Rhythm

The magazine Rhythm shows some poems which contain various literary works that shows diverse imageries, sounds and twist of traditional convention. For example, the poem ‘the sea child’ describes sea as a child who goes back toward her mother earth by describing various imageries. She is described as ‘fashioned her body of coral and foam, combed a wave in her hair’s warm smother, and drove her away from home.’’ From this scene, we can find that natural object of sea is described as a woman who has fashioned with her with various objects and this makes us to imagine the movement of sea like a person who actually go between the earth and the sea. This makes us imagine the scenery of sea which ceaselessly move back and forth. A story, ‘the holy man’ disrupts the tradition of convention of religion. The is an old man who knows anything about God, but when Bishop looks him he thinks that he is really like Jesus, because he always tries to help others. Even Bishop sees the old man walks on the water to visit him. From this story, we can find that the story distorts the traditional authority of bible. A poem ‘smiles’ uses imageries, but in this case, it also distorts the tradition of using imagery of white and black. The speaker says that a black girl ‘as black as winter’s night’, but when she smiles, “there came a flood of light; it was the Milky Way”. From this speaker finds bright thing from the black girl. On the other hand, a maiden now fair as a summer’s day is described as black when she smiles by comparing her smile to the milky way of black night. Whether the woman is black or white, the speaker describes them as Milky Way, but in a different way. This seems to contrast traditional convention of division between black and white.  There are also many abstract images and this experimental way of depicting the images seems interesting because this could be only found through Modernist digital archive.

Seven arts

In this journal, we can find various issues in politics around the world and USA, and its relation of literature. ‘The Thimble’ written by D. H. Lawrence shows a story of a couple who have trouble of making their lives. When the woman finds out treasure-trove, a thimble accidentally, she feels terrified, and she even imagines that she was laying under the ground. She says that she feels like helpless baby in her situation, but the man says that there is a hope of becoming growth. This story seems to suggest after war mentality in people, and their possibility of resurrection. This idea can be found in the lines saying. “Are we dead now?”, “Yes we are”, “Then we must be born again” John Dewey’s ‘In a time of national hesitation’ explains the situation of USA confronting world war, and suggests the righteous way for the nation to do their work. He explains that the nation is in a paused in making decision, because they lack national mind. He explains that their nation should fight for defending democracy for other nations. He also says that as their nation is a new body and a new sprit in the world, they should finish their hesitation.

Masses

As a socialist journal, this journal seems to focus more on lives of people who are in a trouble, and instead of adopting the aesthetics of modernist, just sticks to the idea of realism. In a journal of June 1915, we can find an image of a man and woman. The man is sitting on the floor, putting one leg made of prosthetic leg and he is begging for something to people. Besides him, we can find a woman who is dressed well, and putting one of her leg with shoes which seems luxurious. Below the picture, there is a line saying ‘putting the best foot forward.’ By contrasting two images of man and woman who have different foot, the image seems to depict the problem of the poor and the rich, and there is no artistic experiment in the painting, so we can find that the image tries to depict the problem of society, instead of just sticking to the artistic experiment. In an article, “knowledge and revolution”, we can also find that the article tries to explain the problem of human value in the prison by depicting how prisoners are not treated well. Such description of the problem of prisoners seem to follow the style of reportage which depicts situation with realistic perspective.