#1910s literature

[lamentofspring]

‘I stand there sometimes now, where the two dead trees are leaning close together / there is nothing in all the world / that means so much as that one word, 'to-gether,' and when you add 'love' to it, you have heaven’

— myrtle reed, from flower of the dusk

[canadachronicles]

"In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below. We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie, In Flanders fields. Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from failing hands we throw The torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields."

--In Flanders Fields, John McCrae

[blinkbones]

Pygmalion, Bernard Shaw (1912)

This is delightful. It's very funny, even in reading only. I'd love to see it performed; must be a total hoot.

The premise is that a phonetician makes a bet with his colonel friend that he could train a lowly flower girl into speaking so well that she'd be confused with a duchess. In this we recognize the idea of the ancient Pygmalion story, in which a sculptor unhappy with real women decides to sculpt his perfect waifu and then falls in love with her or whatever. Shaw however was very clear in that he refused to make his Pygmalion a romance, because that's, i paraphrase, "fucked up if you think about it". Ok i joke but basically Shaw, aside from being an immense phonetics nerd and writing a phonetics-centric play, took care to make it... feminist, I suppose. Idk if he'd have used the term, but functionally that's what's going on. He considers that Galatea (the statue in the original) falling in love with the sculptor is unrealistic because he's too much of a god to her; and in his own play also gives more reasons for his "Galatea" to really not want to end up happily ever after with the phonetician. On top of the feminist aspects, this play also reflects on notions of class, as is inevitable when you start caring about phonetics, frankly, since accent is often a marker of social background. It does all of this in such a way that it's both funny and witty. Even the very ridiculous character of the girl's father, a poor man who wants to remain poor and lowly, carries with himself reflections that I was surprised and delighted to read.

Easily recommended read/watch tbh.

[byronicist]

"The apparition of these faces in the crowd: / Petals on a wet, black bough."

Ezra Pound, In a Station of the Metro (1913)

[vintage-russia]

Russian fairytale "The Frog Princess" (1914)

[hazy-siren]

"That September was a month of golden mists and purple hazes [...] a month of sun-steeped days and of nights that were swimming in moonlight or pulsating with stars."

L.M. Montgomery, Anne's House of Dreams (1917)

[alovelywaytospendanevening]

Sassoon and Graves in 1920.

When Robert Graves walked into C Company mess on 28 November 1915 on some errand, he noticed an unexpected book on the table. It was a copy of Post Liminium, a collection of essays by the late nineteenth-century poet Lionel Johnson. The army was not noted for its Lionel Johnson readers; a 'military text-book or a rubbish novel' were more the order of the day. Graves took a discreet look at the name on the flyleaf. A glance round the mess was enough to indicate 'Siegfried Sassoon': the tall, lanky, shy subaltern. Graves, also tall but anything but shy, quickly struck up a conversation. Both being off duty, the two were soon walking into Béthune for cream buns, busy talking poetry. Sassoon and Graves had a good deal in common. Both were conventionally unconventional public school products, trying to turn themselves into competent army officers and into the kind of poets Eddie Marsh would publish in his Georgian Poetry anthologies. Both, anxious about being insufficiently manly, had cultivated a tougher, sportier side: Sassoon through fox-hunting and cricket; Graves through boxing — he had been the school middleweight champion. Both were lonely and in love (Sassoon with David 'Tommy' Thomas, Graves with George 'Peter' Johnstone). Both were almost certainly still virgins. The friendship necessarily developed in fits and starts, and owed some of its intensity to that. Long conversations, the uninterrupted exchange of poems and confessions, were a rare luxury. Graves gave Marsh a humorous but probably not very misleading account of their difficulty 'in talking about poetry and that sort of thing': 'If I go into his mess and he wants to show me some set of verses, he says: "Afternoon Graves, have a drink… by the way, I want you to see my latest recipe for rum punch."' He also made it pretty clear to Marsh that it was not just poetry they had to be careful about discussing openly: 'I don't know what the CO would say if he heard us discussing the sort of things we do… His saying is that "there should be only one subject for conversation among subalterns off parade." I leave you to guess it.' There was obviously a secret thrill in these surreptitious exchanges, a sense that Graves and Sassoon were like two naughty schoolboys, hoodwinking their peers and those in authority.

— Harry Ricketts, Strange Meetings: The Poets of the Great War (2010)

[proserpnias]

"It was a never-to-be-forgotten summer-- one of those summers which come seldom into any life, but leave a rich heritage of beautiful memories in their going-- one of those summers which, in a fortunate combination of delightful weather, delightful friends and delightful doings, come as near to perfection as anything can come in this world."

L.M. Montgomery, Anne's House of Dreams (1917)

[666candies]

Marguerite Gance as Madeline Usher in Fall of the House of Usher (1928)

[sassafrasmoonshine]

Arthur Rackham (British/English, ), illustrator for English Fairy Tales by Flora Annie Steel • 1918

”Somebody has been at my porridge, and has eaten it all up!”

[fitz-higgins]

Fragile Beginnings – a new story

We've got a new part of Monty and Henry's story! The first walk in Central Park turns out to be much more dramatic than either of them expected, but also, in no particular order...

Monty gets Henry sloshed

The boys find out more about each other

Cosy meals

More abrupt kisses!

There is still only one bed in the flat

And here's an unpublished art by Mlanka to get your attention

[vintageeurope]

Davos, Switzerland 1910/20

[byronicist]

"If I were well-to-do / I would put roses on roses, and cover your grave / With multitude of white roses, and just a few / Red ones, a bloody-white flag over you."

D.H. Lawrence, Birthday (1914)

[vintage-russia]

"The Russian Story Book" illustrated by Frank C.Papé (1916)

[hazy-siren]

"The year is a book, isn't it, Marilla? Spring's pages are written in Mayflowers and violets, summer's in roses, autumn's in red maple leaves, and winter's in holly and evergreen."

L.M. Montgomery, Anne of the Island (1915)

[lepetitdragonvert]

Vid första tonen var det något som brast inne i Agnetas hjärta

Dès la première note, quelque chose se brisa dans le cœur d’Agneta

From the very first note, something broke in Agneta’s heart.

1910

Artist : John Bauer