Reading Edith Sitwell's Annual Poetry Anthology Wheels Through the Lens of Female Aestheticism

In December 1916, Wheels: An Anthology of Verse, edited by Edith Sitwell, debuted. Sitwell's main achievement in her role as editor has largely been considered the fourth cycle in which she published seven poems by Wilfred Owen. Viewing Wheels solely from this perspective, however, places the emphasis on the contributions by male poets, framing Wheels as a First World War publication, overlooking the relationship between Wheels and the tradition of aestheticism and Decadence. This article takes its cue from Wheels's contemporary reviewers, privileging the allusions to the aesthetic tradition but also seeking to go further by arguing that Sitwell built her publication on the foundation of a specific type of aesthetic tradition: female aestheticism. Sitwell undermined dominant structures of male literary authority and created an egalitarian space where female and male poets were at liberty to criticize not only aesthetic norms, but gender and social norms as well.