Overview
A critical analysis of the tactical and ethical difficulties of English communist propaganda of the 1930s and 1950s. Discussing the relations between nationalism, rhetoric and revolution, this text shows how the English legacy of William Morris was appropriated in the interests of political forces seeking hegemonic power. The author argues that Conservative claimants disseminated Morris's aesthetic oeuvre readily, declaring it the embodiment of English sensibility. Communists, however, struggled to retain Morris's Englishness while promoting his political doctrine. Weinroth demonstrates that these peripheral ideologes were caught in a paradox: they could not grip the masses without the aesthetic appeal of Englishness, but Englishness was imbued with the very imperialism that they abhorred. Theirs was a propaganda strained by the conflict between political dissent and ruling-class cultural forms. Moving through theoretical, historical and exegetical analyses of propagandist texts, this work brings out the aesthetic underpinnings of nationalist ideology. Combining the philosophical substance of Karl Marx, Georg Lukacs, Antonio Gramsci and Ernst Bloch with Kantian aesthetics, Weinroth constructs a conceptual apparatus that explains the impassioned yet decidedly marginal rhetoric of early 20th-century English communism.
Full Product Details
Author: Michelle Weinroth ,
Michelle Weinroth
Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press
Imprint: McGill-Queen's University Press
Dimensions:
Width: 15.60cm
, Height: 2.60cm
, Length: 23.40cm
Weight: 0.666kg
ISBN: 9780773514393
ISBN 10: 0773514392
Pages: 320
Publication Date: 23 September 1996
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Out of stock
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Reviews
An interesting contribution to cultural studies. Weinroth's close readings of various propaganda are particularly effective. She demonstrates most convincingly that dissenting propaganda cannot easily disentangle itself from the fetishistic ideologies of the bourgeois society it seeks to contest. Evelyn Cobley, Department of English, University of Victoria.
"""An interesting contribution to cultural studies. Weinroth's close readings of various propaganda are particularly effective. She demonstrates most convincingly that dissenting propaganda cannot easily disentangle itself from the fetishistic ideologies of the bourgeois society it seeks to contest."" Evelyn Cobley, Department of English, University of Victoria."
Author Information
Michelle Weinroth teaches in the Department of English Literature at the University of Ottawa. Paul Leduc Browne is professor of political science at the Université du Québec en Outaouais.
