The Little Magazine in Britain: Networks, Communities, and Dialogues (1900-1945)

This thesis examines several lesser-known British modernist magazines published between 1900-45 within the context of networks, communities, and dialogues. The magazines it examines are T. P.’s Weekly (1902-16), The Acorn (1905-6), The Tramp (1910-11), Rhythm (1911-13), The Blue Review (1913), Signature (1915), To-day Incorporating T. P.’s Weekly (1916-7), To-day (1917-23), The Athenaeum (1919-21), The Apple (1920-22), The Adelphi (1923-55), Close-Up (1927-33), Seed (1933) and Life and Letters To-Day (1935-45). Primarily, the thesis aims to ‘test out’ different types of methodologies that critics have used to interpret literary texts (and sometimes non-literary texts) as possible routes or avenues into periodical study. My approach is cross-disciplinary and adapts many different approaches, some of which have been previously applied to periodicals, but most of which have not. The commonality between these methodologies is the fact that they all participate, to some degree, in a sense of network(s), a concept that, this thesis contends, offers a lens through which we can develop, extend, and refine the study of little magazines. The Introduction provides a more detailed outline of these methodologies and a survey of literature relating to the study of little magazines. Chapter 1 explores magazines through the high/low culture dichotomy that continues to dominate our conception of the modernist field and considers how the dichotomy’s implied idea of networks of difference impacts upon how we study, consider, and categorise little magazines. Chapter 2 uses quantitative methods to probe the possibility that a periodical can ‘shift’ between networks and applies a diachronic methodology which considers periodicals as operating within ‘longitudinal’ networks. Chapter 3 utilises an editor-based methodology to show how this figure is key in generating a periodical’s sense of network. Chapter 4 explores the little magazine as a nexus point for different groups of writers and artists and examines the ways in which networks exist on and between the pages of magazines. Chapter 5 reverses the second chapter’s focus by using a synchronic methodology to explore how three late modernist magazines participate in a ‘lateral network’. The Conclusion evaluates the efficacy and feasibility of the various approaches tested in each chapter and proposes some new methodologies through which we might continue to study and discuss periodicals.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

PhD

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

De Montfort University

Year dc:date.issued

2014

Author dc:creator

• Kane, Louise

Licence

• https://dora.dmu.ac.uk/bitstreams/0842efb3-db54-4ec3-9e94-351f99383571/download