JOURNAL ARTICLE

Against Mass Luxury: A Modernist Archaeology of "Politics and the English Language".

  • Published In: Modernism/Modernity, 2024, v. 31, n. 1. P. 107 1 of 3

  • Database: Academic Search Ultimate 2 of 3

  • Authored By: Tripathi, Ameya 3 of 3

Abstract

How did Orwell arrive at his rules for writing in "Politics and the English Language"? Here, I offer a modernist archaeology of the essay, showing how it emerges from The Road to Wigan Pier (1937) and Homage to Catalonia (1938). Concrete words such as "shale" and "shingle" served as a material currency to resist the impressionism of the travel writing of Lawrence and Forster, or the abstraction of Marxist discourse. Orwell's ambivalence towards modernist introspection, at times shared by Empson, Jameson, Woolf, Pound, and Cunard, drove him towards a materialist and nationalist theory and practice of language and prose form. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Additional Information

  • Source:Modernism/Modernity. 2024/01, Vol. 31, Issue 1, p107
  • Document Type:Article
  • Subject Area:History
  • Publication Date:2024
  • ISSN:1071-6068
  • DOI:10.1353/mod.2024.a935447
  • Accession Number:179343073
  • Copyright Statement:Copyright of Modernism/Modernity is the property of Johns Hopkins University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

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