The Calendar and the Modern Critical Essay

This article argues that the Calendar of Modern Letters was a major player in the formation of the modern critical essay. The Calendar critics stand among the notable gatekeepers of 'intelligence' and 'standards' in the critical discourse of the 1920s. Not only did they consolidate and enact many of the ideas in T. S. Eliot's Sacred Wood (1920) and I. A. Richards's Principles of Literary Criticism (1924), but they set the standard for how Scrutiny would position itself tactically in relation to the 1930s literary scene. More importantly, the group anticipated the form of critical essay that would define 'Scrutineer 'criticism in the 1930s, a style that favoured quotation, close reading and rigorous evaluation. This article looks at how incremental degrees of 'closeness' in verbal analysis caught fire in small ways throughout the decade, a critical trend that has been with us ever since.