The Little Review, March 1917 (Vol. 3, No. 9)

In Short

This March 1917 issue of The Little Review serves as a vibrant manifesto for modernism, blending poetry, critical essays, and reviews to champion uncompromising artistic freedom. Through passionate celebrations of performers like Mary Garden and pianist Harold Bauer, alongside reflections on war, literature, and the autonomy of art, the magazine cuts through conventional expectations. It has lasted because it captures the fierce, uncompromising spirit of early-twentieth-century avant-garde culture, insisting that art must live for its own profound aesthetic truth rather than serve as mere social illustration.

The Story

The progression of the issue opens with an intense imaginative engagement between the poetic persona and the historical figure of John Keats seeking the moon at Box Hill, establishing a tone of emotional rapture and artistic longing. This meditation on creative ecstasy flows naturally into a sustained, ecstatic tribute to opera singer Mary Garden, framing her performances as a revolutionary force that unites music, drama, and personal stillness into an authentic purity. The argument shifts toward classical antiquity and the shadow of mortality through prose poems that contrast the terror of physical death with the imperative to live and love intensely for the sake of vanishing beauty.

From these lyrical heights, the text moves into rigorous musical criticism, analyzing Harold Bauer’s unique mastery of the piano as an instrument possessing its own intrinsic form and sound rather than relying on mechanical drill or traditional mimicry. Amidst these aesthetic explorations, a sharp political and social counterpoint intrudes through a stark, bitter inventory of wartime miseries, listing the grim realities of poverty, censorship, and conscription under the ironic banners of honor, protection, justice, and glory.

The intellectual trajectory then embraces contemporary literature, offering appreciative notes on Martin Andersen Nexö’s epic novel sequence Pelle the Conqueror, particularly its silent, transcendent final volume, Daybreak, which traces a man’s journey from childhood companionship and labor leadership to solitary spiritual realization. This literary appreciation is tempered by sharp defensive rejoinders against mainstream critical incomprehension, notably rebuking mainstream dismissals of Amy Lowell’s poetry and defending modern verse against those who complain of "too much art" in contemporary writing.

The final movement of the issue engages deeply with correspondence and critical debate. The editors and contributors address readers and critics who attempt to shackle art to political utility, specifically dismantling the socialist and anarchist argument that creative work must serve as direct propaganda for the masses. Through impassioned correspondence, the text asserts that true social betterment is missed through a narrow search for utility, and that art must remain free to fulfill its role as an inexhaustible source of mental and moral power. The issue concludes by surveying the broader cultural landscape through extensive publisher announcements and advertisements, framing its avant-garde mission within the active, competitive marketplace of contemporary books, journals, and recitals.

How It Unfolds

• The lunar invocation: The issue opens with a poetic reimagining of John Keats chasing the elusive beauty of the moon at Box Hill, establishing a thematic obsession with unendurable aesthetic passion. The verses capture this frantic yearning for divine inspiration and the physical toll of artistic creation under a cold winter window.
• The exaltation of performance: The focus shifts to an extended appraisal of Mary Garden, celebrating her unique capacity to fuse song, speech, and acting into a revolutionary theatrical language. The text argues that her performances bring a sharp new ecstasy, an inexorable sadness, and an inviolate purity to modern opera.
• The shadow of mortality: Richard Aldington's prose poems introduce the stark contrast between the terror of physical death and the desperate urgency of earthly love. The speaker urges a companion to live more intensely, love more wildly, and drink deeply from wine to cast a faint perfume over a future state of lifeless dust.
• The architecture of sound: Margaret C. Anderson analyzes Harold Bauer’s revolutionary approach to the piano, emphasizing his focus on intrinsic sound and clear thought over agonizing muscular drill. This critique elevates Bauer as a genuine genius who rejects traditional mimicry to invent entirely new forms of acoustic beauty.
• The literary horizon: The commentary moves through brief, enthusiastic notices of contemporary works, praising Martin Andersen Nexö’s final Pelle the Conqueror volume for its quiet spiritual design. These reviews celebrate authors who reject commercial formulas in favor of deep human truth and formal integrity.
• The defense of autonomy: The final portion features robust epistolary debates defending modern art against critics and political idealists who demand that creative works serve social utility. The contributors and editors firmly assert that art must remain free from the shackles of class struggle and propaganda to maintain its true spiritual power.

The People

Mary Garden stands as the central artistic idol of the issue, desired for her peerless ability to unify music and drama into a raw, unconventional intensity. What stands in her way are traditional critical prejudices and operatic conventions that misunderstand her modern temperament, but she emerges triumphant as an inviolate symbol of pure artistic creation.

Richard Aldington appears through his trench-written prose poems as a fragile seeker of beauty who confronts the terrifying reality of mortality. Wanting permanence in a world shadowed by war and death, he and his lover struggle against despair, ultimately resolving to live with heightened passion before their brief existence turns to grey dust.

Harold Bauer emerges as a revolutionary musical thinker who wants to strip away centuries of torturous mechanical drill from piano performance. He faces an uncomprehending public that judges him by standard virtuoso metrics, yet he succeeds by establishing the piano as an instrument of intrinsic, significant form.

John Keats is invoked as a historical archetype of the artist tortured by the unendurable anguish of beauty, striving desperately to capture the elusive moon.

Martin Andersen Nexö is celebrated through literary criticism as a master chronicler of human growth whose protagonist, Pelle, moves from youthful struggle to a solitary, triumphant spiritual dawn. Each figure battles against institutional or physical limitations to claim an authentic form of freedom.

In Its Own Voice

When examining the intense psychological toll exacted by creative inspiration within the artistic mind, Amy Lowell's poetic tribute to John Keats evokes a frantic, breathless yearning for unattainable divine radiance:

“Oh! God! / I am tortured with this anguish of unbearable beauty.”

When cataloging the devastating socioeconomic contradictions of the contemporary political landscape during a time of global crisis, the sharp editorial insert on wartime suffering exposes the brutal hypocrisies of institutional power:

“Millions for munitions: Starvation for millions....”

When contemplating the terrifying boundary between human vitality and final oblivion in the midst of war, Richard Aldington's prose poem issues a fierce, hedonistic call to fully embrace earthly passion and love before time runs out:

“Those who are about to die fear only chastity and an empty wine-cup.”

What It's Really About

This issue investigates the absolute autonomy of art and its fierce resistance against utilitarian reduction. Beneath its varied discussions of opera, poetry, and piano technique lies a central philosophical question: whether creative expression can exist purely for the expansion of the human spirit, or whether it must inevitably be shackled to social reform, political propaganda, and class struggle. The texts argue passionately that reducing art to an instrument of mass utility destroys its vitalizing power. Instead, true art derives its revolutionary strength from individual self-realization, operating as an independent source of mental and moral fertilization that transcends pedestrian politics and opens new dimensions of human consciousness.

Why Read It Today

Readers who appreciate uncompromising artistic criticism and the fiery birth-pangs of literary modernism will find this issue endlessly compelling. It feels like stepping directly into an avant-garde salon where passionate minds argue fiercely about the boundaries of beauty, music, and politics without any academic detachment. What stays with you is the raw urgency of its voices—artists writing from the trenches, editors battling poverty to defend creative freedom, and reviewers demanding that audiences develop new ears for radical forms. Modern readers must navigate period formatting quirks, wartime bitterness, and occasionally florid symbolist rhetoric, yet these very elements grant the text its authentic historical pulse. It reminds contemporary audiences that art is not a polite commodity or a tool for civic instruction, but a dangerous, transformative energy that demands absolute freedom to shake the human soul awake.