''The Criterion'' was a British literary magazine published from October 1922 to January 1939. ''The Criterion'' (or the ''Criterion'') was, for most of its run, a quarterly journal, although for a period in 1927–28 it was published monthly. It was created by the poet,

dramatist A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays. Etymology The word "play" is from Middle English pleye, from Old English plæġ, pleġa, plæġa ("play, exercise; sport, game; drama, applause"). The word "wright" is an archaic English ...

, and

literary critic Literary criticism (or literary studies) is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of literature's goals and methods. Th ...

T. S. Eliot who served as its editor for its entire run. Eliot's goal was to make it a literary review dedicated to the maintenance of standards and the reunification of a European intellectual community. Although in a letter to a friend in 1935

George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to totalitar ...

had said "for pure snootiness it beats anything I have ever seen", writing in 1944 he referred to it as "possibly the best literary paper we have ever had". The first issue of the magazine, of which 600 copies were printed,"Anything I Write Is Good: Letters of T.S. Eliot"
''The New York Times'' included Eliot's ''

The Waste Land ''The Waste Land'' is a poem by T. S. Eliot, widely regarded as one of the most important poems of the 20th century and a central work of modernist poetry. Published in 1922, the 434-line poem first appeared in the United Kingdom in the Octob ...

''. In its first year, it received contributions from

Luigi Pirandello Luigi Pirandello (; 28 June 1867 – 10 December 1936) was an Italian dramatist, novelist, poet, and short story writer whose greatest contributions were his plays. He was awarded the 1934 Nobel Prize in Literature for "his almost magical power ...

Virginia Woolf Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer, considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device. Woolf was born i ...

Ezra Pound Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an expatriate American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a Fascism, fascist collaborator in Italy during World War II. His works ...

E. M. Forster Edward Morgan Forster (1 January 1879 – 7 June 1970) was an English author, best known for his novels, particularly ''A Room with a View'' (1908), ''Howards End'' (1910), and ''A Passage to India'' (1924). He also wrote numerous short stori ...

, and

W. B. Yeats William Butler Yeats (13 June 186528 January 1939) was an Irish poet, dramatist, writer and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival and became a pillar of the Irish liter ...

.Sabloff, Nicholas. "The Nursery of Genius: A brief survey of ten magazines of influence" https://web.archive.org/web/20090504235924/http://www.nyrm.org/2007/sabloff_well.html Other contributors over the years included

Wyndham Lewis Percy Wyndham Lewis (18 November 1882 – 7 March 1957) was a British writer, painter and critic. He was a co-founder of the Vorticist movement in art and edited ''BLAST,'' the literary magazine of the Vorticists. His novels include ''Tarr'' ( ...

Herbert Read Sir Herbert Edward Read, (; 4 December 1893 – 12 June 1968) was an English art historian, poet, literary critic and philosopher, best known for numerous books on art, which included influential volumes on the role of art in education. Read ...

John Middleton Murry John Middleton Murry (6 August 1889 – 12 March 1957) was an English writer. He was a prolific author, producing more than 60 books and thousands of essays and reviews on literature, social issues, politics, and religion during his lifetime. ...

John Gould Fletcher John Gould Fletcher (January 3, 1886 – May 10, 1950) was an Imagist poet (the first Southern poet to win the Pulitzer Prize), author and authority on modern painting. He was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, to a socially prominent family. After a ...

W. H. Auden Wystan Hugh Auden (; 21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973) was a British-American poet. Auden's poetry was noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in ...

Stephen Spender Sir Stephen Harold Spender (28 February 1909 – 16 July 1995) was an English poet, novelist and essayist whose work concentrated on themes of social injustice and the class struggle. He was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry by the ...

, and

Hart Crane Harold Hart Crane (July 21, 1899 – April 27, 1932) was an American poet. Provoked and inspired by T. S. Eliot, Crane wrote modernist poetry that was difficult, highly stylized, and ambitious in its scope. In his most ambitious work, '' The Brid ...

. Nine contributions in 1924 and 1925 were made, pseudonymously, by Eliot's first wife,

Vivienne Haigh-Wood Vivienne Haigh-Wood Eliot, also spelt Vivien (28 May 1888 – 22 January 1947), was the first wife of American-British poet T. S. Eliot, whom she married in 1915, less than three months after their introduction by mutual friends, when Vivienne ...

, who suggested the journal's name. ''The Criterion'' became the first English periodical to publish

Marcel Proust Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust (; ; 10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) was a French novelist, critic, and essayist who wrote the monumental novel ''In Search of Lost Time'' (''À la recherche du temps perdu''; with the previous Eng ...

Paul Valéry Ambroise Paul Toussaint Jules Valéry (; 30 October 1871 – 20 July 1945) was a French poet, essayist, and philosopher. In addition to his poetry and fiction (drama and dialogues), his interests included aphorisms on art, history, letters, mus ...

and

Jean Cocteau Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau (, , ; 5 July 1889 – 11 October 1963) was a French poet, playwright, novelist, designer, filmmaker, visual artist and critic. He was one of the foremost creatives of the su ...

. Lady Rothermere (Mary Lilian Share, the wife of the London newspaper magnate

Harold Harmsworth Harold Sidney Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Rothermere, (26 April 1868 – 26 November 1940) was a leading British newspaper proprietor who owned Associated Newspapers Ltd. He is best known, like his brother Alfred Harmsworth, later Viscount Northcl ...

, Viscount Rothermere) originally financed the journal, but on reading the first issue, she wrote three letters to Eliot criticizing it, and suggested ideas for later issues, including a story by

Katherine Mansfield Kathleen Mansfield Murry (née Beauchamp; 14 October 1888 – 9 January 1923) was a New Zealand writer, essayist and journalist, widely considered one of the most influential and important authors of the modernist movement. Her works are celebra ...

. After four years she withdrew her support and the magazine was acquired by Eliot's employer, Faber and Gwyer Publishing (later

Faber & Faber Faber and Faber Limited, usually abbreviated to Faber, is an independent publishing house in London. Published authors and poets include T. S. Eliot (an early Faber editor and director), W. H. Auden, Margaret Storey, William Golding, Samuel B ...

). From January 1926, when Faber became the publisher, though January 1927 the journal was titled ''The New Criterion''. The issues from May 1927 though March 1928 were titled ''The Monthly Criterion''. Some of Eliot's other contributions include his short story "On the Eve", commentaries, and poems, including early versions of "

The Hollow Men "The Hollow Men" (1925) is a poem by the modernist writer T. S. Eliot. Like much of his work, its themes are overlapping and fragmentary, concerned with post–World War I Europe under the Treaty of Versailles (which Eliot despised: compare "Ge ...

" and "

Ash Wednesday Ash Wednesday is a holy day of prayer and fasting in many Western Christian denominations. It is preceded by Shrove Tuesday and falls on the first day of Lent (the six weeks of penitence before Easter). It is observed by Catholics in the Rom ...

". Together with its rival, '' Adelphi'', edited by

, it was the leading literary journal of the period. While the former's definitions of literature were based on

romanticism Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...

allied to liberalism and a subjective approach, Eliot used his publication for expounding his defense of

classicism Classicism, in the arts, refers generally to a high regard for a classical period, classical antiquity in the Western tradition, as setting standards for taste which the classicists seek to emulate. In its purest form, classicism is an aestheti ...

, tradition, and Catholicism. In this contest Eliot emerged a clear victor, in the sense that in the London of the 1930s he had taken the centre of the critical stage.David Goldie, ''A Critical Difference: T.S. Eliot and John Middleton Murry in English Literary Criticism, 1919–1928'' (1998), pp. 2–3.

External links

The Criterion (in 18 volumes) is hosted at

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

: * Vol. I: October 1922 – July 1923 * Vol. II: October 1923 – July 1924 * Vol. III: October 1924 – July 1925 * Vol. IV: January 1926– October 1926 * Vol. V: January 1927 – June 1927 * Vol. VI: July 1927 – December 1927 * Vol. VII: January 1928 – June 1928 * Vol. VIII: September 1928 – July 1929 * Vol. IX: October 1929 – July 1930 * Vol. X: October 1930 – July 1931 * Vol. XI: October 1931 – July 1932 * Vol. XII: October 1932 - July 1933 * Vol. XIII: October 1933 – July 1934 * Vol. XIV: October 1934 – July 1935 * Vol. XV: October 1935 - July 1936 * Vol. XVI: October 1936 – July 1937 * Vol. XVII: October 1937 – July 1938 * Vol. XVIII: October 1938 – July 1939

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Criterion 1922 establishments in the United Kingdom 1939 disestablishments in the United Kingdom Monthly magazines published in the United Kingdom Quarterly magazines published in the United Kingdom Defunct literary magazines published in the United Kingdom Magazines established in 1922 Magazines disestablished in 1939 T. S. Eliot