BRITISH COMMUNISM AND THE POLITICS OF LITERATURE, 1928-1939

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BRITISH COMMUNISM AND THE POLITICS OF LITERATURE, 1928-1939
by Philip Bounds

In the 1930s, writers associated with the Communist Party of Great Britain set out to transform English culture. Creating a substantial body of Marxist literary criticism, and drawing on ideas from their own cultural traditions and from the Soviet Union, critics such as Christopher Caudwell, Alick West and Ralph Fox showed how Marxism could play a major role in analysing literature and its place in society.

This book is the first full-length study of the British communist critics of the Thirties. Seeking to relate Marxist literary criticism to the broader history of the communist movement, it shows how the work of the leading critics both reflected and subverted the left-wing orthodoxies of the day.

"This is an excellent study of a fascinating phenomenon: the largely forgotten literary critics associated with the Communist Party of Great Britain in the 1930s. Bounds skilfully evokes the political and cultural context in which these theorists wrote, and brings out the distinctive contribution of each of them. Solid research, sharp analysis and good writing make this book a pleasure to read." ? Professor Vincent Geoghegan, Queen's University, Belfast and author of Utopianism and Marxism

"There is a large gap on my book-shelves. It is also a gap in the history of literary criticism, the missing story of Britain's first Marxist critics. It looks like British Communism and the Politics of Literature is at last going to fill this gap. It is a real triumph: wide-ranging, lively, original and engaged, showing the practical application of literary criticism to politics, rescuing some long-lost reputations from the enormous condescension of posterity and reminding us that there was once a time when the Left believed that literature could help change the world." ? Dr Andy Croft, author of Red Letter Days: British Fiction in the 1930s and Comrade Heart: A Life of Randall Swingler

Philip Bounds holds a PhD in Politics from the University of Wales. He is the author of Orwell & Marxism and Cultural Studies. His next book is a memoir of the left in Wales entitled Notes from the End of History.

ISBN. 9780850365948

2012 paperback

Published February 2012
Contents here ...

Price:£18.95

Online Catalogue > RECENTLY PUBLISHED > BRITISH COMMUNISM AND THE POLITICS OF LITERATURE, 1928-1939