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little magazines

Page history last edited by PBworks 16 years, 11 months ago

Little Magazines

By Louie Marven

 

During the onset of American modernism, little magazines were an outlet for writers trying to grapple with the changing cultural climate of their time through experimental forms in writing and subversive subject matter. The magazines fueled modernism by providing this outlet, simultaneously helping movements like imagism, surrealism, cubism, and futurism gain momentum in their early stages. For example, View magazine encouraged the American Surrealist movement (see American Surrealism and View Magazine). Oftentimes, little magazines provided a venue for European ideas, art, and movements to be brought to America, usually as a precursor to a movement happening in America; this happened not only in the case of Surrealism, but with other movements as well (Eggener 32). Churchill defines little magazines as "non-commercial enterprises founded by individuals or small groups intent upon publishing the experimental works or radical opinions of untried, unpopular, or under-represented writers" (3).  One statistic that shows the importance of little magazines is "that 80 percent of a list of one hundred post-1912 writers were introduced by little magazines" (Test 190).

 

One of the earliest examples of a little magazine was Germ, an English magazine that began in 1850.  Only four issues were printed before it folded for a lack of funding, a common shortcoming of early little magazines.  In the form of modern little magazines, it accepted contributions from writers who worked outside the most mainstream literary movements and who could not find publication elsewhere (http://memorial.library.wisc.edu/lttlmag.htm)

 

                                                

 

BLAST                            RHYTHM                      THE OWL                      THE BLUE REVIEW         POETRY MAGAZINE

1914 - 1915                  1911 - 1912               1915 - 1923                 May 1913 - July 1913     1912 - Present

 

Little magazines came out of a magazine industry that was becoming increasingly standardized and homogenized, and reacted to this by becoming increasingly intellectually sophisticated, making them less desirable on a mass scale. Because of their specialized nature, commercial gain was not an objective in their publication (http://memorial.library.wisc.edu/lttlmag.htm).  Instead, they acted as a forum for open dialogue for a diverse audience of readers, who would frequently respond to work found in their favorite little magazines. As appealing as this sounds, the movement away from mass production resulted in magazines being generally short-lived; however, some little magazines (like Poetry) are still published today.

 

Harriet Monroe (1860-1936) 

Plenty of diversity existed within the little magazine phenomenon. While some were intended to uphold higher artistic standards, some used traditional or common forms of the early 20th century to challenge the conventional political wisdom and practice. Poetry was one such magazine that focused on the former. Founded in 1912 by Harriet Monroe, this magazine gave many influential voices their first opportunity to be heard; T.S Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" was first published in it. Monroe, with encouragement from Ezra Pound, worked to create a poetic revolution in America in response to the changing artistic climate of Europe. She focused on publishing all quality American poetry, which early in the magazine's existence included the early work of Carl Sandburg, Edgar Lee Masters, Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, and Robert Frost. The magazine continues this tradition of Monroe's "open door policy."

 

 

 

 

 

A magazine called The Messenger started in 1917 and was more politically and ideologically driven than more avant-garde magazines like Poetry. The Messenger was founded and run by African-Americans and specifically existed for an African-American audience. Its mission statement notes,

 

Our aim is to appeal to reason, to lift our pens above the cringing demagogy of the times, and above the cheap peanut politics of the old reactionary Negro leaders. Patriotism has no appeal to us; justice has. Party has no weight with us; principle has. Loyalty is meaningless; it depends on what one is loyal to. Prayer is not one of our remedies; it depends on what one is praying for. We consider prayer as nothing more than a fervent wish; consequently the merit and worth of a prayer depend upon what the fervent wish is.

 

The magazine worked with writers and movements associated with the Harlem Renaissance, but also challenged contemporary African-American leaders who they deemed unhelpful to their movement (see Wikipedia).

 

The wide variety of poets involved in this one little magazine indicates the broad reach these magazines had in their influence on modern American literature. While Monroe became influential in developing American High Modernism -- exemplified in her close work with Pound, and, by extension, Eliot -- advocates of a more common, plain, specifically American poetry like Williams also spread their message with little magazines. American expatriates even found the oppportunity to publish in little magazines, including The Dial and The Little Review, the latter of which published James Joyce's Ulysses in pieces before its publication as a novel.

 

Works Cited

 

Churchill, Suzanne W. "Little Magazines and Modernism." American Periodicals: A Journey of History, Criticism, and Bibliography 15.1 (2005): 1-6. Literary Reference Center. EBSCOhost. Messiah College Lib., Grantham, PA. 12 Mar 2007. <http://search.epnet.com>.

 

Eggener, Keith L. “‘An Amusing Lack of Logic’: Surrealism and Popular Entertainment.” Smithsonian American Art Museum 7.4 (1993): 30-45. JSTOR. Messiah College, Murray Lib. 22 Apr. 2007. www.jstor.org

 

Lutz, Tom. "The Cosmopolitan Midland." American Periodicals: A Journey of History, Criticism, and Bibliography 15.1 (2005): 74-85. Literary Reference Center. EBSCOhost. Messiah College Lib., Grantham, PA. 12 Mar 2007. <http://search.epnet.com>.

 

Test, George A.  "The 'New Republic' as Little Magazine." American Quarterly 13.2 (1961): 189-192. JSTOR. Messiah College, Murray Lib.  22 Apr. 2007. www.jstor.org

 

External Links

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Messenger_Magazine

 

http://dl.lib.brown.edu:8080/exist/mjp/mjp_journals.xq

 

http://memorial.library.wisc.edu/lttlmag.htm

 

http://www.bl.uk/collections/americas/littlemagazines.html

 

http://www.davidson.edu/academic/english/Little_Magazines/index.html

 

http://www.heyotwell.com/work/arthistory/view.html

 

http://www.poetrymagazine.org/about/history.html

 

 

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Comments (2)

Anonymous said

at 10:27 am on Apr 2, 2007

Good start, Louie. I wonder if you can illustrate the importance of these magazines by pointing out some of the absolutely critical modern works that were originally published in them, or the ways in which they supported particular writers as they were getting started. I kind of think you ought to do more with POETRY and harriet monroe since she was so singularly important to imagism and high modernism, but maybe that's not so important. At least another sentence or two, perhaps.

Anonymous said

at 7:47 am on Apr 25, 2007

Could possibly do a little bit more with internal links to external internet sources. I like the magazine covers. I wonder if they could or should come earlier on the page, or perhaps inserted in a side column somehow. And are there links that could be made directly from those covers to other sources.

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