Modernist Magazines and Digital Humanities

There is much to discuss when looking at T.S. Eliot’s article, “The Lesson of Baudelaire.” One could comment on the way The Tyro breaks the page into vertical sections with its own columns rather than a continuation of the columns throughout the entirety of the page as The New Age does. In addition, the typeface that the editor uses is less serious than The New Age’s typeface. It has certain lightheartedness to it, versus The New Age, which seems to be stuffy and serious. Eliot’s article reflects this gaiety of font, in which Eliot makes a rather far-reaching claim, “Undoubtedly the French man of letters is much better read in French literature than the English man of letters is in any literature” (4). In addition, the page that this article is on and the next page where an illustration is displayed, there are no page numbers. Based upon looking only at the typeface and the pictures that accompany the articles in this magazine, one could make the overall statement that The Tyro is more of an entertainment periodical than The New Age.
The arguments that Eliot relays are by no means invalid, but the attempt to keep the discussion on literature, in comparison with The New Age, strikes the reader that this is not a heavy journal. In fact, the rhetorical devices that Eliot deploys are common in contemporary times. This could be contrasted with The New Age, where many authors use a variety of fields to prove their original point. If the article concerns metaphysics, it would not be unusual to find in The New Age an author attempting to verify their point using a purely scientific theory. It is interesting to witness Eliot’s writing in the original format versus viewing it through a reprint of some contemporary publisher.