The Little Review, April 1917 (Vol. 3, No. 10)

In Short

This periodical issue acts as a snapshot of the literary avant-garde in April 1917. It features critical essays on emerging modernist voices like James Joyce and provocative reevaluations of figures like Isadora Duncan, alongside a contest of contemporary free verse. Far from a passive collection, the magazine serves as an active battleground for defining what constitutes "Art" in a changing world. It remains a essential document for understanding the self-conscious, often combative, and deeply experimental ethos that defined the early modern movement in the United States and abroad.

The Story

The arc of this issue begins with an intense, skeptical examination of the memoirist Mary MacLane. The reviewer, jh, approaches MacLane’s Diary of Human Days with a mixture of anticipation and eventual disappointment, arguing that the book fails to reach the level of true art because it remains too tethered to the author’s own "nervous" personality. This sets the stage for a recurring tension throughout the volume: the struggle to distinguish between mere personal confession and the transformative power of a creative work.

The focus shifts to the theater and dance, where Margaret C. Anderson delivers a blistering critique of Isadora Duncan. Anderson, stripping away the public adulation that surrounded the famous dancer, argues that Duncan is an "ingrained sentimentalist" lacking the intelligence and technical rigor required of a true artist. This essay highlights the magazine’s editorial stance: it refuses to accept popular acclaim as a metric for artistic success. Instead, it pushes for a more disciplined, intellectual engagement with performance and form.

The narrative of the issue then turns to the literary scene, specifically the reception of James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Here, the tone shifts from critical skepticism to genuine excitement. The contributors celebrate Joyce as a pioneer, one who has shattered the "conventional structure of language." Through excerpts from Joyce’s prose, the issue seeks to demonstrate how modern writing can capture the raw, disjointed, and "feverish" impressions of consciousness itself.

Following this, the issue presents the results of a "Vers Libre" (free verse) contest. The presentation is marked by a refusal to coddle the entrants; the judges are blunt about the overwhelming number of "really bad poems" submitted. By printing both the winning entries—by H. D. and Maxwell Bodenheim—and a selection of the failures, the editors invite the reader to participate in the critical process. They expose the pretension of "pompous" and "anachronistic" verse, favoring the precision and restraint found in H. D.’s imagistic work over the loose, sentiment-laden expressions of others.

The final segments of the issue broaden the scope to include political and social commentary, with pieces on the impact of the war, and a section dedicated to the "Reader Critic." This concluding arc reveals the magazine’s desire to connect with its audience, inviting feedback and engaging in a vibrant, often heated, exchange of ideas. The issue ends not with a final resolution, but with a promise of future expansion—the appointment of Ezra Pound as Foreign Editor—signaling the magazine’s ambition to become an even more influential organ for the international avant-garde.

How It Unfolds

The critical assessment The issue opens by evaluating Mary MacLane, using her personal diary as a case study to define the limits of subjective writing. The tone is sharp, dismissing the work as an "anatomical drawing of her life" rather than a true artistic creation.

The performance critique The focus moves to Isadora Duncan, whose stage presence is dismantled by a critique of her lack of technical discipline. This section argues that emotion, when untransmuted by a significant medium, is merely adolescent and hollow.

The Joyce celebration The editors pivot to a profound appreciation of James Joyce, positioning his work as the current gold standard for prose. They analyze his unique literary architecture and his refusal to be bound by the conventional geography of language.

The poetry contest The narrative turns to the chaotic results of a free-verse competition. By juxtaposing the successful, crisp imagery of H. D. against the trite, overly sentimental efforts of other contributors, the editors highlight the necessity of artistic restraint.

The editorial expansion The issue concludes by looking forward to a new era for the magazine. The announcement of Ezra Pound’s involvement and the opening of a dedicated bookstore suggest an intentional, growing movement to solidify the magazine’s place in the literary culture of the time.

The People

Mary MacLane acts as the primary subject of the opening critique. She is presented as a "neurasthenic" who mistakes self-expression for art, standing in for the kind of confessional writer the editors are eager to move beyond.

Margaret C. Anderson, the publisher and primary voice, is the issue’s intellectual engine. She is uncompromising, skeptical of popular icons like Isadora Duncan, and deeply invested in the rigorous development of modern art.

James Joyce is the issue’s hero. He is presented as the quintessential artist, one who suffers the "inevitable malaise" of his time but translates it into language that is "head and shoulders" above his contemporaries.

H. D. and Maxwell Bodenheim emerge as the victors of the literary contest. They represent the desired direction of modern poetry—restrained, imagistic, and capable of evoking wonder without succumbing to the "loose valuation" of sentimentality.

In Its Own Voice

"It is never what life does to the artist; it is what the artist does to life."

The author reflects on the failure of Mary MacLane to transmute her personal history into a work of lasting aesthetic value.

"There is no doubt that we will have novels before long written without even as much of the conventional structure of language as Mr. Joyce has adhered to—a new kind of 'dimension in language'."

The editors identify the revolutionary impact of Joyce's work on the future of literary form.

"Isadora Duncan, as you will know after seeing her once, is a woman of small intelligence, a monument of undirected adolescent vision, an ingrained sentimentalist."

The publisher provides a candid, harsh assessment of a public figure often immune to such criticism.

What It's Really About

The issue is fundamentally an argument about the nature of aesthetic legitimacy. It probes the distinction between raw, unfiltered emotion and the "transmutation" required to make that emotion art. It asks whether the "geography of the body" and the "geography of the mind" should be restricted by social conventions, or if the artist has a duty to push past these boundaries to reach a new "dimension of language." It is a manifesto against the "moral fossils" of the time and a call for a generation to shed its "undirected adolescent vision" in favor of a clear, disciplined, and truly modern sensibility.

Why Read It Today

Readers interested in the history of modernist thought will find this issue indispensable. It captures the specific, biting, and often elitist tone of early twentieth-century literary criticism. Reading it feels like eavesdropping on a group of pioneers who are actively inventing the standards by which they wish to be judged. You will encounter a world where the stakes of a poem or a dance performance feel as high as any political campaign.

However, the reader must be prepared for the period attitudes and the intensely insular, combative nature of the writing. The language is at times haughty, and the editorial voice is unapologetically elitist, reflecting a time when the "modern" was a weapon used against the "old." What stays with you is the sheer, unvarnished intensity of the debate. It is not a gentle read; it is a document of a time when the creation of a magazine was an act of war against the status quo. Those who appreciate the roots of experimental literature will find the fervor and the raw ambition of these pages both fascinating and remarkably relevant to the ongoing struggle to define what is new.