Areté is an arts magazine, published three times a year, edited by the poet Craig Raine

Craig Raine

Craig Raine is an English poet and critic born in Bishop Auckland, County Durham, England. Along with Christopher Reid, he is the best-known exponent of Martian poetry.-Life:...

. The magazine aims to give detailed coverage of theatre, fiction, and poetry, while also serving as a platform for new writing in all genres.

The magazine has published contributions by a wide range of authors, including Ian McEwan

Ian McEwan

Ian Russell McEwan CBE, FRSA, FRSL is a British novelist and screenwriter, and one of Britain's most highly regarded writers. In 2008, The Times named him among their list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945"....

, Patrick Marber

Patrick Marber

Patrick Albert Crispin Marber is an English comedian, playwright, director, puppeteer, actor and screenwriter.-Early life and education:...

, Tom Stoppard

Tom Stoppard

Sir Tom Stoppard OM, CBE, FRSL is a British playwright, knighted in 1997. He has written prolifically for TV, radio, film and stage, finding prominence with plays such as Arcadia, The Coast of Utopia, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, Professional Foul, The Real Thing, and Rosencrantz and...

, and Julian Barnes

Julian Barnes

Julian Patrick Barnes is a contemporary English writer, and winner of the 2011 Man Booker Prize, for his book The Sense of an Ending...

. It has also promoted new authors such as Adam Thirlwell

Adam Thirlwell

Adam Thirlwell is a British novelist. He was educated at the independent Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School, Elstree. He is assistant editor of Areté, an arts tri-quarterly. He also writes a column for Esquire magazine....

, Jeremy Noel-Tod, Peter Morris

Peter Morris

Peter Morris may refer to:*Peter Morris , English football player and manager*Peter Morris , author of Guardians *Peter Morris , Australian politician...

, James Womack and Tom Welsford.

One of the publication's defining features is "Our Bold", in which the editorial team takes sloppy critics to task. The magazine prides itself on high editorial standards and on close and accurate reading where others appear to have read superficially. Unashamedly nostalgic for the informed critical discourse of magazines such as the Paris Review

Paris Review

The Paris Review is a literary quarterly founded in 1953 by Harold L. Humes, Peter Matthiessen and George Plimpton. Plimpton edited the Review from its founding until his death in 2003. In its first five years, The Paris Review published works by Jack Kerouac, Philip Larkin, V. S...

, it is strongly associated with New College, Oxford

New College, Oxford

New College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom.- Overview :The College's official name, College of St Mary, is the same as that of the older Oriel College; hence, it has been referred to as the "New College of St Mary", and is now almost always...

. The journal's trademark feather, or quill

Quill

A quill pen is a writing implement made from a flight feather of a large bird. Quills were used for writing with ink before the invention of the dip pen, metal-nibbed pens, the fountain pen, and, eventually, the ballpoint pen...

, which adorns its cover was created by the British artist Mark Alexander

Mark Alexander (painter)

Mark Alexander is a contemporary British artist.-Biography:Born in the small market town of Horsham, West Sussex, Alexander came to painting relatively late, receiving his BFA from Oxford University as a mature student in 1996, despite his lack of formal education or training.-Style and...

.

The journal's name is the Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

 word for "virtue", and it is prefaced by a quotation from Paideia: The Ideals of Greek Culture by Werner Jaeger

Werner Jaeger

Werner Wilhelm Jaeger was a classicist of the 20th century.Jaeger was born in Lobberich, Rhenish Prussia. He attended school at Lobberich and at the Gymnasium Thomaeum in Kempen Jaeger studied at the University of Marburg and University of Berlin. He received a Ph.D...

:

"The Greeks felt that areté was, above everything else, a power, an ability to do something. Strength and health are the areté of the body; cleverness and insight the areté of the mind."