Reclaiming William Morris: Englishness, Sublimity, and the Rhetoric of Dissent [Hardcover]

Michelle Weinroth (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0773514392 | ISBN-13: 978-0773514393 | Publication Date: January 1997

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.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"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.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 302 pages
• Publisher: Mcgill Queens Univ Pr (January 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0773514392
• ISBN-13: 978-0773514393
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,164,854 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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