Socialist Thought in Imaginative Literature PDF
Preview Socialist Thought in Imaginative Literature
SOCIALIST THOUGHT IN IMAGINATIVE LITERATURE SOCIALIST THOUGHT IN IMAGINATIVE LITERATURE Stephen Ingle © Stephen J. Ingle 1979 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1St edition 1979 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without permission First published 1979 by THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD London and Basingstoke Associated companies in Delhi Dublin Hong Kong Johannesburg Lagos Melbourne New rork Singapore Tokyo Typeset in Great Britain by Santype International Limited, Salisbury and Waiford Britillh Library CatalogaiDg ia PublicatioD Data Ingle, Stephen Socialist thought in imaginative literature I. English prose literature-19th century History and criticism 2. English prose literature-20th century~ History and cri ticism 3. Socialism in literature I. Title 828'.8'oBogo3 PR778.S/ ISBN 978-1-349-04110-7 ISBN 978-1-349-04108-4 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-04108-4 This book is sold subject to the standard conditions oj the Net Book Agreement For my parents Acknowledgements The author and publishers wish to thank the following who have kindly given permission for the use of copyright material. Chatto & Windus Ltd and Harper & Row Publishers Inc., on behalf of the Estate of Aldous Huxley and Mrs Laura Huxley, for the extracts from Brave New World; A. M. Heath & Co. Ltd on behalf of the George Orwell Estate and Mrs Sonia Brownwell Orwell for the extracts from Nineteen Eighty-Four and Homage to Catalonia; Lawrence & Wishart Ltd for the extracts from News from Nowhere, by William Morris; A. D. Peters & Co. Ltd, on behalf of Arthur Koestler, for the extracts from Darkness at Noon, published by Jonathan Cape Ltd; and A. P. Watt Ltd, on behalf of the Estate of H. G. Wells, for the extracts from A Modern Utopia. VI Contents Acknowledgements Introduction: 'The Most Effective Means of Propaganda' Section One A CRITIQUE OF CAPITALIST SOCIETY 13 2 The Poverty of the Many 17 3 A Charge ofImmorality 37 4 Muddle and Inefficiency 55 Section Two WHICH WAY FORWARD? 77 5 'Revolution, Revolution Is the one correct solution' 82 6 The Gradualness ofInevitability 107 Section Three VISIONS OF SOCIALISM 129 7 'No Masters and no Masters' Men' 135 8 The Benefits of' Regimen' 159 9 Conclusion: Socialist Thought in Imaginative 183 Literature Notes 195 Index 208 Introduction: 'The Most I Effective Means of Propaganda' The importance of literature in the study of politics, especially in the development and propagation of political ideas, has not been investigated in any depth in Britain; at least, not by students of politics. Several recent studies indicate a growing interest in the relationship between politics and literature, but none was written by or principally for students of politics. One such study was written by a sociologist, Alan Swingewood. Indeed, there has been a considerable upsurge in interest in the sociology of literature over the last few years, prompted by a growing awareness of the influence of imaginative literature upon Marx himself.1 As its title, The Novel and Revolution,2 sug gests, Swingewood's book deals almost exclusively with the theories and practices of revolution. Naturally enough, its emphasis is sociological and, more specifically, Marxist, though it contains much to interest and inform the student of politics. The second study is part of an older and, from the point of view of the student of politics, less fruitful tradition. I t is called Writers and Politics in Modern Britain3 and is written by an English specialist,]. A. Morris. The book is organised themati cally but not, from the point of view of the student of politics (for whom it was not written), systematically. Neither book sets out to examine the contribution of creative writers to politi cal thought, though the first more nearly does so, and so neither fills the gap. A third work, Politics and Literature in Modern Britain,4 is a collection of essays by George Watson which, 2 Socialist Thought in Imaginative Literature by its nature, would not claim to provide a systematic treatment of the relationship. All the same, these essays probably provide the best example to date of an exploration of the connections between imaginative literature and political thought. In a collection entitled Literature and Politics in the Nineteenth Century," John Lucas begins by admitting that his subject is a daunting one. The relationship between literature and politics is 'problematic, elusive and uncertain', he says, yet these very difficulties make the subject fascinating. Not merely fascinating but important! To the student of literature it is important because-as Lucas says a propos of the great nineteenth-century writers-so many chose, at some time or another, to confront political issues in their work. To the student of politics, however, the relationship is more important because of one simple fact: major writers have always been widely read. If any group of men deserve to enjoy the status of opinion-formers, then imaginative writers surely do. Bernard Shaw, an active figure in politics as well as literature, was equally confident of the opinion-forming function of the imaginative writer. He claimed that' fine art is the subtlest, the most effective means of propa ganda in the world except only the example of personal conduct.'6 Imaginative writers, after all, are highly intelligent men con cerned with human affairs and relationships; many of them, as Lucas's book shows, write with the conviction that they can influence men and events. Moreover, though they have received little attention from students of politics in Britain, writers-and intellectuals generally-are certainly considered to be politically important in some societies, notably in France. How then are we to account for this omission in Britain? Richard Hoggart illuminated an important problem when he pointed out that British social scientists are prone to 'mistake the technical boundaries between academic disciplines for divi sions within human experience'.7 This lapse tends to result in students of politics, for example, ignoring material in disci plines not immediately related to their own. Yet as far as politics is concerned, the problem goes deeper than Hoggart indicated. First of all, the study of politics is usually divided into two quite separate categories: political theory and political institu- 'The Most Effective Means of Propaganda' 3 tions. Although in principle this represents more a distinction of approach than of subject matter, in practice it distinguishes what is actually being studied. Despite its clear advantages for the organisation of the study of politics in academic institu tions, such a division has very little to do with the real world. Its artificiality is potentially misleading to the student and its rigour creates the possibility that important aspects of politics will be insufficiently studied because they fail to fit neatly into either category. This, it can be argued, partially accounts for the fate that has overtaken imaginative literature. Because it does not fall squarely into either camp it is frequently ignored by academic institutions. But there is more at work here than the sin of omission. That influential group of scholars associated with the behaviour ist movement, which has tried to make a science of the study of politics, tends to be highly suspicious of those who, unsympath etic to scientific enquiry, mix opinion with 'knowledge', intui tion with 'objectivity'. And quite rightly suspicious, as the words ofW. H. Auden clearly show: 'In grasping the character of a society, as in judging the character of an individual, no documents, statistics, "objective" measurements can ever com pete with the single intuitive glance.'8 To behaviourists the 'intuitive glance' is anathema; it strikes at the very basis of their expertise. As Hoggart points out, 'like the early natural scientists, they fear a relapse into alchemy.'9 For those who wish to approach the study of politics scientifically, imaginative literature does not fit happily into the scheme of things. The possibility that Greenwood's Love on the Dole might give a deeper insight into the social attitudes of the working class in Lancashire than any number of sociological surveys, or that Orwell's Animal Farm might lead to a fuller understanding of the nature of revolution than any 'scientific' analysis, is not to be coun tenanced readily. We need not attempt to register so ambitious a claim for imaginative literature, but should certainly maintain that works such as the above add substantially to an understand ing of the topics with which they deal; topics, it need hardly be said, of great interest to students of politics. The natural opposition of the behaviourists to the study of literature's 'intuitive glances' is strengthened by the fact that literary critics have scarcely held out a welcoming hand to the student of politics. F. R. Leavis, for example, although
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