Modernism in mainstream magazines, 1920-37

This thesis studies five mainstream British weekly magazines: 'Time and Tide', the 'Nation and Athenaeum', the 'Spectator', the 'Listener', and the 'New Statesman'. It explores how these magazines reviewed, discussed and analysed modernist literature over an eighteen-year span, 1920-37. Over this period, and in these magazines, the concept of modernism developed. Drawing on work by philosopher Ian Hacking, this research traces how the idea of modernism emerged into the public realm. It focuses largely on the book reviews printed in these magazines, texts that played an important and underappreciated role in negotiations between modernist texts and the audience of these magazines. Chapter 1, on 'Time and Tide', covers a period from the magazine's inception in 1920 to 1926, and draws particularly on Catherine Clay's work on this magazine. It discusses the genre of 'weekly review' that this new magazine attempted to join, and the cultural place of modernism in the early 1920s. Chapter 2, on the 'Nation and Athenaeum', covers Leonard Woolf's literary editorship (1923-30), under the ownership of J. M. Keynes, and makes use of Keynesâs archive at King's College, Cambridge, and Woolfâs at the University of Sussex. Chapter 3, on the 'Spectator', covers Evelyn Wrenchâs editorship (1925-32), and explores the relationship between this magazine, ideologies of conservatism, and modernism. Chapter 4, on the 'Listener', focuses on the magazineâs publication of new poetry, including an extraordinary 1933 supplement that printed W. H. Audenâs 'The Witnesses'. This work revolves around Janet Adam Smith, literary editor in these years, and draws on Smithâs archive at the National Library of Scotland as well as the BBC archives at Caversham. Chapter 5, on the 'New Statesman' in the 1930s under new editor Kingsley Martin, explores a period when modernism was more widely recognized, and pays particular attention to a short text by James Joyce printed in 1932, 'From a Banned Writer to a Banned Singer'.