Besides commemorating the retirement of the fine scholar and writer Robert W Daniel, who has served as a loyal supporter and assistant editor of the Kenyon Review, this issue also marks my resignation as editor. The responsibility for editing the Kenyon Review has been taken over by a committee of members of the Kenyon College Department of English, and its character will begin to change—gradually at first, because the Review has a backlog of already accepted material.
This occasion perhaps provokes some reflections on the task of an editor of a literary quarterly. Ideally, he or she should be both a writer and a kind of midwife to other writers, paying back a little of the great debt to the past literary culture by assuming the vestments of the editorial judge. A literary magazine should set itself the task of defining the vital present of that culture, in the full awareness that history may reverse its judgment.
Already have an account? Log in
Join KR for even more to read.