Contents
Introduction 2
Chapter 1: Rhythm’s Manifesto – Sweeping Onward or Flapping in the Vague? 12 Chapter 2: Rhythm and Mansfield – Developing a Modernist Aesthetic 21 Chapter 3: Rhythm’s Artwork – Celebrating the Rise of the Female Artist 35
Conclusion 49
Works Cited 55
Introduction
“In some ways they are like the moon: changeable, often short-lived, apparently shining in the indirect light of literature, and holding in their devotees a desire which is insatiable” (238). In “The Little Magazines”, Alan Swallow poetically introduces the literary genre of the ‘little magazine’. It is generally characterised as a modernist literary vehicle which first arose towards the end of the nineteenth century. Its rise cannot be pinpointed geographically; the literary periodical was published in multiple countries. Particularly, the little magazine flourished in the United States, England, and France. Due to a variety of literary and artistic elements expressed in these little magazines, ‘one may expect any contradiction’ with regard to theoretically defining them, notes Swallow (238). Indeed, several publications are, in fact, not changeable and have lasted for decades, such as Poetry, Lyric, and Voices.
Yet, amidst the wilderness of periodical publications, one can filter out a number of key concepts which can help define the little magazine. Firstly, these magazines are seldom remunerative. Turning them into profitable ventures is not an editor’s primary goal – or a goal at all, even. Instead, little magazines “are published generally at a sacrifice for those
associated with them”, states Swallow, “with the result that the publishers must dig into their pockets for mailing, correspondence, even printing; they must take time from busy lives to do the editorial work; and the authors must contribute their writings without remuneration” (238). Consequently, then, the desire to be connected to or affiliated with a little magazine as either an editor, a writer, an illustrator or be it in any other possible way, is driven by an entirely different motivation, one which is tied in with, for instance, certain political, cultural or literary beliefs. “Apart, perhaps, from book publications, such magazines are the only place in which new trends in literature may be heard”, notes Swallow (239). Therefore, little
a newly formed group does not find a magazine which will give it voice, it will soon establish a ‘little’ journal of its own” (Swallow 240).
The final and most significant characteristic of the little magazine is an unsurprising one: over the course of years, it has produced great literature in its heyday, and nowhere else can one find a combination of manifestos, prose, poetry and imagery than in a little magazine. Obviously, many periodicals can be classified as “practically worthless, with poor, miserable standards”, admits Swallow, but where, perhaps apart from books, “are we likely to find the great stories and poems of our day?” (240). Moreover, as was briefly touched upon in the previous paragraph, magazines can be published more frequently than books over a short period of time, and thus are able to better grasp and reflect current literary developments.
Since the genre of the little magazine is generally classified as ‘modernist’, and the medium’s rise is entangled with modernism’s commencement as a literary movement at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century, it is of great significance to establish how little magazines adhere to the modernist aesthetic – and what this aesthetic actually entails. More importantly, this exploration leads to an analysis of the English little magazine Rhythm, the object of study of this thesis, and whether or not it can be classified as modernist.
According to David Bennett, what strikes periodicals as modernist is, among other elements, the manner in which it presents texts as a “collage or (temporal) montage of
fragments in provisional or indeterminate relations. The experience of periodical reading is an experience of discontinuity” (480). Bennett refers to literary monuments such as The Waste Land, Ulysses, and Finnegans Wake, which were all first fragmentarily published in little magazines before they appeared as complete books. In this particular instance, Bennett refers to ‘interwar’ little magazines which appeared between the First World War and Second World War, although the concept of literary fragmentation is equally applicable to little magazines
which arose before the First World War. “It is arguably more than coincidence that the experience of discontinuity which typifies periodical reading should also typify the reading experience of the canonical texts of modernism over whose conception and birth the little magazine presided”, he notes (480). In other words, the little magazine has influenced the interpretation of monumental modernist works through its fragmented format. Furthermore, the aforementioned ‘literature and poetics of the fragment’ (partly) instigated modernist-related movements such as imagism and surrealism, which, with the help of American poet and critic Ezra Pound, flourished on the pages of little magazines. Moreover, it were these particular movements and their inherent stylistic, collage-like techniques in which modernist works such as The Waste Land and Finnegans Wake originated (Bennett 481). In typical modernist fashion, as Bennett states, the text “presents itself, in Roland Barthes’s well-worn phrase, as ‘a multi-dimensional space in which a variety of writings … blend and clash. The text is a tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable centers of culture’” (481).
However, the similarity between the fragmented composition of modernist literary works and the ‘scissors-and-paste labor of magazine editing’, as Bennett puts it, also brought along confusion with regard to pinpointing the little magazine’s modernist qualities (481). Notably, it is the distinction between – and confusion of – the terms ‘modernist’ and ‘avant-garde’ which troubles a clear interpretation of the little magazine as a modernist literary vehicle. According to Peter Bürger, modernists emphasise the significance of the individual parts that make up the ‘organic symbol’, the whole: “Nothing is superfluous, all is necessary and congruent; the individual parts can be understood only through the whole, the whole only through the parts” (Bennett 483). By contrast, the avant-gardist believes that the individual parts or ‘reality fragments’ together produce meaning, a theory which can be applied to the selection of novels that were published in parts in little magazines and together made up an entire novel which carries its own, definitive meaning (Bennett 483). As Bürger claims in
Theory of the Avant-Garde, the ‘organic work of art’, favoured by the modernist, “seeks to make unrecognizable the fact that it has been made” (72). Therefore, the connections which together make up the organic whole are ‘covered’ and deemed insignificant individually (72). “The opposite holds true for the avant-gardiste work: it proclaims itself as an artificial
construct, an artifact”, states Bürger (72). Crucially, Bürger introduces the term ‘montage’, which is considered as the core principle of avant-gardiste art: “The ‘fitted’ (montierte) work calls attention to the fact that is made up of reality fragments; it breaks through the
appearance of totality (72). Furthermore, the avant-garde work resembles the (little)
magazine’s structure through its implementation of indeterminate boundaries, resulting in the notion that “elements may be added or subtracted without undoing a unity” (Bennett 483). Nonetheless, one can argue that Bürger’s modernist interpretation of the individual part’s significance is applicable to (the structure of) the little magazine, too, since little magazines can indeed present works of prose and poetry, for example, that stand on their own and thus do not need the ‘support’ of the magazine’s remaining contents in order to convey a certain meaning or message. These observations, then, mark the little magazine’s vacillating nature, its essence fluctuating between that of both a modernist and avant-garde literary vehicle. More concretely, then, are critics to judge the little magazine as one, unified work of art or are the separate parts within, such as the prose, poetry, and illustrations, more important when assessing a periodical’s artistic qualities? Or, crucially, can it be both?
The ongoing, universal discussion about the little magazine’s qualities as either an avant-garde or modernist literary vehicle, or a combination of the two, is also applicable specifically to my object of analysis in this thesis, the English little magazine Rhythm. As Faith Binckes quotes Malcolm Bradbury, who wrote an extensive analysis on the
re-positioning of Rhythm in the late 1960s, “’there is a good case for recording Rhythm (…) as the first English little magazine’” (1). Binckes’s intensive research into Rhythm, and its
relation to other little magazines in the literary field at the beginning of the twentieth century, is presented in Modernism, Magazines, and the British Avant-Garde: Reading Rhythm, 1910-1914. Although Binckes has undoubtedly conducted the most research on Rhythm in
comparison to other literary scholars, she refrains from specifically analysing and listing Rhythm’s modernist qualities – or lack thereof.
In the words of Bradbury, what gave Rhythm its innovative, if not to say revolutionary, character was the magazine’s ability to “’link together literature and art as forms of
expression which not only could illuminate and influence each other, but which had a common aesthetic basis’” (Binckes 1). Although the strive for a ‘common aesthetic basis’ would later serve as the foundation for most little magazines, Rhythm, with the publication of its first issue in the summer of 1911, can be viewed as a literary herald of this aesthetic. Specifically, Rhythm paved the way for Post-Impressionism, a movement mainly concerned with a representation of art through structure, abstract form and a use of vivid colours (Millard 576). The interest in Post-Impressionism reflects Rhythm’s character as a multidimensional little magazine, since, along with the publishing of a plethora of Post-Impressionist artwork, the movement’s literary equivalent was firmly represented in the magazine, too. Moreover, the English publication differentiated itself from other little magazines through its ‘international orientation’, with a specific interest in Parisian culture (Binckes 2). Hence, the contents of Rhythm reflected a Post-Impressionist angle, a movement which originated in France. The ‘Rhythmists’, as Binckes refers to the journals affiliated artists, were viewed by many as “Britain’s best hope for contributing to and reshaping the movement” (2).
One of the Rhythmist writers who took great inspiration from Post-Impressionist artwork, and whose writing career flourished during her time as assistant editor of Rhythm, is Katherine Mansfield. As Angela Smith puts it in “Katherine Mansfield and Rhythm”, “hers
are the most daring experiments with fictional form that appeared in Rhythm, matching the zest of the innovations in portraiture, landscape and design in the magazine’s illustrations” (102). Furthermore, Mansfield’s view on literature’s purpose, and specifically Rhythm’s role within the Post-Impressionist debate, greatly aligned with the ideas of John Middleton Murry, along with those of M. T. H. Sadler, the founder of Rhythm. Soon after Murry and Mansfield first met – coincidentally – in a café in Paris, Murry published Mansfield’s “The Woman at the Store” in Rhythm, in 1912. As Smith notes, Mansfield’s writing, just like the artwork published in Rhythm, “penetrates beneath the outward surface and rhythmically disengages strange, sometimes recurrent, images such as the bleached landscape and the figures whitened by pumice dust in ‘The Woman at the Store’” (105).
Mansfield’s textual contributions to and role as assistant editor of Rhythm are not the only factors that explain her significance to a discussion of Rhythm; her initial writings for, and eventual feud with, the rivalling little magazine the New Age is essential when aiming to contextualise Rhythm within the field of (modernist) little magazines. Not only did Rhythm and the New Age’s rivalry induce ‘aggressive patterns of self-definition’ on both sides, as Binckes notes, it resulted in a transformation of Mansfield’s writing, too (9). Again, taking elements from Mansfield’s “The Woman at the Store”, Smith states that the story “represents a radical shift from the satirical mode of the stories written for the New Age, (…) to a form that approximates to Rhythm’s principle, ‘Before art can be human again it must learn to be brutal’” (111). According to Smith, Rhythm’s notion of brutality is conveyed through the story’s setting (‘the backblocks of New Zealand’) and the fact that it “contains a murder and may anticipate another”, the latter also being an important element in Mansfield’s “Millie” and “Ole Underwood”, stories which appeared in the Blue Review, Rhythm’s successor (111).
Moreover, the editors and writers of, on the one hand, Rhythm and, on the other, the New Age particularly disagreed on the reception of and attitude towards ‘Bergsonism’. The
French philosopher Henri Bergson, favoured, briefly put, experience and intuition over reason and science in order to interpret reality. To Murry, founder and editor of Rhythm, Bergsonism represented “’the triumph of the personality, the culmination and not the negation of reason’” (Binckes 106). Specifically, Murry was inspired by Bergson’s ideas about capturing reality, which can be done either intellectually or intuitively (Nakano 25). The former captures time chronologically, while the latter is based on how humans psychologically perceive time, to which Bergson refers as duration (Nakano 25). As this thesis’s second chapter reveals, Katherine Mansfield implemented Bergson’s theory of duration in her short story “The Woman at the Store”.
By contrast, T. E. Hulme wrote an article for the New Age in which he expresses his contempt for Bergson, not necessarily ridiculing Bergsonism, but condemning a form of sensationalised culture which comprised the rise of the New Woman and popular journalism, which were, especially at the time, linked to Bergson. By claiming that Bergsonian
philosophy instigated a “suggestible, sensationalized culture composed of ‘superficially deep’ pseudo-intellectual women, (…) fuelled by a hyped-up, dumbed-down periodical press”, Hulme intended to undermine the cult status which Murry had claimed for it (Binckes 107). Apart from the fact that Rhythm’s position towards Bergsonism formed one of many motives for the New Age to actively attack Rhythm, with Murry and Mansfield in particular, it shines a light on both magazines’ ‘modernist’ qualities, and lack thereof, too. As Matthew Taunton notes in “Modernism, time and consciousness: the influence of Henri Bergson and Marcel Proust”, Bergson’s interpretation of temporality ‘freed’ modernist writers, such as Virginia Woolf, from the “temporal structure of the conventional plot”, Bergson’s work having a “profound influence on the ways in which modernist literature represented time and
consciousness”. Subsequently, one could argue that the New Age’s conception of Bergson, or at least the rejection of his philosophy’s societal consequences, results in contrasting views on
modernism generally in relation to Rhythm and Murry’s embracing of Bergson. To say the least, both little magazines were not only rivals, but also differed significantly in content and point of view.
In light of the intriguing, yet rather complicated debate on the little magazine as either a modernist or avant-garde literary vehicle – or a combination of both –, Faith Binckes writes that ‘progressive periodicals’, of which Rhythm is a prominent example, “are often self-consciously aligned with the ‘new’, with some (…) containing the sort of manifestos that have been considered as the defining signifier of avant-garde affiliation” (10). However,
subsequently ending the discussion of Rhythm’s identity would be far too simplistic, for ‘modernism’ and ‘avant-garde’ both are extensive terms which can be interpreted in many different ways. In the case of Rhythm, notes Binckes, a plethora of studies have evenly described the magazine as either avant-garde, and not being avant-garde enough (10). The latter observation is, for example, based on the critique that Rhythm, being published on the verge of the First World War, “failed to catch the spirit of the cultural revolution that was in the air” (Korg 146). Since Rhythm’s qualities and characteristics as a little magazine are profoundly based on its manifesto, which will be analysed and discussed in the first chapter of this thesis, and given the fact that Binckes, along with other scholars, delves far deeper into the contents of Rhythm than has been discussed so far, the modernist/avant-garde debate will be returned to in the first chapter.
Not only can one apply the concepts ‘modernism’ and ‘avant-garde’ as defined above to periodical studies in order to shed, in this particular instance, further light on Rhythm’s qualities as a little magazine, periodicals are also “crucial to an understanding of the [periodical] field at the time” (Binckes 6). In other words, the modernist/avant-garde
discussion can be turned on its head, too, transforming little magazines into multidimensional objects of study when aiming for a detailed interpretation of ‘modernism’ as a literary concept
at the beginning of the twentieth century. For instance, most scholars have contextualised little magazines within a contemporary modernist debate. The resulting studies have yielded valuable information about (individual) little magazines, but tend to ignore conceptions of modernism at the time in which these magazines were published. Do little magazines, and Rhythm in particular, “respect existing ideas of literary and artistic ‘movements’, or do they alter them?”, asks Binckes in her introduction (5). Or, contrastingly, “were they more revealing of the role magazines played in the competitive relationships from which the dominant concepts of modernism emerged?” (Binckes 5).
The (relevant) questions Binckes raises are of great significance within the outlines of this thesis and the questions it tries to answer. For instance, to what extent does Rhythm’s manifesto accord with the tone and contents of the magazine, and how does the manifesto adhere to (different) conceptions of modernism? Moreover, what made Rhythm’s
contributions unique when comparing them to those of other, competing little magazines – the New Age in particular? Furthermore, already having briefly introduced Katherine as important to Rhythm’s development as a little magazine, how does she relate and adhere to the
‘Rhythmist’ guidelines and the magazine’s Post-Impressionist perspective? Finally, detailed answers to these questions contribute to the answering of this thesis’s main question: Can Rhythm be classified as modernist, and if so, which of its characteristics support this modernist identification? Also, could one even assess a little magazine in its entirety and regard it as a ‘covered’ organic whole, or are the separate works within pre-dominant in evaluating Rhythm’s modernist qualities?
In order to answer these questions, I will first look closely at Rhythm’s manifesto, as published in its very first issue under the title “Aims and Ideals” but also, to an extent, voiced in “Art and Philosophy”, written by Rhythm co-founder and publisher Murry. Secondly, I will further contextualise Rhythm’s position within the field of little magazines around the time of
its existence and its specific (antagonistic) relation to the New Age, an aspect which has already been touched upon in this introduction. Thirdly, a selection of Katherine Mansfield’s short stories and poems will be discussed, such as “The Woman at the Store”, focusing specifically on how the implementation of sound and rhythm – characteristics essential to Rhythm – have changed Mansfield’s writing, and to what extent her voice has impacted the contents of Rhythm. Moreover, a paratextual analysis of Mansfield’s work in relation to some of Rhythm’s other, key content, such as the manifesto, textual contributions by other authors, and the Post-Impressionist illustrations, will reveal how Mansfield positioned her work within the Rhythmist debate. Finally, each of the aforementioned sub-topics will be related to the discussion of Rhythm, and the little magazine more generally, being either entitled
Chapter 1: Rhythm’s Manifesto – Sweeping Onward or Flapping in the Vague?
“Our intention is to provide art, be it drawing, literature or criticism, which shall be vigorous, determined, which shall have its roots below the surface, and be the rhythmical echo of the life with which it is in touch”, reads one of the more profound sentences in Rhythm’s manifesto, published under the header “Aims and Ideals” (36). In it, one recognises several elements which indicate Rhythm’s aspirations to be regarded as a radical and innovative little magazine. For example, as was pointed out in the introduction, Rhythm aimed to present multiple facets of artistry which all shared one aesthetic basis. This basis, then, was marked by a form of brutality, which could be expressed through both text and image, the words ‘vigorous’ and ‘determined’ pointing to Rhythm’s core principle, ‘Before art can be human again it must learn to be brutal’. This brutality is exemplified by Katherine Mansfield’s short story “The Woman at the Store”, in which Mansfield empathises with her story’s protagonist who has calmly killed her husband or Jessica Dismorr’s uncompromising depictions of the female body in her drawings – emphasising a woman’s pubic hair. Furthermore, although its true meaning remains rather indecisive in the manifesto, the use of the word ‘rhythmical’ is unique to Rhythm, pointing to its title and forming the little magazine’s key concept to which its affiliated artists strived to adhere.
One element expressed in “Aims and Ideals” Rhythm centralised, is the strive for progression, for the future, for the ‘new’, albeit without a rejection of the past, indicated by the words “to see that the present is pregnant for the future, rather than a revolt against the past” (36). As Binckes points out in “Networks of Difference: Rhythm and the Avant-Garde, 1911-1912, Rhythm “had been involved with the interests of the previous generation from its inception” (45). As co-founder and editor of Rhythm, Murry’s intentions not to mimic the past, but to shape and interact with it by taking elements from it and fit these into his own
movement. “All speculation worthy of the name must stand by the past, and only make advance when it has assimilated the past. Bergson is to be read in the light of Kant, and Hegel in the light of both”, Murry had written in the New Age, in 1911 (204). His appreciation of the past in the light of a progressive outlook, can even be taken to another, more extreme level; Murry had always expressed his appreciation for the Yellow Book, a quarterly publication which combined literature and art, and ran at the very end of the nineteenth century. He was clear on his “desire to make Rhythm ‘the Yellow Book for the modern movement’”, notes Binckes (47). Binckes then confirms this aspired resemblance, stating that Rhythm’s format was “certainly similar, juxtaposing text with elegant, daring, black and white line drawings, and the content of its early numbers seemed to confirm the connection” (47).
Rhythm’s view of art, and the manner in which it treats the present, past, and future, is reflected in Murry’s personal account of the purpose of art, titled “Art and Philosophy” and published in Rhythm’s inaugural issue. Given the fact that Murry was co-founder and publisher of Rhythm, and like no other contributor indicated and decided on the magazine’s artistic guidelines, I will regard “Art and Philosophy” as a textual expansion of Rhythm’s manifesto – not in the least because the manifesto is rather short and incomplete. In “Art and Philosophy”, Murry starts off with the statement that “art is consciously eternal”, an
immediate accordance with Rhythm’s overall treatment (and appreciation) of past
philosophers and artists in its quest to create a new, innovative movement (9). Other examples that elaborate on Murry’s treatment of the past and its relation to the present are numerous in Murry’s text: “The past is judged by the present, not the present by the past; for in the present alone the past has its being” (10). Notably, although affiliated, Rhythmist artists are
encouraged, perhaps even obliged, to regard the past as indispensable in their creation of prose, poetry or illustrations, they should never linger in a desire for the past. After all, notes Murry, “art sweeps onward, and by its forward march alone has its being” (9). Another
noteworthy element in “Art and Philosophy” is Murry’s admiration for Bergson, and his openness in expressing this appreciation – keeping in mind the New Age’s negative view on Bergson, as is discussed in the introduction. In typical Bergsonian fashion, the Rhythmist artist should “attain the truth not by that reason which must deny the fact of continuity and of creative evolution, but by pure intuition, by the immediate vision of the artist in form” (Murry 9). For instance, Eiko Nakano recognises a key element of Bergsonism in Mansfield’s “The Woman at the Store”. In it, Mansfield explores Bergson’s conception of ‘duration’, Mansfield opting to connect different moments to each other that “cannot be separated from another”, instead of structuring her story spatially through hours and minutes (Nakano 27). Keeping the New Age’s criticism in mind, which entails that a strive for ‘pure intuition’ troubles the artist’s judgement and credibility, Murry goes on to defend that “the pure intuition is no mystical surrender of reason and personality to a vague something (…). The intuition is that point, as it were, at which the reason becomes most wholly itself” (9).
Interestingly, Murry refrains from thoroughly, or even briefly, setting forth a
conception of ‘rhythm’, making the term and its implied meaning all the more mysterious. He speaks of modernism “penetrating beneath the outward surface of the world”, disengaging “the rhythms that lie at the heart of things, rhythms strange to the eye”, but what these ‘rhythms’ entail, remains uncertain (12). The manifesto, too, merely mentions ‘rhythm’, and then only vaguely, stating that “art (…) shall be vigorous, determined, (…) and be the rhythmical echo of the life with which it is in touch” (36). Moreover, it refers to the magazine’s title as “the ideal of a new art, to which it will endeavour to give expression in England” (36). This statement, with which the manifesto opens, indicates that ‘rhythm’ embodied an appropriation of Post-Impressionism and, specifically, Fauvism, which even before the publication of Rhythm’s first issue had already greatly influenced the works of Rhythm’s artists. Then again, as will be revealed in this thesis’s chapter on a selection of the
work Katherine Mansfield produced for Rhythm, the concept of ‘rhythm’ can be interpreted from a stylistic point of view, too, as the ‘subtle and natural’ rhythms in a selection of her poetry reveal (Cappuccio 186). Perhaps, then, ‘rhythm’ represented a particular use of metre expressed in prose and poetry or, from a painter’s perspective, a repeated pattern on the canvas.
The aforementioned multi-interpretability of Murry’s ‘rhythm’, and the general lack of specificity in both “Aims and Ideals” and “Art and Philosophy”, is regarded as Rhythm’s major weakness by multiple critics. Notably, Arnold Bennett, an English writer who was asked by Murry to review Rhythm’s opening issue, shortly after it was first published, wrote that Rhythm’s manifesto and Murry’s “Art and Philosophy” were ‘disappointing’: “It ‘flaps in the vague (…) Its meaning is not precise enough’”, records Binckes (42). Particularly,
Bennett opting for the word vague to describe the theory behind Rhythm’s content appears to be fitting. Decades later, in his feature on Rhythm in the Times Literary Supplement, Malcolm Bradbury concluded that Murry’s editorials were too vague, specifically when being
compared to the tone expressed in, for instance, Blast, a little magazine under the direction of Wyndham Lewis and Ezra Pound, first published in 1914 (Binckes 5). Caroline Maclean makes the same comparison when contextualising Rhythm’s manifesto, noting that Rhythm’s manifesto “appears modest alongside Wyndham Lewis’s manifesto (…) which describes itself as ‘an avenue for all those vivid and violent ideas that could reach the Public in no other way’” (146). In short, not only were Rhythm’s manifesto and its accompanying ideals entitled ‘vague’, this ‘vagueness’ subsequently undermines the little magazine’s core intention, which is to be brutal and revolutionary through prose, poetry, and art.
Yet, argues Angela Smith in “Katherine Mansfield and Rhythm, “Murry’s
championing of intuitive intensification in art, rejecting traditional aesthetic conventions, (…) is even now (…) strange and challenging to the eye” (104). By claiming that he championed
an ‘intuitive intensification in art’, Smith points to Murry’s embracing of Bergsonism, which, roughly put, reflected “the open avowal of the supremacy of the intuition, of the spiritual vision of the artist in form, in words and meaning” (Murry 9). Moreover, not only can Murry’s Bergsonian vision be regarded as daring and innovative during the time in which Rhythm was first published, his willingness to give impetus to an appreciation of Bergsonism, and his determination in drawing back upon this movement in several of his editorials in Rhythm, reflects Rhythm’s ‘personal sense of mission’ (Philpotts 48). In “The Role of the Periodical Editor”, Matthew Philpotts paints a detailed image of Murry as both founder and editor of little magazines, sketching out the devotion, energy, and passion Murry expressed as a creative pioneer. After all, Murry had not only dedicated himself to the creation of Rhythm, but also founded the Adelphi, in 1923, and thereafter managed to bring the Athenaeum back to life. Although the Athenaeum was, as opposed to Rhythm and the Adelphi, a magazine which already existed when Murry got involved as editor, “the purpose Murry brought to the role was entirely consistent with his other editorial projects”, notes Philpotts, Murry’s letters reflecting his “wholehearted commitment to the post and his desire to make a success of the magazine” (48).
Moreover, when analysing a little magazine, such as Rhythm, and its contents, one should keep in mind that its general characteristics, as sketched out in the introduction, conflictingly work “in opposition to much that we know about the way periodicals operate”, notes Binckes (43). Subsequently, this notion makes an analysis of Rhythm’s manifesto – and its relation to the magazine’s general tone and content – all the harder. Although Bennett, for instance, was of the opinion that a little magazine “’ought to exemplify its theory on a considerable scale, (…) then let it print a short story of at least five thousand words embodying some new principle’” and, most importantly, should “’avoid theorising in the vague’”, Murry replied that, perhaps, in the vagueness of Rhythm’s manifesto “’lay its
strength’” (Binckes 43). Murry firmly underscored this statement by referring to a significant element of both “Aims and Ideals” and “Art and Philosophy”, Rhythm’s relationship with the past. To Murry, modernism is a “cumulative project, in which newness must accept and acknowledge its relationship to the past” (Binckes 45). As a result, Murry could have intentionally kept Rhythm’s manifesto ‘vague’, for its core ideals – an appropriation of Bergsonism and the specific conception of art in relation to time – can be submerged with ideas of the past and artistic concepts that are yet to arise. “Equating vagueness with strength was a neat way of turning criticism on its head”, notes Binckes (45).
But, “’the thing is difficult’”, summarises Bennett concisely – and perhaps ironically, too (Binckes 43). In this particular instance, Bennett comments on the contradiction between his proposed outline of an ‘ideal’ little magazine, and Rhythm’s actual representation. This contradiction Bennett observes, is unsurprising; the little magazine has stood at the centre of modernism’s origin as a literary movement and the rise of the avant-garde, therefore is generally regarded as a literary vehicle which reflects changes within these movements. Consequently, keeping differing perceptions in mind of what ‘modernist’ signifies, both then and now, the little magazine is bound to be the subject of, at times, exhausting and fluctuating discussions within which scholars have largely disagreed with each other. Yet, by being aware of different time frames and deciding on one interpretation of ‘modernism’ and ‘avant-garde’, and subsequently place these definitions within one particular time frame, one could be able to make sense of these scholarly debates.
When contextualising the goals and ideas expressed in Rhythm’s “Aims and Ideals” and “Art and Philosophy” within an early twentieth century timeframe, including the period’s appropriate modernist conceptions, Rhythm’s manifesto falls short of being truly modernist. Indeed, as was pointed out in the introduction, Rhythm was one of the first little magazines to be produced from a ‘collective’ perspective, or at least aspired to a universal tone and form
which runs throughout the magazine – from manifesto to prose and accompanying illustrations. In that sense, Rhythm can be classified as a renewing enterprise and, thus, a modernist one, since the magazine’s common aesthetic basis and, particularly, representation of Post-Impressionism and Bergsonism – in both text and image – reflect a firm break with traditions, which, in the end, is what essentially defines modernism. However, how this common aesthetic basis is presented in Rhythm’s manifesto, then, weakens the publications’ modernist aspirations – particularly when being compared to little magazines that arose around the same time, such as Blast and the New Age. Strongly put, Rhythm was not as daring and concrete in both tone and message as, for instance, Blast. As Caroline Maclean puts it, “Rhythm’s purpose was less combative; rather than spar with the European avant-garde, it sought to appropriate it to its own purposes” (146). Putting potential differences between modernism and avant-garde aside for now, it is the appropriation of existing literary and artistic ideals – instead of coming up with an entirely new set of standards – which makes Rhythm less modernist than its contemporary rivals, since the ‘firm break with traditions’, as mentioned before, proves not to be as firm, after all. Rhythm’s editor Murry did not do so unwillingly, since he himself aimed towards turning Rhythm into an updated version of the Yellow Book. Furthermore, referring back to the contents of Rhythm’s manifesto, Murry’s outline of his dealing with the past can be read as a core element of Rhythm’s appropriation of existing modernist conceptions.
Perhaps, then, can Rhythm’s “Aims and Ideals” and “Art and Philosophy”, and Murry’s overall intentions, be classified as more avant-garde than modernist? Keeping Peter Bürger’s avant-garde conceptions in mind, as set forth in the introduction, Rhythm’s
manifesto indeed leans towards an avant-garde approach – the individual elements expressed in the manifesto together producing Rhythm’s core purpose, its essentiality. This notion, too, can be applied to any little magazine’s manifesto, Rhythm not being unique in expressing its
literary and artistic values through a manifesto. Even more so, including Pierre Bourdieu’s statement on the avant-garde’s defining purpose – “’the only way to be … is to be different’” –, Rhythm failed to be truly unique in the sense that Murry’s strive to adhere to the standards of the Yellow Book took on rather extreme proportions (Binckes 43). As Binckes points out, “its format was certainly similar, juxtaposing text with elegant, daring, black and white line drawings”, the illustration for Murry’s “Aims and Ideals”, too, strongly reminiscent of illustrations appearing in the Yellow Book (47). A final, significant – but perhaps initially underwhelming – characteristic of avant-garde culture, is the fact that the ‘avant-garde’ can simply be regarded as a separate branch, a subculture, of modernism, specifically intertwined with the development of little magazines, explains Binckes (10). Therefore, apart from the differences set forth by Bürger, which clearly indicate structural modernist and avant-garde differences at a core, detailed, and textual level, it comes as no surprise that the terms ‘avant-garde’ and ‘modernism’ are often confused and thus used interchangeably. Generally, Rhythm was fond of appropriating the practices of ‘avant-gardes of the past’, notes Binckes,
exemplified, for instance, by the magazine’s publication of satirical sketches, “a form that relied upon an element of reproduction and re-presentation in order to advance its case” (50). Although Rhythm’s editors and contributors, with Murry in particular, were perfectly aware of their appropriation, perhaps even mimicking, of previous avant-gardes, illustrated by the magazine’s appreciation of the past in shaping the future as expressed in the manifesto, the New Age could – in the eyes of Bourdieu – easily accuse Rhythm of not being new and radical, and therefore not avant-garde, enough. “A simple conclusion (…) that the New Age seized upon with gusto. Rhythm was imitative and out of touch, ‘another magazine of illiterate decadence’ by implication as far removed as possible from its own informed and scrupulous newness”, states Binckes in recapping the contents of “Present Day Criticism”, as published in the New Age, in 1912 (48). Not only do the comments made by the New Age re-establish
the ongoing rivalry with Rhythm, they also mark the latter’s unwillingness, and perhaps even inability – as exemplified by the magazine’s vague manifesto –, to operate in a competitive and revolutionary modernist field.
Having dealt intensively with Rhythm’s core elements, as expressed in “Aims and Ideals” and, to an extent, in Murry’s “Art and Philosophy”, how does the work and image of one of the magazine’s key figures, Katherine Mansfield, shape Rhythm’s position within the field of little magazines? Does Mansfield’s writing adhere to the Rhythmist characteristics expressed in Rhythm’s manifesto? Or, perhaps, do her contributions – at least some of them – capture Murry’s intentions even better in comparison to Rhythm’s, at times, vague manifesto? Finally, in which ways can Mansfield’s Rhythmist prose and poetry be regarded as
Chapter 2: Rhythm and Mansfield – Developing a Modernist Aesthetic
“’Over this magazine Katherine and I had met; it was the purpose for which we joined
forces’”, writes Murry in his autobiography Between Two Worlds, published in 1935 (Binckes 97). Murry’s remark captures Katherine Mansfield’s thorough involvement with Rhythm, both professionally and emotionally. Not only was Mansfield, after Murry had first accepted her short story “The Woman at the Store” in the spring of 1912, a definite force within Rhythm’s team of editors and contributors, her eventual marriage to Murry decisively marked her personal and creative investment in the magazine. Mansfield’s role in relation to Rhythm’s literary and artistic practice is particularly worth investigating, since she not only influenced Rhythm and its contents, but the magazine also, exhaustively, shaped her writing. Mansfield’s involvement with Rhythm is “arguably the most formative phase of her development of her own aesthetic”, argues Angela Smith in “Katherine Mansfield and Rhythm” (102). As was pointed out in the introduction, Mansfield is regarded as one of the magazine’s textual contributors who was able to fully match her writing with Rhythm’s (emphasis on) Post-Impressionist illustrations and design, which were omnipresent throughout each issue. Therefore, Mansfield’s textual contributions to Rhythm, consisting of prose, poetry, and – later on, together with Murry – editorials, are indispensable objects of study when aiming to determine Rhythm’s ‘modernist’ qualities and its position within the field of little magazines.
“At every stage of her life, Mansfield numbered painters among her closest friends and intimates”, notes Smith (110). This observation possibly explains, at least partly, why
Mansfield, like no other Rhythmist writer, was able to ‘translate’ Post-Impressionist aspects – predominantly applicable to paintings and drawings – and implement these into her own writing. Not long before she started writing for Rhythm, Mansfield became part of a collective of artists and creatives who shared a set of values and beliefs, the dominant one being, mildly
put, an appreciation of the theories of Henri Bergson. The Rhythmists, which this aforementioned collective would eventually turn into, were invested in reinterpreting – ‘inventing’ – Bergson’s philosophy, notes Charles Rearick in his review of Mark Antliff’s Inventing Bergson: Cultural Politics and the Parisian Avant-Garde (1328). Apart from Murry, the artists Mansfield felt closely connected to were, among others, painters Anne Estelle Rice and J. D. Fergusson, the latter going on to become Rhythm’s art editor. Fergusson, in particular, expressed a ‘Fauvist bias’ in both his creation and selection of Rhythm’s artwork – Fauvism being one of the newer artistic movements arising from Post-Impressionism, at the beginning of the twentieth century (Smith 103).
Apart from a deep appreciation of Bergsonism and Fauvism, Mansfield, Rice, Fergusson, and the remaining of the Rhythmists, had something else in common: they had exiled themselves from their former milieus, resulting in a celebration of what Frederick Goodyear in the opening essay of Rhythm’s inaugural issue refers to as a collective of ‘edgemen’ (3). In the eyes of Goodyear, these edgemen were “adventurous and academic spirits” [who] “all dream of freedom” and have deliberately disconnected themselves from civilisation in order to stimulate their intuition and creativity (3). As for Mansfield, she had written in one of her notebooks that her family members were incredible ‘bores’ who interrupted her whenever she was trying to read the journals of writers and painters,
subsequently detesting them all ‘heartily’, notes Smith (110). Smith’s portrayal of a rebellious Mansfield fits perfectly into the overall message of Goodyear’s opening essay, “The New Thelema”, and indicates why Mansfield’s writing flourished during her Rhythmist phase: “The pioneers are often scorned and buffered during their lifetime, because they seem deliberately to have forsaken civilization and sought to rebarbarise themselves. This is far from the truth. The call of the wild, green sickness, nostalgie de la boue – name it how you will – is a true impulse towards conscious freedom” (3).
Before Mansfield started as author and editor for Rhythm, she, like Murry, had written for literary nemesis the New Age. Not only did Mansfield’s very first contribution to Rhythm, “The Woman at the Store”, mark a shift from a preference for irony to an implementation of brutality in her writing, as was pointed out in the introduction, her move had more pervasive consequences for Rhythm generally, too. Having already dealt comprehensively with the ongoing feud between Rhythm and the New Age, the conflict worsened when Mansfield and Murry joined forces in 1912. To A. R. Orage and Beatrice Hastings, the former editor of the New Age for decades, the latter one of its most influential contributors, Mansfield leaving the New Age was “a personal as well as a professional blow (…), and their response was a similar combination of these elements”, writes Binckes in Modernism, Magazines, and the British Avant-Garde (112). Along with the fact that Orage and Hastings continuously set out to attack Rhythm’s credibility at all costs, exemplified by, for instance, their negative view on
Bergsonism, they also attempted to undermine Mansfield’s authenticity as a writer and, particularly, exploited her female weaknesses and subsequent ‘feminine writing’, captured in the serialised story “A Fourth Tale for Men Only”, which will be returned to later in this thesis (Binckes 112).
Yet, the combination of the New Age’s continuous raid on Rhythm and Mansfield’s increasing importance within the development and production of Rhythm’s coming issues, triggered Murry and Mansfield to start writing collaborative editorials for ‘their’ little magazine. These editorials, published in the summer of 1912, support “a reading of
manifestos as essentially dialogic and mutable forms”, states Binckes (114). For example, in “The Meaning of Rhythm”, published in the June 1912 issue of Rhythm, Mansfield and Murry set forth the three qualities of the Rhythmist artist: “Freedom, reality, and individuality are the three names for the ultimate essence of life” (18). Only by adhering to these three core
Keeping in mind that Rhythm’s very first ‘manifesto’, embodied through “Aims and Ideals” and “Art and Philosophy”, and written solely by Murry, was rather vague and incomplete, Mansfield’s input to the magazine’s editorials is of great value. Moreover, claims Binckes, “The Meaning of Rhythm”, in contrast to “Art and Philosophy”, “didn’t attempt anything as rash as the definition its title promised” and, furthermore, “had a very different tone from that of ‘Art and Philosophy’”, purportedly seeking to “rescue the real meaning of Bergson’s ‘intuition’ from the ‘hands of the mob’” (115). ‘The mob’, in the eyes of Mansfield and Murry, consisted of writers overcome by ‘seriousness’ who eliminated ‘adventure’ in their writing. According to Mansfield and Murry, adventure implied absolute freedom and stimulated writing ‘without fear or care’, which connects to the Bergsonian notion that intuition ought to prevail over intellect (19). Consequently, adventure is essential in the artist’s quest for ‘rhythm’, they claimed in their next editorial, “Seriousness in Art” (46).
However, Mansfield’s influence on Rhythm’s direction extended far beyond the editorials she co-authored. In light of the discussion on Mansfield’s ability to successfully integrate Post-Impressionist details into her writing, Angela Smith observes “the reiterated Fauvist insistence on the colour red in ‘Ole Underwood’”, a short story Mansfield wrote for the January 1913 issue of Rhythm which she dedicated to close friend and fellow Rhythmist Anne Estelle Rice (105). In taking inspiration from the Fauvists who vowed for “color to become an independent agent in painting”, as Charles W. Millard decisively captures Fauvism’s essence, Mansfield transforms the colour red into an independent agent in “Ole Underwood” (576). Although Smith does not illustrate her remark on the ‘Fauvist insistence on the colour red’ in “Ole Underwood”, an analysis of Mansfield’s short story indeed supports Smith’s claim. For instance, in merely the first few lines of the story’s second page, the narrator has already pointed to a woman’s ‘red, soapy fist’, a ‘big red prison’, a girl with ‘red hair’, and a ‘great big jar of red pinks’ (Mansfield 335).
Moreover, Mansfield’s implementation of Fauvist elements relates to the Rhythmists’ ‘invention’ of Bergsonism; according to Bergson, “’the finished portrait is explained by the features of the model, by the nature of the artist, by the colours spread out on the palette’”, quotes Eiko Nakano in “Katherine Mansfield, Rhythm and Henri Bergson”, as part of the collection Katherine Mansfield and Literary Modernism (36). Significantly, Nakano
highlights an awareness of protagonist Pearl’s senses in Mansfield’s “How Pearl Button Was Kidnapped”, a short story published under the pseudonym Lili Heron in the September 1912 issue of Rhythm. “During her short adventure”, Nakano writes, “she sees, hears, smells, touches, tastes, laughs, cries, and feels shy, happy, tired, hungry, scared, hot and excited. (…) Pearl’s changing feelings are the rhythms of her life that are performed and heard throughout the story” (37). Nakano’s remark, and the crucial linkage to the ‘rhythms’ of Pearl’s life, fits effortlessly into Mansfield’s and Murry’s editorial, “The Meaning of Rhythm”. Furthermore, Nakano confirms that Mansfield indeed “was inspired by her Colourist painter friends from Rhythm”, colours consequently playing a significant role in her Rhythmist writing (37).
Undoubtedly, of all the short stories Mansfield wrote for Rhythm, “The Woman at the Store” captures her Rhythmist intentions best. After Murry had first rejected one of
Mansfield’s short stories, she sent him “The Woman at the Store”, according to Murry a realisation of his “vague idea of what an appropriate story for Rhythm should be” (Nakano 27). Moreover, scholars have recognised a plethora of both Bergsonian and Post-Impressionist elements in Mansfield’s very first piece of writing for Rhythm, an omen of her eventual dedication to Murry’s magazine. In light of Angela Smith’s comment that “The Woman at the Store” contains one murder with another one perhaps to come, Pamela Dunbar, too,
specifically points to the fact that “The Woman at the Store” deals with “the consequences of a murder already committed, then moves towards a further killing” (44). Subsequently, Nakano aims to connect Smith and Dunbar’s plot observation to one of Bergson’s more
profound and recognised theories – his conception of time and duration. According to Bergson, one is able to capture reality in two different ways; through intellect and through intuition. The former captures time spatially, for instance through hours and minutes, while the latter, often referred to as ‘duration’ by Bergson, connects different moments to each other (Nakano 25). Returning to the plot of Mansfield’s “The Woman at the Store”, Nakano notes that “the story seems to focus on the continuity of duration by suggesting that one action cannot be separated from another”, thus suggesting that the anticipated murder cannot be separated from the already committed murder (27).
Furthermore, writes Nakano, Bergson connected his contrasting conceptions of ‘time’ and ‘duration’ through ‘images’, a term introduced in his book Matter and Memory. An ‘image’, according to Bergson, is equal to each feeling or perception of time one experiences, therefore “all sorts of different images coexist, without any of them becoming the centre or the end of the universe” (Nakano 26). Again, Mansfield appears to have taken inspiration from Bergsonism, the ‘white pumice dust’ – a textual element of “The Woman at the Store” highlighted in the introduction – as an exemplary representation of the Bergsonian image “’perceived when [our] senses are opened to them, unperceived when they are closed’” (Nakano 28). Interestingly, this observed emphasis on the senses of human beings is also present in Mansfield’s “How Pearl Button Was Kidnapped”, Mansfield thus extending her Bergsonian line of thought in her later stories for Rhythm. Along with the ‘white pumice dust’, Mansfield mentions the ‘tussock grass’, ‘coughing and chuffing’ horses, and a ‘big, open sore’, among other examples, which fit into Bergson’s aforementioned statement that none of these perceived ‘images’ are listed in order to form a centre, but instead all co-function evenly within Mansfield’s text (Nakano 28).
Additionally, “The Woman at the Store” emphasises “the loneliness and harshness of life in the bush – especially for women – and this ‘brutal’ aspect, which entirely accorded
with the journal’s manifesto from Issue 1”, states Gerri Kimber in “Mansfield, Rhythm and the Émigré Connection”, part of Katherine Mansfield and Literary Modernism (17). Indeed, several aspects of “The Woman at the Store”, in terms of both style and plot, indicate the story’s ‘brutal’ qualities. First and foremost, keeping in mind that Mansfield had been accused of ‘feminine writing’ by, among others, Orage and Hastings from the New Age, the depiction of the female protagonist in “The Woman at the Store” marks a radical shift from previous work she had produced. Importantly, Mansfield “practised an essentially androgynous method in which she was able to exploit a facility with ‘masculine’ modes in such a way as to make uncompromising ethical statements with a feminine loading to them (Harding 119). For example, focusing exclusively on the element of murder in the story, Mansfield is able to depict ‘the woman at the store’ – of whom is revealed that she has killed her husband – in such a manner that she is “plainly to be forgiven for murdering her rough husband”, writes Bruce Harding in “Mansfield, Misogyny and Murder: ‘Ole Underwood, ‘The Woman at the Store’ and ‘Millie’ Revisited” (122). Mansfield does so by portraying the woman at the store, who remains nameless throughout, as a victim of (sexual) abuse and, more profoundly, a victim of ‘frontier male patriarchy’ who eventually has the courage to take matters into her own hands, subsequently killing her abuser – her husband (Harding 122). Wittingly, readers are invited to perceive the central character of “The Woman at the Store” as “more than a harsh murderess”, reflects Harding (122).
Moreover, Mansfield is able to stylistically capture Rhythm’s proposed ‘brutality’ in “The Woman at the Store”, too, particularly when zooming in on her portrayal of her native country, New Zealand. As Claire Tomalin notes in Katherine Mansfield: A Secret Life, Mansfield aims for a “vivid and almost sinister evocation of the atmosphere of the sparsely inhabited wilderness, the poverty and ignorance of the people settled there, the ‘savage spirit’ of the place” (95). Harding’s view of the landscape painted by Mansfield in “The Woman at
the Store” accords with Tomalin’s, stating that Mansfield’s “notion of the environment as distorting and criminogenic recurs”, her depiction of New Zealand’s grim scenery leaning towards the “haunting depiction of the dreadful Australian ‘bush’ in Kangaroo (1923)” (121). Finally, Angela Smith notes the ‘sneering spirit of the country’, the landscape – part of the ‘backblocks of New Zealand’ – being “inhabited by ghostly figures”, thus also stressing Mansfield’s raw and brutal depictions (111).
Having already revealed a strong, ubiquitous, and multidimensional Rhythmist aesthetic in a selection of Mansfield’s prose and editorials for Rhythm, her versatility and aptitude as a Rhythmist writer came to light in an even greater manner in the poetry she wrote for Rhythm. As Richard Cappuccio notes in “Katherine Mansfield’s Russian Mask: Boris Petrovsky and the Poetry of Rhythm”, “there should be no question that Katherine Mansfield grounded herself in poetry” (182). Mansfield herself admitted in 1921, years after her first publications for Rhythm, how “the rhythms associated with poetry affected her writing process” (Cappuccio 182). Mansfield’s statement indicates both her development as a writer during her Rhythm phase and the influence her Rhythmist aesthetic had over her later career. Significantly, along with the implementation of ‘brutal’ and Post-Impressionist elements in her writing, which are present in, for instance, “The Woman at the Store” and “Ole
Underwood”, Mansfield integrated yet another layer of ‘rhythm’ in her poetry – exemplified by her use of metre and stress. Generally, Mansfield’s poetic style is “deliberately natural and reinforces her thematic content. Mansfield’s use of metre during this period was not to
measure lines, but – as Meredith Martin observes in the context of late nineteenth century writing – a means to ‘stress instinct in performance, holding onto the shadow of elocution and projecting forward to Pound’s desire for a ‘natural rhythm’’” (Cappuccio 183).
Apart from Martin’s comment on Mansfield’s use of metre, her brief reference to Ezra Pound, who can be considered as a daring and revolutionary, if not the ultimate, avant-gardist,
is indicative of the radical nature of Mansfield’s writing. Particularly, (a selection of) the Rhythmist poetry Mansfield produced under the pseudonym Boris Petrovsky can be regarded as exemplary of her strive for ‘natural rhythm’. “These works”, writes Cappuccio, “offer examples of the subtlety with which she crafted her diction along with her rhythms, in passages of what she would later refer to as ‘a kind of special prose’” (183). Moreover, in light of Mansfield’s comment on the prose-like qualities of the poetry she wrote for Rhythm, her friend William Orton added that all of Mansfield’s writing was “a kind of poetry, not so much in respect to form or content as in its extreme intensity and accuracy of realization” (Cappuccio 183). Consequently, Cappuccio states, Mansfield’s poetry in Rhythm is in dialogue with her short stories and the works of other Rhythmist writers published in the magazine (183).
Fittingly, along with “The Woman at the Store” – Mansfield’s first work of prose for Rhythm –, “Very Early Spring” and “The Awakening River”, two ‘Petrovsky poems’ marking Mansfield’s poetic debut in Rhythm, are regarded as good examples of Mansfield’s Rhythmist intentions by critics. Specifically, Rhythm co-founder Murry encouraged Mansfield to explore her identity as a writer of poetry, a freedom which A. R. Orage – editor of the New Age – was unwilling to give her (Cappuccio 184). Interestingly, Orage had even rejected Mansfield’s “Very Early Spring” and “The Awakening River”, published under the header “Two Poems of Boris Petrovsky. Translated by Katherine Mansfield” (Cappuccio 184). Briefly returning to the complex relationship between feminine and masculine modes of writing, expressed in “The Woman at the Store”, Mansfield’s ‘gender masks’, as Cappuccio puts it, are present in her two Petrovsky poems, too, Mansfield “posing as a man writing from a female point of view (187). This notion, then, reveals the dialogue Mansfield often had with herself when writing prose and poetry for Rhythm. “Very Early Spring”, for example, is in conversation intertextually with “The Woman at the Store”, the climactic images of the former – the
trembling ‘little blue lakes’, ‘the flags of tenderest green’ bending and quivering – connecting to the ‘shrill, symbolic landscape’ in the latter (Cappuccio 188). Moreover, within the context of Mansfield’s expressed ‘gender masks’, “Very Early Spring” can be read as “part of the fantastic dream of the woman at the store six years before the story takes place, six years before the miscarriages, six years before her broken spirit and violent action”, writes Cappuccio, thus being in accordance with Bruce Harding’s vision of the victimised female character in Mansfield’s work for Rhythm.
Furthermore, Angela Smith points to Mansfield’s portrayal of an ‘erotic and
dangerous’ spring landscape in both “Very Early Spring” and the second Petrovsky poem in Rhythm’s Spring 1912 issue, “The Awakening River” (113). Phrases such as ‘the rapture of the boundless ocean’ and the ‘mists of the sea clinging to their wild wings’, for example, illustrate Mansfield’s ‘dangerous portrayal’ of the landscape in her Rhythmist writing
(Mansfield 30). Moreover, Cappuccio reveals an intriguing connection between the Petrovsky poems in the Spring 1912 issue of Rhythm and the edition’s opening essay, “The Return to Poetry” by Laurence Binyon. In “The Return to Poetry”, Binyon vows for a new outlook on poetry, which he regards as ‘the foundation of writing’ (Cappuccio 185). According to
Cappuccio, Binyon’s essay – albeit unintentionally – carries out Rhythm’s (poetic) ideals most effectively, the Rhythmist poet striving for ‘subtle and natural’ rhythms which ought to be “’unendingly various, like the waves of wind in the corn’” (186). Subsequently, “Mansfield demonstrates the rhythmic simplicity that Binyon advocates not only in the loose rhythms of the lines but also in the images of physical touch, shivering stretches, and sensuous shaking of hair. (…) If Binyon suggests a rhythm of the wind, Mansfield adds rhythms of the elements (Cappuccio 188). Specifically, Cappuccio refers to phrases such as “He touches the boughs and stems with his golden fingers” and “Over the barren branches he shakes his yellow curls”, taken from “Very Early Spring”, which illustrate the rhythms of physicality combined with
elements of nature. These rhythms, Binyon stresses, should by no means be strict, since “rhythm imposed is no rhythm” (2). Decisively, Mansfield’s Petrovsky poems should be regarded as one of the finest literary achievements during her period as a writer and editor for Rhythm, these poems carrying out an unmatched assimilation of various ‘rhythms’, expressed through her ‘gender masks’, choice of vocabulary, and elements of style. More importantly, to what extent can Mansfield’s literature be classified as ‘modernist’, and how does her
effectivity in expressing her Rhythmist voice make up for Murry’s bleach manifesto? Unsurprisingly, with success comes criticism, too. For instance, staying within the parameters of Mansfield’s poetic achievements, the New Age’s Beatrice Hastings criticised Mansfield’s ‘forced’ implementation of rhythmic elements in the Petrovsky poems, expressed in “Present Day Criticism”: “We wonder if it is all a joke; especially as the verse is solemnly asserted to be a translation from the Russian! (…) We take it that these frenzies, syncopes, and collapses are really arranged to carry out the editor’s notion of rhythm” (519). Yet, instead of letting it get to her, Mansfield countered Hasting’s criticism by publishing the poem “To God the Father”, again a ‘translation’ of the work of Boris Petrovsky. In it, Mansfield questions, shortly put, modern faith, the reader ultimately finding the speaker as “a child nested in the lap of God, with that God nested in an oversized throne”, writes Cappuccio (193). Apart from plot, Cappuccio lays emphasis on the poem’s placement and lay-out: “Set on a single page, the poem’s high profile brings with it a vulnerability that invites scrutiny. Unlike Hasting’s critical parody, it is not buried under the weight of double columned text. Instead its placement in the spotlight indicates that both Mansfield and Murry regarded it as an important piece of writing” (191). Mansfield’s successful poetic reaction to Hasting’s criticism is reminiscent of her and Murry’s editorials, which were undoubtedly an improvement in comparison to Murry’s “Aims and Ideals” and “Art and Philosophy”, published in Rhythm’s first issue. Generally, the ongoing feud between Rhythm and the New
Age elicited an emphasis on satire on both sides, even though Mansfield initially had (partly) let go of her satirical modes of writing for Rhythm. In replying to a series of stories published in the New Age under the title “A Fourth Tale for Men Only”, written in order to cure
Mansfield of her ‘femininity’, Mansfield wrote “Virginia’s Journal” (Binckes 113). In it, Mansfield craftily dissects the writers of “A Fourth Tale”, exposing their sexual opportunism in the process (Binckes 120). Ironically, what lies at the root of their rivalry, is the fact that “the New Age and Rhythm were uncomfortably close”, states Binckes (118). “Both were visibly remaking not just relationships with other generations and templates, but with one another, and occasionally with themselves”, Binckes concludes (118).
In short, the literary platform that was offered to Mansfield by Murry, in the form of a little magazine such as Rhythm, which at the time of Mansfield’s first involvement had already existed for roughly a year, enabled her to explore both her talents and opinions as an innovative, radical, avant-garde writer and public figure. Specifically, with regard to writing fiction, Rhythm posed as Mansfield’s literary laboratory, in contrast to the periodical
Mansfield had written for before she met Murry – the New Age, interestingly also Rhythm’s archenemy. Murry and Mansfield’s close relationship, and the editorials, prose, and poetry which arose from their collaboration, consequently resulted in what Murry had perhaps hoped and intended all along: it improved the quality, boldness, and coherence of Rhythm’s content significantly. As Faith Binckes notes in Modernism, Magazines, and the British Avant-Garde, in Rhythm, “Mansfield exploited her authorial and editorial freedom to explore issues of reproductivity, its relationship to women’s lives, and to writing” (121). Cappuccio also recognises Mansfield’s artistic freedom in Rhythm, adding that “with Murry’s knowledge or even his encouragement, Mansfield explored her identity as a poet separate from that of the emerging short story writer” (184). Moreover, in contrast to the New Age, Mansfield’s
able to explore a modernism that did not suffer from a severe lack of a female perspective (Binckes 121). After all, the New Age’s Orage and Hastings not once refrained from criticising, even ridiculing, Mansfield’s ‘feminine writing’, whereas Mansfield later demonstrated in her work that a mixture of masculine and feminine modes of writing were crucial in constructing her voice as a Rhythmist. As Angela Smith claims in Katherine Mansfield: A Literary Life, Mansfield’s ‘feminine’ writing does not necessarily advocate the female voice and perspective, but stands for a “rejection of conventional gender, social, and academic identities” (81).
Significantly, the comment Binckes makes on Mansfield exploring new forms of modernism in Rhythm is essential to answering – at least partly – this thesis’s main question. Although I do not agree with the statement that, according to Binckes, periodicals, generally, and Rhythm, specifically, can be classified as modernist rather than avant-garde, Mansfield’s exploration of modernist aesthetics does contribute to Rhythm’s avant-garde qualities (11). Firstly, this chapter has shown that the variety of texts Mansfield has contributed to Murry’s magazine – be it either (co-authored) editorials, prose or poetry – are in dialogue with one another. Even though these texts each carry their own specific meaning, only by analysing intertextual links, for example between Mansfield’s short story “The Woman at the Store” and her poem “Very Early Spring”, the true Rhythmist dynamic within Mansfield’s work is revealed. In light of Peter Bürger’s theory on the characteristics of the avant-garde artistic or literary work, then, Mansfield’s separate contributions to Rhythm together produce meaning, thus forming a coherent, vivacious, and fluid whole – resembling the qualities of the little magazine, generally. Secondly, Mansfield’s consistent implementation of ‘brutal’ elements in her work, exemplified by, for instance, the raw depictions of New Zealand’s landscape and the protagonist’s murdering of her husband in “The Woman at the Store”, accords with the image of the daring, risk-taking, and revolutionary avant-gardist – with American poet and
critic Ezra Pound, who can be regarded as the creative force behind Blast, as its ultimate embodiment. Therefore, Meredith Martin’s observation that Mansfield’s implementation of ‘natural rhythm’ in her poetry meets Pound’s literary expectations, is uncoincidental. Furthermore, the ongoing conflict between Rhythm and the New Age, which took on greater proportions as soon as Mansfield left the New Age and her relationship with Murry
intensified, resulted in sharper (satirical) dialogues between both periodicals. Consequently, Rhythm bolstered its position within the avant-garde field, a field dedicated to the
establishment of independent, bold, and unique little magazines. Unquestionably, the qualities Mansfield expresses in all of her work for Rhythm helped “to advance Rhythm’s avant-garde status by virtue of those very qualities” (Binckes 125).
Yet, the question remains whether Mansfield’s authorial and editorial abilities accorded with the ideas expressed in the texts and drawings of other Rhythmist artists and, more importantly, to what extent these artists, such as Laurence Binyon, Anne Estelle Rice, and J. D. Fergusson, followed Rhythm’s guidelines as decisively as Mansfield did. Therefore, a selection of drawings, editorials, and literature, specifically from Rhythm’s inaugural issue and the edition in which Mansfield first starred, will be analysed paratextually in the third and final chapter.
