This dissertation presents T. S. Eliot's Criterion, the literary review he edited from 1922-1939. The Prologue illustrates Eliot's apprenticeship to little magazines when he began living in England in 1914, and describes the general milieu from which The Criterion grew. Eliot's association with the little magazines of the 1910's, especially The Egoist, gave him editing and writing experience and new personal acquaintances that were all to help him in the creation of The Criterion.
Chapter I describes the formation of The Criterion and Eliot's goals to make it a literary review dedicated to the maintenance of standards and the reunification of a European intellectual community. The first issue of the magazine, appearing in October 1922, and containing "The Waste Land," supplies specific examples of what Eliot wanted his magazine to contain. In addition to an analysis of the contents of the first issue, Chapter I presents The Criterion in light of Eliot's personal life, and how once started, The Criterion became a burden and almost a short-lived enterprise. Finally Chapter I examines the contributions from some of Eliot's closest associates: Wyndham Lewis, Ezra Pound, and Vivian Eliot. After four years of successful publication, Lady Rothermere withdrew her financial support, and it looked like The Criterion would end.
Chapter II explains that The Criterion was taken up by Faber and Gwyer Publishing, Eliot's new employers. Under the auspices of the publishing company the magazine became The New Criterion, and for less than a year (1927-1928), it was also a monthly. This chapter presents specific contributors, Herbert Read, John Middleton Murry, and John Gould Fletcher, whose diverse works contributed to the identity of the magazine. Examination of Eliot's contributions, his short story "On the Eve," and poems, early versions of "The Hollow Men" and "Ash Wednesday," reflect his intellectual and growing political concerns. And research into other magazines at the time shows that "Criterionism" had become a word that Eliot abhored and that had come to mean an approach to literature that implied objectivity, impersonality, aloofness all with a "French" influence.
Chapter III demonstrates that The Criterion survived the difficulties that can confront a little magazine and that the magazine went on to become a well-known trademark for classical and traditional criticism. We also see that Eliot tried to keep the magazine "up-to-time" by publishing new young writers, such as W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender, and Hart Crane, and by confronting the topical political and economic issues of facism and marxism. Eliot's attempts to keep time with the Thirties prompted a reaction from F. R. Leavis and others, who created Scrutiny to provide the kind of literary review The Criterion that they felt it had ceased to be. Finally, this chapter discusses Ezra Pound, The Criterion's most vehement critic, and his contributions, as well as Eliot's own commentaries and contributions. The Criterion came to an end in 1939 not solely because of the impending war but for a variety of reasons, and Eliot chose to end the magazine altogether instead of finding a new editor for it.
This dissertation presents The Criterion in relation to other magazines, Eliot's own personal and intellectual development, and the historical milieu in which the magazine flourished and declined.
