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The Second Case
“Novels are usually written either in the third person, or in the first person. Clearly, the choice of one or other of these stylistic forms is by no means arbitrary; each of them is used to express something quite distinct, and our situation as readers in relation to . . .” read more
Shakespeare and History
“Even if there were not a single true train of thought in Jan Kott’s collection of essays, it would still remain my favourite book on Shakespeare. Kott’s technical erudition is impressive, but his intelligence is always excited by the plays themselves: he is not concerned with the mechanics . . .” read more
Nature, Humanism and Tragedy
“Tragedy is only a way of assembling human misfortune, of subsuming it, and thus of justifying it by putting it into the form of a necessity, of a kind of wisdom, or of a purification. To reject this regeneration and to seek the technical means of not succumbing . . .” read more
Socialism and Literature
“Jorge Semprun is a Spaniard who fled to France as a Republican refugee in 1936. He fought with the French Resistance and was imprisoned in Auschwitz. In 1963, living in Paris, he was awarded the Prix Formentor for his novel, The Long Voyage, which was published in . . .” read more
Introduction to 'Motifs'
“Throughout the world, art and art criticism are perplexingly fluid. It is at this moment that socialist artists and art critics can intervene decisively, staking out the arena for debate, indicating and achieving the next steps forward. In this section of New Left Review we shall publish a . . .” read more
Romanticism and Socialism
“David Craig is right to challenge Gabriel Pearson where his argument most nearly touches us all, in particular those of us who are socialists, namely: is there a new public basis for poetry? Yet this was a small and tardy part of Gabriel Pearson’s article, written it would . . .” read more
Thomas Mann
“The text below is an extract from Lukacs’ essay “In Search of Bourgeois Man”, written in 1945 in honour of the seventieth birthday of Thomas Mann. In it, Lukacs traces Mann’s development from Buddenbrooks to the war-time Lotte in Weimar. His perspective is the whole ulterior development of . . .” read more
Concepts and Techniques in William Golding
“There has been one serious attempt to come to grips with the problems posed by Golding’s novels: in the February number of Twentieth Century for 1960 Ian Gregor & Mark Kirkard-Weekes published an article entitled ‘William Golding and his Critics’. The purpose of the article was two-fold: first . . .” read more
A Theatre for Our Time
“from october to January, the Theatre du Champs Elysees in Paris will be occupied by the company of Roger Planchon’s Theatre de la Cite. This is an event of European importance, and a must for anyone preoccupied with the problems of trying to construct an authentic culture . . .” read more
Live and Dead Studies
“reading the first chapter of John Stuart Mill’s autobiography leads one to take stock of that ancient branch of education, “Classics”, which still sucks into its grip a good many clever pupils, whether among university-college students in West Africa or boys and girls in a British grammar . . .” read more
In-Stage
“when i started In-Stage about three years ago, the intention was to create a permanent company of actors which would train together, play together and develop together. A company that would deliberately “experiment” for the best reason of all: to see what happens. A company that might . . .” read more
Talking to N.F. Simpson
“N. F.Simpson was born in 1919, which makes him somewhat older than most of the playwrights who came on the scene at about the same time as he did. In fact, he turned to playwriting only in 1956—just before the announcements of the Observer Competition, in which his . . .” read more
The Long Revolution (Part II)
“to pass from a “way of conflict” to a “way of life” is to pass out of the main line of the socialist intellectual tradition. I don’t mean that Raymond Williams has “broken” with socialism: at many points he has a more constructive insight into the possibilities . . .” read more
The Long Revolution (Part I)
“Raymond Williams’ new book, The Long Revolution (Chatto & Windus, 30s.), develops the important themes of Culture & Society—the study of the theory of culture, and an analysis of the stage reached in the development of a “common culture”. This is the first of a two-part review of . . .” read more
Lady Chatterley’s Lover
“It is the way our sympathy flows and recoils that really determines our lives. And here lies the vast importance of the novel properly handled. It can inform and lead into new places the flow of our sympathetic consciousness, and it can lead our sympathy away and recoil . . .” read more
Freedom and Ownership in the Arts
“the extension of culture has to be considered within the real social context of our economic and political life. All studies of the growth of particular cultural institutions show a real expansion, which of course is continuing, but show also the extent to which this is affected . . .” read more