Rebecca Beasley

Theorists of Modernist Poetry : T.S. Eliot, T.E. Hulme, Ezra Pound

Why Eliot, Hulme and Pound? Key Ideas 1. Modes of Aestheticism: Early Influences 2. Philosophical Details: The Image and the Objective Correlative 3. Classicism and the Critique of Democracy 4. The Historical Sense 5. The Great War and the Long Poem 6. Modernism and the Ideal Society After Eliot, Hulme and Pound Further Reading

Ezra Pound's Whistler

On 20 February 1905, Walter Raleigh, Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford, addressed the International Society of Sculptors, Painters, and Gravers who had gathered for a banquet held at the Café Royal in London. They were celebrating the imminent opening of a memorial exhibition of the works of James McNeill Whistler, the Society’s first president, who had died a year and a half before. The Society was a respected group: its current president was Auguste Rodin, and the Honorary Committee included a prince, ten peers of the realm, two foreign ambassadors, and the directors of ten major international art galleries. But in his speech, Raleigh chose to emphasize Whistler’s antagonistic relationship with the art establishment and the societies to which he had belonged:

Summary of the Anglo-Russian Research Network (ARRN)

The Anglo-Russian Research Network (ARRN) was founded in 2011 by Rebecca Beasley (Queen’s College, Oxford) and Matthew Taunton (UEA) to bring together those with an interest in cultural and intellectual relations between Britain and Russia in the period 1880–1950. Its members include students and scholars from a variety of disciplines who are conducting research in this field, professionals working in relevant areas based in institutions such as the British Library, the Imperial War Museum and the BBC, as well as interested members of the public. While dedicated scholars of Russian history, literature and culture play a vital role in the Network, the Network’s interdisciplinary and cross-cultural emphasis means that it attracts members from a wide range of disciplines and specialisms including English Literature, Comparative Literature, History, Art History, Music, Theology, Theatre Studies, and Film Studies, as well as Slavonic Studies. Knowledge of Russian language is by no means mandatory and members whose interest in Russian culture comes primarily through works in translation are welcomed. The Network supports a variety of activities designed to promote discussion of AngloRussian cultural relations within academia and in the wider public sphere. Primary among these is a termly reading group at Pushkin House in London. Each meeting is led by an invited guest speaker, who nominates a selection of primary and secondary texts that are circulated digitally to the group in advance of the meeting. The invited speaker introduces the reading materials and a lively discussion follows. To date, topics explored fall under three main headings: politics and diplomacy; literary and cultural relations and the mediation of ideas about Russia’s spiritual and folk cultures. Several reading groups have explored the interactions between British and Russian culture in the context of political or diplomatic debates. From the pre-revolutionary period, Barbara Emerson (Oxford) led a discussion about ‘The First Cold War’, investigating the pervasive hostility between Russia and Britain in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, before the mellowing of relations that culminated in the Anglo-Russian convention of 1907. Official relations quickly soured again in 1917, but the advent of the Bolshevik revolution stimulated a new brand of left-wing Russophilia that was vigorously debated and challenged: this cultural and political constellation has been the subject of a number of meetings. Emily Lygo (Exeter) led a discussion about the important role played by the Society for Cultural Relations with the USSR (known as the SCR) in promoting Soviet literature and culture in Britain. She discussed her recently published research article about the society, alongside a section from The New Spirit in the Russian Theatre (1929) by prominent SCRmember Huntly Carter, and a 1946 edition of the society’s organ, The Anglo-Soviet Journal. Ben Harker (Manchester) discussed the British reception of the most widely circulated text of Stalinist historiography, The History of the Communist