Definitions: Essays in Contemporary Criticism [First Series]Canby, Henry Seidel
History
Definitions: Essays in Contemporary Criticism [First Series]
Canby, Henry Seidel
American literature -- 20th century -- History and criticism; Criticism; English fiction -- History and criticism
I do not believe that this is a true statement of what happened in
the fruitful 'nineties. _McClure's_ was not, speaking biologically, a
new species at all; it was only a mutation in which the recessive
traits of the old magazine became dominant while the invaluable type
was preserved. To speak more plainly, the literary magazine, as
America knew it, had always printed news, matured news, often stale
news, but still journalism. Read any number of _Harper's_ in the
'seventies for proof. And, _pari passu_, American journalism was
eagerly trying to discover some outlet for its finer products, a
medium where good pictures, sober afterthoughts, and the finish that
comes from careful writing were possible. _Harper's Weekly_ in Civil
War days, and later, was its creation.
And now it was happily discovered that the family magazine had a
potential popularity far greater than its limited circulation.
With its month-long period of incubation, its elastic form, in
which story, special article, poetry, picture, humor, could all be
harmoniously combined, only a redistribution of emphasis was
necessary in order to make broader its appeal. Mr. McClure
journalized the family magazine. He introduced financial and
economic news in the form of sensational investigations, he bid
for stories more lively, more immediate in their interest, more
journalistic than we were accustomed to read (Kipling's journalistic
stories for example, were first published in America in _McClure's_).
He accepted pictures in which certainty of hitting the public eye was
substituted for a guarantee of art. And yet, with a month to prepare
his number, and only twelve issues a year, he could pay for
excellence, and insure it, as no newspaper had ever been able to do.
And he was freed from the incubus of "local news" and day-by-day
reports. In brief, under his midwifery, the literary magazine gave
birth to a super-newspaper.
Needless to say, the great increase in the number of American
readers and the corresponding decline in the average intelligence
and discrimination of the reading public had much to do with the
success of the journalistic magazine. Yet it may be stated, with
equal truth, that the rapid advance in the average intelligence of
the American public as a whole made a market for a super-newspaper
in which nothing was hurried and everything well done. The
contributions to literature through this new journalism have been
at least as great during the period of its existence as from the
"quality" magazine, the contributions toward the support of
American authors much greater. Like all good journalism, it has
included real literature when it could get and "get away with it."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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