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Theatre and the Novel

Anatomization of the fifties and sixties generations of British novelists—Amis, Wain, Golding, Murdoch, Lessing—and playwrights: Osborne, Wesker, Delaney, Pinter, with new forms emerging from the conservatism of the early Cold War years across the crux of 1956.

The Future of Marxism

Published at last in NLR, a remarkable, long-buried intervention by one of the leading thinkers of the early New Left. Characteristically original and independent-minded considerations of the relation of Marxism to the actually existing Communist regimes and the correspondences of socialist theory and practice across the ‘three worlds’, written just after The Long Revolution.

When Was Modernism?

“[This lecture was given on 17 March 1987 at the University of Bristol, as one of an annual series founded by a former student at the University and subsequent benefactor. The version printed here is reconstructed from my brief notes and Raymond’s even briefer ones. Although he . . .” read more

The Uses of Cultural Theory

“For a year or so I have been wanting to say something relatively formal about cultural theory, and this seems to be an occasion. The point is not, at least initially, one of proposition or amendment within this or that theory of culture, but rather a reconsideration of . . .” read more

Problems of the Coming Period

“The title I was given for this talk was ‘Problems of the Coming Period’! When this was set, some six weeks ago, the coming period that was in mind was the twenty years or so up to and through the millennium; that term which we still have to . . .” read more

Marxism, Structuralism and Literary Analysis

“Recent events in Cambridge, of which some of you may have heard, have persuaded me to bring forward some material which I was preparing for a course of five lectures in the autumn. Because the material was originally conceived on that scale, the prospect for this crowded hour . . .” read more

The Politics of Nuclear Disarmament

“Since Autumn 1979 there has been a vigorous renewal of campaigning against the nuclear arms race. Its immediate occasion was the nato decision to deploy Cruise missiles in Western Europe, with further effects from the failure of the United States to ratify the Salt II agreement. But . . .” read more

Beyond Actually Existing Socialism

“‘Communism is not only necessary, it is also possible.’ The quiet words carry a major historical irony. For what has now to be proved, before an informed and sceptical audience, is indeed possibility. And this not only in the reckoning of strategic or tactical chances, which in these . . .” read more

Problems of Materialism

“There are inevitable difficulties in any serious materialism. In its earliest phases it has a comparative simplicity of definition, since it rests on a rejection of presumptive hypotheses of non-material or metaphysical prime causes, and defines its own categories in terms of demonstrable physical investigations. Yet such definitions . . .” read more

Notes on British Marxism since 1945

“‘The neo-Marxist Left which now dominates the Labour Party’, said a speaker at this year’s Conservative Party conference. Or it may have been ‘near-Marxist Left’, given the difficulty of ruling-class English with the consonant ‘r’. In other speeches either qualification was dropped: the ‘Marxist Left’ now ‘dominates the . . .” read more

Base and Superstructure in Marxist Cultural Theory

“Any modern approach to a Marxist theory of culture must begin by considering the proposition of a determining base and a determined superstructure. From a strictly theoretical point of view this is not, in fact, where we might choose to begin. It would be in many ways preferable . . .” read more

Literature and Sociology: In Memory of Lucien Goldmann

“Last spring Lucien Goldmann came to Cambridge and gave two lectures. It was an opportunity for many of us to hear a man whose work we had welcomed and respected. And he said that he liked Cambridge: to have trees and fields this near to lecture-rooms. I invited . . .” read more

The British Left

“Any analysis of the state of the Left in Britain must begin with an analysis of the nature of the Labour Party. For here is a mass party, based on an essentially undivided trade union movement. For at least the last 20 years, it has been always a . . .” read more

From Hero to Victim

“We have seen, in our own time, the climax and the decline of liberal tragedy. To understand its structure of feeling is now a central problem. For we are all to some extent still governed by it, even now when we can see that it is failing to . . .” read more

Fiction and Delusion

“A note on Auto—da—Fé; Elias Canetti; Jonathan Cape, 15/-” read more

A Dialogue on Tragedy

“Ridyear Certainly his death was a tragedy.” read more

Television Supplement

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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

The Magic System

“In his concluding Chapter to a collection of essays on Advertising and Society, to be published in the New Left Book series by Stevens early next year, Raymond Williams relates the “system of magic” to the attitudes and social thinking of a “consumer” society, and makes some proposals . . .” read more

Working Class Attitudes (Discussion)

“Revised transcript of a recorded conversation between Richard Hoggart and Raymond Williams – August Bank Holiday, 1959.” read more