transition 27 was published in April-May 1938 and was edited by Eugene Jolas with associate editor James Johnson Sweeney.

A few comments about the final issue of transition. Unlike the first ‘final’ issue 19/20, No. 27 celebrates ten years of the journal without any farewells or even a mention that it is in fact the final issue. However, the opening text “Frontierless Decade” reflects on the project of transition and gives a useful summary of the basic positions and turning points in the journal’s history.

We also find a number of interesting features: the Barzun poem on page 17, for example, is a large fold-out that seems to stretch typographic experimentation beyond the bounds of standard book printing. It presented difficulties for scanning, which we plan to make presentable in a separate file. And the Kay Boyle poem features a two-column layout with prose on one column and verse in the other.

The problem of the Night and language, and what Jolas calls the ‘night-mind’, is an organizing motif in this issue. It seems, in a certain way, to culminate in an exploration of the dolmens, standing stones, and lithic carvings of pre-history. Yet as Jolas himself says at the end of his reflections in the “Inquiry into the Spirit and Language of Night”:

I am still engaged in a search for this language of night.

Cover art by Wassily Kandinsky.

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Contents of Issue 27

Eugene Jolas - Frontierless Decade - 7

Xavier Abril - Asesinado en el Alba - 10

Hans Arp - Porte—Nuage - 12

— L’Age l’Eclair la main et la Feuille - 13

Jacques Baron - Pour la Paix - 14

Barzun - Fragment de L’universel poeme - 17 (NOTE: the fold out for this poem presented real problems for scanning and the results were unsatisfactory.)

Samuel Beckett - Ooftish - 33

Kay Boyle - A Complaint for M and M - 34

— The Story I Wanted to Tell You - 36

— Your Love Song - 39

André Breton (trans. Maria Jolas) - Fragment from “Mad Love” - 41

Friedrich Hölderlin - The Titans - 48

Eugene Jolas - Night of Grünewald - 51

James Joyce - Fragment from Work In Progress (Part II, Section 3) - 59

Franz Kafka (trans. Eugene Jolas) - Metamorphosis (Conclusion) - 79 (see transition 25 and 26 for previously translated sections)

Wassilij Kandinsky - Blick und Blitz - 104

— Ergo - 105

— Erinnerungen - 106

— Anders - 108

— Immer Zusammen - 109

Niall Montgomery - Swing Tides of March This Time Darling - 110

Anaïs Nin - The House of Incest - 114

Georges Pelorson - Le Vrai Visage (II) - 119

George Reavey - Dismissing Progress and its Progenitors - 125

William Saroyan - The Slot-Machine (Extracts) - 126

Camille Schuwer - Coréame - 131

Philippe Soupault - Manhattan - 133

— Poème - 135

James Johnson Sweeney - Lemon Tree - 136

— Oranges and Lemons - 137

Laurence Vail - Fragment from a Novel - 138

Dorothy van Ghent - The Rose and the Skull - 142

Le Corbusier - Pêcheurs - 145

— Femme à la draperie rouge - 147

— Creation d’une Ville Neuve. Port de Nemours (Afrique du Nord) - 149

Night, Myth, Language: Hypnologues and Paramyths

Dorothy Boillotat - Dream of the End of Time - 153

Thomas Good - Carrion - 157

Eugene Jolas - Vertigral - 159

Franz Kafka (trans. by Eugene Jolas and Stuart Gilbert) - The Housefather’s Care - 160

Niall Montgommery - Imaginary pronoums - 162

Georges Pelorson - Perpetuel Mobile - 163

William Saroyan - Fragment - 164

J.L. Sweeney - Poem - 165

Davidson Taylor - The Word Seraphim Occurs But Once in the Old Testament - 166

Irene Wissotzky - Rêves Diurnes - 167

Eugene Jolas - Homage to the Mythmaker - 169

Herbert Read - Myth, Dream and Poem - 176

— Love and Death - 188

Hieronomous Bosch - Le Reable de Saint-Antoine - 193

— The Temptation of St. Anthony - 195

Albert Béguin (trans. Eugene Jolas and Stuart Gilbert) - The Night-Side of Life - 197

Eugene Jolas - Frontier-Poem - 219

Terence White - On the Poetic Possibilities of Some Languages and Their Linguistic Usages - 225

Inquiry Into the Spirit and Language of Night (questions posed by Eugene Jolas):

— Sherwood Anderson - 233

— Kenneth Burke - 233

— Malcolm Cowley - 235

— George Dillon - 235

— T.S. Eliot - 236

— Waldo Frank - 236

— Michael Gold - 236

— Ernest Hemingway - 237

— Robinson Jeffers - 237

— Archibald MacLeish - 237

— Gilbert Seldes - 237

— Charles Tracy - 238

— Terence White - 240

— George Whitsett - 241

— Eugene Jolas - 243

Chester K. Mackee - Confiteor (opening and closing pages) - 247

The Eye

Francis Bruguére - Transmutation - 255

Kurt Seligmann - Figures d'Hiver, 1937 - 257

O. Dominguez - The End of an Evening - 259

Claude-Levy - Aquarium - 261

Max Ernst - Barbares regardent vers l’Ouest - 263

Paul Klee - Portrait of an Actress, 1920 - 265

David Alfaro Siqueiros - Jeane Femme Accroupie, 1931 - 267

Wassilij Kandinsky - La Ligne Blanche, 1936 - 269

Wassilij Kandinsky - Composition, 1937 - 271

Hans Arp - Concrétion Humaine, 1937 - 273

— Concrétion Humaine, 1935 - 275

G. Vantongerloo - Fonction des lignes rouges et vertes, 1936 - 277

Viking Eggeling - Final Figure of the Diagonal Symphony, 1919-1920 - 279

Sophie Taeuber - Arp: Sculpture, 1937 - 281

Vordemberge-Gildewart - Composition No. 91 - 283

Max Bill - Construction in Iron and Brass, 1935-36 - 285

Otto Freundlich - Composition - 287

Commentaries

Samuel Beckett - [review of Intercessions by] Denis Devlin - 289

Max Brod (trans. and adapted by Eugene Jolas) - Franz Kafka’s Letter to his Father - 295

Franz Kafka - Sketches - 297

Gabrielle Buffet-Picabia (trans. Maria Jolas) - Arthur Cravan and American Dada - 314

Henry Miller - The Cosmological Eye - 322

Hans Reichel - Composition, 1933 - 325

Inter-Racial

Carola Giedion-Welcker - Prehistoric Stones - 335

Supprt Gravé de Gisors - 345

Dolmen de Gavr’inis - from Corpus des Signes Gravées by Péquart et Le Rouzic - 247

Lanyou-Quoit, Penzance (Cornwall) - 249

Saint-Sernin (Aveyron) - Menhir Statue - 251

Menhir, Le Manio (Carnac) - Serpent Sign; from Corpus des Signes Gravées by Péquart et Le Rouzic - 253

Menhir, Mané - Meur, Quibéron - 255

Allée Couvert de Luffang - 257

Dolmen de Gavr’inis - 259

Martha Champion Huot - Musquakie Indian ‘Love’ Songs - 361

Australian Bark Drawing - 267

Michel Leiris - Oraison Funèbre d’un Chasseur - 369

Glossary - 375