Culture as Politics: Selected Writings of Christopher Caudwell

Description

Reviews:

“The selection of writings presented here does justice to the richness of Caudwell’s thought, and will introduce a whole new generation of readers to this remarkable thinker.” — ANINDYA RAYCHAUDHURI, School of English, University of St. Andrews

“A revealing set of texts by the most important British Marxist cultural critic before World War II, meticulously and lovingly edited by the greatest contemporary expert in the field. Indispensable.” — EDITH HALL, Professor of Classics, King’s College University of London

About the book:

Culture as Politics introduces the most accessible and relevant works of Christopher Caudwell, considered by many to be the most innovative British Marxist writer of the twentieth century. Caudwell had a powerful interest in how things worked— aeronautics, physics, human psychology, language, and society. In the anti-fascist struggles of the 1930s, he saw that capitalism was a system that could not work properly and distorted the thinking of the age. Self-educated from the age of 15, he wrote with a directness that is alien to most cultural theory. Although already a published writer of aeronautic texts and crime fiction, he was practically unknown to the public until reviews appeared of Illusion and Reality: A Study of the Sources of Poetry. A strikingly original study of poetry’s role, the book explained in clear language how the organizing of emotion in society plays a part in social change and development. Material in this collection is drawn from Illusion and Reality among other texts.

CHRISTOPHER CAUDWELL (1907–1937) was the pen name of Christopher St. John Sprigg, a British Marxist poet, writer, and thinker. He joined the Communist Party in 1935, and soon became a dedicated grassroots activist, continuing his writing, even though none of his Marxist works were printed during his lifetime. In 1936, he left for Spain to join the International Brigades in the anti-fascist struggle against Franco. He was killed in the Valley of Jarama, February 12, 1937, during his first day of battle.

About the editor:

DAVID MARGOLIES is Professor Emeritus of English at Goldsmiths, University of London. He is the editor of the cultural politics journal Red Letters, edited Writing the Revolution: Cultural Criticism from Left Review, and is the author of Monsters of the Deep: Social Dissolution in Shakespeare’s Tragedies.