John Timberman Newcomb
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252036798
- eISBN:
- 9780252093906
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252036798.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry
This book traces the emergence of modern American poetry at the turn of the nineteenth century. With a particular focus on four “little magazines”—Poetry: A Magazine of Verse, The Masses, Others, and ...
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This book traces the emergence of modern American poetry at the turn of the nineteenth century. With a particular focus on four “little magazines”—Poetry: A Magazine of Verse, The Masses, Others, and Seven Arts—the book shows how each advanced ambitious agendas combining urban subjects, stylistic experimentation, and progressive social ideals. All four were profoundly affected by World War I, and the poetry on their pages responded to the war and its causes with clarity and strength. While subsequent literary history has favored the poets whose work made them distinct—individuals singled out usually on the basis of a novel technique—the book provides a denser, richer view of the history that hundreds of poets made.Less
This book traces the emergence of modern American poetry at the turn of the nineteenth century. With a particular focus on four “little magazines”—Poetry: A Magazine of Verse, The Masses, Others, and Seven Arts—the book shows how each advanced ambitious agendas combining urban subjects, stylistic experimentation, and progressive social ideals. All four were profoundly affected by World War I, and the poetry on their pages responded to the war and its causes with clarity and strength. While subsequent literary history has favored the poets whose work made them distinct—individuals singled out usually on the basis of a novel technique—the book provides a denser, richer view of the history that hundreds of poets made.
Julia L. Mickenberg
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195152807
- eISBN:
- 9780199788903
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195152807.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
This chapter considers how the conditions of production and dissemination of children's literature changed beginning in the mid-1930s, and looks at the particular ways that leftists, in response to ...
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This chapter considers how the conditions of production and dissemination of children's literature changed beginning in the mid-1930s, and looks at the particular ways that leftists, in response to these changes, began to reshape the field and its output in the years prior to the onset of the Cold War. Beginning in the mid-1930s, especially thanks to a Popular Front effort to broaden left-wing influence in American life, members of the Communist milieu began to write children's books that were geared toward a wide audience. This effort intersected with a growing sense among librarians, teachers, and other established members of the children's literature field (including the influential Child Study Association) that children should be exposed to real-world issues and cultural diversity (“interracial books”), a theme that became especially pronounced during World War II. Following discussions of left-wing efforts through the New Masses and organizations such as the League of American Writers to expand a leftist presence in children's literature, and institutional developments among educators, librarians, and publishers (including union efforts among teachers, the formation of a Progressive Librarians Council, and the development of the 25-cent Little Golden Book). The chapter concludes with an analysis of several books that promote an anti-fascist and anti-racist sensibility in children. Among the authors discussed in this chapter are Harry Granick, Marshall McClintock, Mary Elting, Lavinia Davis, John R. Tunis, Florence Crannell Means, Doris Gates, Henry Gregor Felsen, and Emma Gelders Sterne.Less
This chapter considers how the conditions of production and dissemination of children's literature changed beginning in the mid-1930s, and looks at the particular ways that leftists, in response to these changes, began to reshape the field and its output in the years prior to the onset of the Cold War. Beginning in the mid-1930s, especially thanks to a Popular Front effort to broaden left-wing influence in American life, members of the Communist milieu began to write children's books that were geared toward a wide audience. This effort intersected with a growing sense among librarians, teachers, and other established members of the children's literature field (including the influential Child Study Association) that children should be exposed to real-world issues and cultural diversity (“interracial books”), a theme that became especially pronounced during World War II. Following discussions of left-wing efforts through the New Masses and organizations such as the League of American Writers to expand a leftist presence in children's literature, and institutional developments among educators, librarians, and publishers (including union efforts among teachers, the formation of a Progressive Librarians Council, and the development of the 25-cent Little Golden Book). The chapter concludes with an analysis of several books that promote an anti-fascist and anti-racist sensibility in children. Among the authors discussed in this chapter are Harry Granick, Marshall McClintock, Mary Elting, Lavinia Davis, John R. Tunis, Florence Crannell Means, Doris Gates, Henry Gregor Felsen, and Emma Gelders Sterne.
Christoph Irmscher
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780300222562
- eISBN:
- 9780300227758
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300222562.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
The definitive biography of radical activist, poet, editor, and public intellectual Max Eastman (1883–1969), based on unrestricted access to the Eastman family archive. Considered one of the “hottest ...
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The definitive biography of radical activist, poet, editor, and public intellectual Max Eastman (1883–1969), based on unrestricted access to the Eastman family archive. Considered one of the “hottest radicals” of his time, Eastman edited two of the most important modernist magazines, The Masses and The Liberator, campaigned for women’s suffrage, sexual freedom, and peace, and published several volumes of poetry and two books on laughter. A fierce critic of Joseph Stalin, Eastman befriended and translated Leon Trotsky and remained unafraid to express unpopular views, drawing criticism from both conservatives and the Left. Maintaining that he had never changed his political opinions and that, instead, the world around him had changed, Eastman completed his public turn to the right by becoming a contributor to Reader’s Digest. A stubborn, lifelong admirer of Lenin as well as a defender of the Vietnam War, Eastman, who now called himself a “libertarian conservative,” died in Bridgetown, Barbados, on March 25, 1969. Set against the backdrop of several decades of political and ideological turmoil, this biography interweaves Eastman’s singular life with stories of the fascinating people he knew, loved, and admired, including Charlie Chaplin, Florence Deshon, Claude McKay, and Leon Trotsky.Less
The definitive biography of radical activist, poet, editor, and public intellectual Max Eastman (1883–1969), based on unrestricted access to the Eastman family archive. Considered one of the “hottest radicals” of his time, Eastman edited two of the most important modernist magazines, The Masses and The Liberator, campaigned for women’s suffrage, sexual freedom, and peace, and published several volumes of poetry and two books on laughter. A fierce critic of Joseph Stalin, Eastman befriended and translated Leon Trotsky and remained unafraid to express unpopular views, drawing criticism from both conservatives and the Left. Maintaining that he had never changed his political opinions and that, instead, the world around him had changed, Eastman completed his public turn to the right by becoming a contributor to Reader’s Digest. A stubborn, lifelong admirer of Lenin as well as a defender of the Vietnam War, Eastman, who now called himself a “libertarian conservative,” died in Bridgetown, Barbados, on March 25, 1969. Set against the backdrop of several decades of political and ideological turmoil, this biography interweaves Eastman’s singular life with stories of the fascinating people he knew, loved, and admired, including Charlie Chaplin, Florence Deshon, Claude McKay, and Leon Trotsky.
Lewis Lockwood
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195378276
- eISBN:
- 9780199852376
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195378276.003.0023
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
Mod D and the fragmentary Mod E show what the chapel’s repertoire of polyphonic Masses looked like prior to 1481. At least seven Masses by Martini were composed by then, and possibly several of the ...
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Mod D and the fragmentary Mod E show what the chapel’s repertoire of polyphonic Masses looked like prior to 1481. At least seven Masses by Martini were composed by then, and possibly several of the three or four others ascribed to him in contemporary sources. His Masses fall into several distinct categories. They were probably written to exemplify these categories, to provide the Duke with polyphonic settings for diverse occasions, and to display a variety of melodic and polyphonic antecedents on which Masses could be based. His ten attributed Masses make him a substantial contributor to the large and growing literature of the Mass Ordinary in the second half of the century. Meanwhile, his extensive use of secular cantus firmi for his Masses suggests a relaxed attitude toward the atmosphere of strong religious faith in the court under Ercole.Less
Mod D and the fragmentary Mod E show what the chapel’s repertoire of polyphonic Masses looked like prior to 1481. At least seven Masses by Martini were composed by then, and possibly several of the three or four others ascribed to him in contemporary sources. His Masses fall into several distinct categories. They were probably written to exemplify these categories, to provide the Duke with polyphonic settings for diverse occasions, and to display a variety of melodic and polyphonic antecedents on which Masses could be based. His ten attributed Masses make him a substantial contributor to the large and growing literature of the Mass Ordinary in the second half of the century. Meanwhile, his extensive use of secular cantus firmi for his Masses suggests a relaxed attitude toward the atmosphere of strong religious faith in the court under Ercole.
Lewis Lockwood
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195378276
- eISBN:
- 9780199852376
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195378276.003.0024
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
The theoretical background of the “Hercules” Mass has rarely been subjected to close scrutiny. This chapter distinguishes three levels of consideration: the systematic, the conventional, and the ...
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The theoretical background of the “Hercules” Mass has rarely been subjected to close scrutiny. This chapter distinguishes three levels of consideration: the systematic, the conventional, and the individual. By “systematic”, it means the basic tone-system of the period, as expounded by the best-informed and most authoritative theorists of Josquin’s time, especially Tinctoris. By “conventional”, it means particularly those features of design it shares with other polyphonic Mass settings, or with certain branches of the Mass literature with which it has most in common. There is also ample evidence that the “Hercules” Mass was recognized as being a distinctive type of glorification. What had originally been a fusion of the Mass as liturgy and as political celebration had become a tradition.Less
The theoretical background of the “Hercules” Mass has rarely been subjected to close scrutiny. This chapter distinguishes three levels of consideration: the systematic, the conventional, and the individual. By “systematic”, it means the basic tone-system of the period, as expounded by the best-informed and most authoritative theorists of Josquin’s time, especially Tinctoris. By “conventional”, it means particularly those features of design it shares with other polyphonic Mass settings, or with certain branches of the Mass literature with which it has most in common. There is also ample evidence that the “Hercules” Mass was recognized as being a distinctive type of glorification. What had originally been a fusion of the Mass as liturgy and as political celebration had become a tradition.
Howard Pollack
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199791590
- eISBN:
- 9780199949625
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199791590.003.0007
- Subject:
- Music, History, American, Popular
This chapter summarizes Blitzstein’s writings from the 1930s, which form the bulk of his criticism, and which increasingly tend toward Marxist perspectives. He wrote many of these articles for Modern ...
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This chapter summarizes Blitzstein’s writings from the 1930s, which form the bulk of his criticism, and which increasingly tend toward Marxist perspectives. He wrote many of these articles for Modern Music, edited by Minna Lederman, but also The New Masses and other publications.Less
This chapter summarizes Blitzstein’s writings from the 1930s, which form the bulk of his criticism, and which increasingly tend toward Marxist perspectives. He wrote many of these articles for Modern Music, edited by Minna Lederman, but also The New Masses and other publications.
Alexander Gelley
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780823262564
- eISBN:
- 9780823266562
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823262564.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
The problem of philosophical aesthetics may be formulated in a double sense: What justifies the privileged access of art to truth? What constitutes the historicity of art’s “configurational” status? ...
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The problem of philosophical aesthetics may be formulated in a double sense: What justifies the privileged access of art to truth? What constitutes the historicity of art’s “configurational” status? The limitations of a principal component of the aesthetic tradition, namely, its basis in an immutable human nature, are all too evident. What historical approach to the social collective today can underwrite the consensual principle underlying Kant’s idea of taste? And, to take up another tenet of his aesthetic theory, what remains of the reflective judgment in an era when, as Benjamin put it, technology has subjected "the human sensorium to a more complex type of training’? The chapter situates Benjamin’s thought in relation to three strands, focusing in each case on one of Benjamin’s writings. Regarding the linkage of art and philosophy, what may be termed the ontological status of art, it draws on the essay on The Elective Affinities. Regarding the political-pedagogic function of art, it examines ’The Work of Art in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility.’ And regarding the question of beauty and Schein, it focuses on the issue of commodity fetishism as treated in The Arcades Project.Less
The problem of philosophical aesthetics may be formulated in a double sense: What justifies the privileged access of art to truth? What constitutes the historicity of art’s “configurational” status? The limitations of a principal component of the aesthetic tradition, namely, its basis in an immutable human nature, are all too evident. What historical approach to the social collective today can underwrite the consensual principle underlying Kant’s idea of taste? And, to take up another tenet of his aesthetic theory, what remains of the reflective judgment in an era when, as Benjamin put it, technology has subjected "the human sensorium to a more complex type of training’? The chapter situates Benjamin’s thought in relation to three strands, focusing in each case on one of Benjamin’s writings. Regarding the linkage of art and philosophy, what may be termed the ontological status of art, it draws on the essay on The Elective Affinities. Regarding the political-pedagogic function of art, it examines ’The Work of Art in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility.’ And regarding the question of beauty and Schein, it focuses on the issue of commodity fetishism as treated in The Arcades Project.
Barnaby Haran
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780719097225
- eISBN:
- 9781526109705
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719097225.003.0003
- Subject:
- Art, Art History
This chapter looks at the most substantial manifestation of ‘American Constructivism’, which took shape in the radical theatrical productions of the New Playwrights Theatre, a short-lived group that ...
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This chapter looks at the most substantial manifestation of ‘American Constructivism’, which took shape in the radical theatrical productions of the New Playwrights Theatre, a short-lived group that operated between 1926 and 1929. The NPT was closely affiliated with the communist cultural organ New Masses, and included the magazine’s most prominent editor, Mike Gold, amongst its number. The chapter charts the emergence of theatrical Constructivism in the USA, noting its origins in the radical and Expressionist theatrical culture associated with The Masses. The NPT differed from these earlier versions by emulating the machinolatry of Soviet Constructivism, drawing in particular from the experiments of Vsevolod Meyerhold. If Soviet Constructivism aimed to reach the masses, then the NPT mixed the machine aesthetic with specifically American phenomena such as Jazz, racial politics, and automobile production. However, unlike Russian theatrical productions the NPT betrayed a distinctly ambivalent attitude towards the machine, demonstrating residual Expressionist machinephobia. Arguably the most sophisticated writer of the NPT was John Dos Passos, whose concept of New Realism is considered in depth. Finally, the chapter includes a summation of the legacy of the NPT in the radical theatre of the 1930s.Less
This chapter looks at the most substantial manifestation of ‘American Constructivism’, which took shape in the radical theatrical productions of the New Playwrights Theatre, a short-lived group that operated between 1926 and 1929. The NPT was closely affiliated with the communist cultural organ New Masses, and included the magazine’s most prominent editor, Mike Gold, amongst its number. The chapter charts the emergence of theatrical Constructivism in the USA, noting its origins in the radical and Expressionist theatrical culture associated with The Masses. The NPT differed from these earlier versions by emulating the machinolatry of Soviet Constructivism, drawing in particular from the experiments of Vsevolod Meyerhold. If Soviet Constructivism aimed to reach the masses, then the NPT mixed the machine aesthetic with specifically American phenomena such as Jazz, racial politics, and automobile production. However, unlike Russian theatrical productions the NPT betrayed a distinctly ambivalent attitude towards the machine, demonstrating residual Expressionist machinephobia. Arguably the most sophisticated writer of the NPT was John Dos Passos, whose concept of New Realism is considered in depth. Finally, the chapter includes a summation of the legacy of the NPT in the radical theatre of the 1930s.
Alan M. Wald
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807830758
- eISBN:
- 9781469603285
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9780807882368_wald.11
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature
This chapter observes that some erstwhile pro-Communist writers subsequently devoted their fiction to working their way out of what they interpreted as misguided loyalty to Communism, yet most never ...
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This chapter observes that some erstwhile pro-Communist writers subsequently devoted their fiction to working their way out of what they interpreted as misguided loyalty to Communism, yet most never relinquished pride in their antifascist idealism. It discusses the contemporary broadway play “Sincerity in the Theater,” written by Matt Wayne, identified only as the current drama editor of the New Masses. The chapter observes that the central themes of “Sincerity in the Theater” and additional writings in the New Masses by Matt Wayne between March 1945 and March 1946 dovetail with the prevailing opinions of playwright Arthur Miller (1915–2005). It notes that the play encapsulates the core argument of a “lost” Marxist essay that Miller would synopsize in 1956, and further, that circumstantial evidence is overwhelming that Matt Wayne was also Arthur Miller.Less
This chapter observes that some erstwhile pro-Communist writers subsequently devoted their fiction to working their way out of what they interpreted as misguided loyalty to Communism, yet most never relinquished pride in their antifascist idealism. It discusses the contemporary broadway play “Sincerity in the Theater,” written by Matt Wayne, identified only as the current drama editor of the New Masses. The chapter observes that the central themes of “Sincerity in the Theater” and additional writings in the New Masses by Matt Wayne between March 1945 and March 1946 dovetail with the prevailing opinions of playwright Arthur Miller (1915–2005). It notes that the play encapsulates the core argument of a “lost” Marxist essay that Miller would synopsize in 1956, and further, that circumstantial evidence is overwhelming that Matt Wayne was also Arthur Miller.
Kate van Orden
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780520276505
- eISBN:
- 9780520957114
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520276505.003.0003
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
Using folio choirbooks of Masses as an example, this chapter traces the early emergence of bibliographic authority as it moved from the printer (as maker of the book) to the composer (as author of ...
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Using folio choirbooks of Masses as an example, this chapter traces the early emergence of bibliographic authority as it moved from the printer (as maker of the book) to the composer (as author of its contents). Andrea Antico, Ottaviano Petrucci, Valerio Dorico, and Cristopher Plantin are the principal printers investigated. The cultures in which their books had particular prestige centered initially on Rome and the Habsburg Empire. Primary composers considered include Carpentras and Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Cristóbal de Morales, and Orlande de Lassus.Less
Using folio choirbooks of Masses as an example, this chapter traces the early emergence of bibliographic authority as it moved from the printer (as maker of the book) to the composer (as author of its contents). Andrea Antico, Ottaviano Petrucci, Valerio Dorico, and Cristopher Plantin are the principal printers investigated. The cultures in which their books had particular prestige centered initially on Rome and the Habsburg Empire. Primary composers considered include Carpentras and Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Cristóbal de Morales, and Orlande de Lassus.
