The Criterion: Cultural Politics and Periodical Networks in Inter-War Britain

by Jason Harding

Overview

In this detailed study of literary culture in the inter-war period, Jason Harding examines the standing of T. S. Eliot's journal the Criterion in relation to other literary periodicals and, beyond that, to the larger cultural networks of the time. Through his examination of insufficiently known archive material and interviews with living witnesses to the period, Harding significantly alters our understanding of the journal and of Eliot's role as editor.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199247172
Publisher:	Oxford University Press, USA
Publication date:	04/28/2002
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	250
Product dimensions:	8.60(w) x 5.70(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Feng Chia University, Taiwan

Table of Contents

Abbreviations
Introduction
I: Periodical Networks
1. The Adelphi: The Reaction against Romanticism
2. The Calendar: Standards of Criticism
3. Scrutiny: Critics from Cambridge
4. New Verse: An Oxford Clique
II: The Politics of Book Reviewing
5. Herbert Read: Anarchist Aide-de-Camp
6. Bonamy Dobree: Agreeable Sceptic
7. Montgomery Belgion: A Useful Irritant
8. Michael Roberts and Janet Adam Smith: New Signatures
III: Cultural Politics
9. A Religio-Political Organ
10. Defence of the West
Afterword
Select Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

"Harding's account of the Criterion proves a fascinating addition to the wealth of scholarship that has examined Eliot's role not only as a critic but also in the publishing world as an editor....The Criterion: Cultural Politics and Periodical Networks in Inter-War Britain ...offers a fascinating new entry into a wider debate concerning the practice of modernist scholarship."—Taryn L. Okuma, University of Wisconsin-Madison

"Harding's assiduously researched study of [The Criterion] is excellent at nipping behind its tone of Olympian hauteur to reveal the sectarian, manipulative, suavely malicious politics of the literary marketplace that lie behind it."— Terry Eagleton, London Review of Books

"Harding has scoured the sources and offers a rich picture of the era's literary history.... A masterful work of scholarship on Eliot and modernism."—Virginia Quarterly Review

From the Publisher