The Kenyon Review, 1939-1970: A Critical History - Hardcover

Janssen, Marian

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0807115223 ISBN 13: 9780807115220

Publisher: Louisiana State Univ Pr, 1990

Synopsis

First edition. The history of the first series of The Kenyon Review, the most honored literary magazine founded in 1939. It is based on the review's files, a large number of unpublished manuscript collections, and interviews with contributors such as Eric Bentley, Kenneth Burke, Cleanth Brooks, and Robert Penn Warren. Indexed. xviii, ii , 366 pages. cloth, dust jacket. 8vo..

About this title

From Library Journal

With access to the comprehensive files of the Kenyon Review as well as the unpublished letters of many of the distinguished writers associated with the magazine, Janssen reconstructs its founding and its almost-daily operations through the several decades in which it was, arguably, the most significant literary journal in the English-speaking world. Largely due to the extraordinary literary sensibility and editorial genius of John Crowe Ransom, the review expanded well beyond its roots in Southern Agrarianism and the New Criticism to become an ideal forum for the most imaginative and influential critical thinking of its time. Janssen also chronicles Kenyon Review 's decline through its last 15 years when its vibrant energies became institutionalized in the literature departments of the American university system. There is, perhaps, too much of a pedestrian reliance on synopsis and survey, but because it fills a gap in our intellectual history this book can only be applauded.
- Earl Rovit, City Coll., CUNY
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Publishers Weekly

When John Crowe Ransom founded Ken yon Review in 1939, he envisioned the quarterly, still based at Kenyon College in Ohio, as "a rich and substantial publication" devoted to the arts. In this finely conceived study, Janssen, American studies coordinator at Catholic University in Holland, demonstrates that the poet exceeded his ambitions, shaping, in his devotion to literary form and critical objectivity, the sensibility of a generation with the precepts of New Criticism. Drawing on KR files, unpublished manuscripts and interviews with key figures, the author vividly recreates the daily doings of the journal and examines editorial intentions. She convincingly refutes charges that the quarterly traditionally emphasizes criticism at the expense of creative works, is politically reactionary or dominated by Southerners. In her lucid history, however, Janssen assumes that readers are well-versed in pertinent texts from the New Criticism era.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Louisiana State Univ Pr
• Publication date: 1990
• ISBN 10: 0807115223
• ISBN 13: 9780807115220
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 366