgaj, Action Francaise, pp. & , & , .

Ellis, Bovarysm, p. . In November Hulme claimed that Lasserrebelieved in the idea of recurrence, but there is no reference to this in thoseworks of Lasserre that Hulme is known to have read.

Hulme, “Tory Philosophy” (May , ), p. ; “Notes on Bergson. ,”New Age (November , ): .

Hulme, “Tory Philosophy” (April , ), p. ; Hulme, “Romanticism,”pp. & ; “Original Sin – And Mr. T.E. Hulme,” p. . For commentson original sin, see Sorel, Reflections, pp. –; Sorel, Illusions, pp. & ;Lasserre, Romantisme, pp. & .

Peter J. Bowler, Evolution: The History of an Idea (Berkeley: University ofCalifornia Press, ), pp. & . See also pp. , & for adiscussion of De Vries’s theory. It is possible that Hulme learned of thistheory from Storer in . See Storer, “Romantic Conception of History,”p. .

Hulme, “Romanticism,” p. . Hulme, “Tory Philosophy” (May , ), p. . Hulme, “Tory Philosophy” (May , ), p. ; Hulme [ Thomas

Gratton], “Theory and Practice,” Commentator (November , ): . Hulme, “Tory Philosophy” (May , ), p. & ; (May , ),

p. . Hulme [Thomas Grattan], “On Progress and Democracy,” Commentator

(August , ): & . W.M. Flinders Petrie, The Revolutions of Civilisation (London and New York:

Harper & Brothers, ), pp. , & , , . Ibid., p. . “Original Sin – And Mr. T.E. Hulme,” p. . It is possible that Hulme was

introduced to the distinction between cyclic and spiral views of history bySorel, although Sorel supported neither view. See Sorel, Illusions, pp. &.

Yeats, “Preface to the First Edition of The Well of Saints” (), E&I, p. ;Yeats, “Journal” (), p. .

Notes to pages –

On the reasons for the change in Yeats’s spiritual interests, see Harper, Yeats’sGolden Dawn, pp. –& –; Foster, Yeats, pp. –, –, .

Seiden, Yeats, pp. –. Yeats, Autobiography, p. ; “Magic,”Monthly Review (September ): . Yeats, “Philosophy of Shelley’s Poetry,” pp. & , & . This was especially the case in when Yeats worked with the spiritual-

ist, Elizabeth Radcliffe, who used automatic writing to communicate withspirits of many different countries and ages. See Arnold Goldman, “Yeats,Spiritualism, and Psychical Research,” in Harper, ed., Yeats and the Occult,p. ; George Mills Harper and John S. Kelly, “Preliminary Examinationof the Script of E[lizabeth] R[adcliffe], ibid., pp. –; Alan Gauld, TheFounders of Psychical Research (New York: Schocken, ), p. ; Hough,Mystery Religion, p. –; Ellmann, Yeats, pp. –.

Herbert J. Levine, Yeats’s Daimonic Renewal (Ann Arbor: UMIResearch Press,), p. .

Hulme, “Bergsonism in Paris,”New Age ( June , ): . See also L’Actionfrancaise ( janvier ): and ( fevrier ): . Hulme visited Lasserreand Gaultier at this time to discuss Bergson’s philosophy and conservativepolitics. See Hulme “Bologna Congress,” p. .

Hulme [T.E.H.], “Mr. Balfour, Bergson, andPolitics,”NewAge (November ,): & .

Hulme, “Notes on Bergson. ,” New Age (November , ): ; Hulme,“Notes on Bergson. ,” New Age (February , ): ; “Bergson. ,”pp. .

Hulme, “Bergson. ,” p. ; Letter of Ramiero de Maeztu, April ,Hulme Papers, University of Hull; Hulme, “Bergson. ,” p. .

Lawrence to Ada Lawrence Clarke, April , Letters I, p. ; Lawrenceto Ernest Collings, January , ibid., p. ; Lawrence, “The GeorgianRenaissance,” Rhythm: Literary Supplement (March ), pp. xvii–xxi.

Lawrence to Henry Savage, January , Letters II, pp. & . Pound, Exultations (), “Paracelsus in Excelsis,” from Canzoni (),

“Laudantes Decem Pulchritudinis Johannae Templi” and “Guido InvitesYou Thus” from Exultations (), and “Histron” from A Quinzaine for thisYule (), CEP, pp. , , , , .

Ford, The Young Lovell: A Romance (London: Chatto & Windus, ), p. . Oppenheim,OtherWorld, p. . See also ibid, p. ;KathleenRaine, “Hades

Wrapped in Cloud,” in Harper, ed., Yeats and the Occult, pp. –. See Harmer, Victory in Limbo, p. ; Stock, Pound, p. ; P/SL, pp. n,

, & ; Pound, “Psychology and Troubadours,” Quest (October ),p. n ;WilliamFrench andTimothyMaterer, “Far FlungVortices &Ezra’s‘Hindoo’ Yogi,” Paideuma (Spring ): & .

G.R.S.Mead, SimonMagus (London:Theosophical PublishingSociety, ),p. . See also “The ‘Book of the HiddenMysteries’ by Hierotheos,” inQuestsOld and New (London: G. Bell & Sons, ) or “The Book of The HiddenMysteries of the House of God,” Quest (October ): –.

Notes to pages –

Mead and other contributors toQuest held a progressive view of the possibil-ity of an ascent to unity with the divine, but did not apply it to the history ofreligion. Formore on comparative studies of religion and folklore with evolu-tionary biases, see GeorgeW. Stocking, Victorian Anthropology (NewYork: FreePress, ); Robert Ackerman, J.G. Frazer, His Life and Work (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, ).

G.R.S. Mead, “On the Nature of the Quest,” Quest (October ): . Pound, “Psychology and Troubadours,” pp. & , p. n., pp. & ,

, . Pound, “On the ‘Decline of Faith’,” p. . Lawrence, “Georgian Renaissance,” p. xx. Lawrence to Ada Lawrence Clarke, April , Letters I, p. . Pound, Spirit of Romance, p. . Henri Bergson, Introduction toMetaphysics, authorised trans. T.E.Hulme (;

rpt. New York: Macmillan, ), p. . Pound, Spirit of Romance, p. . Ibid., p. . Stan Smith, The Origins of Modernism: Eliot, Pound, Yeats and the Rhetorics

of Renewal (Hemel Hempsted: Harvester Wheatsheaf, ), pp. & . Yeats, “Journal” (), pp. & ; “Poetry and Tradition,” p. . Pound, “Patria Mia,” New Age (September , ): ; (September ,

): & ; (September , ): ; (October , ): ;(October , ): .

Ford, Spirit of the People, pp. , , , . In Ford’s English Girl, p. , thesocialist reformers whom Ford satirizes have progressive views of history. In“Literary Portraits. –Mr. Frederic Harrison,”Daily Mail (May , ): ,Ford criticized Harrison for his belief that “the destinies and perfectibil-ity of Humanity is an ideal higher than that of any religion based uponmiracle.”

Ford, Spirit of the People, p. ; Soul of London, p. . See also Ford, Spirit of thePeople, pp. , & .

Ford M. Hueffer, The Face of the Night, A Second Series of Poems for Pictures(London: John MacQueen, ), pp. & .

Ford, Mr. Apollo, p. . The fact that Egathistothepompus held that menare perfectible, although history moves in cycles, could indicate that Fordhad a spiral view. Nevertheless, there is no other sense of progress in thenovel. Rather, Apollo consistently points out that little had changed sinceAncient Greece, and Ford’s comparisons of contemporary England and theRoman Empire illustrate the lack of significant advancement. See especially,pp. –.

Ibid., p. . Lawrence, “Georgian Renaissance,” p. xix. Pound, “Canzon: The Yearly Slain,” “The Golden Sestina,” “A Prologue,”

and “Und Drang,” from Canzoni (), “The Return” and “The Needle,”from Ripostes (), “Redondillas” (), CEP, pp. , & , &, , , .

Notes to pages –

Yeats, “Discoveries” ( ), E&I, pp. –; “Journal” (), p. . Pound, “I Gather the Limbs of Osiris,” New Age (February , ), p. ;

(February , ), p. . Hulme, “Haldane,” pp. & ; “Lecture,” pp. , , ; “New

Philosophy,” p. ; “Notes,” p. . Hulme, “Notes,” p. . Hume, “Bergson’s Theory of Art,” Speculations, pp. & . Hume, “Lecture,” p. . Pound, “Psychology and Troubadours,” pp. , –. Pound, “Prologomena,” p. . Pound, “Osiris” ( January , ), p. . Pound, “Prologomena,” p. . Most literary critics acknowledge Pound’s August book of poems,

Ripostes, as marking a fundamental change in his work. See Harmer, Victoryin Limbo, pp. , –; Stock, Pound, pp. & , ; Levenson, Genealogyof Modernism, p. ; Martin, New Age, p. ; H. Christoph De Nagy, ThePoetry of Ezra Pound: The Pre-Imagist Stage (Francke Verlag Bern, ), p. .

Pound, “Lustra III Further Instructions,” Poetry (November ): & . See Green, Ford, pp. & , – for the use of these structures in Ford’s

mature work, The Good Soldier. Ford, Ladies Whose Bright Eyes: A Romance (London: Constable, ). Ford,Mr. Fleight (London: Howard Latimer, ), p. . Green, Ford, p. . Green is inaccurate in saying that a year passed from the

beginning to the end of the novel. The novel begins on Derby day and endson Christmas day. Thus only six months had passed.

“ ” : -

Yeats, “Preface to Gitanjali” (September ), E&I, p. . Pound to D.S., October , P/SL, p. . Quoted in Edward W. Said, Orientalism (New York: Random House, ),

p. . Quoted in ibid., p. . See also Nigel Leask, British Romantic Writersand the East: Anxieties of Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,), pp. –; John MacKenzie, Orientalism: History, Theory, and the Arts(Manchester: Manchester University Press, ), p. .

See Leask, British Romantic Writers; MacKenzie, Orientalism, p. ; Said,Orientalism, p. ; Schwab, Oriental Renaissance, p. ; Maryanne Stevens,“Western Art and its Encounter with the Islamic World –,” inMaryanne Stevens, ed., The Orientalists: Delacroix to Matisse, the Allure of NorthAfrica and the Near East (New York: Thames & Hudson, ), pp. –.

Raymond Schwab, The Oriental Renaissance: Europe’s Rediscovery of India andthe East, –, trans. Gene Patterson-Black and Victor Reinking(New York: Columbia University Press, ), p. .

MacKenzie, Orientalism, p. .

Notes to pages –

See Lawrence W. Chisolm, Fenollosa: The Far East and American Culture (NewHaven, CT: Yale University Press, ), pp. –, & ; Earl Miner,The Japanese Tradition in British and American Literature (Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press, ), pp. , –, – .

Quoted in Leask, British Romantic Writers, p. . Tennyson, “Recollections of the Arabian Nights,” Poetic and Dramatic Work,

p. . See Schwab, Oriental Renaissance ; Said, Orientalism ; Toshio Yokoyama, Japan

in the Victorian Mind (London: Macmillan, ); Tomoko Sato and ToshioWatanabe, eds., Japan and Britain, An Aesthetic Dialogue, – (London:Lund Humphries, ); Chisolm, Fenollosa, pp. –, & ; Miner,Japanese Tradition, pp. , –, – ; John Hatcher, Laurence Binyon: Poet,Scholar of East and West (Oxford: Clarendon Press, ), pp. –; ParthaMitter, Much Maligned Monsters: History of European Reactions to Indian Art(Oxford: Clarendon Press, ), pp. –; Tapati Guha-Thakurta,The Making of a New ‘Indian’ Art: Arts, Aesthetics and Nationalism in Bengal c.– (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ), pp. –;Anna Somers Cocks, The Victoria and Albert Museum: The Making of the Collec-tion (Leicester: Windward, ), pp. –, –.

George C.M. Birdwood, The Industrial Arts of India (London: Chapman andHall, ), p. . See also Cocks, p. .

Cited in Chisolm, Fenollosa, p. . See Sato and Watanabe, Japan and Britain, pp. –; Linda Gertner

Zatlin, Beardsley, Japonisme and the Perversion of the Victorian Ideal (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, ), pp. –; Toshio Watanabe, HighVictorian Japonisme (Bern: Peter Lang, ); Miner, Japanese Tradition;Yokoyama, Japan in the Victorian Mind; Watanabe, Japan and Britain.

See Chisolm, Fenollosa, pp. –. The British Museum also had lit-tle interest in Asian fine art before the early twentieth century. Accord-ing to the Keeper of the prints and drawings collection, the “pictorialarts [of China and Japan] properly so-called . . .were almost unknownuntil . . . ” and little was acquired from then until . Sidney Colvin,“Preface,” British Museum, Guide to an Exhibition of Chinese and Japanese Paint-ings (Fourth to Nineteenth Century A.D. in the Print and Drawing Gallery) (London:). See also Edward Miller, That Noble Cabinet, A History of the BritishMuseum (London: Andre Deutsch, ), pp. & ; ; BritishMuseum, Reports to Trustees [Dept. P&D] vol. , to , April.

Havell, “The New Indian School of Painting,” The Studio ( July ),p. ; Mitter,Much Maligned Monsters, pp. –; Guha-Thakurta, New‘Indian’ Art, pp. –, –, –.

See Roger Lipsey, Coomaraswamy, Vol. : His Life and Work (Princeton:Princeton University Press, ); Mary M. Lago, ed., Imperfect Encounter:Letters of William Rothenstein and Rabindranath Tagore – (Cambridge,MA: Harvard University Press, ).

Notes to pages –

Thiswas according toSidneyColvin,Keeper of theBritishMuseum’s Printsand Drawing collection. He did not identify the other “expert”. BritishMuseum Archives, Letter of Sidney Colvin to Trustees, Feb. .

Roger Fry, “Oriental Art,”Quarterly Review ( January ): –; DenysSutton, ed., “Introduction,” Letters of Roger Fry (New York: Random House,), pp. –.

See Mitter,Much Maligned Monsters, pp. –. Lasserre, Romantisme, p. , , & , . This evolutionary viewof art also accounts for the lack of understanding and

appreciation of “primitive” art outside modern art circles before the FirstWorld War. See Robert Goldwater, Primitivism in Modern Art (Cambridge,MA: Harvard University Press, ).

Fry, “Oriental Art,” p. ; E.B. Havell, Ideals of Indian Art (London: JohnMurray, ) pp. & ; Fry, “Oriental Art,” p. . See also LaurenceBinyon, Painting in the Far East: An Introduction to the History of Pictorial Art in AsiaEspecially China and Japan (London: Edward Arnold, ), p. ; LaurenceBinyon, Flight of the Dragon: An Essay on the Theory and Practice of Art in Chinaand Japan (London: John Murray, ); Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, TheArts and Crafts of India and Ceylon (; rpt. NewDelhi: Today &Tomorrow’sPrinters & Publishers, ); Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, Essays in NationalIdealism (Madras: G.A. Natesan, [n.d.= ]); WilhelmWorringer, Abstrac-tion and Empathy: A Contribution to the Psychology of Style, trans. Michael Bullock(; rpt. New York: International Universities Press, ).

See, for example, Coomaraswamy, Essays, pp. & ; Havell, Ideals,pp. xv, & , , ; Binyon, Painting, pp. & ; Ananda K.Coomaraswamy, “The Aim of Indian Art,”Modern Review ( January, ),p. .

See Binyon, Painting, p. . Worringer, Abstraction, p. . Hulme was so impressed by his work in

that he went to Germany tomeetWorringer. In early Hulme admittedthat his positionwas “practically an abstract of Worringer’s views.”Hulme,“Modern Art,” pp. & . See also Levenson, Genealogy of Modernism,pp. & ; Hulme to Edward Marsh, Hulme Papers, Hull University.

Hulme, “Modern Art,” pp. & . Binyon, Painting, p. ; Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, “Art of the East and of

the West,” New Age (March , ), p. ; Fry, “Oriental Art,” p. . Yeatsmay have been introduced to Indian religion by the Theosophists. For

Yeats’s earliest references to Asia, see Yeats, “The Poetry of A.E.” (),UPI, p. ; Yeats, “Magic,” p. ; Yeats, Poems, pp. –; Foster, Yeats,pp. , & . For Pound, see Stock, Pound, p. ; Pound, footnote to“Plotinus,” A Lume Spento (), CEP, p. .

Foster, Yeats, pp. & , ; Stock, Pound, pp. & . See, for example, Binyon, “Some Phases of Religious Art in Eastern Asia,”

Quest ( July ): –; insert to Quest ( January ); E.B. Havell, “TheIdeals and Philosophy of Indian Art,” Quest ( July ): –; Havell,

Notes to pages –

Coomaraswamy, and Binyon in “An International Symposium for the Artof the Theatre,” New Age (October , ): .

Hulme had read “Binyon’s little book on Chinese art” by . See Hulme,“Bergson’s Theory of Art,” p. . In Pound attended a lecture byBinyon on “Oriental and European Art” that he thought was “intenselyinteresting.” Quoted in Stock, Pound, pp. & . Yeats also had readBinyon. See Yeats, “Estrangement” (), Autobiography, p. .

Pound, review of Art and Swadeshi, by Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, Poetry(September ): & .

D.L. Murray notes written for A.R. Jones, T.E. Hulme Papers, Universityof Hull.

Ellmann, Yeats, p. ; Yeats, “Sailing to Byzantium” fromThe Tower (),Poems, pp. & .

See Yeats, “Tragic Theatre” (), E&I, p. ; “Preface to Gitanjali,”p. ; Pound to D.S., January , September , September, P/SL, pp. , , .

Pound to D.S., December , P/SL, p. . Jepson,Memories, pp. –. Epstein recalled a similar scene with a fellow

artist about a statue of Buddha on Hulme’s mantelpiece. Epstein, Autobiog-raphy, p. .

F. Hadland David, “The Poetry of Yone Noguchi,” Quest ( July ): .YeatsmetTagore on June , through the painterWilliamRothensteinwhohad invitedTagore toLondon.Yeats then introducedPound toTagore.See Yeats to Florence Farr Emery, June , in Letters, p. ; Stock,Pound, p. ; Pound to D.S., October , P/SL, pp. & . Formore on the relationship between Noguchi, Tagore, Yeats, and Poundsee, Yoshinobu Hakutani, Selected English Writings of Yone Noguchi: An East-West Literary Assimilation (Cranbury,NJ: AssociatedUniversity Presses, );YoneNoguchi,The Story of YoneNoguchi Told ByHimself (Philadelphia:GeorgeW. Jacobs, [n.d. = ]); Lago, ed., Imperfect Encounter, pp. – ; KrishnaDutta and Andrew Robinson, Rabindranath Tagore: The Myriad-Minded Man(London: Bloomsbury, ), pp. – .

For example, in and the Poetry Bookshop held four readings ofTagore’s poems, two lectures by Noguchi, and two readings of translationsof Japanese,Chinese, andPersianpoetry. SeeHaroldMonroPapers, BritishLibrary, Add. Mss. –. See New Age, New Freewoman, Egoist, NewWeekly,Quest, Rhythm, Blue Review, andMask, –, for reviews of Asianpoetry, drama, music, and paintings.

Stock, Pound, p. ; P/SL, pp. & , , , , , , ,, .

It was probably Binyon who suggested Pound to Fenollosa’s widow.The two met in early October at the home of the Indian poet,Sarojini Naidu. See Pound to D.S., October , P/SL, p. ; Hatcher,Binyon, p. ; Chisolm, Fenollosa, p. & , ; Stock, Pound, pp. &.

Notes to pages –

Yeats had some knowledge of Japanese theater before Pound acquiredFenollosa’s notes, from his friend Edward Craig’s journal, The Mask, towhich he subscribed. He may have read Sheko Tsubouchi, “The Dramain Japan,”Mask (April ): –.

Pound to D.S., September , P/SL, p. ; Dorothy Shakespear toE.P., December and November , ibid., pp. & , .

Ford,Mr. Fleight, pp. –. Fletcher, Life is My Song, p. . Pound, “Rabindranath Tagore. His Second Book into English,” New Free-

woman (November , ): & . Yeats, “Preface to Gitanjali,” p. ; Pound, “Tagore’s Poems,” Poetry

(December ), p. ; Pound to D.S., October , P/SL, p. ;Pound, “Rabindranath Tagore,” Fortnightly Review n.s. (March ), p. ;Lawrence to Gordon Campbell, December , Letters II, p. ; FordMadox Ford, Henry James (; rpt. New York: Octagon Books, ),pp. & , .

Hulme, “Modern Art,” pp. & , ; Yeats, “Introduction” to ErnestFenollosa and Ezra Pound, Certain Noble Plays of Japan, in The Classic NohTheatre of Japan (; rpt. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, ), p. .

Pound, “ Tagore,” p. ; “Tagore’s Poems,” p. ; “Tagore. His SecondBook,” p. .

Binyon, Painting, p. ; Worringer, Abstraction, p. ; Hulme, “Modern Art,”pp. & .

Hulme, “Modern Art,” pp. , & ; Jane EllenHarrison, Ancient Art andRitual (New York & London: Henry Holt & Williams and Norgate, ),pp. –, –, –, –. Lawrence wrote to a friend, “youhave no idea how much I got out of that Ritual and Art book.” Lawrenceto A.W. McLeod, December , Letters II, p. . However, Harrisondid not particularly admire archaic art, and assumed a positive progresstowards the art of Classical Greece.

Lawrence to A.W. McLeod, October , Letters II, p. ; Lawrenceto Henry Savage, December , ibid. p. ; Lawrence to GordonCampbell, September , ibid, pp. & .

Yeats first met Craig in and was so impressed by his set de-signs that he considered having him do work for the Abbey Theatre in, but nothing came of the idea of a collaboration at this time. SeeFoster, Yeats, pp. & , , , ; Denis Bablet, Edward GordonCraig (New York: Theatre Arts Books, ), pp. –; James W. Flannery,“W. B. Yeats, Gordon Craig and the Visual Arts of the Theatre,” in RobertO’Driscoll and Lorna Reynolds, eds., Yeats and the Theatre (New York andCanada: Maclean-Hunter Press and Macmillan of Canada, ),pp. & .

Binyon, Painting, p. . SeeEdwardCraig [ JohnBalance], “ANote onMasks,”Mask (March ),

pp. –; Edward Gordon Craig, “The Actor and the Uber-Marionette,”

Notes to pages –

Mask (April ), pp. –. John Balance and most of the contributors toThe Mask were pseudonyms for Craig. See Bablet, Craig, pp. & .

Yeats, “The Death of Synge: Extracts from ADiary Kept in ,” Autobio-graphy, pp. & ; “Tragic Theatre,” pp. , ; “Estrangement,”p. .

Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, Art and Swadeshi (Madras: Ganesh, ),pp. –; Pound, “Psychology andTroubadours,” p. ; Pound, “Tagore,”pp. , .

Hulme may have been influenced by the British Nietzscheans, A.M.Ludovici and J.M. Kennedy, who made similar arguments. See Ludovici,Nietzsche and Art, pp. & , , , , & , –; Kennedy, Religionsand Philosophies of the East, p. .

Upward may have inspired Pound to read Confucius; immediately aftervisitingUpward in , Pound claimed that hewas “stocked upwithK’ungfu Tsze, and Men Tsze” (Upward’s spellings of Confucius and Mencius).Pound to D.S., October , P/SL, p. .

Upward, “Anthropolatry,” p. ; “The End of Democracy,” New Age(February , ): ; “The Sayings of K’ung the Master,” New Free-woman, (November , ): & .

Herbert A. Giles,History of Chinese Literature (London: William Heinemann,), p. . Upward may have directed Pound to “[Herbert] Giles’s ‘Hist.of Chinese Lit.’ ” See Pound to D.S., October , P/SL, p. .

Binyon, “Introduction,” British Museum Guide, p. . See also Painting,pp. & .

Yeats, “Estrangement,” p. . Yeats stated in this diary that hisreading of “Binyon’s book on Eastern Painting” led him to this conclusion.

Yeats, “Preface to Gitanjali,” p. . This curator probably was Binyonand “the hereditary connoisseur of the Mikado” one of Binyon’s Japanesehelpers in the Department of Prints and Drawings.

Ibid., p. . Yeats, “Introduction,” p. ; Pound, “TheClassical Stageof Japan,”Drama

(May ): . For the extent to which Yeats and Pound shared their workon the Noh, see Longenbach, Stone Cottage; Yeats, “Swedenborg,” (),p. ; Pound to Harriet Monroe, January , Selected Letters, p. ;Yoko Chiba, “Ezra Pound’s Versions of Fenollosa’s Noh Manuscripts andYeats’s Unpublished Suggestions and Corrections,” Yeats Annual, (),p. –.

Yeats, “Introduction,” p. . Pound, “Classical Stage,” p. . Yeats, “Introduction,” p. ; see also Pound, Classic Noh Theatre, pp. & . Pound, “Classical Stage,” pp. & . Yeats, “Introduction,” pp. & . Yeats, “Introduction,” pp. ; Ernst Fenollosa, “The Classical Drama

of Japan,” Quarterly Review (October ), p. ; Yeats, “Introduction,”pp. , .

Notes to pages –

Binyon, Painting, p. . For a statement by Yeats similar to Binyon’s, whichYeats admitted was inspired by reading this book, see “Estrangement,”p. .

Yeats, “Preface to Gitanjali,” pp. , , , , ; “Death of Synge,”pp. & .

Miner, Japanese Tradition, p. . Worringer, Abstraction, pp. , , , , –, –; Hulme, “Modern

Art,” pp. –. Yeats, “Introduction,” p. ; Binyon, Painting, pp. , & ; Yeats, “Tragic

Theatre,” p. . Yeats, “The Theatre of Beauty” (November , ), UPII, pp. , .

Yeats also may have learned of these goals from Walter Pater. See Pater,Essay, p. ; Donoghue, Pater, pp. & .

Binyon alsomayhaveworked on this projectwithYeats andCraig. SeeYeatsto Lady Gregory, January and January , in Letters, pp. &; Binyon, “The Gordon Craig School for the Art of the Theatre: ARecognition of the Need for it,”Mask ( January ): –.

See Flannery, “W. B. Yeats, Gordon Craig,” pp. , & , & ;Bablet, Craig, pp. –; Yeats, “Abbey Theatre. New System of Scenery”( January , ), UPII, p. ; Yeats, “The Return of Gordon Craig toEngland,”Mask (October ): .

“W.B. Yeats’s Speech at the Matinee of the British Association Friday,September th, ,” UPII, p. ; Yeats, “The Art of the Theatre”( June , ), UPII, p. ; “Introduction,” p. . This is precisely whatoccurs in the dances at the climax of Yeats’s own Noh inspired plays suchas At the Hawk’s Well ( ),The Only Jealousy of Emer (), andThe Dreamingof the Bones (), in Collected Plays, pp. –, –, –.

Yeats, “Introduction,” pp. , ; “Tragic Theatre,” pp. , . F.S. Flint, “The History of Imagism,” Egoist (May , ): . For Flint’s

early interest in Japanese poetry, which was very similar to Hulme’s, seeFlint, “Recent Verse,” New Age ( July , ): – and “Verse,” NewAge (December , ): & . See also Harmer, Victory in Limbo,pp. –.

Coomaraswamy, Art and Swadeshi, pp. –; Pound, “Tagore,” pp. ,, ; Pound, “Tagore. His Second Book,” p. .

In August Yone Noguchi sent Pound “two volumes of poems.” Poundacknowledged Noguchi’s “genius” and thought the poems were “ratherbeautiful,” but claimed, “I dont [sic] quite knowwhat to think about them.”Pound to D.S., or August , P/SL, p. .

Yone Noguchi, “What is a Hokku Poem?,” Rhythm ( January ): &.

Pound, “How I Began,” T.P.’s Weekly ( June , ): . Pound was probably introduced to Chinese poetry by Allen Upward. He

particularly liked the paraphrases of Chinese poems in Allen Upward,“Scented Leaves – From a Chinese Jar,” Poetry (September ): –;

Notes to pages –

Pound to D.S., September , P/SL, p. ; Stock, Pound, p. ;Harmer, Victory in Limbo, p. .

Giles, History of Chinese Literature, p. . Pound to D.S., October , P/SL, p. . See Yoshinobu Hakutani, “Ezra Pound, Yone Noguchi, and Imagism,”

Modern Philology , (August ), pp. –. Pound, “Tagore’s Poems,” p. . Pound, “A Few Don’ts [sic] by an Imagiste,” Poetry (March ): &

. Ford,Henry James, pp. & , ; “Literary Portraits – .,” p. .

Ford included a Japanese haiku, which he later claimed was written by theJapanese Emperor Yoshihito for the Japanese poetry festival of , inHenry James, p. . Ford, The March of Literature From Confucius’ Day to OurOwn (New York: Dial Press, ), p. .

Hulme, “Tory Philosophy” (May , ), p. ; “Modern Art,” p. , .For the ages included in each tradition, see Worringer, Abstraction, pp. –; Hulme, “Modern Art,” pp. –.

Pound, “The Caressability of the Greeks,” Egoist (March , ): ;“Exhibition at the Goupil Gallery,” ibid., p. .

Pound, “The New Sculpture,” Egoist (February , ): ; “Cares-sability,” p. ; “Goupil,” p. ; “Note” to F.T.S. “The Causes andRemedy of Poverty in China,” Egoist (March , ): ; “The SeriousArtist,” New Freewoman (November , ): .

Yeats, “Tragic Theatre,” pp. & . Harrison, Ancient Art, pp. , , , , & , , , , , –. Ford, “Literary Portraits. ,” p. . Coomaraswamy, “Art of the East,” p. . Yeats, “Theatre of Beauty,” p. . See, for example, Fry, “Oriental Art,” p. ; Havell, “Ideals and

Philosophy,” pp. & . Fry, “Oriental Art,” p. ; Havell, Ideals, p. ; Binyon, Flight, p. . Yeats, “Introduction,” pp. –; “Theatre of Beauty,” p. . Pound, “Tagore’s Poems,” p. ; Hulme, “Modern Art,” pp. –.

“ . . .” : -

Ezra Pound, “Vortex. Pound.,” Blast ( June , ): . Quoted in Timothy Materer, Vortex: Pound, Eliot, and Lewis (Ithaca: Cornell

University Press, ), p. . “Rebel Art Centre,” Evening Standard (May , ). See Charles Harrison, English Art and Modernism, – (London: Allen

Lane, ), pp. & ; Materer, Vortex, p. ; Goldring, South Lodge, p. . Quoted in Richard Cork, Art Beyond the Gallery in Early th Century England

(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, ), p. .

Notes to pages –

See Harrison, English Art, pp. & , – ; S.K. Tillyard, The Impact ofModernism, – (London: Routledge, ), pp. & , –;catalog forManet and the Post-Impressionists (London: Ballantyne, ).

See J.B. Bullen, ed., Post-Impressionists in England (London: Routledge, ),pp. , –, –, , , & ; “Introduction” toManet andthe Post-Impressionists.

On the contemporary reaction to the exhibition, see Bullen, “Introduction,”to Bullen, ed., Post-Impressionists, p. ; Harrison, English Art, pp. & ;Tillyard, Impact of Modernism, pp. –, –, –, & .

For more on the differences among these groups, see Tillyard, Impact ofModernism, pp. –; Bullen, “Introduction,” pp. –;Harrison,EnglishArt, pp. , –.

See Harrison, English Art, p. for a description of this split. Pound, “Prefatory Note” to Hulme’s “Complete Poetical Works,” Ripostes

(London: Stephen Swift, ), p. . Hulme, “Romanticism and Classicism,” p. . It is likely that Hulme saw

the First Post-Impressionist Exhibition in late or early . He mayhave read Maurice Denis, “Cezanne,” trans. Roger Fry, Burlington Magazine( January ): – & –, rpt. in Bullen, ed., Post-Impressionists,pp. –.

Lasserre, “La philosophie de M. Bergson,” & . See Denis, “Cezanne,” pp. –, & ; Tillyard, Impact of Modernism,

pp. –, , & ; Fry, “ ‘The FrenchGroup,’ catalogue of the secondPost-Impressionist exhibition,” in Bullen, ed., Post-Impressionists, pp. –; Fry, “Post-Impressionism,” Fortnightly Review (May ), in ibid., p. ;Manet and the Post-Impressionists, pp. & ; Hulme, “Romanticism andClassicism,” p. .

Fry, “Post Impressionism,” pp. –; Tillyard, Impact of Modernism,pp. – .

Edward Storer, “ Romantic Conception of History,” p. . Edward Storer, “Art,” Commentator (November , ): ; “Art,” Commen-

tator (October , ): . Edward Storer, “Art Notes,” Commentator (April , ): . In Hulme stated openly that theActionFrancaiseweremistaken in their

opinion about Post-Impressionism, because it, not their ownClassicism, was“the exact opposite of romanticism.”Hulme, “ModernArt. – . TheGraftonGroup,” New Age ( January , ): .

Lawrence became close friends with Murry and Mansfield, and a regularcontributor to their journals, Rhythm and Blue Review. Murry and Mansfieldwere friends with Henri Gaudier and Sophie Brzeska at the same time. SeeCarswell, Lives and Letters, pp. & –; Jeffrey Meyers, D.H. Lawrence(New York: Knopf, ), pp. –; Blue Review, I (May ), insert;Michael T.H. Sadler, “Fauvism and A Fauve,” Rhythm (Summer ):; Lawrence to Katherine Mansfield, January , Letters I, p. ;Lawrence letter to Ernest Collings, February , ibid., p. .

Notes to pages –

O.RaymondDrey, “Post-Impressionism;TheCharacter of theMovement,”Rhythm ( January ): –.

O.RaymondDrey, “Russian Ballet,”NewWeekly (May , ): . Poundsaw the Russian Ballet in the Spring andWinter of and wrote that year:“I too have taken delight/ in the maze of the Russian dancers.” Pound,“Redondillas,” CEP, p. ; Stock, Pound, pp. & . Hulme saw theBallet in the Autumn of . See D.L. Murray notes written for A.R. Jonesin , Hulme Papers, Hull University.

Patmore, My Friends, pp. & ; Fletcher, Life is My Song, p. . See alsoDukes, Scene is Changed, p. ; Frank Rutter, Some Contemporary Artists (London,), p. ; Drey, “Russian Ballet,” pp. & ; Cork, Art Beyond theGallery, p. .

For more on the Cave of the Golden Calf, see Cork, Art Beyond the Gallery,pp. –. For the Modernists and their friends at the Cave, see Ford,Return to Yesterday, pp. & ; Pound to D.S., October , P/SL,p. ; Jepson, Memories, p. ; Hunt, I Have This to Say, p. ; Goldring,South Lodge, p. ; Cork, Art Beyond the Gallery, p. ; Stock, Pound, pp. &.

Recalled by Kate Lechmere in a letter to, and interview with, MichaelRoberts in . Hulme Papers, University of Keele.

Both Pound and Fordmet Lewis in but were not close to him until .See Wyndham Lewis, Blasting and Bombardiering ( ; revised edn London:John Calder, ), p. ; Wyndham Lewis, The Letters of Wyndham Lewis,ed.W.K. Rose (London:Methuen, ), pp. & ; Goldring, South Lodge,p. ; Stock, Pound, p. .

Epstein, Autobiography, p. ; Ford, Return to Yesterday, pp. & . Lawrence to Edward Garnett, December , Letters II, pp. & .

See also D.L. Murray, notes for A.R. Jones, Hulme Papers, Hull University;Nevinson, Paint and Prejudice, p. ; Epstein, Autobiography, p. ; Goldring,South Lodge, p. ; Hunt, I Have This to Say, p. ; Stock, Pound, p. .

This album is in Hulme Papers, Hull University. Hulme’s book was inmanuscript form at the time of Hulme’s death but disappeared afterwards.Epstein, Autobiography, p. . A photograph of Epstein’s head of Hulme isreproduced in Speculations and Further Speculations.

Epstein, Autobiography, p. ; Roger Cole, Burning to Speak: The Life and Art ofHenri Gaudier-Brzeska (Oxford: Phaidon Press, ), pp. , , . Appar-ently some of Hulme’s violent moods, and Gaudier’s knuckle-duster, weredirected against his fiancee. See Kate Lechmere, letters to Michael Roberts,Hulme Papers, University of Keele.

Pound, Gaudier-Brzeska, A Memoir (; rpt. New York: New Directions,), pp. –. See also Richard Humphreys, “Demon PantechniconDriver. Pound in the London Vortex, –,” in Richard Humphreys,ed., Pound’s Artists (London: Tate Gallery, ), pp. –; Stock, Pound,p. ; Cole, Burning to Speak, pp. – , ; Fletcher, Life is My Song, p. ;Hunt, I Have This to Say, p. .

Notes to pages –

Cork, Art Beyond the Gallery, pp. –. Lewis occasionally was so jealous of Hulme’s friendship with Epstein that he

and Hulme quarreled to the point of violence. Michael Roberts interviewwith Kate Lechmere, Hulme Papers, University of Keele.

Lewis, Blasting, pp. –. Read, Speculations, p. ; Pound, “The New Sculpture,” Egoist (February ,

): & . Reed Way Dasenbrock, The Literary Vorticism of Ezra Pound and Wyndham

Lewis (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, ), pp. & ; Lewis,Blasting, pp. –. The origin of Pound’s term “Vortex” is the subject ofmuch speculation. For suggestions, see Giovanni Cianci, “Futurism and theEnglish Avant-Garde: The Early Pound Between Imagism and Vorticism,”Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik , (), pp. & .

Hulme, “Contemporary Drawings,” New Age (April , ): . Pound, “Vorticism,” Fortnightly Review (September ): , , ; “The

Later Yeats,” Poetry (May ):& , & ; “Mr.Hueffer and the ProseTradition in Verse,” Poetry ( June ): & .

Ford, “Literary Portraits. . – Mr. Wyndham Lewis and ‘Blast’,” Out-look ( July , ): & . For more of Ford on visual art, see Ford,“Impressionism – Some Speculations ,” Poetry (September ): ;“Literary Portraits. .,” pp. & ; “Literary Portraits. .,”pp. & ; “Literary Portraits. . – SignorMarinetti,Mr. LloydGeorge,St. Katherine, and Others,” Outlook ( July , ): & .

Yeats, “Poetry’s Banquet,”Poetry (April ): . Ford, “Literary Portraits.. –Nineteen-Thirteen and the Futurists,”Out-

look ( January , ): ; Ford, “LiteraryPortraits..,” p.; Lawrenceto Arthur McLeod, June , in Letters II, pp. & . Lawrence wasprobably referring to the Futurists here. He had already read some of theirwork and seen their pictures. See footnotes & to ibid., p. .

D.L. Murray notes written for A.R. Jones in , Hulme Papers, HullUniversity.

John Middleton Murry, “Aims and Ideals,” Rhythm (Summer ): . See Epstein, Autobiography, pp. , , & , & , , –;

Nevinson, Paint and Prejudice, p. ; Cork, Art Beyond the Gallery, p. ; Cole,Burning to Speak, pp. –, .

Hulme, “Modern Art. – .,” p. ; “Modern Art,” pp. , , ; Murry,“Aims and Ideals,” p. .

Hulme, “ModernArt,” pp. , , , ; Ford, “On Impressionism (SecondArticle),” Poetry and Drama (December ): ; Pound, “New Sculpture,”pp. & ; “Our Vortex,” Blast ( June , ): ; “The New Egos,”ibid., p. ; Lawrence to Edward Garnett, June , Letters II, pp. &.

Hulme, “Modern Art,” pp. , – , & , & . Hulme, “Modern Art,” pp. , ; Pound, “Vorticism” (September ),

p. ; Hulme, “Modern Art. - . Mr. David Bomberg’s Show,” New Age

Notes to pages –

( July , ): ; Hulme, “Modern Art. - . A Preface Note and Neo-Realism,” New Age (February , ): ; Pound, “Vorticism” (September), p. ; Pound, “Vortex. Pound.,” p. .

“Manifesto. ,” Blast ( June , ): . According to Lewis in , thispassage “exalts formality, and order, at the expense of the disorderly andunkempt. It is merely a humorous way of stating the classic standpoint, asagainst the romantic.” Lewis, Blasting, p. . As is evident elsewhere in thismemoir, Lewis was directly indebted to Hulme for many ideas.

“Our Vortex,” Blast ( June , ), p. . Lewis, “Manifesto. ,” Blast ( June , ), p. ; “Life is the Important

Thing,” ibid., p. ; “The Cubist Room,” Egoist ( January , ): ; “RebelArt in Modern Life,” Daily News and Leader (April , ): .

Ford, “LiteraryPortraits..,” pp.&;Hulme, “ModernArt. - .The London Group,” New Age (March , ): & ; “ModernArt. - .,” p. . See also Ford, “Literary Portraits. .,” p. ; “OnImpressionism (SecondArticle),” pp. & ; Ford, “On Impressionism,”Poetry and Drama ( June ): .

Lewis, “Vortices and Notes,” Blast ( June , ), p. ; Pound,“Wadsworth,” p. .

Hulme, “Modern Art,” p. ; “Mr. Epstein and the Critics,” New Age(December , ), p. ; “Modern Art,” p. ; Ford, “Literary Portraits..,” pp. & ; “Literary Portraits..,” p. . Samuel Smiles’sbook Self Help () included a classic Victorian argument for laissez-faireand individual responsibility for success or failure.

Pound, “Goupil,” p. ; “New Sculpture,” p. ; Lewis, “Rebel Art,” p. .See also Pound, “Futurism, Magic and Life” Blast ( June , ), p. ;“New Egos,” p. .

Lawrence to Edward Garnett, June , Letters II, pp. & . Lawrence to Gordon Campbell, September , ibid., pp. & . Wassily Kandinsky, Concerning the Spiritual in Art, trans. M.T.H. Sadler (

as The Art of Spiritual Harmony; rpt. New York: Dover, ), pp. & . Pound, “New Sculpture,” p. ; H.Gaudier-Brzeska, “Mr.Gaudier-Brzeska

on ‘The New Sculpture’,” Egoist (March , ): & ; Ford, “Impres-sionism – Some Speculations ,” p. .

Hulme, “Epstein,” p. ; “Modern Art.-,” p. ; “Modern Art,” p. ;“Epstein,” p. .

Hulme, “Modern Art,” pp. & . Ibid., p. . Yeats, “From ‘On the Boiler’,” in Explorations (New York: Macmillan, ),

pp. & . Gaudier-Brzeska, “Mr. Gaudier-Brzeska,” pp. & ; Pound, “Caress-

ability,” p. ; Hulme, “Modern Art.-.,” pp. & . Pound, “New Sculpture,” p. . Lewis, “Manifesto. ,” p. ; “Manifesto. ,” p. . Lewis, “Manifesto. ,” Blast ( June , ), p. ; “New Egos,” p. ;

Notes to pages –

The Exploitation of Vulgarity,” Blast ( June , ), p. ; “Our Vortex,”p. .

“Futurism,” New Weekly ( June , ): . See also Lewis, Blasting, p. ;Harrison, English Art, p. , Levenson, Genealogy of Modernism, pp. &. For suggestions that Vorticism owed a debt to Futurism, see Cianci,“Futurism and the English Avant-Garde,” pp. –; Marjorie Perloff, TheFuturist Moment: Avant-garde, Avant Guerre, and the Language of Rupture (Chicago:University of Chicago Press, ), pp. , , –.

Pound, “Vortex. Pound.,” pp. & . Hulme, “Modern Art,” p. . Harrison, English Art, p. . Lawrence to ArthurMcLeod, June , in Letters II, pp. & ; Pound,

“Vorticism” (September ), p. ; Lewis, “Man of theWeek.Marinetti,”NewWeekly (May , ): ; Ford, “Literary Portraits. . –Mr.W.B.Yeats and his New Poems,” Outlook ( June , ): & ; “LiteraryPortraits. .,” p. .

Lawrence to Edward Garnett, June , Letters II, p. ; Pound,“Vorticism” (September ), p. & ; Lewis, “Cubist Room” p. ;Pound, “Wyndham Lewis,” Egoist ( June , ): ; Ford, “Literary Por-traits. .,” p. .

Ford, “Impressionism – Some Speculations ,” Poetry (August ): ;Pound, “Vortex. Pound.,” p. ; Lewis, “Our Vortex,” p. .

Pound, “Vorticism” (September ), p. . C.R.W. Nevinson, “Vital English Art,” New Age ( June , ): & . Lewis claimed that the Futurists’ “extraordinary childishness . . . over me-

chanical inventions, aeroplanes,machinery, etc.”was also a result of awrong-headed assumption of progress and that “Marinetti is a Romantic” who“appeals essentially to just the romantic and passeiste sensibility he chieflyabuses.” Lewis, “Automobilism,” New Weekly ( June , ): .

Hulme, “Modern Art,” p. , ; “Modern Art. – .,” p. . Hulme, “Epstein,” pp. & . Pound, “New Sculpture,” p. ; Pound, “Caressability,” p. ; Lewis, “Man

of the Week,” p. ; “The Improvement of Life,” Blast ( June , ),p. .

Lawrence to Gordon Campbell, December , Letters II, p. ;Lawrence, The Rainbow (; rpt. New York: Penguin, ), pp. , & ; Lawrence to Gordon Campbell, December , Letters II, p. .

Yeats, “Art and Ideas,”NewWeekly ( June , ): & ; “Poetry’s Banquet,”p. . OnGaudier’s phallic “Hieratic Head of Ezra Pound” seeHumphreys,“Demon Pantechnicon Driver,” pp. & ; Pound to D.S., March ,and note to letter of --- March , in P/SL, pp. & . ForEpstein’s phallic work see his drawing “Rock Drill,” New Age (December ,): . Epstein also planned a sculptural temple in Sussex around which was influenced by Indian, Egyptian, Polynesian, and African art. SeeCork, Art Beyond the Gallery, p. .

Notes to pages –

Yeats, “Art and Ideas,” New Weekly ( June , ): & . Ibid., p. ; Yeats, A Vision ( ; rpt. New York: Macmillan, ), p. ;

“Introduction to ‘The Cat and the Moon’,” from “Wheels and Butterflies”(), in Explorations, p. . In the edition of A Vision Yeats claimedthat the work of Lewis, Brancusi, Pound, Eliot, and Joyce all indicated thebeginning of Phase and a new historical cycle. George Mills Harper andWalter KelleyHood, eds., ACritical Edition of Yeats’sAVision () (London:Macmillan, ), pp. –.

See Humphreys, “Demon Pantechnicon Driver,” pp. & ; Jones,Hulme,p. ; Cole, Burning to Speak, pp. –; Cork, Art Beyond the Gallery, pp. & ; New Age (December , ), p. . According to one contemporary,“about this time the word ‘phallic’ was very popular and commonly usedas a part of the art jargon of the day.” This is evidenced by Pound’s poem, “Our Respectful Homages toM. Laurent Tailhade,” which declares,“Come let us erect a/ Phallic column to/ Laurent Tailhade” and by the factthat Hulme, according to his fiancee, “was very interested in the History ofphallic worship.” Horace Brodzky, quoted in Cole, Burning to Speak, p. ;Pound, CEP, p. ; Kate Lechmere, letter to Michael Roberts, Hulmepapers, University of Keele.

“Manifesto. ,” p. ; Lewis, “Kill John Bull with Art,”Outlook ( July , ):.

“ ” :

D.H. Lawrence, “Study of Thomas Hardy,” in Phoenix: The Posthumous Papersof D.H. Lawrence (London: Heinemann, ), p. .

Goldring, South Lodge, p. . According to Reed Way Dasenbrock, this isone of the best descriptions of the Vortex. Dasenbrock, Literary Vorticism,p. .

Pound, “Vorticism” (September ), pp. & ; “Vortex. Pound.,”p. .

Pound, “Vortex. Pound.,” p. ; Lewis, “Our Vortex,” p. . Pound, Gaudier-Brzeska, pp, , –. Gaudier-Brzeska, “Vortex. Gaudier Brzeska.,” Blast ( June , ),

pp. –. Pound, “The Tradition,” Poetry ( January ): ; [Bastien von

Helmholtz], “John Synge and the Habits of Criticism,” Egoist (February ,): ; “New Sculpture,” p. & ; “Preliminary Announcement of theCollege of Arts,” Egoist (November , ): .

Pound, “Vorticism” (September ), pp. , –, & . Kandinsky, Spiritual in Art, pp. –, , , & . As Pound told his

readers, for a more detailed explanation of his new Imagisme, “go aheadand apply Kandinsky, [and] . . . transpose his chapter on the language ofform and colour and apply it to the writing of verse.” Pound, “Vorticism”(September ), p. .

Notes to pages –

Pound, “Vorticism” (September ), pp. , , & ; “Goupil,”p. .

Pound, “Vorticism” (September ), pp. , –, –. Ibid., pp. , . Dasenbrock, Literary Vorticism, pp. & . Pound, “Vorticism” (September ), p. . Pound, Gaudier-Brzeska, p. . Pound, “Vorticism” (September ), p. . Yeats, “Art and Ideas” ( June , ), p. & ; Yeats, “Poetry’s Banquet,”

Poetry (April ): & . Pound, “The Classical Stage of Japan: Ernest Fenollosa’s Work on the

Japanese ‘Noh’,” Drama (May ), pp. , ; Yeats, “Introduction,”pp. –; Pound, “Classical Stage,” p. .

Pound, “Classical Stage,” p. n. Yeats, “Introduction,” p. . Fenollosa notes in Pound, “Classical Stage,” p. . Yeats tells the story of

an old woman and a Noh actor that Fenollosa gives to illustrate this pointin “Introduction,” p. .

Richard Taylor, The Drama of W.B. Yeats: Irish Myth and the Japanese No(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, ), p. .

Fenollosa notes in Pound, “Classical Stage,” p. . See Ronald Bush, The Genesis of Ezra Pound’s Cantos (Princeton: Princeton

University Press, ), pp. & , – for a more complete discussionof the impact of the cyclic scheme of the Noh plays on Pound’s Cantos.Kandinsky also may have suggested to Pound that cycles best representreality when he claimed that the emotions evoked by colors were related“in a great circle, a serpent biting its own tail (the symbol of eternity, ofsomething without end).” Kandinsky, Spiritual in Art, p. ; see also figure and pp. –.

Pound, “Three Cantos,” Poetry , ( June ): –; , ( July ):–; , (August ): –. For the dating of these poems, seeGrieve, Pound’s Early Poetry, p. .

Bush, Genesis, p. . See ibid., pp. –. James Longenbach argues that the contemporaneous-

ness and “antichronological” nature of the Three Cantos “are Pound’s fullestexpression of the ‘historical sense’.” Longenbach, Modernist Poetics, p. ;see also pp. & . In Stone Cottage, pp. –, Longenbach connectsthis technique to Yeats’s idea of the Great Memory.

Pound, “Three Cantos” ( June ), pp. , , . Pound, “Three Cantos” (August ), pp. –. Pound, “Three Cantos” ( June ), p. . Ibid., pp. & . Ibid., p. . Quoted in George Kearns, Guide to Ezra Pound’s Selected Cantos (New

Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, ), p. . The cyclic nature of the

Notes to pages –

Cantos also is widely accepted by literary critics. See, for example, Pearlman,Barb of Time, pp. , & ; Smith, Origins of Modernism, p. ; Kearns, Guide,pp. –, –.

Pearlman, Barb of Time, pp. , , ; see also pp. & , –, . Taylor,Drama ofW.B. Yeats, pp. , , ; Yeats, “Introduction,” pp. &

. See Taylor, Drama of W.B. Yeats, pp. –; Longenbach, Stone Cottage,

pp. –. For example, At The Hawk’s Well ( ) and The Only Jealousy ofEmer () are set in ancient Ireland, The Dreaming of the Bones () is set in, and Calvary () is set at the time of Christ.

See Ellmann, Yeats, pp. –. Yeats, A Vision ( ), pp. , , , . Ibid., p. . Ellmann, Yeats, p. . Yeats, A Vision ( ), pp. , . In the version of A Vision Yeats has

the character of Owen Aherne accuse him of preferring antithetical ages.As Yeats described it, in “an antithetical civilization . . . every detail of life [is]hierarchical,” “all is rigid and stationary,” and “inequality” is accepted. Allof these are characteristics Yeats already admired. SeeYeats’sAVision (),pp. xxi–xxii & .

For Yeats’s prediction of civil war between the elites and masses see, “From‘On the Boiler’,” p. . See also Yeats’s A Vision (), pp. –.

Yeats, Poems, p. . Yeats, “From ‘On the Boiler’,” p. ; “Introduction to ‘TheResurrection’,”

in Explorations, p. ; “Private Thoughts,” ibid., p. . Yeats, “Lapis Lazuli,” Poems, p. . Ford, “Literary Portraits.. –Mr.W.H.Mallock and ‘SocialReform’,”

Outlook (May , ): . Ford claimed that W.H. Mallock was “the onlyactively reactionary propagandist that we have” and that he had found the“Tory history” for which he was looking in his book Social Reform. Ibid.

Ford, “Literary Portraits. .,” pp. & . Ford, “On Impressionism,” pp. & ; Henry James, pp. & . Ford, “On Impressionism,” p. . This idea could have come from the Futurists who “regularly advocated

simultaneity.” Perloff, Futurist Moment, pp. & . Ford, “On Impressionism,” p. ; Henry James, pp. & . See Ford, Henry James, pp. , , , . Green, Ford, pp. & , . Ford, The Good Soldier (; rpt. New York: Vintage Books, ), p. xviii –

see “Dedicatory Letter” dated . Ford, “The Saddest Story” Blast ( June , ) formed the first part of

The Good Soldier which was published in book form in . Ford, Henry James, p. . Ford, “Saddest Story,” p. . Ibid., pp. , , .

Notes to pages –

Ford, Good Soldier, pp. –. Ford, “Saddest Story,” pp. & . Ford, Henry James, pp. & . Ford, “Literary Portraits. .,” p. . See Giovanni Cianci, “D.H. Lawrence and Futurism/Vorticism,” Arbeiten

aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik , (): – for a further discussion of theimpact of Futurism on Lawrence’s thought. However, Cianci’s conclusionthat the Futurists encouraged Lawrence to dislike Vorticism is inaccurate;Lawrence’s ideas in were closer to Vorticism than to Futurism.

Lawrence to Edward Garnett, June , in Letters II, pp. & . Ibid., p. . Lawrence to Gordon Campbell, December , in Letters II, p. . Mrs. Henry Jenner, Christian Symbolism (London: Methuen, ), pp. xiii,

xiv, . Ibid., pp. , , & . Ibid., pp. , , , & , . Jane Ellen Harrison also claimed that

most early ritual and art was based on ideas of resurrection derived fromthe cyclic patterns of nature. See Harrison, pp. , –, –.

Lawrence to Gordon Campbell, December , in Letters II, pp. &. Lawrence’s interest in resurrection continued throughout his life, fromhis poem of that title in to his novel about a post-resurrectionChrist. See Lawrence, “Resurrection,” Poetry ( June ): –; The ManWho Died (New York: Knopf, ).

See Lawrence to S.S. Koteliansky, October , Lawrence to AmyLowell, November , Letters II, pp. , .

Lawrence, “Thomas Hardy,” pp. , . Ibid., pp. & . Ibid., pp. , ; Lawrence, Women in Love, p. . Lawrence may have

adopted the terms “centrifugal” and “centripetal” from Pater. See Pater,“Marbles of Aegina,” pp. & .

Lawrence, “Thomas Hardy,” pp. , . Ibid., p. . Ibid., pp. –, , , , , , –, . Again, Pater

may have influenced Lawrence to use the terms “Law” and “Love” for hisdifferent ages. See Donoghue, Pater, p. .

Ibid., pp. –, , & . The ages Lawrence preferred also are indicated in his later novel, Women

in Love. The central characters admire the art of the West Pacific, China,Africa, and Egypt, as well as the paintings of Picasso.One character explainswhy: “humans are boring, painting the universe with their own image. Theuniverse is non-human, thank God.” Lawrence, Women in Love (; rpt.New York: Penguin Books, ), p. .

Lawrence, “Thomas Hardy,” pp. , . Lawrence to Lady Ottoline Morell, January , Letters II, p. . Lawrence, “Thomas Hardy,” p. .

Notes to pages –

See Mark Kinkead-Weekes, “Introduction” and “The Marble and theStatue,” in Mark Kinkead-Weekes, ed., Twentieth Century Interpretations of theRainbow (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, ), pp. and –. Forwhen this work was written, see Charles L. Ross, The Composition of The Rain-bow andWomen in Love: A History (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia,).

Lawrence, Rainbow, p. ; see also pp. , –. Keith Sagar, “The Third Generation,” in Kinkead-Weekes, ed., Twentieth

Century Interpretations of the Rainbow, p. . Lawrence, Rainbow, p. . See Evelyn J. Hinz, “The Paradoxical Fall: Eternal Recurrence in The

Rainbow,” in Harold Bloom, ed.,Modern Critical Interpretations: D.H. Lawrence’sThe Rainbow (New York: Chelsea House, ), pp. –. Although Hinzreads a bit too much into The Rainbow she does discuss more fully the cyclicstructure of the novel.

Lawrence, Rainbow, p. . Ibid., pp. & .

“ ” :

D. H. Lawrence, Kangaroo (; rpt. New York: Penguin, ). Lawrenceused “The Nightmare” as the heading for Chapter of this novel.

Read, “Introduction,” Speculations, p. x; “Academia,” Cambridge Magazine(February , ): .

See Ford, Letters, pp. , –; –; Mizener, Saddest Story, pp. –. See Stock, Pound, p. . See Paul Delany,D.H. Lawrence’s Nightmare: TheWriter andHis Circle in the Yearsof the Great War (New York: Basic Books, ), pp. , & , –, .

Ford, “Literary Portraits. . –Mr. Charles-Louis Philippe and ‘Le PerePerdrix’,” Outlook (August , ): & .

Ford,When Blood is Their Argument: An Analysis of Prussian Culture (New York &London: Hodder and Stoughton, ), p. . See also ibid., pp. –;Ford, Between St. Denis and St. George: A Sketch of Three Civilisations (; rpt.New York: Haskell House Publishers, ), pp. & .

Ford,When Blood, pp. , , , , ; Ford, Between St. Denis, pp. , . Hulme [North Staffs], “War Notes,” New Age (November , ): &; (December , ): & .

Hulme, “WarNotes,”New Age (November , ): & ; (December ,): & ; ( January , ): ; (February , ): ;( January , ): ; (November , ): ; (December , ): .

Pound to Harriet Monroe, November , Selected Letters, p. ; see alsopp. , , , , .

Pound, “Affirmations. . Vorticism,” New Age ( January , ): .

Notes to pages –

For Pound’s interest in China at this time, see Pound, Gaudier-Brzeska, p. ;“Webster Ford,” Egoist ( January , ): & ; “Affirmations. . As forImagisme,” New Age ( January , ): ; “The Renaissance. ,” Poetry(February ): ; Selected Letters, pp. , & .

See Pound, Gaudier-Brzeska, pp. –; Gaudier-Brzeska, “Vortex Gaudier-Brzeska (Written from the Trenches),” Blast ( July ): .

The editorials even supported Ford’s “ ‘Blast’ of his own” in When Blood isTheir Argument. Blast ( July ): .

Blast , p. . Ibid., pp. , , , , , . Ibid., pp. , , & , , , –. These views may have been encouraged by the letters Pound received from

Wyndham Lewis in and who was fighting at the front. See TheLetters of Ezra Pound and Wyndham Lewis, ed. Timothy Materer (New York:New Directions, ), pp. – .

Pound, “Provincialism the Enemy,” New Age ( July , ): & . Ibid., pp. & ; Pound, “Provincialism the Enemy,” New Age (August

, ), p. ; ( July , ), p. . Gilbert Murray Papers, Bodleian Library, Oxford, Box , General Cor-

respondence Sept. – Nov. , no. . Yeats to Gilbert Murray, September , ibid., no. . Yeats to J.B. Yeats, September , Letters, p. . Zeppelins later fea-

tured in Yeats’s vision of the coming war in his poem, “Lapis Lazuli.”Yeats, Poems, p. .

See Yeats to John Quinn, June , Letters, p. ; to Edmund Gosse, July and August , ibid., pp. & ; to Ernst Boyd, September , ibid., p. .

Yeats to Edmund Gosse, August , ibid., pp. & ; to HenryJames, August , ibid., pp. & .

Yeats to Henry James, August , ibid., pp. & . “Irish Writers Protest,” Evening Telegraph (Dublin) (May , ); “Major

Robert Gregory: A Note of Appreciation,” Observer (February , ), inUPII, pp. –.

Yeats to Lady Gregory, May , Letters, p. & ; to John Quinn, May , ibid., p. .

Lawrence to Amy Lowell, August , Letters II, p. ; to EdwardMarsh, September , ibid., p. & ; to J.B. Pinker, September, ibid., p. ; to Gordon Campbell, September , ibid., p. ;to Lady Cynthia Asquith, January , ibid., p. .

See Lawrence, Kangaroo, pp. & . Lawrence,Women in Love, pp. & . For Lawrence’s war experiences, see

Delany, Lawrence’s Nightmare, pp. , – , , , –. Lawrence, Kangaroo, p. , , & , & ; Lawrence, “The

Reality of Peace,” English Review ( July ): . Lawrence, Kangaroo, p. .

Notes to pages –

See Yeats to George Russell [?April ], Letters, pp. & ; Stanfield,Yeats and Politics, pp. & , –; Pound to John Quinn, November, in Selected Letters, pp. –; Pound, Jefferson and/or Mussolini(New York: Liveright, ), pp. –, , , , , ; “Ezra PoundSpeaking” Radio Speeches of World War II, ed. Leonard W. Doob (Westport,CT: Greenwood, Press, ), pp. , , , , –; Lawrence,Move-ments in European History (; rpt. Oxford: Oxford University Press, ),pp. & ; Lawrence, letter to S.S. Koteliansky, May [], inGeorge J. Zytaruk, ed., The Quest for Rananim; D.H. Lawrence’s Letter to S.S.Koteliansky to (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, ),pp. & .

See Lawrence, Movements in European History, pp. & ;Women in Love,pp. & ; Ford, March of Literature, pp. & , , , , &, .

See, for example, Ford,March of Literature, pp. & , , ; Green,Ford, pp. –.

See Lawrence, Kangaroo, pp. , . See Hulme, “Translator’s Preface,” pp. & ; Hulme, “War Notes,”

(December , ): & (February , ): . D.H. Lawrence, Apocalypse (; rpt. New York: Penguin, ), p. . See Lawrence, “Democracy” ( ) in Phoenix, pp. –; Apocalypse,

pp. & , , . See Quest for Rananim, pp. , & ; Lawrence to Lady Ottoline Morrell,

February , Collected Letters I, pp. & . Lawrence also fantasizedabout an elite who recognize and serve a returning hero in novels such asKangaroo (), The Plumed Serpent (), and The Man Who Died ().

See Stanfield, Yeats and Politics, pp. –, – ; Cullingford, Yeats,Ireland and Fascism; Grattan Freyer,W.B. Yeats and the Anti-Democratic Tradition(Totowa, NJ: Barnes & Noble Books, ); Editor’s note, UPII, p. ;Ellmann, Yeats, pp. –. According to Ellmann, Yeats grew unhappywith the cruelty of fascist governments. However, in Yeats claimed hedisliked them because they “put quantity before quality” and did not havean adequate respect for intelligence. Yeats, “From ‘On the Boiler’,” p. ;Ellmann, Yeats, p. .

See “Ezra Pound Speaking”. Pound, Jefferson, p. . See Pound, Jefferson, pp. –, , , , . See, for example, Pound “ABC of Economics” (), “The Individual and

his Milieu” (), “Murder by Capital” (), in Selected Prose – ,ed.WilliamCookson (New York: NewDirections, ), pp. , , ;Jefferson, pp. , , .

See, for example, Pound, “What is Money For?” (), in Selected Prose,p. ; Pound, Jefferson, pp. & .

See Pound, Jefferson, pp. , & , . “Ezra Pound Speaking”, p. xiii.

Notes to pages –

For examples of Pound’s anti-Semitism see “Ezra Pound Speaking”, passim. Yeats, “From Democracy to Authority: Paul Claudel and Mussolini – A

New School of Thought,” Irish Times (February , ), inUPII, pp. –.

Quoted in Stanfield, Yeats and Politics, p. ; see also pp. –. Yeats, “From ‘On the Boiler’,” pp. – . See also Stanfield, Yeats and

Politics, pp. – for Yeats’s interest in the Eugenics movement. “Ezra Pound Speaking”, pp. –. See, for example,Hulme, “Humanismand theReligiousAttitude,” in Specu-

lations, p. ; Lawrence, Movements in European History, pp. , , –; Pound, Selected Prose, pp. – , –; Yeats, “From Democracy toAuthority,” pp. & ; Yeats, Wheels and Butterflies (New York:Macmillan, ), pp. & ; Ford, March of Literature, pp. , , ,. The majority of Hulme’s article appeared in the New Age betweenDecember and February as “A Notebook by T.E.H.”

See, for example, Ford,March of Literature, pp. & ; Lawrence,Move-ments in European History, pp. , –; Lawrence, “Love” (), inPhoenix, p. ; Lawrence, “Democracy” ( ), ibid., pp. & ; Pound,Selected Prose, pp. –, –, .

See, for example, Pound, Jefferson, pp. & , , ; Stock, Pound, pp. ;Selected Prose, pp. –, –, ; Ford,March of Literature, pp. &, ;Green,Ford, pp. & ; Lawrence,Movements in EuropeanHistory,p. ; Yeats, “If I Were Four and Twenty” () in Explorations, p. ;Hulme, “Translator’s Preface,” pp. & ; Hulme, “Humanism,”pp. –.

Hulme, “War Notes” (December , ), p. . Lawrence, Apocalypse, pp. , , & , , & . See Ford,March of Literature, pp. & , & , & . Ford Madox Ford, Vive le Roy (Philadelphia: Lippincott, ), p. . Quoted in Poli, Ford Madox Ford and the Transatlantic Review (Syracuse, NY:

Syracuse University Press, ), p. . See Pound, Selected Prose, pp. , , – , –; “Ezra Pound Speaking”,

p. . “Ezra Pound Speaking”, pp. & . Pound also claimed that “the Confucian

is Totalitarian” and medieval. See Pound, Selected Prose, p. . See alsopp. –, , & .

Yeats, “From Democracy to Authority,” pp. & . Ibid., pp. –. Yeats, “From ‘On the Boiler’,” pp. , , , . Yeats’s A Vision (), p. . See Hulme, “Humanism,” pp. –. Ibid., pp. & . Yeats to J.B. Yeats, May , Letters, p. and Editor’s note no. . Yeats, Per Amica Silentia Lunae (London: Macmillan, ), pp. & ,

& .

Notes to pages –

For a summary of the differences between the two editions of this work seeBarbara L. Croft “Stylistic Arrangements”: A Study of William Butler Yeats’s AVision (London & Toronto: Associated University Presses, ).

Yeats’s A Vision (), p. xx; Vision ( ), pp. –. Yeats, Vision ( ), pp. & . Yeats’s A Vision (), pp. , , ; Vision ( ), pp. –, , ,

, . Yeats’s A Vision (), pp. , ; Vision ( ), pp. , & , ;

“Pages From a Diary,” Explorations, p. . Yeats,Wheels and Butterflies, p. . Yeats, “Private Thoughts,” Explorations, p. . Yeats, “Pages FromaDiary,” p. . Yeats claimed “human life is impossible

without the strife between the Tinctures.” Yeats’s A Vision (), p. . Yeats’s A Vision (), p. . Yeats, “Pages From a Diary,” p. . Yeats, “Introduction to ‘The Cat and the Moon’,” Explorations, pp. ,

& . According to Barbara L. Croft, “ ‘Apocalypse’ sounds as rightfor A Vision as ‘romantic’ does for Yeats himself; but this term, too, can bemisleading, especially if it calls up visions of the end of the world, whichYeats certainly was not predicting despite the grim images with which hesometimes surrounds the coming of the antithetical age.” Croft, “StylisticArrangements”, p. .

Yeats, “Pages From a Diary,” p. . Yeats,Wheels and Butterflies, p. . Yeats, “ ‘Fighting the Waves’ Introduction,” Explorations, p. . Yeats, “AGeneral Introduction forMyWork” ( ), inE&I, p. ; “From

‘On the Boiler’,” pp. , & , . Pound, “Affirmations. V. Gaudier-Brzeska,” New Age (February , ):

. Pound, “Webster Ford,” Egoist ( January , ): & ; “Affirmations. .–

” New Age ( January , ): & , ( January , ): & ,( January , ): & , ( January , ): & ; (February ,): –; “The Renaissance –,” Poetry (February ): –;(March ): – ; (May ): –.

Pound,Pavannes andDivisions (NewYork:Knopf, ), p. . See also pp. –, –, –.

Pound, Selected Prose, p. . Ibid., p. . Ibid., pp. & , , & , , –, –. See Ford, March of Literature, pp. & , , , , –, , ,

, & , , & , , –, & , , , & , , .

Ibid. passim. Ibid., pp. & . Ibid., p. .

Notes to pages –

Lawrence to S.S. Koteliansky, November , Collected Letters, vol. ,p. .

Lawrence, “The Reality of Peace,” English Review (May ): . Ibid. and “Love,” p. . Lawrence, “The Reality of Peace,” English Review ( June ), p. . Lawrence, “The Crown” () in Phoenix II: Uncollected, Unpublished, and

Other Prose Works by D.H. Lawrence, ed. Warren Roberts and Harry T. Moore(New York: Viking, ), pp. , & .

Lawrence, “Reality of Peace” ( June ), p. . Lawrence, “Crown,” p. ; Lawrence, “Reality of Peace” ( June ),

pp. –. Lawrence, “Resurrection,” Poetry ( June ): –. Lawrence,Movements in European History, p. . Lawrence,Women in Love, p. . Lawrence, Apocalypse, pp. & , & , , –. Ibid., pp. & , , –, , –. Ibid., pp. , & . Ibid., pp. , . Ibid., p. .

This is the standard story of the origins of A Vision. See George Mills Harper,The Making of Yeats’s A Vision: A Study of the Automatic Script, vol. . (Carbondaleand Edwardsville: Southern Illinois Press, ), pp. x & .

T.S. Eliot, “Ulysses, Order, and Myth,” Dial (November ): . Eliade,Myth of Eternal Return, pp. , , , . Perl, Tradition of Return, pp. –. Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Harcourt Brace

Jovanovich, ), pp. –. Hulme, “Romanticism,” pp. & . For further discussions of fascist thinking seeZev Sternhell, “Fascist Ideology,”

in Walter Laqueur, Fascism A Reader’s Guide: Analyses, Interpretations,Bibliography (Berkeley: University of California Press, ); Fritz Stern, ThePolitics of Cultural Despair (Berkeley: University of California Press, ).

Yeats, “From ‘Wheels and Butterflies’,” Explorations, p. .

Index

Abbey Theatre, , , , , Action Francaise, – , , –, , ,

–, Aesthetic and Symbolist movements, , ,

–, , , Africa, , , , Aldington, Richard, Anima Mundi, see Great Memoryaristocracy, –, –, –, , ,

–, , , , –, Arnold, Matthew, , , Assyria, , , , , , , ,

,

Balfour, Arthur, , Beardsley, Aubrey, , Bergson, Henri, –, , –, , , ,

–, Binyon, Laurence, , , , , , ,

, , , , n., n.,n., n., n., n.

Blake, William, , n.Blast, , , , , , Bloomsbury group, , Boer War, , –, , n.Bomberg, Edward, , British Museum, , , , n.Brown, Ford Madox, , Browning, Robert, , , , , Budget of , , Byzantium and Byzantine art, , , ,

, , , , ,

Carlyle, Thomas, , , , , “Cave of the Golden Calf,” Cezanne, Paul, Chamberlain, Joseph, , , China, , , , , , , , ,

, – , –art of, , , , , , , ,

,

poetry of, , – , –, politics of, – , –

Classicism vs. Romanticism (see also Hulme),– , , –, , , –

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, , Commentator, communism, Russian, , Confucius, , –Conrad, Joseph, , –, , n.,

n.Conservative Party, –, , , , –Conservatives, radical

definition of, New Age Nietzscheans, –

Coomaraswamy, Ananda K., , –,–, ,

Cournos, John, Craig, Edward Gordon, , –,

n., n.Cromwell, Oliver, Cromwell, Thomas, Cubism and Cubists, ,

Dante, , Darwin and Darwinians, , , , , ,

, democracy, –, –, –, –, ,

–, , , –, –, Denis, Maurice, De Quincey, Thomas, , De Vries, Hugo, –Dickens, Charles, ,

Easter Rising of , economy, late nineteenth-century British, Eglington, John, Egoist, Egypt, , , , , , , –, ,

, , , , , art of, , , , , , , , ,

, , , ,

Index

electionsof , , , –of ,

Eliot, George, , Eliot, Thomas Stearns, , English Review, , , , , Epstein, Jacob, , , –, , –,

, , , n.Etchells, Frederick, , ,

Fabians and Fabian Society, , ,,

fascism, , –Modernists’ ideas different from, –Modernists’ opinions of, –,

Fenollosa, Ernst, –, , –, ,n., n.

First World War, , –, –and Modernists, –

Fletcher, John Gould, , Flint, F.S., , , n.Ford, Ford Madox (Ford Madox Hueffer)

earliest aesthetic theory and practice, –,

admires aristocracy, , , –, ,– , –, , –

and Boer War, –admires Catholicism, –and China, , , –on communism, , and Joseph Conrad, , –, n.,

n., n.cyclic and non-progressive aesthetics,

–, –cyclic history, – , , –accepts democracy, , –, criticizes democracy, –, –, on Fabians and Fabianism, , on fascism, experiences of First World War, reactions to First World War, –and Futurism, , –and Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, rejects humanism and humanitarianism, ,

–and Imagisme, and imperialism, –Impressionism, , –and Japanese poetry, , n.and Wyndham Lewis, and Arthur Marwood, , n.on Middle Ages, , –, , –,

– , –, – , ,n.

dislikes middle classes, –,

on naturalism in art, , , on non-Western art and culture, , ,

, , – , –personality and background, , –radical conservative political views, –,

, –, early political views, –, – ,

–disillusionment with politics, , –, and Post-Impressionism, , –, ,

–, accepts progress in history, –, dislikes Protestantism, –at Rebel Art Centre, religious views, –admires Romantic writers, , –criticizes Romantic writers, –admires Georges Sorel, –and South Lodge, , , admires Victorian writers, –, –criticizes Victorian writers, –admires Vorticism, included in Vorticism, , work similar to Vorticism, –accepts Whig history, , –, rejects Whig history, , worksAncient Lights, Between St. Denis and St. George, –The Cinque Ports, , –, “The Critical Attitude,” –“The Cuckoo and the Gipsy,” “Enough,” The Fifth Queen, “Grey Matter,” The Inheritors, –Ladies Whose Bright Eyes, Mr. Apollo, –, – , n.Mr. Fleight, –, The Good Soldier, , –Henry James, , –The March of Literature, –The New Humpty-Dumpty, , ,

n.“On Heaven,” The Queen Who Flew, –“The Saddest Story,” , –The Young Lovell: A Romance, –Vive le Roy, When Blood is Their Argument, –

Frazer, J.G., French Revolution, , , , , Futurism and Futurists, , , , –,

–, Fry, Roger, , , ,

Index

Gaudier-Brzeska, Henri, , , , ,, , , , , , , ,–, ,

“Vortex. Gaudier Brzeska,” –, “Hieratic Head of Ezra Pound,” ,

Gaultier, Jules de, , n.geometric vs. vital art (see also Hulme), ,

, , –, –, , Giles, Herbert A., – , Gill, Eric, , Gladstone, W.E., , , Gonne, Maude, , Gore, Spencer, , Great Memory, –Greece, –, –, , –, , ,

– , , , , , archaic, , , , , , , , ,

, , , classical, –, , , , ,

–, , , , Gregory, Augusta, Lady, , ,

Hallam, Arthur, , Hamilton, Cuthbert, , , Harrison, Jane Ellen, , , n.Havell, E.B., , , –Hegel, G.W.F., , , Hewlett, Maurice, n.history

Action Francaise’s theories of, –, Apocalyptic pattern of, –, –in Asian art criticism, –in comparative religious studies, –,

n.cyclic patterns of, –, passimcycloidal patterns of, –decline in, , , –Futurists’ theories of, Greco-Romans’ theories of, –, –Modernists’ theories of (see also Ford,

Hulme, Lawrence, Pound, Yeats),–, – , –, –,–, –, –, –,–, –, –

Friedrich Nietzsche’s theories of, , non-Western theories of, , W.M. Flinders Petrie’s theories of, –progressive patterns of, –, –, –,

–, –, –, –, Romantic theories of, –, sinusoidal patterns of, –speculative philosophies of, –spiral patterns of, –, –, –Spiritualists’ and Theosophists’ theories of,

–

twentieth-century cyclic theories of, Giambattista Vico’s theories of, , Victorian theories of, –Vorticist theories of, Whig theories of (see also Ford, Hulme), ,

–, , , , “House of Lords Crisis,” –, Hulme, Thomas Ernst

and Action Francaise, – , , –,, , –, n.

earliest aesthetic theory and practice, –,–

admires aristocracy, , – , , and Henri Bergson, , –, , –,

–, –, n.and Byzantine art, , , , admires Catholicism, –, and Christian mystics, on Classicism vs. Romanticism, – , ,

–, , , –, – , cyclic history, – , , , accepts democracy, – , , criticizes democracy, –, –and Hugo De Vries, –and Jacob Epstein, , –, ,

–, First World War,

experiences of, reaction to, –

and Futurism, on Geometric vs. Vital art, , , ,

, –, , rejects humanism and humanitarianism,

, , – , , , Imagism, –, and Japanese poetry, and Pierre Lasserre, , n., n. ,

n.and Wyndham Lewis, –, ,

n.on naturalism in art, –on non-Western and archaic art, , ,

, , , , , , ,–, –,

on original sin, –, n., n.personality and background, , –,

–, n.and W.M. Flinders Petrie, –radical conservative political views, –political views during First World War,

– , disillusionment with politics, , and Post-Impressionism, –, – ,

–, , , n.accepts progress in history, , –

Index

rejects progress in history, – , ,–

religious views, –admires Romantic writers, , –,

–,criticizes Romantic writers, –admires Georges Sorel, –, , n.rejects spiral views of history, , , ,Tuesdays, criticizes Victorian writers, –rejects Whig views of history, and Worringer, –, , , ,

–, works

“Autumn,” “Lecture on Modern Poetry,” “A Tory Philosophy,” “War Notes,” –

humanism and humanitarianism, , ,–, –, –, , –,, , –, , , ,

Huxley, Thomas Henry, , , , Hyde, Douglas,

Imagism (see also Hulme), –, Imagisme (see also Pound), –, –,

, –, , imperialism, , –, India, –, ,

art of, – , , , –, –,, ,

poetry of, , , , –, ,,

IrelandCultural Revival in, –, , –Home Rule for, , , , –, nationalism in, , –, – , –, Easter Rising in, ,

Irish Literary Society, Irish National Theatre, see Abbey Theatre

Japan, , , , , art of, – , , , , , –,

–, , poetry of, , –, , –, Noh drama in, , , –, , ,

– , –, –Japanism or Japonisme, –Jenner, Mrs. Henry, –Jepson, Edgar, Johnson, Lionel, , Joyce, James, , , ,

Kandinsky, Wassily, –, , n.,n.

Kennedy, J.M., n.

Lasserre, Pierre, , , , n., n. ,n.

Lawrence, David Herbertearliest aesthetic theory and practice, –,

–admires aristocracy, , , , –rejects Russian communism, cyclic and non-progressive aesthetics,

–, –cyclic history, , , –, –cyclic images, , –on democracy, , , , –rejects fascism, experiences of First World War, , –reactions to First World War, , –and Futurism, , , –, and Jane Ellen Harrison, , , rejects humanism and humanitarianism, ,

–, , , – , , ,n.

and Mrs. Henry Jenner, –and Katherine Mansfield, , n.on Middle Ages, , –, , , ,

and John Middleton Murry, , ,

n.on non-Western and archaic art, , ,

–, , – , –, ,

“Order of the Knights of Ranamin,” personality and background, , –earliest political views, political views First World War and after,

–, , disillusionment with politics, –and Post-Impressionism, , –, ,

, , accepts progress in history, , –rejects progress in history, , , admires Romantic writers, –, criticizes Romantic writers, –and comparative religious studies, –religious views, –, , –,

–on resurrection, –and Rachel Anand Taylor, , –admires Victorian writers, criticizes Victorian writers, work resembles Vorticism, –worksApocalypse, –“Guelder Rose,” Kangaroo, ,

Index

Lawrence, David Herbert (cont.)Movements in European History, The Rainbow, , , , –, “A Study of Thomas Hardy,” , –“Wakened,” –Women in Love, ,

Lawrence, Frieda, Lechmere, Kate, , n.Lewis, Wyndham, , –, –,

–, , , n., n.,n.

Liberal Party, , , , , –, –Lloyd George, David, Ludovici, Anthony M., –, , n.

Mallock, W.H., n.Mansfield, Katherine, , n.Marinetti, F.T., , , , , , ,

, Marwood, Arthur, , n.Mathews, Elkin, Maurras, Charles, Mead, G.R.S., –, n.Middle Ages, Modernists on (see also Ford,

Hulme, Lawrence, Pound, Yeats), ,– , –, –, , –,–, , , , –,–, – , , , ,–, , –, –,

nineteenth-century uses of, –, Mill, John Stuart, , , Modernism

definitions of, –, –and history,

Morris, William, , , , –, , , ,, ,

Munro, Harold, Murray, D.L., Murray, Gilbert, Murry, John Middleton, , , n.Mussolini, Benito, , , , ,

naturalism in art, –, –, –,–

Nevinson, C.R.W., , Nietzsche, Friedrich, , , , , , ,

–, , Nietzscheans, New Age, –New Age, , , , New Freewoman, Noguchi, Yone, , , n.Noh drama, see Japannon-Western and archaic art and cultures (see

also Africa, Assyria, Byzantium, China,Egypt, India, Japan, Oceana; Ford,

Hulme, Lawrence, Pound, Yeats),–, , , – , –,–, – , –, ,–, –, –,

influence on Post-Impressionist artists, ,

knowledge of in nineteenth century, –knowledge of in early twentieth-century

Britain, Middle Ages, compared with, , ,

–, –, , , nineteenth-century art critics’ theories of,

–twentieth-century art critics’ theories of,

–, –

Oceana, , , , , , Orage, A.R., Order of the Golden Dawn, , original sin, –

Parliament Bill of , –, Parnell, Charles Stewart, Pater, Walter, , , –, , , “People’s” Budget, see Budget of Petrie, W.M. Flinders, –Picasso, Pablo, , Plato, , , , , Poetry, Poetry Bookshop, , Poetry & Drama, Poetry Review, Poet’s Club, , Post-Impressionism (see also Ford, Hulme,

Lawrence, Pound, Yeats), –, Pound, Ezra

aesthetic theory and practice, earliest,–, –, –

aesthetic theory and practice in , anti-Semitism, , , admires aristocracy, , –, –,

on aristocracy of arts, , –, , and Henri Bergson, and Laurence Binyon, , , and Robert Browning, , , , and China, , , , – , –,

, , , , n.and Christian mystics, and Confucius, , , , n.and Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, –,

cyclic and non-progressive aesthetics,

–, –, –cyclic history, , –, –

Index

criticizes democracy, , –, –,– , , –

and Jacob Epstein, on eugenics, and Ernst Fenollosa, , , , n.experience of First World War, reactions to First World War, , –and Futurism, –and Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, –, ,

and Herbert Giles, – , –views of history in , rejects humanism and humanitarianism, ,

, and Imagisme, –, –, ,

–, and India, –, –, , , and Japan, –, –, –,

–and Wassily Kandinsky, –, ,

n., n.and Wyndham Lewis, –, n.on Middle Ages, , , –, – ,

–, , , –, , , ,,

dislikes middle classes, supports Benito Mussolini, –, ,

, on naturalism in art, –, and Yone Noguchi, , –, n.and Noh drama, , –, –,

n.admires non-Western and archaic cultures

(see also China, Japan, India), , ,, , –, –, –,, – , , , –

personality and background, , –political views First World War and after,

–, –, , and Post-Impressionism, , , –,

–, –, rejects progress in history, and comparative religious studies, –at Rebel Art Centre, religious views, admires Romantic writers, , , criticizes Romantic writers, –Second World War radio broadcasts, admires Georges Sorel, –, –and Rabindranath Tagore, , , ,

, on Troubadours, , , and Allen Upward, –, , n.,

n., n.admires Victorian writers, –,

criticizes Victorian writers, Vorticism, –, , , Vorticist Imagisme, –, –works

“Beddoesque,” n.Cantos, –, –, n.“Canzon: Of Incense,” “Cino,” “Credo,” “I Gather the Limbs of Osiris,” “Lustra III Further Instructions,” , “Marvoil,” “The Needle,” “Occidit,” “Piere Vidal Old,” “Sestina: Altaforte,” The Spirit of Romance, “In the Station of the Metro,” “Three Cantos,” , “A Villonaud. Ballad of the Gibbet,” “Vortex. Pound.,”

Pre-Raphaelites, , , , , , , , pre-Socratic philosophers, –,

Quest, , Quest Society, , ,

Ravenna, , Rebel Art Centre, , , –religion, comparative studies of, –Renaissance, , , , , , ,

–, –, , – , , , , , –, , –,

Asian art critics on, , Modernists’ admiration for, , , ,

Modernists’ hope for imminent, , ,

as turning point in modern history, , ,

, –, –, –,– , , , –, –,

Rhymers’ Club, , Rhythm, , Romantic writers

views of Asia, –theory of history, –and Modernists, –

Romanticism criticized (see also Classicism vs.Romanticism), – , , –, ,, –, –, , ,

Rome, , , , , , , , Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, , , Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, , , ,

Index

Ruskin, John, , , , , , , , Russian ballet, –, n.

Secession Club of , , Shelley, P.B., , , , , , socialism, Modernists’ early interest in, –,

–, , –Sorel, Georges, –, , n.Southey, Robert, , South Lodge, , , Spencer, Herbert, , , , Spengler, Oswald, Spenser, Edmund, –spiritual revival, –, Storer, Edward, , Suffragettes, , Symbolist movement, see Aesthetic and

Symbolist movementsSymons, Arthur, sympathy, idea of, , , , Synge, J.M., , ,

Tagore, Rabindranath, , , , –,, ,

Taylor, Rachel Annand, , –Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, , , , , ,

n.Theosophy and Theosophical Society, , troubadours, , , Toynbee, Arnold, Tyler, E.B.,

Upward, Allen, –, , n., n.,n.

Vico, Giambattista, , Victorian writers

views of Asia, –and Modernists, –, –

Vorticism, –, –, –,–, –, –, ,–, –

College of Arts, image of Vortex, –, –, “Kill John Bull with Art,” in literature, , , –spiritual realism, –

Wadsworth, Edward, , , , Whistler, James Abbott McNeill, Wilde, Oscar, , , n.Willoughby de Broke, Lord, Wolff, Virginia, Wordsworth, William, working-class politics, –

Worringer, Wilhelm, –, , , ,–,

Yeats, George, , Yeats, William Butler

and Abbey Theatre, , , , aesthetic theory and practice, earliest,

–, aesthetic theory and practice in , admires aristocracy, –, –, –,

, , –, , , on aristocracy of artists, and automatic writing, , and Laurence Binyon, , , , ,

, n., n., n.,n.

and Boer War, n.and Byzantium and Byzantine art, , admires Catholicism, –and China, , , , and Edward Gordon Craig, , –,

n.theory of cultural nationalism, –cyclic and non-progressive aesthetics, ,

–cyclic history, , –, –,

–, –n.cyclic images, , –, –rejects democracy, , –, on Easter Rising of , on eugenics, on fascism, –, , n.and Ernst Fenollosa, , , First World War conscription in Ireland, experiences of First World War, reactions to First World War, –and Great Memory, –and Lady Augusta Gregory, , , rejects humanism and humanitarianism,

, , –, –and Irish Blue Shirt movement, and Irish Cultural Revival, –, –and Irish Literary Society, , Irish nationalism, , –, – ,

–and Irish Republican Brotherhood, and Japan, , , –, –, ,

–, –on Wyndham Lewis, idea of Mask, –on Middle Ages, –, –, –, dislikes middle classes, , –, , Mondays, , and Noh drama, , –, –,

–

Index

admires non-Western and archaic cultures(see also Byzantium, China, Japan,India), , –, , –,–, , –, –,–, , –

and Order of the Golden Dawn, , personality and background, , –political views, earliest, –political views, First World War and after,

, –, disillusionment with politics, –and Post-Impressionism, , –, ,

rejects progress in history, –dislikes Protestantism, –religious views, –admires Romantic writers, –, dislikes Romantic writers, –accepts spiral progress in history, –and Rabindranath Tagore, , , ,

–, and Theosophy, –,

and Giambattista Vico, , admires Victorian writers, –, –dislikes Victorian writers, admires Vorticism, included in Vorticism, worksThe Countess Cathleen, , , Four Plays for Dancers, , , –The Green Helmet, “He Remembers Forgotten Beauty,” ,

“Journal” (), The King’s Threshold, , Per Amica Silentia Lunae, –“The Poet Pleads with the Elemental

Powers,” –“Preface to Gitanjali,” “Sailing to Byzantium,” “The Second Coming,” A Vision, , , , –, –,

–“Wanderings of Oisin,”