Modernism, Periodicals, and Cultural Poetics

After the publication of T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, a complex series of debates occurred over the traditions of English poetry. Analyzing these diverse discussions in a wide range of well-known periodicals during the late modernist period, Chambers uncovers how poetry was shaped by avant-garde ideas, setting poetic trends for the 20th century.

“Modernism, Periodicals, and Cultural Poetics offers a substantial contribution to increasing scholarship on the late modernist period. … The wealth of information covered in Chambers’s book is ambitious: each chapter zeroes in on case studies featuring a complex periodical formation, both bringing home the centrality of periodicals in facilitating cultural change, and illustrating why periodical publications are quintessential resources for examining how cultural, political, and societal changes occur.” (Leah Budke, Journal of European Studies, Vol. 3 (1), 2018)

"Authoritative, thorough, and scrupulous, this book pleads for cultural diversity while clearly demonstrating the social, political, and aesthetic dangers inherent in programmatic definition. This is a rewarding book, and necessary." - Peter Quartermain, Professor Emeritus of English, The University of British Columbia, Canada, and author of Stubborn Poetries: Poetic Facticity and the Avant-Garde

"Chambers carefully cuts back the myths which have grown dense over landmarks in twentieth century English poetry. Through a nuanced reading of the 'little magazines' and anthologies that launched, affirmed, discussed, and refuted the poetry of these groupings, Chambers not only adds to our understanding of English literary culture but also demonstrates how important it is to understand literary culture as a culture of the little magazine." - Richard Price, author of British Poetry Magazines 1914-2000: A History and Bibliography of "Little Magazines"

"Timely and incisive, wide-ranging but strategically focused, this book is an important intervention in the field of modernist periodical studies. Its rich expositions of the 'periodical formations' generated in late modernist Britain expose the intricate interconnections between multiple spheres of cultural production, and the vexed position of poetry in debates about national identity in the interwar period. This is a compelling revisionist account of modernist print culture - and one executed with considerable flair." - Eric White, Senior Lecturer of American Literature, Oxford Brookes University, UK

"After Modernism, Periodicals, and Cultural Poetics, it will be much harder to ignore the mid-century in histories of British poetry." - Keith Tuma, Professor of English, Miami University, USA and author of Fishing by Obstinate Isles: Modern and Postmodern British Poetry and American Readers

Matthew Chambers is Assistant Professor of Transatlantic and Media Studies at the University of Lodz, Poland.