The first of two talks about the relationship between literature and society by RAYMOND WILLIAMS
Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge, and author of Culture and Society 1780.19:50.
When I first went to Cambridge
I was offered the interpretation I am now rejecting: a convention of rural order, of Old England, against industrial disorder and the modern world. I had-the strongest personal reasons for doubting it, but it has taken me many years to reach the point where I can try to say, intellectually, where it was wrong.'
Mr Williams bases his argument against the concept of an ' organic society ' on the internal evidence of the literature itself and illustrates his talk with readings from Ben Jonson , Carew, Goldsmith. Crabbe, Hardy, and George Eliot.
Readers: HUGH DICKSON
FRANCES HOOKER , ALAN WHEATLEY
Produced by Tony Gould
Literature and the City: November 14