THIS new venture starts under happier auspices than most of
its kind. It has the support of a very strong editorial board, centred on the Oxford English School, and a guarantee from its publishers of a three- years life. It strikes a middle course between the specialist's essay and the well- written literary assessment of the kind one associates with such recently defunct journals as the Penguin New Writing. F. W. Bateson, the editor, scores the new journal's first bull's-eye with a most professional de- molition of a delightfully precarious Shake- spearean theory ; Montgomery Belgion does his best to throw light on the mystery of Poe's poetic reputation ; Middleton Murry raises some pertinent Questions about "The Family Reunion " ; L. A. G. Strong writes about Hardy. and the editor makes the first contribution towards a projected dictionary of critical terms, by defining the Comedy of Manners. Less provincial than Scrutiny. this Oxford journal should find a public. outside academic circles. Its intention is " to print every kind of literary criticism— academic, Empsonian, Anglo-Catholic or Marxist." But what is almost more impor- tant than this broadminded inclusiveness is that it shall put side by side the writing of dons and professional critics. This, to judge by its first number, it intends to do.
J. M. C.
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