Christopher Caudwell – författare

Christopher Caudwell was the pseudonym of Christopher St. John Sprigg, a British journalist and professional writer who became an important philosopher and critic in the 1930's, author of Illusion and Reality and Studies in a Dying Culture. In the mid-thirties Caudwell joined the Communist Party; he died in 1937 in the defense of Madrid, leaving the manuscript of Romance and Realism unpublished. This short but comprehensive book is a Marxist interpretation of English literature from Shakespeare to Spender. The author follows the course of English history-the end of feudalism, the age of exploration, the rise of the common man, industrialization, science- producing his particular synthesis of literature as a subjective experience (romance) and as a response to society (realism). The major writers and movements of English literature are discussed, often with brilliant observations. Romance and Realism is important as Marxist criticism, as a reflection of the acrid definitions of the writers of the thirties (including Auden, Orwell, C. Day Lewis), and as the highly personal view of a talented critic. Originally published in 1971.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Christopher Caudwell was the pseudonym of Christopher St. John Sprigg, a British journalist and professional writer who became an important philosopher and critic in the 1930's, author of Illusion and Reality and Studies in a Dying Culture. In the mid-thirties Caudwell joined the Communist Party; he died in 1937 in the defense of Madrid, leaving the manuscript of Romance and Realism unpublished. This short but comprehensive book is a Marxist interpretation of English literature from Shakespeare to Spender. The author follows the course of English history-the end of feudalism, the age of exploration, the rise of the common man, industrialization, science- producing his particular synthesis of literature as a subjective experience (romance) and as a response to society (realism). The major writers and movements of English literature are discussed, often with brilliant observations. Romance and Realism is important as Marxist criticism, as a reflection of the acrid definitions of the writers of the thirties (including Auden, Orwell, C. Day Lewis), and as the highly personal view of a talented critic. Originally published in 1971.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Considered by many to be the most innovative British Marxist writer of the twentieth century, Christopher Caudwell was killed in the Spanish Civil War at the age of 29. 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, which was published just after his death. A strikingly original study of poetry's role, it explained in clear language how the organising of emotion in society plays a part in social change and development.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 quite alien to most cultural theory.Culture as Politics introduces Caudwell's work through his most accessible and relevant writing. Material will be drawn from Illusion and Reality, Studies in a Dying Culture and his essay 'Heredity and Development'.

Considered by many to be the most innovative British Marxist writer of the twentieth century, Christopher Caudwell was killed in the Spanish Civil War at the age of 29. 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, which was published just after his death. A strikingly original study of poetry's role, it explained in clear language how the organising of emotion in society plays a part in social change and development.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 quite alien to most cultural theory.Culture as Politics introduces Caudwell's work through his most accessible and relevant writing. Material will be drawn from Illusion and Reality, Studies in a Dying Culture and his essay 'Heredity and Development'.

In 1938, a year after his death in Spain at the age of thirty, Christopher Caudwell's Studies in a Dying Culture was published, to be followed eleven years later by a second volume, Further Studies in a Dying Culture. This volume makes available both important works by one of the foremost Marxist critics of the thirties. The first book consists of eight essays: on George Bernard Shaw, T.E. Lawrence, D. H. Lawrence, H. G. Wells, Sigmund Freud, and on pacifism and violence, love, and liberty. The second is divided into five essays: "The Breath of Discontent: A Study in Bourgeois Religion," "Beauty: A Study in Bourgeois Aesthetics," "Men and Nature: A Study in Bourgeois History," "Consciousness: A Study in Bourgeois Psychology," and "Reality: A Study in Bourgeois Philosophy."

Christopher Caudwell's The Crisis in Physics is a stylish and readable analysis of the lines of connection between scientific theories and economic realities. Caudwell provides a trenchant critique of mechanism and positivism. In the words of J. B. S. Haldane, The Crisis in Physics offers a 'quarry of ideas' for future philosophers: a wealth of insights and arguments that demand and deserve continuing critical reflection.