Throughout Katherine Mullin’s examination of the relationship between ‘little magazines’ and Joyce’s writing, the topics of high vs. low culture and the self-awareness each magazine had of its own place in time were topics that continuously came up. Mullin discusses the experimental nature of Joyce’s pieces, specifically Ulysses, and the tendency of such material to match up or compliment the tone and aim of the magazines in which it was published. One specific moment that seemed to characterize The Little Review‘s tone in the time of interest was an explanation of the magazine’s self-reflective attitudes: “Encouraging opinionated debate about the nature and value of art, The Little Review frequently startled through its provocative confrontational declarations of its own place at the pinnacle of high culture” (Mullin 380). Mullin goes on to not only give examples, but also acknowledge that this “journal both flaunts and ridicules its own intellectual and aesthetic aspirations (380). Something I would like to look for tomorrow in The Little Review would be moments when this tone is apparent, exclamations in the magazine that make apparent its self-aware recognition of the audience/perspective the writings within its pages are meant for–moreover, if these statements also carry the “self-parody” (Mullin 380) Mullin speaks of.
Tone and Self-Awareness of The Little Review
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