This dissertation assesses the character and significance of <I>The Criterion</I> by recontextualizing the journal within a complex and changing structure of inter-war literary-cultural periodicals. Its basic contention is that careful consideration of the milieu of metropolitan literary journalism - including due attention to the role of commercial imperatives and to tentacular periodical 'networks' - throws new light on the institutional place of <I>The Criterion</I> in intellectual debate between the wars. Utilising evidence from unpublished archival material and from interviews with contributors to inter-war literary periodicals, this dissertation attempts to reconstruct a more thickly textured account of the publishing history and achievement of <I>The Criterion</I> than existing scholarly accounts. The first section of the dissertation explores <I>The Criterion's</I> interaction with four other influential and like-minded periodicals. These chapters downgrade questions regarding the substantive theoretical issues at stake, in order to concentrate upon the specifically journalistic context of their dissemination and reception. The second section turns the focus on the intertextual debates occurring within the journal, through a detailed examination of the subtle negotiation of Eliot's editorial directives in the work of the most important and prolific <I>Criterion</I> contributors. The question of how far Eliot orchestrated or dictated an editorial 'line' in the journal is further evaluated in the concluding section of the dissertation, which addresses <I>The Criterion's</I> engagement in contemporary politico-economic discourse, including some consideration of the journal in the wider intellectual field of European literary-cultural periodicals. It is hoped that the chapters fit together in an architectonic structure which provides a new framework of interpretation and thereby serves to deepen and extend recent critical and scholarly discussions of <I>The Criterion</I>.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:603688 |
| Date | January 2000 |
| Creators | Harding, J. D. |
| Publisher | University of Cambridge |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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