Description

Book Synopsis
Into the Mèlée probes the mercurial relationship between culture and politics through versatile critical writing on Conrad, Orwell, Sartre, Raymond Williams and Roberto Schwarz, among others.

The ‘mèlée’ that Romain Rolland wrote to deplore was the Great War of 1914. The phrase gained general currency as a call to cultural service beyond the pressures of everyday political and social strife, a vocation ‘above the fray’. Francis Mulhern writes in the contrary belief that there is no social location corresponding to this desire, strong and appealing though it may be.

Into the Mèlée opens with questions of nationality, from F. R. Leavis’s efforts to assert an English literary subject to Tom Nairn’s political vision of England and Scotland ‘after Britain’. Other essays concern intellectuals and, in one way or another, the politics of revolution and counterrevolution, from Burke to the present. The

Into the Melee

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    A Paperback by Francis Mulhern

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      Book details

      Publisher Verso Books
      Published 1 April 2024
      ISBN-13 9781804293348
      978-1804293348
      ISBN-10 1804293342
      Also in:
      Essays

      Description

      Book Synopsis
      Into the Mèlée probes the mercurial relationship between culture and politics through versatile critical writing on Conrad, Orwell, Sartre, Raymond Williams and Roberto Schwarz, among others.

      The ‘mèlée’ that Romain Rolland wrote to deplore was the Great War of 1914. The phrase gained general currency as a call to cultural service beyond the pressures of everyday political and social strife, a vocation ‘above the fray’. Francis Mulhern writes in the contrary belief that there is no social location corresponding to this desire, strong and appealing though it may be.

      Into the Mèlée opens with questions of nationality, from F. R. Leavis’s efforts to assert an English literary subject to Tom Nairn’s political vision of England and Scotland ‘after Britain’. Other essays concern intellectuals and, in one way or another, the politics of revolution and counterrevolution, from Burke to the present. The

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