The Dial

The Dial (Eng. The Sundial or The Time Indicator from Latin. Rota dialis , Old French dyal , "to seem") with the subtitle: A Magazine for Literature, Philosophy, and Religion was an American magazine that, with two long interruptions, between 1840 and 1929 appeared. The title was chosen by Ralph Waldo Emerson to denote a place on which the light falls and from which the progress of the hours and the day is reported.

history

Main publication organ of the transcendentalists

In its first form, between 1840 and 1844, The Dial served as the main publication organ for the transcendentalists . The magazine was based on European models such as the British The Monthly Magazine and appeared four times a year with 544 pages per year for the price of three dollars by subscription. The number of subscribers was a maximum of about 300. Editors were Margaret Fuller (1840-1842), Ralph Waldo Emerson (1842-1844) and Henry David Thoreau for the April issue of 1843. Other authors were John Sullivan Dwight , James Russell Lowell and George Ripley . Often there was criticism of the magazine's uncritical attitude from within its own ranks. After it had to be stopped due to lack of money, an attempt at resuscitation in 1860 was unsuccessful.

Journal for political and literary criticism

The Dial reappeared from 1880 to 1913 . The focus of the magazine during this period was on political and literary criticism . The Chicago poet and publisher Francis Fisher Browne , who was close to the transcendentalists, was editor at the time. Margaret Anderson also worked for the magazine for a short period of time , who later became editor of The Little Review . In 1898 the literary magazine The Chap-Book , which appeared between 1894 and 1898, was absorbed by The Dial .

Point of contact for Anglo-American modernism

The Dial was re-established in 1920 by the poet, publisher and art collector Scofield Thayer and the avant-garde film director and philanthropist James Sibley Watson and appeared until 1929 as a focal point for Anglo-American modernism .

It was in the latter form that she became best known and most influential. In the first year after their new publication alone, published here u. a. Sherwood Anderson , Djuna Barnes , Kenneth Burke , EE Cummings . William Carlos Williams , Hart Crane , William Butler Yeats and Ezra Pound . Articles on modern visual arts also appeared in the magazine, for which important authors such as Ezra Pound, TS Eliot , Thomas Mann and Hugo von Hofmannsthal reported from abroad.

In 1924, Ernest Hemingway criticized The Dial in his poem The Soul of Spain With McAlmon and Bird the Publishers , which was published in the German magazine Der Cross- Section.

In June 1921, Thayer and Watson announced the award of the $ 2,000 The Dial Award , each to a contributor to the magazine. A total of eight awards were given:

literature

Philip F. Gura: American Transcendentalism: A History . New York: Hill and Wang 2007. ISBN 978-0-8090-3477-2 .

Individual evidence

↑ Preface to the first edition, quoted in to www.walden.org

[1] Preface to the first edition, quoted in to www.walden.org