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Modernism in the Magazines: An Introduction. Robert Scholes and Clifford Wulfman. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010. Pp. ix + 340. $40.00 (cloth).
It is impossible not to admire this book, or to find fault with the way in which it carries out the aims that its authors state so clearly in their preface. It is, explicitly and self-consciously, an introduction to the way in which modernism impacted upon, and was shaped by, periodical culture. Its target audience is made up of those who are in some way new to the material, whether students or scholars. The book is closely associated with the Modernist Journals Project, a fact spelled out to the uninitiated relatively early (3) but signalled to the more seasoned reader immediately by way of the Gaudier-Brzeska image on its cover, familiar from the earliest days of the MJP. For this reason, it is important to note that the title of the book avoids the obvious echo, steering clear of the designation "modernist magazines" and inviting the reader to consider a more expansive interaction with a wider field.
The book has another important agenda, albeit one less apparent from the title. It sets out to emphasize and to explore Ezra Pound's role as producer, mediator, and critic of modernist periodicals, as a "pioneer in this field" (vii). Scholes and Wulfman place this ambition at the top of their list of aims, asserting that "quite simply, he had more to do with our present understanding of modernism than any other individual", and, as such, he will be "a thread that runs through" their various considerations (viii). However, when faced with the unenviable if oddly inevitable task of having to define what they mean by "modernism," the authors are careful not to quote Pound. Instead, they opt for modernism as "a response to the social and cultural conditions of modernity and to previous modes of art and literature" (vii). The book is finely balanced in many ways, but one of its most delicately managed maneuvers is this use of Pound, who operates as a focal point for Scholes and Wulfman's study but is never allowed to limit its scope. For instance, the book opens with a chapter devoted to Pound, the title of which proclaims...