Modernist Magazines and Digital Humanities

 By Elsie Dwyer, Calgary Martin, and Abra Stokowski

Various magazines during and immediately following the first World War dealt with gender in a variety of ways, both subtle and explicit.  While publications like Blast  sought outright to affirm specific essentialist beliefs about both men’s and women’s roles during wartime, others, like The Owl, shied away from making overt political statements.  However, even within the pages of The Owl and similar magazines with a strictly literary mission, like Poetry and the Sitwells’ Wheels, gender roles were often explored and re-imagined.  While male poets like W.J. Turner depicted female objects as symbolic of the innocence and harmony which was lost as a result of the war, female poets like Edith Sitwell and Iris Tree defied Blast creator Wyndham Lewis’s view of women’s domestic roles during wartime, by writing poems with female speakers whose interior lives are far richer than Lewis’s or even Turner’s simplistic, essentialist vision would allow.  Further, essays in The New Age, such as Alice Morning’s piece “The Enemy in the House,” imagined roles for women as dissenters who could affect the war’s outcome despite being removed from the action and relegated to the home.
     Blast magazine, and Vorticism in general, was male dominated. The magazine’s general impression of the war was that it was a necessary fight for the country of England and for the freedom of art.  On the contrary, the magazine’s impression of women was that they had a very specific role in society, and very little to do with war, a concept that the editors believed women could not possibly understand due to the fundamental differences between the genders.  Blast’s July 1916 issue is called the War Number and is dedicated almost exclusively to World War I. It speaks openly about the war, discussing it explicitly and implicitly in essays and poems. The masculine magazine establishes a pro-war agenda immediately, and leaves no question of allegiance.
      In Wyndham Lewis’ piece “The European War and Great Communities,” he analyzes specifically what brought on the war. He also examines what makes men fight, deciding that it is a fundamental need for their gender, as they have had to fight for their lives for centuries and will continue to have to do so in the future. He explains that it does not matter what they fight about, or who is correct, because “they are as willing to fight for one immediate thing as another, under these circumstances; since, ‘life is the only thing that matters,’ and it is for life both sides fight, and therefore both are right,” (No. 2, page16).  He asserts that war will never go away, for as long as men vie for power as communities, which they inevitably will, there will always be war. In proclaiming this he begins to explore gender roles.

Murder and destruction is man’s fundamental occupation. Women’s function, the manufacturing of children (even more important than cartridges and khaki suits) is only important from this point of view, and they evidently realize this thoroughly. It takes the deft women we employ anything from twelve to sixteen years to fill and polish these little human cartridges, and they of course get fond of them in the process. However, all this is not our fault, and is absolutely necessary. We only begin decaying like goods kept too long, if we are not killed or otherwise disposed of. Is not this a proof of our function? (17) 

Ignoring the fact that women also age and “decay,” Lewis decides that this is a woman’s only role in war: to make male babies that will eventually entrench themselves in battle to serve their primary duty. He goes on to state that women, due to the basal differences between the genders and thus their different roles in society, will never understand war. “I overheard two ladies the other day conversing on this subject, and one, with an immense jaw, flabby cheeks, and otherwise very large, said: ‘It is such a waste of good human flesh!’” (17)  Other than in the production of soldiers, women have no role in war because they cannot understand the duty that drives men to fight.
     One of the few female Vorticists, Jessie Dismorr, writes about wartime London in the same July issue of Blast, in a piece entitled “London Notes.” She writes about the ways in which public meeting places in London were completely unaffected by the fighting that raged on around them. Describing the places and people in rather grotesque terms, she does not mention the war. She merely makes implications by ignoring it, in the same way that regular citizens tried to ignore it. The war was not an issue for The Reading Room or Fleet Street. These were not literally the battlegrounds. She describes Hyde Park saying,

[A]ll the morning women sit sewing and knitting, their monotonous occupation accompanying the agreeable muddle of their thoughts. In the Row. Vitality civilized to a needles-point; highly-bred men and horses pass swiftly in useless delightful motion; women walk enamoured of their own accomplished movements. (66)

Despite being a woman, Dismorr sticks to the agenda of the magazine. She describes women in wartime as being mostly useless, and all but thoughtless. The men are well bred and on horseback. Calling to mind images of battle, they are described as being almost heroic. Though they are not literally at war, they seem to possess the same qualities of the men at war. The women sit and knit, thinking frivolous things, and find it difficult to walk and think at the same time. They cannot understand the concept of war, if questions about war even occur to them at all. They stick to their sewing, and their subordinate role as the mothering twits of society.
     While there is little mention at all of feminism or suffrage in the English magazine Blast, American bred Scribner’s magazine has many essays and stories about the movement. These pieces, however, do not tend to coincide with anything about the Great War. It was evidentially the view of the editors of both magazines that a woman’s role in war was at home, where they desperately missed their husbands, who were fighting out of a sense of masculine duty.  “The Misgivings of a Male Suffragette” is an anonymously written piece appearing in the October 1915 issue of Scribner’s. It is about a male feminist wondering in which direction the suffrage movement is heading. He begins by explaining that his wife Mary is a suffragette. She convinces him to go to a parade in honor of their movement, telling him that a friend of hers, Mrs. Watson, is also going but has not told her husband. Mary hopes that the writer will come just in case Watson finds out what his wife is doing, as the writer will be able to calm the angry husband down. (He is, in fact, Watson’s superior at work, and also on a membership committee for a club Watson would like to be involved with.)  The writer explains how Watson’s wife eventually came clean about the scenario, and how Watson joined the cause.  Ultimately, the writer is impressed with the success of his wife’s plan. “As far as it goes it is stupendously efficient, the feminine way of doing things!”  (Volume 58, no. 4, page 494) The writer implies that diplomacy, the attempt to avoid conflict, is inherently feminine. Indeed later, when a policeman speaking to the writer says that he is willing to “give” women the vote, Mary becomes infuriated, saying that they will not have it given to them; they will take it. As the writer puts it, he had “never seen [his] wife look more handsome.” (496). When his wife demonstrates the will to fight, he begins to see her as masculine. He goes on to struggle with the fact that he thinks the same way that the policeman did. As a man, he envisioned himself giving the vote to women, who would otherwise not be allowed it. While the writer seems to embrace feminism as an ideal, he cannot wrap his mind around men and women being equal. To him their differences naturally and bodily prevent such a thing. They are not equal. Women have children and men fight. After a lengthy argument that higher taxes discourage women from having more children, he comes to the conclusion that children are work, and are in fact the work that women so desperately seek. He discusses this theory with Mr. Watson, who adds to the argument the dynamic of what war does to women:

‘It explains why in England they have militants. The colonization of the empire has drained the home country of its men, leaving upward of a million women who haven't a ghost of a show even for a husband.’ A slow grin wreathed his face. ‘And the real war-cry of the suffragettes, as they roll bombs beneath the great chair of the prime minister is: '’Give us back our husbands! Give us back our husbands!’ (500)

In their eyes even suffragettes find little value in their lives outside of their domestic lives, and with their husbands away they find little value in the war. Like the editors and contributors of Blast, this writer seems to find that women have one role in society in a time of war: to be home waiting for their husbands to arrive back. They have no concept of why the war is important, and they have no palpable role in battle.
     One of the most obvious roles of women on the battlegrounds is that of army nurse. With this in mind, one might expect to see some mention of these vital cogs in the war machine in a Scribner’s piece called “War-Time Sketches in France.”  Appearing in the June 1916 issue, the piece is an essay by Herbert Ward, accompanied by the writer’s drawings. The main subject is soldiers and the soldiers’ stories. A harsh look at the atrocities of battle, the writer often discusses the backdrop of the beautiful French countryside against which the dreadful fighting is taking place. Despite mentioning ambulances, doctors, and hospital shelters, there is no mention of women on the frontlines. In fact, there is only one mention of women at all throughout the entire essay, which comes after a description of the gorgeous land marred by battle: “I have had occasion to read some of the letters of these splendid, simple French soldiers, written under shell and rifle fire, wherein they actually described the beauty of the sunrise to their womenfolk at home” (Vol. 59, no. 6, page 679). Even when women were tangibly involved in the war effort they were ignored, and their rightful place was thought to be at home.
     While magazines like Blast and Scribner’s were defining or even ignoring women's roles during the war, the engagement of such issues in publications like The Owl and Wheels was less explicit.  The former, which distributed two issues at the close of the war in 1919, and another in 1923, purported itself to "ha[ve] no politics and lead[] no new movements" (The Owl, no. 1, page 5).  As such, the war, no doubt on the minds of both The Owl's authors and readership regardless of any mission statement, infiltrated the magazine in more subtle ways: various pieces expressed a longing for a return to innocence and carefree beauty, while others were characterized by feelings of darkness and fear.  "Petunia" by W.J Turner, from the October 1919 issue, relates the speaker/poet's vision of a future daughter he will call Petunia, who will

dance, her small face
So bright that no sorrow'll befall her.
From this dark pot of earth, from this sun-clouded hollow
Like a rainbow she'll spring and a blue sky shall follow"
(No. 1, pages 10-12)

This “dark pot of earth" and "sun-clouded hollow" may easily represent the climate of hopelessness and gloom created by the war; consequently, Petunia becomes an emblem of hope for a less complicated future, one that is "bright" and free of sorrow.  Turner also envisions Petunia to be a lover of the natural world, of a more primitive and carefree existence.  Imagining that he will teach his daughter "the songs of Apollo," he goes on to describe the cult of the sun god, whose disciples are "white-armed maidens/ Sing[ing] in the soft dusks of summer."  Contrary to a world marred by the violence and destruction of war, the picture he paints of his daughter represents not only the hope for a lighter, more joyful existence, but also for a return to the fertile simplicity of a life in harmony with nature.  The worshippers of Apollo with whom he associates Petunia and in “the green” of whose eyes and “tresses,/ The forests of ocean are blowing,” are further described as personifications of that harmony.  The fact that the poem has projected all this hope onto a female child rather than a male one is significant when one considers the masculinist attitudes (like those prevailing in Blast) which motivate war.  Petunia represents a kind of mystical femininity, a source of magic “that flows up at dawn/ Out of earth’s darkness leaping” (No. 1, page 11) which can renew the poet, who envisions himself “wrinkled and worn,” as a symbolic representative of the war-torn world.
     Another interesting example from The Owl 2, of feminine associations with nature, can be found in a drawing by Pamela Bianco entitled “Fairyland.”  This drawing affirms the Blast position of a woman’s place in times of war: Bianco depicts the two central figures, both female, as stereotypic earth mothers, attired in clothes adorned with details from the natural world, and as caretakers, surrounded by naked, unself-conscious babies with angel wings.  This is a scene of peace and tranquility, with absolutely no associations or references to war whatsoever.  However, as with Turner’s poem and any work published during a war, the violent climate at the time of publication must be considered.  While the war raged outside the pages of the magazine, this illustration represents an ideal in contrast with reality.  Additionally, as Turner’s vision of his future daughter Petunia expresses a desire to return to a less complicated, innocent state of being, the appearance of Bianco’s painting immediately following the poem suggests a relationship between the two.  Indeed, the painting may easily be viewed as a visual representation of the world Turner imagines for Petunia: that is to say, a place in the future, a kind of utopia, which embodies ideals from the past.  The gowns worn by the women in the painting are in the Victorian style and reference a less complicated time, of a pastoral lifestyle, of fertility and harmony with nature.  The absence of men in this utopia is significant: war, quite clearly depicted as the domain of men in magazines throughout the era, like Blast and even Scribner’s which aligned itself with suffragist/feminist politics, is inextricably linked with the masculine; as such, the female figures in Bianco’s painting, depicted in wreaths of flowers, with leaves traveling up their skirts and bodices, represent a rejection of masculinist ideals and the war.  Rather, the ideal is represented here as it is in Turner’s poem: a celebration of the mystical feminine, of joy and harmony in nature, of peace precluding discord.
     Although themes of female gender and the war were touched on opaquely in The Owl, the magazine noticeably lacked any female authorship to express the opinions and feelings of women themselves during the war.  Wheels, however, featured woman poets regularly, particularly the work of Edith Sitwell and Iris Tree.  Contrasting with the view of women as frivolous beings whose only occupation during wartime lies within the domestic sphere, Sitwell’s poem “The Mother”, from the March 1917 issue, presents a more complicated view of motherhood.  While the presence of children in Turner’s and Bianco’s work ostensibly represents fertility, growth, innocence, tranquility and is, for writers like Wyndham Lewis, emblematic of women’s true role in wartime, Sitwell both reaffirms this trope and destroys it.  She admits that the birth of her son was a time of great joy heralding “the spring,” “birds,” and blossoms,” and releasing streams from “winter run,” but goes on to lament the loss of the child as he grows to manhood (Vol. 1, page 48).  During their time together, in the boy’s youth, his “sunlit hair was all [her] gold,” but when he becomes a man, he leaves her empty and resentful of the female lover who has come to take her place in the child’s life.  This retelling of women’s roles in the lives of their children defies the simplistic, rather disdainful view taken by masculinist authors like Lewis, who saw women’s roles in the domestic sphere as inferior to the great acts performed by men in war.  While women were expected by society to devote their lives to the rearing of children, the speaker in Sitwell’s poem explores the interior world of the mother, and the physical and emotional realities of those expectations, which are characterized by feelings of abandonment and a lost sense of self.  When her child becomes a man, the poet imagines that her son plots to “kill her while [she] slept,” merely in his decision to leave her protection and take a lover.  “The Mother” is a poem which paints women’s lives during this period of war and upheaval as equally marred by violence and loss as those of their fighting male counterparts.  No longer occupied by the all-consuming demands of parenting, the speaker, as the mother of a grown child, must nagivate her way through a world in which she no longer serves any purpose: no longer actively functioning as a mother, she considers herself already dead, yet forever haunted by the memory of her beloved child, whose name her “pierced heart scream[s] …within the dark” of her barren existence (49).  Another possible reading of the poem casts the mother’s enemy, not as a female lover, but as the world itself, in which wars are fought and sons are murdered.  The poem closes with the mother’s lament that she has failed her child, whose body hangs like a “blackened rag/ Upon the tree—a monstrous flag” (50).  In this reading, the mother is consumed by her grief and feels responsible for her failure to protect the child she loved with so much of her being.  She says, “All mine, all mine the sin; the love/ I bore him was not deep enough.”  In this way, the death the mother experiences comes as a result of her child’s death; she has failed the son and thus finds no more joy in living.  Regardless of women’s expected or prescribed passivity during times when men fought for their countries and their homes, Sitwell’s poem makes explicit the anguish and violence that women experience, regardless, even as they are kept at a distance from the fighting.
     Another poem written by a female and published in the fourth cycle of Wheels, which came out in 1919, is Iris Tree’s “Changing Mirrors.”  Like Sitwell, Tree complicates conventional views of women in the post-war era.  Her poem depicts a scene in which the speaker (presumably female) sees herself “in many different dresses,” each representing different facets of her personality and desires (No. 4, page 48).  Interestingly enough, none of the speaker’s visions of herself include motherhood.  Instead, she constructs a female identity which consists of a variety of other types, specifically “poisoners, martyrs, harlots and princesses.”  Just as the above-mentioned authors in both Wheels and The Owl opaquely reference the dark climate of the world associated with the war, Tree’s speaker refers to a “grey” world “where solemn faces/ are silence to [her] mirth—a flame that blesses/ From yellow lamp the darkness which oppresses.”  While the world around her is one of darkness, the female speaker is not consumed by it. Rather, the current of despair and oppression affects her just as it affects anyone, male or female, declaring: “Within my soul a thousand weary traces/ Of pain and joy and passionate excesses.” Like Sitwell, Tree imagines for her female speaker a deep interior life which belies the view that women were uncomplicated beings, incapable of fully understanding the ramifications of the war being fought by men.  Unlike Sitwell’s poem, however, Tree’s is rather universal, speaking of a world in which all people, not just women or men exclusively, experience the same kinds of happiness and sorrow.  Her speaker, shifting through different moods and feelings throughout her life, symbolized by her ever-changing dresses, considers not only herself but all beings when she names, in her conclusion, the “eternal beauty our [emphasis mine] brief life chases.”  By exploring, however simply, the interior life of a woman, otherwise neglected and simplified by male authors of the war and post-war era, Tree simultaneously equalizes her female subject with its male counterparts.  The poem asserts that joy and pain are emotions experienced by all creatures and contradicts the notion that either feeling is essentially male or essentially female. 
     In Poetry, as in The Owl and Wheels, gender and war are not topics addressed together directly at length, although both are ostensibly present in the minds of the poets whose writing filled the publication. When the two subjects are at play simultaneously, the consideration of both war and gender is very subtle: women often appear as caretakers, lovers, mothers, and subjects of adoration, which gives hints of how women’s roles were primarily defined, even in war times. So, in poems about female figures, the war is presented as a non-subject around which the woman’s role molds itself, but does not enter into. On the other hand, poems which do deal with the war directly, tend to be about men, and are written by men. One poem in which the female viewpoint of war’s effects can be seen in a January 1914 poem titled “A Woman and Her Dead Husband.”  The poem hauntingly describes a woman addressing her deceased husband directly, apparently from their own bed, with the cause of his death left entirely ambiguous. Perhaps his death was due to war.  If not, however, the focus in the poem is upon death, a war-time subject, and the poem is actually written by a male, D. H. Lawrence, who maybe imagines the reverberation of a soldier’s potential death through his household. The subject of this poem is a reflection of the idea, reiterated so often in Blast and Scribner’s, that a woman has no direct role in the battles herself, although her own role, as lover and wife, may be entirely destroyed by her husband’s death.  The pleas of the woman to her husband, asking if he is playing a joke on her, being so cold and pale, serves to magnify the horror and sympathy the reader feels for the woman.
     Another poem from Poetry was published in August of 1918, and is titled “To a Grey Dress.” In this poem, gender roles are more pronounced, and the subject of World War I is not present except for in the very conspicuousness of its absence. In the piece, a woman whose face is never seen is admired by a male as she walks through the trees: just a gray dress and the curves which fill the garment. The man watching her is thrown into fantasies based simply upon the femininity of her figure, although her identity is entirely unknown. The tone of the poem is one of happy distraction, and even the title itself is playful in its slight absurdity. This is another example of women’s perceived roles during World War I: as figures of joyous, simple preoccupation, creatures who stand apart from the violence of the battle, although nameless and faceless, without identities of their own.
     While Poetry considered the conflict in a more indirect and emotional fashion, another magazine, The New Age often featured articles which addressed the war in a more theoretical way. The New Age included opinion pieces, reviews, and creative writing, and two such articles in the magazine were published by Alice Morning. The first was included in January of 1916, and was a quite heavy-handed allegorical tale called “Feminine Fables: The Style of the Peri.”  The story describes a female angel who is banished from Paradise for one day, due to missing the closing of the gate at dawn. It was assumed that if an angel is late, he or she was committing an indiscretion while visiting the mortals. Rather than sulking over her temporary banishment, the angel declares, “I shall not walk in solitude around this idiotic style!” referring to the “distorting column” around which the excluded are expected to pace in distress (Vol. 7, no. 4, page 257). In the lone paragraph of the story which diverges from the symbolic tone, the author’s voice seems to shine through with passion, stating that similar punishments exist in the world of mortals: men, like the Peris--and like the devil, Morning adds--only punish what is detected. Had the angel been committing indiscretions, but returned on time, there would have been no punishment. Having missed the dawn, it is assumed that she was engaged in disallowed behavior. Whether this refers to lack of loyalty to one’s country is unclear, but it seems that a political and perhaps gender-based unfairness is being pointed out by Morning. The angel is described as exceedingly feminine, with a full bust, wide hips, jewelry, and the pouting tone of a spoiled child. In the end, however, the angel makes peace with her fate and feels “very good friends with herself.” (258) The independence of the angel is contrasted with the entitled and flippant attitude with which Morning generally characterizes this very feminine creature, suggesting perhaps a changing sense of female identity.
     Another article by Morning was published in June of 1916, an essay about the terrors of war, called “The Enemy in the House.”  In this piece, Morning argues that the so-called "impotent horror" (Vol. 8, no. 3, page160) of war needs to be transformed into “horror potent” (161). This outcry against war, she writes, most naturally comes from women themselves, who provide a kind of check on violence by voicing their objections. That, she argues, is a woman’s role during war: as a protester.  Under no circumstances should women mingle freely and routinely among scenes of violence. She believes that a woman’s horrified reaction to violence is the key to preventing barbarism. In writing this article, with confidence and an outspoken quality, the author asserts her ability to form her own opinions and hold them firmly. However, the role which she advocates for women is rather stereotypical. While the piece affirms a woman’s ability to think independently, ultimately her ideas about women’s roles away from the violence and action of war do not defy convention.
     Clearly, gender proved, as ever, to be a complicated, even contentious issue both during and after the Great War.  While some male authors persisted in their belief that women could not serve any useful purpose outside the home and were thus inferior to the valorous men who risked their lives to protect their countries, other writers sought to depict women in less benign ways: as symbols of the very peace and freedom of spirit which male soldiers fought for.  Less romantically, female authors depicted women as mere humans whose emotions and interior lives were as rich as their brave male counterparts.  Regardless, or perhaps as result of the divergent and often dichotomous positions taken by writers and artists of the time, the “little magazines” provide an interesting glimpse into the interplay between men and women as they struggled to reconcile their evolving roles in a world forever changed by the four-year war.  
 

Within the magazine Rythm many modernist artist and writers combined thier works together to expose to the world their thoughts and ideas. Throught out the issues of Rythm the concepts of femisim and humaism was depicted through the sketched and portriats with in the magazine. The use of a womans body as art was a reaccuring event as each issue developed over the course of its publication. The reader is first exposed to a woman siting by a tree holding a piece of fruit on the front cover http://dl.lib.brown.edu/jpegs/115989738112.jpg. This could be consider a relation to the moderinst belives that human posses an essence which nature and animals do not posses. The exposed woman is depicted as happy and content while her surroundings grow around her. Women are liberated with use of thier bodies. The depiction of an exposed woman is seen several time through out each issues. Each image either coinsides with the work before, in the mist of, or on the same page it is on. Sometime the images stand alone expressing the betuity and power of the woman at hand. In Vol 2 No. 10 the image Nude Study by S.J Peple  http://dl.lib.brown.edu/jpegs/1159897669406261.jpg  is a drawing of a woman who seems to be sitting and reading.  She is not cloth nor can you see her face. The artist leaves the viewer wondering what she is consitrated on.

Woman were admired for their beauty and grace. Within Rythm vol IV page 3 the drawing by Anne Estelle Rice http://dl.lib.brown.edu/jpegs/1159894618781261.jpgdepict several women working together. The woman seem to be gathering fruit while dancing through an orcher. The woman are also exposed to the world which reveals their cofidence and power. The woman stand tall along side eachother and bring new light on the concept of care giver. The womans purpose in life was thought to care for the house hold and her family. With the smile and embrace on the womans faces Rice depict several woman who took pride within them selves and their so called duty. They carry the fruit of their labor and open up to the world with in the single frame.

There is a major evident influence of French culture and art throughout Rhythm. It is apparent in various issues, whether in discussing French works, or artists themselves, that French artistry was held in high regard by the authors of this Modernist magazine. As the magazine came out with more issues between 1911 and 1913, more and more of the content of the magazine not only discussed French culture and art, but began to publish full pieces in the language itself. It is quite common to find French epigraphs or titles of pieces throughout Rhythm, as well as French essays and poems.

Many of these poems and works are accompanied by illustrations and drawings. There is a common trend with these poems that host artwork on their pages: that is that the drawing or painting is never done by the same author, and are often seemingly irrelevant. Petit Poeme by Tristan Dereme, in the Winter 1911 issue, depicts the trite scene of a relationship, lacking in the romantic ardor it once possessed. The scenario is blatantly set, and the scene is painted as if the romance should still be there, but discusses how smiles are forced, gardens are abandoned, and silence ensues between the two. Atop the poem is an abstract drawing by Jessie Dismorr. It depicts a nude woman, with dark hair, blank eyes, extended arm, and an unidentifiable figure in the background. A similar pairing of works is seen in Le Petit Comptable by Jean Pellerin. This poem, found in the 1912 Spring issue tells of an accountant taking inventory of a produce shop in his book. The poem uses sensory imaging in discussing the colorful touch and feel of the fruits and vegetables, almost as if one is caressing them romantically, reminiscently. Then the author nostagically takes in the sky on the rainy, dreary day. It is also accompanied by a drawing by Dismorr. The drawings possess similar features: both appear to be of nude women, with bold outlines, blank stares and awkwardly sketched background images. The poems, both posessing similar themes of the end of love in sad scenarios, are accompanied by these unusual drawings, which could merely be the editor's way of filling space, or an objective influence on how the reader should perceive these poems, particularly the reader who does not speak French. The Dismorr drawings could be acting as a link between the two poems for those who cannot comprehend the text. By placing these drawings near these poems, the editor offers a unique insight to the similarity in the themes of these French poets. He does not offer a translation; however, these drawings aid the reader in making the connection between the two.

Throughout its one-year, eight month run Rhythm used a certain piece of art on four different occasions. The drawing is of a figure in a prostrate position and seemingly studying either something on the ground or something floating in the air just above its outstretched hand. When I first discovered the picture, I thought it added something to the poem it was printed under. What I saw after seeing it attached to three other works is how the picture changed depending on what it was printed next to. The figure first appears in the very first issue of Rhythm after the first article. The opening article to Rhythm (Vol. 1, No.1) is an article on the philosophical belief of Thelema. A quick Wikipedia search will tell you that Thelema is the belief in living your life according to your own conscience. “The New Thelema” by Frederick Goodyear is a highly stylized look at this philosophy. Goodyear sees Thelema as more than just a religious philosophy, but as an imminent future. He writes, “Thelema lies in the future, not the never-never land of the theologian, but the ordinary human future that is perpetually transmuting itself into the past” (1). After two more pages of writing that consistently looks towards the future world the figure closes the page. Here, the figure seems to be the author, Goodyear, looking into the globe that is floating above his hand, looking into the future.

The next two times the figure appears is after poems of loss. The first poem is “The See Child” by Katherine Mansfield, featured in Vol. 2, No. 5 of Rhythm. The overwhelming feeling in this poem is despair. In the first stanza a mother is depicted forming her child with her own hands, yet in the second stanza the mother abandons the child. In the fourth stanza the mother is seen selling the very things she used to make her child and returning home heartbroken. In the fifth and final stanza the speaker takes on the persona of the mother, telling the daughter not to follow her. The poem ends, “There is nothing here but sad sea water, / And a handful of sifting sand” (1). The second poem is “Geraniums” by Wilfrid Wilson Gibson, featured in Vol. 2, No. 7 of Rhythm. The poem is the story of a man who bought flowers from a poor woman so that she would have a place to sleep for the night. In the end, the speaker cannot help but think that not only will the flowers be dead tomorrow, but the old woman may be dead too. The speaker sees the woman’s death as an end to her “heavy sorrow” because they’ll be no “need to barter blossoms – for a bed” (73). The figure at the bottom of these two pages is a decidedly despondent one. The drawing loses its hopeful, philosophical bent and becomes a figure of bent over sadness and the orb seems to be merely a spot ink and not part of the picture.

The third and final time we see this figure the picture regains some of its hopefulness; not because of the work’s subject matter, but because of the tone it is delivered in. In Rhythm (Vol 2., No. 10) Gilbert Cannan writes a piece on marriage entitled “Observations and Opinions.” The piece is decidedly against marriage the institution as it stands in Cannan’s day. Cannan writes, “Every marriage is in itself a sacrament or a piece of blasphemy and neither the sanction of the State nor the blessing of the Church can alter its character” (265). Cannan even takes a surprisingly feminist stance in his views on marriage stating, “The majority of marriages are ruined by the absurd masculine theories concerning women, theories to which women, being ill-educated and economically dependent, subscribe.” Cannan is arguing for the right for people to divorce without becoming social outcasts, yet in his argument he makes points that could be used in the feminist movements of the time as well as the gay rights movement of our time. Cannan ends his piece, “Without simplicity, without courage, without generosity there can be no good marriage, and without good marriage, without ideal of marriage which can conquer fear of public opinion and its purblind, hypocritical, official morality there can be no health in us” (267). The figure once again looks hopeful, looks towards a better future and a better world.

"Portrait de Nos Contemperains," a drawing published in 1896, in Le Petite Journal des Refusees, stands in stark contrast with two other items from the year 1911: an advertisement for Sapolio household cleaner from The Century Magazine, and a poem titled "The Year That's Awa.'" The first shows hints of nonsensical humor, and absurd artwork which was the precursor to Dadaism and Surrealism. The second two examples show much more conventional thoughts just as Modernism was coming into existence--the advertisement gives a sense of women's cultural roles at the time of publication, and the poem shows sentiments that are still alive and well today, but using language that is outdated.

The portrait from 1896, drawn by the editor of the magazine, James Marrion, is fractured by a crucifix shaped object which could also be seen as a window pane, with each square showing one fourth of a man's figure. The result is a pieced together portrait of apparently an anonymous person, and it is surrounded by skeletons which appear to embrace one another vaguely. One skeleton has a long tail, but appears human otherwise. The advertisement for soap is certainly dated when it says that one can not keep house without both a "bright woman" and Sapolio. The statement that the soap will be the "willing servant of bright women everywhere" could suggest the more modern idea of women's empowerment, but is still an old-fashioned idea. The poem published in the first month of the new year in 1911 is surrounded by a few ornamental drawing details, and uses language that might be that of the casual male of the time and place, London, in which it was published. The word soldier is spelled "sodger." The speaker pays honor to the women loved in the past year, and the overall tone is one of a drinking song, or poem in this case, with the line, "Here's to the year that's awa'/ We will drink it in song and in sma'..."

     While searching through the magazine achives for quite some time, I was able to come across two works that caught my attention. The very first one was an article written by Teresa Billington Grieg entitled "For Sex Equality". This article caught my attention because it focused on issues that I was familiar with. I have learned many times about the inferiority that women have in relation to men, and the struggles that they had to go through to get many of the same rights as men. While reading it I noticed that this article was in favor of women's suffrage, and the attempt to make their situation better. It stated in the article that women during this time, outnumbered men, and this scared the men because they did not want to be dictated by the voice of women, therefore they felt it necessary to silence women. They silenced them by not granting them certain rights, like the right to vote. I was upset when I read the first half of the article, but quickly became relieved when I realized that many men took the side of the women and made attempts to keep them on an equal playing feild. Many men wanted women to be equal and share the same rights as them. I was glad to see that both men and women were taking steps to advance the plight of women in society. 

     Another work that I came across was also in The New Age titled "The Master and the Leaves" by Thomas Hardy. This work was not an article but a poem. I often enjoy reflecting on poetry because poetry is subjective, and you can take from it whatever you feel is right. While I was reading this poem, it made me feel a little sad. Usually when one reads a poem about the changing of leaves or the changing of seasons, you tend to feel happy and enlightened. At first I felt this way, but quickly felt saddened when I realized that no one was noticing this change, or cared to acknowledge its existence. When a poet writes about the seasons changing, it indicates a life cycle or life, death and rebirth. This poem is told from the point of view of the leaves on a tree, the leaves are actaully the ones experiecing such changes, but those around them, seem not to notice this, the "master" in particular for that is who it is addressed to. I tried to dig deeper into the meaning of this poem in relation to the modernist era, and came to the conclusion that while a change in art was occurring, many people of higher power did not seem to care or take part in the beauty was that evolving. The modern era was an introduction of new things, just like the seasons are, but sadly, many of these changes went unseen.

Ashley Carlisle, Courtney Fenner, and Wycliffe Mcallister

Feminism & Gender in The New Age

The New Age magazine tackled several issues over the course of it somewhat lengthy lifespan.  One topic of note was that of gender in America.  While the magazine in its early days vigorously supported women’s rights, featured nonfiction pieces written by women, and tackled hisotrical notions of women in the home, it became a magazine that appeared to place women on the back burner after the height of the suffragist movement.  Perhaps this made The New Age far less modern and inventive than it purported itself to be.

In a random sampling of four issues (always including the first and last issues) during the years 1907, 1909, 1910, and 1912, one can get a general sense of attitudes towards women in the early years of The New Age.  The early stages of The New Age demonstrate a keen awareness of gender/feminist issues as well as a general support of women’s equity.  Though obvious promoters of women’s rights, the magazine struggled with its own very modernist equitable goals and the culturally learned practice of relegating women, predominantly married, to domestic life.  What emerges from this push and pull over “a woman’s place” is a desire to keep women the mistresses of their domains—houses—while beginning to afford them the same rights as their husbands.  However, by the end of the early period, around 1912, there was a significant drop in the number of women-focused articles.  In addition to the absence of women from the magazine’s landscape, there was also a shift in the attitudes towards women.  While the magazine seemed to believe women to be equals in its earlier days, it turned toward trivializing women.

For example, in the first year’s volume (1907), second issue, hosts an article promoting women’s voting rights—written by a woman—while just a few pages later is an ad entitled, “A Woman’s Question.”  The ad persuades mothers to subscribe to The Daily News which, unlike other newspapers, does not print any horse racing statistics, and, therefore, does not invite the evils of gambling into the home.  The conflict is between moving toward the future with women having just as much a say as men and holding on to the past with women reigning over hearth and home.

As the issues in this first volume progress, we see a series of opinion pieces on proposed bills that would have affected women (“Married Women and the Vote,” “Deceased Wife’s Sister Bill”).  In issue #18, one of the featured poems is “Mary Magdalene,” in which the woman poet uses Mary Magdalene’s tolerance and understanding as a tongue-in-cheek commentary on the plight of women.  Issue #26 touts a reading of Euripedes’ Medea that sympathizes with the title character as a woman who performed all of her husband’s heroic acts while he received all the glory: a not so thinly veiled nod, again, to women’s roles of the period.

In the volume’s final issue, #26, there is a critique of artist H. John Collier’s rendering of Lady Godiva (criticized for being to realistic and not “imaginative”), an ad for “a boarding and day school for girls and for younger boys” (meaning that girls can go to school with younger boys but not with boys their own ages), and a letter in response to an article on Hedda Gabbler (claiming that Gabbler is not as heroic and thus not worthy of the canonization afforded to her).  By the end of the first issue, there is a clear sense that women have a role in the magazine, that they are involved both as subjects worthy of evaluation and as contributors entrusted to write across a range of political and social issues.

A few years later, though, The New Age tells a different story.  In a random sampling of issues during 1909, there were only four pieces even mentioning women.  One letter to the editor in issue #26 was from a Eugenist who believed that there should be fewer mothers and more birth control in order to prevent the onslaught of more dictators, Hitler is cited as one example of someone who had a mother.

Feminism in the New Age

Elon Shore

MaryAnne Guzman

Daniela Perez 

           The topic of feminism and women’s rights is a key idea in The New Age magazine. Feminism, as used by the writers of The New Age, focused on women’s suffrage in the late 1900s in Britain and is defined as the struggle to obtain equality of the political and moral rights of women. The New Age printed various viewpoints about this topic from different writers, editors, and readers that spanned many issues. The discussion began with the writings of the suffragette Teresa Billington-Greig, continued with the inflammatory anti-feminist opinions of Belfort Bax combined with the strong reaction they created, and carried on with the many opinions from readers. These views were not just confined in the articles but were also found in the advertisements and manifestos. As a result, The New Age created a discourse with controversial and differing opinions about women’s suffrage that defined  feminism in a holistic way.     

            One writer in particular, Teresa Billington Greig, was a featured writer promoting women's suffrage. In the May 9th issue in 1907, the second issue of the magazine, Teresa Billington-Grieg wrote the article, “Women’s Right to Vote” that highlights the history of women’s rights in Britain and the need for women’s suffrage.  She also introduces the idea of protected and unprotected women. Protected women also known as married women are meant to stay inside and take care of the household. Unprotected women are meant to be hostesses and carry on entertainment. Even though there are differences, she argues that “by the law, and in the minds of the mass of men, women are still regarded as a kind of property.” (Vol 1 number 2, pg 24) In order to be seen as more than just property, women must regain the right to vote. This law will protect women and make them part of general society. Billington was forceful in her writing in advocating for a woman's right to vote. 

The New Age became a platform for the voices of many suffragists. Teresa Billington Greig in particular, began her fierce and powerful rebellion against anti feminists in the Modernist era in the pages of The New Age. She  was featured monthly in the magazine to demand equal political rights for all women. She often used the words “demands” and “rebellion” in much of her early writings. Reforms were seen as sinister, despicable and betraying to the Women’s Suffrage movement. The New Age lends its support to feminists by valuing their political stance, opinion, and manifesto in many issues.  This important topic had a place in the New Age from the very beginning of its circulation.

            As she continued to publish her writings, her deamnds became attacks on the Socialists in Britain.  In the May 23 issue of The New Age titled “Woman’s Right to Vote; Short-sighted Socialists”, Billington-Greig referred to the Socialists as being neglectful and hypocritical to the movement.  She states that Socialists “point to their national constitutions, to their bases and statements of principle …, But what practical bearings have these things upon their everyday works and words?” (page 6) Here, Billington has referred to the socialists as being hypocritical to the movement. In addition to her writing, other writers published articles about the philosophy of women's suffrage, the overall political movement, and the public perception of the political movement. In May 23rd issue of 1907, the paper begins with the Political Outlook and the fourth topic is titled “The Future of Woman’s Suffrage”. This brief snippet analyzes the political price politician’s face running purely as “Suffragists”. The paper agrees that the political price is too high for politicians to depend solely on this label. However, the writers do applaud the tactics of public display and protest by the suffragists as a method of beginning public dialogue about the subject.  Suffrage is a topic that was the center of many issues in The New Age.

            No discussion about feminism in The New Age can be complete without the writings and opinions of Mr. Belfort Bax.His views on feminism and his anti-feminism views spawned many a disparaging response. Mr. Bax's first article in the May 30th issue in 1908 (vol III, number 5) called “Feminism and Female Suffrage” was the highlight of the issue. In the article Mr. Bax criticizes women who, already under the protection of their husbnads, want the right to vote and be protected by the law; “among all the women’s rights advocates I am not aware of one who, in her zeal for equality between the sexes, has ever suggested abolishing the right of maintenance of the wife by the husband.” (page 8) He argues that women are well protected by the law through the binding contract of marriage. He continues that since women have the benefit of this protection, they do not need to have the right to vote. Fully aware of the severity of Mr. Bax's opinions, the editors of The New Age wrote in bold letters that a counter-arguments would be published in the next issue.

Responses to Bax's article came swiftly from Milicent Murby's "Undiluted Masculinism" on June 20th 1908 Vol III No. 8. It is filled with harsh language and metaphors that painted Bax as antiquated as she writes "to quit metaphor, however, and come to the point. Mr. Bax says it is a flagrant and a brazen falsehood that non-enfranchised womanhood is groaning under the oppression of unjust man-made laws, and he alleges that the real facts furnish a powerful argument against what he calls the “ Suffragettes’ propaganda. ” Does he mean to suggest that women are not legally excluded from the franchise (they are not, as a matter of fact, but the contrary is generally assumed)?” (page 8) Her methods of disputing his argument, both coy and clear, are important to how women are viewed in the magazine. She wants to know why the family structure, which is restrictive to women, would be the very reason that they should inhibit women from having the right to vote at all. She continues, “Mr. Bax is like Marie Antoinette when the people were starving for want of bread: “Can’t they eat cake?” he cries.” (page 9) She uses the historical metaphor of the out of touch French Queen beautifully to show the indifference of his argument in the real life world of women.

            The writers of The New Age were not the only with up-roaring opinions about feminism. In fact, the readers’ opinions of the writers’ views on feminism were perhaps the most realistic of the modern age, demonstrating how society was dealing with it at the time. In the early World War I issues of The New Age, when feminism seemed to calm down from the views of the writers in the early years of The New Age, the readers demonstrate to up hold their beliefs and when the controversial topic appears to be dying out, revive it. This is demonstrated with readers like Audrey Mary Cameron in the August 1914 article, whose letter to the editor makes feminism and women’s suffrage a hot, debatable topic of the time.

            Just when the nation seems to be supporting women voices in magazines like The New Age, the opinions of some women advocating the end to “passing [of] a measure for women’s enfranchisement,” undo some of  the progress made by the nation. Cameron suggests terminating the feminist movement, “noisy,” and “dangerous,” because it is a male-dominated government and “man’s league” where women should not be a part of. The New Age publicizes opinions of opponents and proponents of feminism like Cameron and other readers and writers that disagree with her.

            The differing opinions found in the articles are also reflected in the advertisements. Advertisements mirrored the contrasting perspective on women’s place in British society. The dichotomy between domestic and feminist lifestyles reverborate throughout each issue. For example, the March 20th 1907 (Vol II, number 22) issue had two contradicting advertisements that reflect the articles. On one side, there is an advertisement for Hudson soap that appeals to the domestic women.

“A WOMAN TALKED.SHE talked about the beauty and cleanliness of her clothes and home -- of the saving of labour, time and money- a-n d of a genial, comforting household brightness. She was a regular user of HUDSON’S SOAP.”  P431

This advertisement symbolizes what some people believe a woman should be. Later on in this very issue, an advertisement targets very different type of woman:

 A CONFERENCE ON EMPLOYMENT FOR EDUCATED WOMEN will be held at CAXTON HALL, WESTMINSTER, on APRIL 2nd at 2.45 p.m, and APRIL 3rd, at 2.45 p m and 7.45 p.m.

Subjects : The Economic Position of Women. Architecture as a Profession for Women. The Newer Openings for Women. The Communal

Kitchen. Home Economics (King’s College Scheme). Teaching in Trade Schools. Civil Service (New Regulations and Openings). ADMISSIOFNRE E. RESERVED SEATs 1S. each.

Apply to CENTRAL BUREAU FOR EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN, 9, Southhampton Street, London

            Here, the advertisement is promoting and inviting women to get out of the house and into the work force. This shows an empowering symbol of women rejecting their domestic roles. The fact that these two advertisements stand side by side in one issue shows the continuing dialogue seen throughout the journals.

            Modernism is a movement that broke traditions and rejected the Victorian ancestry. It allowed for the new views and opinions to be expressed together. Dissecting The New Age through a feminists lense shows the different dimensions that the Modernists were trying to advocate. The differing views were perceived and embraced by The New Age community to produce a real dialogue that exposes the issue as it unfolded during the era. Across the different mediums within the journal, each side was given the opportunity to express their views. The New Age discussed feminism in a manner that was true to its modernist roots.