Leaves for Art -Regenerating the Literature of Symbolism
 

With gracious thanks to Mr. Ghetu and my co-editor I can now unveil something that has been in preparation for a long time. Behold:

Re: Leaves for Art -Regenerating the Literature of Symbolism
 

I am looking forward to this very much. It sounds quite exciting! Will this publication be put out in association with Ex Occidente Press?

Re: Leaves for Art -Regenerating the Literature of Symbolism
 

Re: Leaves for Art -Regenerating the Literature of Symbolism
 

The idea for Hieroglyphic, though it was known by something different then, came about last year when Dan had announced it looked likely that his publishing plans would reach an end the coming February. Of course, along with the handsome hardcover collections from John Howard, Colin Insole and the great Mark Valentine, it would also mean no more translations of forgotten classics and other more esoteric items of European literature

Now even with Ex Occidente in full operation there were very few publishers translating the kind of material I and others are passionate about - Pushkin Press was the only really consistent one for fiction with Anvil and Carcanet struggling heroically to hold the fort for poetry. Even 'Decadent' publishers like Dedalus in its hayday seemed to my eyes to focus on works that were self-consciousness 'naughty or deviant' and even in this their remit seemed markedly limited - after all it was Puskin that brought out Morand's poisonous Hecate and Her Dogs and Marsilio who began some of the first decent translation of d'Annuzio. With Dan gone for fiction all we would have would be Tartarus, for translations virtually no one save the above mentioned. Even with these individuals it would mean works of aesthetic and mystical Mittel-European fiction would become very scarce indeed.

So after some discussion with Dan and various others, not to mention much patient advice from Ray Russell, I decided to look into enquiring about small-scale translations of works in a Symbolist vein. For one thing, and I owe it to Mr Samuels for pointing this out, there was an excellent author whose work formed a thematic bridge between the French Symbolists such as Villiers De L'Isle-Adam and more well known writers of English supernaturalism like Blackwood or Machen, the translation of whom had recently ground to a halt due to previous publisher troubles. Latter on, and probably more excitingly for myself, I was able to pursue the possibility of translating an important Symbolist novella that has been unjustly overlooked due to the language it was originally written in.

Now February has been and gone, and Dan and Ex Occidente are thankfully still with us, albeit focusing on slightly different format at present, and will likely publish more translated material soon the fates permitting. Quite apart from The Bricked Up Windows volume he has unearthed, the world needs an English translation of Caragiale's The Rakes of the Old Courtyard, not to mention the publication of a very important work as yet veiled from the world.

After discussing things further with him and several others to whom I am also grateful gave their blessing for my proposed Symbolist translation plans anyway to go ahead anyway. Hence I shall also be able to make some interesting translations available to the world beginning early next year. Expect, for the moment, Guido Gozzano, Alexandru Macedonski and more than one title by Stefan Grabinski.

So while none of this is being done in collaboration I owe Dan an immeasurable debt for his help and advice and intend to champion Ex Occidente as I have always done. Many thanks are also due to Mark Valentine, Brendan Connell, my co-editor Mark Samuels and the Russells, both Ray and Tim.

I shall post more about the journal itself, which is the item I'm most looking forward too bringing about, later on if people are interested, but at the moment I must recover from all yesterday's Ebay dispatches.

Re: Leaves for Art -Regenerating the Literature of Symbolism
 

How wonderful! I am truly grateful there are passionate people like you in the world that are keeping these literary flames burning. I have a feeling I'm going to be discovering many new writers through your work, and I shall keep a close eye out for any of your publications. Are there any plans for a website/blog in the near future?

Re: Leaves for Art -Regenerating the Literature of Symbolism
 

Thanks for the well wishes Freyasfire,

Yes, that's an interesting question. A few weeks ago I admitted my complete inability to do anything beyond basic HTML text and handed that side of things over to someone with more expertise than I. We hope to have something up online mid November time.

A few other points:

1. If we get enough submissions throughout the categories and it seems to sell well enough we hope to make the publication biannual.

2. The name Leaves For Art is very tentative and will likely not be the final name at all. Opinions are very split upon this at the moment...

3. If anyone's interested in calling a place in terms of book and or music reviews, or just wants to enquire about some aspect they're more than welcome to contact me about it here or via email. Me and Mark have a prioraity list of newly released items we would ideally wish to be reviewed in the first issue.

A very basic and likely not very sucessful attempt to explain what was meant by our choice of the word Symbolism.

'Many collections of fiction or journals tended to focus on generic Post-Sixties horror or in the more fortunate cases 'Weird Fiction' both of which, while I much admire many the writers involved, are totally different and in some cases almost the opposite to what I wanted to explore. Also much of the contemporary weird/horror seemed to pass over a huge range of wonderful writers who originally wrote in languages other than English.

So I have chosen to use the term Symbolism, not because all of the authors we like are necessarily Symbolists - in fact more than half the writers mention in the 'Authors We Like' section wouldn't be considered so, but because many of the features of Symbolism i.e. the aestheticism, the contempt with decayed modernity, the mystical aspects, the love of 'cultural traditions and hermetic histories' and the devotion to style and skill in language itself, tally with what we wish to champion.'

Re: Leaves for Art -Regenerating the Literature of Symbolism
 

Congratulations, Evans. Is this your long-gestating project? If so, I'm glad it's finally seeing the light.

Re: Leaves for Art -Regenerating the Literature of Symbolism
 

Ah, but what about the Zymbolists?

Imagine, a Cabaret Zoltaire of the Zymbolists! What the heck I am talking about?

All in the newest Mark Valentine collection, our greatest and kindest patron. :)

Re: Leaves for Art -Regenerating the Literature of Symbolism
 

Would any readers who are fluent in German be interested in assisting me with something? It would involve selecting and translating three or four pieces, most about a paragraph in length, and would be paid for with a couple of contributors copies. It wouldn't begin until at least a week from now either. If so please PM or email me.

Yes, indeed it is Simon, and thank you for your well wishes. I am very grateful to you for your help a while ago when I was going round trying to guage what the standard print run is for this type of publication.

Well, I don't think I need say to the ladies and gentlemen here that I anticipate the Atlas to be finest new work published this year,

Perhaps in the next issue of the journal we shall have Sacred Mysteries & Veiled Heresies: The short fiction of Mark Valentine, the article I have been threatening to write for a while now.

And Dan, please, remember the last days off Roman, you owe us...

Re: Leaves for Art -Regenerating the Literature of Symbolism
 

If no one steps forward, speak to either Lady Lovecraft or Joe Pulver.

Re: Leaves for Art -Regenerating the Literature of Symbolism
 

Thanks Simon,

As of the moment several people on this site have very kindly stepped forward and offered their assistance with translation.

I really should post about the journal elsewhere, just feel a little diffident about too much self-advertising

Re: Leaves for Art -Regenerating the Literature of Symbolism
 

Self-advertising is the only advertising you'll get, so you best make your peace with it.

You're probably fine if you blitz the announcement everywhere. It'll be considered news. If you blitz subsequent updates, however, it might get to be too much. Until the journal is released, of course. Then, blitz away again!

Re: Leaves for Art -Regenerating the Literature of Symbolism
 

This sounds like an enthralling project!!

Re: Leaves for Art -Regenerating the Literature of Symbolism
 

Thanks for the kind words Wilum.

We've had a couple of short story submissions, some of them interesting, but nothing especially suitable as yet. Ow well still early days... There's a couple of authors who regularly contribute to anthologies who I would ideally like to get a fiction piece from but, again, I'm hesitant to ask direct.

Important note: if anyone has tried to contact Mark be aware his email address has recently changed. Please PM me if you need the new one.

Re: Leaves for Art -Regenerating the Literature of Symbolism
 

The rest of the site shall follow shortly but, as of today and with due gratitude to its designer, the journal webpage is now officially online:

Sacrum Regnum

As can be seen there have been a few changes, the most important of which is that the publication has been retitled Sacrum Regnum as we felt the old title, Leaves for Art, lacked a certain elegance. We have also decided to extend the submissions deadline for the first issue to the end of January, since only a limited number of people will have seen about the publication till now.

There are a few problems to to be fixed (header typo!) but more will be revealed over the course of the next few weeks. As before thanks to Dan Ghetu for distributing the original form as an email and for providing the photograph.

Re: Leaves for Art -Regenerating the Literature of Symbolism
 

Superb!

Re: Leaves for Art -Regenerating the Literature of Symbolism
 

I'm not sure I understand what you don't want. Could you provide the names of a few authors whose work from "Nothing's Empire" that you are not interested in. Thank you.

Re: Leaves for Art -Regenerating the Literature of Symbolism
 

Nothing's Empire?
Sounds like the place to be. I hope it's sufficiently fortified against the degenerate creation, so that when one goes there one will never be brought back. Ever.

Re: Leaves for Art -Regenerating the Literature of Symbolism
 

Suffice for the moment to say we do not care for 'shudder pulps' nor the Dominion of high-school Americana both radical spaghetti monster and small town wholesome - King and Meyers are below contempt; the great proletarian paperback horror novel; the hard drinkin' heroes of modern Lovecraftiana; the sickly sweetness of mid-western childhood; modern, gritty, urban fiction of the sub Campbellian variety nor post feminist fairy-tales.

That phrase originated from something else I was writing, though thinking about it it has airs of Tibet's This Autistic Imperium ist Nihil Reich.

Re: Leaves for Art -Regenerating the Literature of Symbolism
 

This looks fantastic, Evans. I'm hoping to submit if I can conjure something suitable.

Richard

Re: Leaves for Art -Regenerating the Literature of Symbolism
 

There shall be numerous small amendments over the next few weeks but as of now, and with thanks to the shade of Melchior Lechter, the full website can now be unveiled:

Hieroglyphic Press

As can be seen details of the first few hardcover releases have also been made visible. Note: the Gozzano volume may be retitled to better reflect its the contents.

Please do email or PM if you have any questions.

Thanks for the complements.

Re: Leaves for Art -Regenerating the Literature of Symbolism
 

Hi Evans. I'm intrigued by this from a literary criticism point of view, but also rather sceptical. I really don't think the Symbolists and the Decadents, who on the whole I admire, were inclined towards either religious orthodoxy or literary formalism. Leon Trotsky correctly identified the Symbolist movement as a 'tuning up' of literary instruments – whose full expression, I think, is heard in later poets such as Rilke and Lorca. The Symbolists were visionary rebels in a repressive and conventional era. Your exclusion of Rimbaud from the list of approved Symbolist authors is worrying. Your inclusion of Schulz is encouraging, but to me he represents everything – a secular focus on the body, the family and society – that you otherwise don't seem to like. In short I applaud your interest in Symbolist and Decadent literature but am worried by the project's overtones of religiosity and traditionalism. Why is Jean Genet not on your list? If you're not familiar with his work, read Funeral Rites and Our Lady of the Flowers – masterpieces of modern symbolist writing in passionate revolt against authority and tradition.

Re: Leaves for Art -Regenerating the Literature of Symbolism
 

This is an interesting debate, but I suspect we're falling into the age-old problem of 'herding cats'. Symbolist, expressionist, modernist - all of the authors cited have been claimed by one or the other movements over the years. And the search for trancendence can incorporate religiosity (as in Huysmans' biography) as surely as it can incorporate decadence.

Zizek recently commented on the 'death of the left' and the fact that it was left to the remnants of the deeply unfashionable and conservative tradition of 'old europe' to reveal the underlying imperial truths of the 'lost years' of the 1990's which began with Balkan interventionism much as it did in the1890's.

Re: Leaves for Art -Regenerating the Literature of Symbolism
 

The exclusion of Rimbaud is worrying indeed. Is this a sin of omission or commission? I am very intrigued by the inclusion of Meister Eckhart on the list - especially as I seem to be in the middle of a Baader-Meinhof effect riff where Rimbaud and Eckhart keep popping up while I struggle with an essay on both as well as St. Peregrine (patron saint of cancer patients). Just coincidentally after having not checked in her at TLO since just before this thread was started.

Re: Leaves for Art -Regenerating the Literature of Symbolism
 

I wonder if Ligotti's work would be acceptable.

Re: Leaves for Art -Regenerating the Literature of Symbolism
 

I'm sure Ligotti would be acceptable, but I'm also sure that his attitude towards 'the sacred' and 'the holy' is one of disgust and anger. The same is true of Baudelaire, the first great poet of urban modernity. The list of approved writers transcends the accompanying manifesto, which is all to the good.

Re: Leaves for Art -Regenerating the Literature of Symbolism
 

How can the "sacred" and "holy" not be connected with symbolism and decadence? Symbolism was obsessed with the "sacred"; decadence with the "holy". Huysmans pattered on and on about the symbols of the catholic church. Bloy was so deep in it he almost never came up for air. As for being rebels. Only to a certain extent. Rachilde was a very conventional woman. A little fascist with a skill for letters. Peladin went about in his monk's cloak recruiting whoever he could to listen to his faux-religious discourses. I could go on. The problem is that a publisher like Dedalus chose mostly to publish the more sexual side of things - but what they published is only representative of a certain side of decadence. And most of the other books fall into the category of "unreadable" - or as Mr. Corrick would say - "those that someone never tried to read".

Re: Leaves for Art -Regenerating the Literature of Symbolism
 

Re: Leaves for Art -Regenerating the Literature of Symbolism
 

"The sacred" and "the holy" have religious connotations and are born out of society and not entirely personal. I feel disgust for "the sacred" and "the holy" but I do not hate myself. I don't view myself as sacred or holy.

Why would it? Am I secretly religious because I am a moral person? Here is something from a Lovecraft letter:

"Personally, I am intensely moral and intensely irreligious. My morality can be traced to two distinct sources, scientific and aesthetic. My love of truth is outraged by the flagrant disturbance of sociological relations involved in so-called wrong; whilst my aesthetic sense is outraged and disgusted with the violations of taste and harmony thereupon attendant. But to me the question presents no ground for connexion with the grovelling instinct of religion."

Re: Leaves for Art -Regenerating the Literature of Symbolism
 

Sounds like the "argument" where disbelief in (and scorn for the notion of) God, is said to imply a license for all those actions that same God presumably condemns.

Re: Leaves for Art -Regenerating the Literature of Symbolism
 

It is hard to believe someone when they claim to be moral. Wasn't Lovecraft a racist?

Re: Leaves for Art -Regenerating the Literature of Symbolism
 

Lovecraft's reasoning here is faulty. As Max Weber (and others before him) has demonstrated, there is no way to make normative conclusions from arguments that are merely descriptive. You cannot conclude how things should be merely from a description of how they are. There has to be a normative ingredient from the outset in order to make a normative conclusion.

Re: Leaves for Art -Regenerating the Literature of Symbolism
 

Didn't Pope Innocent VIII transfuse blood from three boys, resulting in their deaths, in an attempt to keep himself alive? Lovecraft was not infallible. Does that make him entirely lacking of morality?

Re: Leaves for Art -Regenerating the Literature of Symbolism
 

In other words, you are proposing that the 'sacred' and 'holy' (not the words alone, but the realities that they would signify) could be purely subjective. Isn't that a very strange idea of the 'sacred' and 'holy'? Aren't they supposed to be above and beyond the subjectivity of any odd individual?

Re: Leaves for Art -Regenerating the Literature of Symbolism
 

I know full well that my own views differ from those of many people on these message boards, and also that they differ from the the assumptions about those views that are thrown at me on the occasions that I express them. That's not really the issue. Why? Because, even if there is a debate to be had, I'm not interested in having it here.

The issue is simply this: in a world where literacy rates are falling and libraries are being closed down, someone is starting a new literary journal. Have we read it yet? No. Do we know what it will be like? Not until we read it.

My impression is that the journal will be quite different in ethos to how a literary journal would be if I had set it up. Do I therefore wish to censure? No. This is what literature is all about - different points of view, exploring ideas, symbolic gestures, crashing the plane and walking away, etc.

First of all, it seems like something to celebrate that new literary journals are still appearing. Secondly, why don't we read them first before criticising?

Re: Leaves for Art -Regenerating the Literature of Symbolism
 

I agree with Quentin here. Attacking a publication no one here has yet seen, simply because, from the guidelines, the aesthetic seems to be different from your own, is a sort of ugly thing. The energy would be better used attacking some large publisher of total trash.

Re: Leaves for Art -Regenerating the Literature of Symbolism
 

Aren't we allowed to discuss the manifesto put up by this new Literary Journal? In a civilized fashion?

I'm genuinely intrigued about your ideas of the 'sacred' and 'holy'. But suspicious too, admittedly. And so what?

Re: Leaves for Art -Regenerating the Literature of Symbolism
 

Good evening Joel,

I have just returned from a weekend away and have thus only just seen your message. More to the point something in that previous message could been seen as a covert attack against you which it is not. A more forthcoming message will follow: the former is just the most important statement.

I have in fact suggested Arthur Rimbaud and his concept of 'The Alchemy of the Word' to several individuals who expressed interested in submitting material to the anthology. The only thing I shall with regards Rimbaud is that I am by preference a prose formalist and one of Rimbaud's lasting influences as to inspire far losser, more informal trends in verse. Now while I like some of the former's poetry - for instance 'The Drunken Boat' is one of the finest poems in the French language - I do not much care for the influence he had on literature. I am, if anything, an Anti-Modernist at least in regards to Anglophone literature.

I do enjoy Lorca, though to be truthful find Rilke overrated. Ironically the latter would be far more Symbolist and thus fitting, than Lorca whose poetry drew much from Romantic and folkloric sources.

At this point I must state that I rather resent your implication that I should 'hate' Schulz and his view point merely because I may not agree with all parts of it. I am sure there are some aspects of Trotsky's ideology which you would abhorrent yet this by now means disqualifies you from admiring the man or much of his philosophy.

I enjoy Schulz's fiction just as I enjoy Huysmans fiction; it doesn't mean I necessarily endorse the exact same views as either of them. In fact I may select aspects of others work and wider philosophy which I agree with even if I were not to concure with the whole.

The authors mentioned on that list had widely different political and personal philosophies. For instance George Bacovia, who apart from being a Schopeanhaur derived pessimist, was a staunch Communist sympathiser in the years proceeding the occupation of Romania (he did write some unpleasantly anti Semitic poetry though so I haven't mention him in any great depth). Likewise Gabriele d'Annunzio was a Nietzschian par excellence and I don't think I need remind the world of his political leanings (though to do him his due he was staunchly anti-Nazi and anti Hitler)

Well many pieces of his would: Autumnal, Mrs. Rinaldi's Angel et cetra. To answer Sun Dog's post at the same time the more Gnosticaly themed pieces, Nethescurial and The Sect of the Idiot for instance, would have also been much welcomed. I do not hold to Mr Ligotti's philosophy but I would still reckon him of the finest American writers of strange fiction (for one thing he can write prose well, which in itself is a dying skill).

To flip this round: I know many of you enjoy and think highly of the works of Arthur Machen? Now I'm sure doing so doesn't mean you are Anglo-Catholic. EDIT: Better yet I know many of you enjoy David Tibet's music, but will bet the first copy of whatever I publish that none of you are esoteric Buddhist Coptic Christians.

Brendan Connell has been err... critical, or at least irreverent, towards Christianity in his some of his fiction, yet he is not only in my opinion one of the finest writers working at present, but also one of my favourites. And I posted about this ages before I came into contact with him personally.

This actually ties into something I was going to mention in our conversation re Lorrain but since it's applicable I will post it here.

If one sincerely believes a false idea like Racial superiority or Jewish banking conspiracies or any of those other historic bug bears it still doesn't absolve one from dealing with the perceived problem in a moral way. So Lovecraft's fault was not that he worked under the false impression that other races were inferior, but that he hated and viewed them with malice, or at least disgust, because of it.

Of course none of this relates to the worth of the author's work.

Re: Leaves for Art -Regenerating the Literature of Symbolism
 

You may be right. You're probably more versed in philosophy than I am. But I think the quote still indicates he had moral feelings, even if his reasoning was off, and I doubt anyone who has read many of his letters and essays would claim he was not irreligious.

Re: Leaves for Art -Regenerating the Literature of Symbolism
 

It seems to me that the sacred can inhere only in the exoteric. Interiority is the province of the holy. Jesus and Paul understood this in their respective ways from the very begiinning. Thus , while Innocent Vlll's office is sacred, there is nothing sacred or holy about the man, who was recognized as a banal monster by many of his contemporaries