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Literary magazine

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The cover of the first issue ofPoetrymagazine, published in 1912.

Aliterary magazineis aperiodicaldevoted toliteraturein a broad sense. Literary magazines usually publishshort stories,poetry,andessays,along withliterary criticism,book reviews,biographical profiles ofauthors,interviewsand letters. Literary magazines are often calledliterary journals,orlittle magazines,terms intended to contrast them with larger, commercialmagazines.[1]

History

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Nouvelles de la république des lettresis regarded as the first literary magazine; it was established byPierre BayleinFrancein 1684.[2]Literary magazines became common in the early part of the 19th century, mirroring an overall rise in the number of books, magazines, and scholarlyjournalsbeing published at that time. InGreat Britain,criticsFrancis Jeffrey,Henry BroughamandSydney Smithfounded theEdinburgh Reviewin 1802. Other British reviews of this period included theWestminster Review(1824),The Spectator(1828), andAthenaeum(1828). In the United States, early journals included thePhiladelphia Literary Magazine(1803–1808), theMonthly Anthology(1803–11), which became theNorth American Review,theYale Review(founded in 1819),The Yankee(1828–1829)The Knickerbocker(1833–1865),Dial(1840–44) and the New Orleans–basedDe Bow's Review(1846–80). Several prominent literary magazines were published inCharleston, South Carolina,includingThe Southern Review(1828–32) andRussell's Magazine(1857–60).[3]The most prominent Canadian literary magazine of the 19th century was the Montreal-basedLiterary Garland.[4]

TheNorth American Review,founded in 1815, is the oldest American literary magazine. However, it had its publication suspended during World War II, and theYale Review(founded in 1819) did not; thus the Yale journal is the oldest literary magazine in continuous publication. Begun in 1889,Poet Loreis considered the oldest journal dedicated to poetry.[5]By the end of the century, literary magazines had become an important feature of intellectual life in many parts of the world. One of the most notable 19th century literary magazines of theArabic-speaking worldwasAl-Urwah al-Wuthqa.[6]

Among the literary magazines that began in the early part of the 20th century isPoetrymagazine. Founded in 1912, it publishedT. S. Eliot's first poem, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock".Another wasThe Bellman,which began publishing in 1906 and ended in 1919, was edited by William Crowell Edgar and was based in Minneapolis, Minnesota.[7]Other important early-20th century literary magazines includeThe Times Literary Supplement(1902),Southwest Review(1915),Virginia Quarterly Review(1925),World Literature Today(founded in 1927 asBooks Abroadbefore assuming its present name in 1977),Southern Review(1935), andNew Letters(1935). TheSewanee Review,although founded in 1892, achieved prominence largely thanks toAllen Tate,who became editor in 1944.[8]

Two of the most influential—though radically different—journals of the last half of the 20th century wereThe Kenyon Review(KR) and thePartisan Review.The Kenyon Review,edited byJohn Crowe Ransom,espoused the so-calledNew Criticism.Its platform was avowedly unpolitical. Although Ransom came from the South and published authors from that region,KRalso published many New York–based and international authors.The Partisan Reviewwas first associated with the American Communist Party and theJohn Reed Club;however, it soon broke ranks with the party. Nevertheless, politics remained central to its character, while it also published significant literature and criticism.

The middle-20th century saw a boom in the number ofliterarymagazines, which corresponded with the rise of thesmall press.Among the important journals which began in this period wereNimbus: A Magazine of Literature, the Arts, and New Ideas,which began publication in 1951 in England, theParis Review,which was founded in 1953,The Massachusetts ReviewandPoetry Northwest,which were founded in 1959,XMagazine,which ran from 1959 to 1962, and theDenver Quarterly,which began in 1965. The 1970s saw another surge in the number of literary magazines, with a number of distinguished journals getting their start during this decade, includingColumbia: A Journal of Literature and Art,Ploughshares,The Iowa Review,Granta,Agni,The Missouri Review,andNew England Review.Other highly regarded print magazines of recent years includeThe Threepenny Review,The Georgia Review,Ascent,Shenandoah,The Greensboro Review,ZYZZYVA,Glimmer Train,Tin House,Half Mystic Journal,the Canadian magazineBrick,the Australian magazineHEAT,andZoetrope: All-Story.Some short fiction writers, such asSteve Almond,Jacob M. AppelandStephen Dixonhave built national reputations in the United States primarily through publication in literary magazines.[citation needed]

TheCommittee of Small Magazine Editors and Publishers(COSMEP) was founded byRichard Morrisin 1968. It was an attempt to organize the energy of the small presses. Len Fulton, editor and founder of Dustbook Publishing, assembled and published the first real list of these small magazines and their editors in the mid-1970s. This made it possible for poets to pick and choose the publications most amenable to their work and the vitality of these independent publishers was recognized by the larger community, including theNational Endowment for the Arts,which created a committee to distribute support money for this burgeoning group of publishers called the Coordinating Council of Literary Magazines (CCLM). This organisation evolved into theCouncil of Literary Magazines and Presses(CLMP).

Many prestigious awards exist for works published in literary magazines including thePushcart Prizeand theO. Henry Awards.Literary magazines also provide many of the pieces inThe Best American Short StoriesandThe Best American Essaysannual volumes.

Online literary magazines

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SwiftCurrent,created in 1984, was the first online literary magazine. It functioned as more of a database of literary works than a literary publication.[9]In 1995, theMississippi Reviewwas the first large literary magazine to launch a fully online issue.[10]By 1998,FenceandTimothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concernwere published and quickly gained an audience.[11]Around 1996, literary magazines began to appear more regularly online. At first, some writers and readers dismissed online literary magazines as not equal in quality or prestige to their print counterparts, while others said that these were not properly magazines and were insteadezines.Since then, though, many writers and readers have accepted online literary magazines as another step in the evolution of independent literary journals. The rise in online literary magazines also occurred in countries like Nigeria. This allowed Nigerian writers to connect more globally and gain wider recognition. One notable Nigerian online literary magazine isAkpata Magazine,a Nigerian literary magazine that publishes literary work from Africa and beyond. It provides a platform for emerging and established writers to showcase poetry, fiction, essays, and cultural commentary.

There are thousands of other online literary publications and it is difficult to judge the quality and overall impact of this relatively new publishing medium.[12]

Little magazines

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Main article:Little magazine
For the 20th-c movement in India, seeLittle magazine movement.

Little magazines, or "small magazines", are literary magazines that often publishexperimental literatureand the non-conformist writings of relatively unknown writers. Typically they had small readership, were financially uncertain or non-commercial, were irregularly published and showcased artistic innovation.[13]

See also

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References

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  1. ^Cowley, Malcolm (September 14, 1947)."The Little Magazines Growing Up; The Little Magazines".The New York Times.ISSN0362-4331.Retrieved2017-09-12.
  2. ^Travis Kurowski (Fall 2008). "Some Notes on the History of the Literary Magazine".Mississippi Review.36(3): 231–243.JSTOR20132855.
  3. ^"Library of Southern Literature: Antebellum Era".docsouth.unc.edu.Retrieved2017-09-12.
  4. ^MacGillivray, S. R. (1997). "Literary Garland, The".The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature.William Toye, Eugene Benson (2nd ed.). Toronto: Oxford University Press.ISBN0-19-541167-6.OCLC39624837.
  5. ^Charles, Ron."America's oldest poetry journal celebrates 125 years of great verse".The Washington Post.Retrieved2017-09-12.
  6. ^"Urwa al-Wuthqa, al- | Encyclopedia".encyclopedia.Retrieved2020-03-11.
  7. ^"The Bellman".Onlinebooks.John Mark Ockerbloom.Retrieved5 April2023.
  8. ^HistoryArchived2006-09-01 at theWayback Machine
  9. ^"SwiftCurrent".www2.iath.virginia.edu.Retrieved2018-03-12.
  10. ^"Volume 1, Number 1, April 1995".The Mississippi Review.University of Southern Mississippi. Archived fromthe originalon 1998-01-28.Retrieved31 January2021.
  11. ^Kurowski, Travis (2008). "Some Notes on the History of the Literary Magazine".Mississippi Review.36(3): 231–243.JSTOR20132855.
  12. ^"Technology, Genres, and Value Change:the Case of Literary Magazines" by S. Pauling and M. Nilan.Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology57(7):662-672 doi10.1022/asi.20345
  13. ^Barsanti, Michael (July 2017)."Little Magazines".Oxford Research Encyclopedias: Literature.doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780190201098.013.588.ISBN978-0-19-020109-8.Retrieved11 July2019.

Further reading

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