Editors' Note
A Beautiful Crossing Place
Having described the fall of Raritan as accurately and tersely as possible in my last Note, it is time for me to yield the floor to our contributors and readers. One of my greatest pleasures in this increasingly grim time has been reading their letters of condolence on the closure of this magazine. Their messages reveal the depth and strength of the intellectual community that Raritan collaborated with them in creating.
A recurring theme in the letters has been the uniqueness of Raritan. It was “absolutely sui generis,” one writer said. “There was no reading (and, given the art works, viewing) experience like it in contemporary letters,” wrote another, “and for many years now it has been a home for my own writing–often at moments when I felt truly ‘homeless’ as a poet and critic.” The idea of Raritan as a refuge (but a lively one) kept surfacing. “Raritan has always seemed to me completely distinctive, an island of sanity and sense, sparkle and pizzazz,” said a contributor. Some praised what one called “the space you’ve nurtured for both the work and play of thought, and for writing that allows thought to stay in touch with poetic feeling;” others remembered the journal’s capacity to nurture authors over time: “I can indeed remember the surprise, the intake of breath, in reading certain writers there for the first time, and then the pleasure of seeing them return, evolve, find new resonances,” wrote this reader. Raritan, he said, “really has sustained a beautiful crossing place, a world.” For others, Raritan could be summarized as “something special, a modeling of the life of the mind as it should be lived.”
Part of this achievement has been a consequence of the magazine’s willingness to canter widely across the cultural landscape, traversing literature, politics, and the arts. As a correspondent said, Raritan “has continued to set a standard for the intelligence and fluency of its contributors, the open-minded balance of historical, political, cultural writing, and an equally inspired representation of the literary and visual arts.” Another praised “the political edge of the magazine, complex, nuanced, and fully committed to getting to the bottom of things,” which “is a rarity nowadays and will be deeply missed.” In the end, what Raritan’s appeal boiled down to was a commitment to melding two ideals too often separated in contemporary cultural life, intellect and beauty. As another reader wrote, “what an amazing journal it has been! And what you've done with it has been beautiful and good — really miraculous.” A variation on that theme by another contributor could serve as an epitaph for Raritan: “It felt like such a hopeful vital breath of fresh air.” I’m a lucky man, to have helped to create that feeling. Farewell, friends.
Jackson Lears
Furman’s Corner, New Jersey
29 April
2025