Reading content in Blast 1 and 2

            In chapter six of their book Modernism in the Magazines: An Introduction, Robert Scholes and Wulfman offer specific lenses one can use to more thoroughly read a modernist magazine. Since modernist magazines are a collection of many authors, literary, and artistic works there is a special approach needed to see the magazine as a unified but not really unified text. As readers, we read the magazine as a whole and appreciate the different styles present while looking for some overarching thematic significance. To help readers arrive at a more complete understanding, Scholes and Wulfan offer a checklist of elements of a magazine to specifically examine on page 148.One area that is suggested that I feel is especially  important for reading a modernist magazine is too look at the composition of the different genres included. For example, in Blast there is a very close ratio between literary writing and drawings/pictures which certainly makes sense as Lewis and the other contributors sought to perpetuate the Vorticist artistic movement.  So in terms of numbers, it is evident that art and the discussion of art was the central focus for the authors as seen by the large percentage of entries revolving around art.

Also in terms of the number of times certain content is discussed, one could conclude that the looming (and later current) threat of global war is certainly represented in both Blast 1 and 2. As Scholes and Wulfman discuss, the proportion of war centered articles/art reveals that the idea of war and destruction were at the forefront of national attention. Lewis, Pound, and the other contributors all address (many times over) how the war will impact England and especially how a world war would threaten the development of the artistic movement. If one were to take a tally of how many pages of Blast deal with war/battle/fighting they would likely find that a large percentage of the content (especially in the second edition) deal with the conflict which was soon to change every element of life in England. So as Scholes and Wulfam suggest it is important to look at the content of a modernist magazine to determine what was the backdrop of the creation of the magazine was. To fully understand what is the “main goal” of the magazine is one should pay attention to what ideas are repeatedly discussed and what ideas seem to be outliers.