Partisan Review

Partisan Review was an influential American literary and cultural magazine published from 1934 to 2003. Founded by intellectuals associated with the left, it became a central forum for debates among writers, critics, poets, and political thinkers. Over its run the journal published essays, fiction, poetry, and criticism by figures from across the Anglophone and European cultural spheres, shaping modernist and postwar literary discourse.

History

The journal was launched in 1934 amid debates following the Great Depression, the rise of Fascism, and the consolidation of the Communist International. Its early years intersected with the activities of the John Reed Club, the Communist Party USA, and émigré intellectual networks centered in New York City and Harlem. Editors and founders engaged with transatlantic currents including the work of T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, and debates influenced by the Spanish Civil War. During the 1940s and 1950s the magazine shifted as contributors reacted to events such as the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, the Yalta Conference, the Cold War, and the revelations about Soviet purges; this produced ruptures with organizations like the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and publications such as Daily Worker. In the postwar decades Partisan Review became associated with cultural debates involving New Criticism, the rise of Beat Generation figures, the careers of writers returning from service in World War II theaters, and the growth of academic institutions like Columbia University and Harvard University. Financial strains, editorial turnover, and changing media ecosystems in the late 20th century culminated in its cessation in 2003.

Editorial Policy and Political Stance

The magazine’s editorial stance evolved from an early alignment with leftist anti-fascist activism to a later position that criticized Stalinism and revolutionary parties while defending autonomous modernist culture. Editors debated positions vis-à-vis organizations such as the American Labor Party, Socialist Party of America, New York Intellectuals, and publications like The Nation and The New Republic. Debates invoked theorists and public intellectuals including Leon Trotsky, John Dewey, Hannah Arendt, George Orwell, and C. Wright Mills. Its pages hosted polemics addressing international crises such as the Spanish Civil War, the Soviet–Finnish War, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War, and engaged with legal and political events like the Smith Act prosecutions and the activities of the House Un-American Activities Committee. Through these controversies the magazine articulated a brand of anti-authoritarian liberalism and cultural autonomy that intersected with literary modernism and anti-communist critiques.

Contributors and Notable Works

Across decades the periodical printed work by poets, novelists, critics, and scholars including W. H. Auden, William Carlos Williams, Allen Ginsberg, Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Bishop, Marianne Moore, John Ashbery, Wallace Stevens, Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, James Baldwin, Saul Bellow, Philip Rahv, William Phillips, Cyril Connolly, Lionel Trilling, Harold Rosenberg, Susan Sontag, Norman Mailer, Herman Melville (reappraisals), Arthur Miller, E. M. Forster, and Dashiell Hammett. Critical essays by figures like Bertolt Brecht, Georg Lukács, Theodor Adorno, Raymond Williams, Isaiah Berlin, and Richard Hofstadter appeared alongside fiction by Flannery O'Connor, Saul Bellow, and reviews of works by Vladimir Nabokov, Samuel Beckett, and Thomas Mann. The journal published landmark essays that shaped reception of Modernism, debates over Realism and Avant-garde practices, and introductions to translations of European writers including Marcel Proust, Franz Kafka, Antonin Artaud, and André Breton.

Influence and Reception

The magazine influenced the cohort called the New York Intellectuals and institutions in the postwar humanities, shaping curricula at places such as Columbia University, Princeton University, Yale University, and University of Chicago. Its critics and supporters ranged from editors of The New Yorker and The New York Times Book Review to scholars associated with Princeton and Harvard. Partisan Review’s positions provoked responses from contemporaneous journals such as The Nation, Dissent, Commentary, and Encounter and animated public debates involving Irving Howe, Daniel Bell, Max Shachtman, and C. Wright Mills. Its literary judgments affected reputation-building for prize winners like the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, while its political critiques influenced Cold War cultural policy discussions involving figures in the Kennedy administration and later Reagan era policymakers. Reception history includes acclaim for discerning criticism and accusations of elitism or political backsliding from leftist activists.

Format, Circulation, and Funding

Originally a quarterly with moves toward monthly and irregular schedules, the journal’s format combined long-form essays, book reviews, poetry sections, and occasional special issues devoted to themes such as Modernism, Marxism (critique), and Cold War culture. Circulation figures fluctuated with peak readership among academics, urban intellectuals, and literary readers in the United States and abroad; circulation declines in the late 20th century reflected broader shifts toward mass-market magazines like Time (magazine) and Newsweek and the rise of university presses. Funding came from subscriptions, bookstore sales, benefactors and foundations including philanthropic entities tied to families such as the Rockefeller family and grant-making institutions, as well as advertising and institutional support from universities. Financial pressures, editorial disputes, and changing patronage models contributed to its eventual termination in the early 21st century.

Category:Literary magazines Category:Defunct magazines of the United States