The Cambridge Companion to George OrwellJohn Rodden George Orwell is regarded as the greatest political writer in English of the twentieth century. The massive critical literature on Orwell has not only become extremely specialized, and therefore somewhat inaccessible to the nonscholar, but it has also attributed to and even created misconceptions about the man, the writer and his literary legacy. For these reasons, an overview of Orwell's writing and influence is an indispensable resource. Accordingly, this 2007 Companion serves as both an introduction to Orwell's work and furnishes numerous innovative interpretations and fresh critical perspectives on it. Throughout the Companion, which includes chapters dedicated to two of Orwell's major novels, Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm, Orwell's work is placed within the context of the political and social climate of the time. His response to the Depression, British imperialism, Stalinism, World War II, and the politics of the British Left are also examined. |
Contents
Orwell and the biographers | 12 |
Englands His Englands | 28 |
Orwells nonfiction of the 1930s | 43 |
novels of the 1930s | 59 |
Orwells essays as a literary experience | 76 |
Orwell and the British Left | 100 |
Orwell Socialism and the Cold War | 126 |
history as fable | 133 |
a bibliographic essay | 190 |
Why Orwell still matters | 201 |
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academic American Animal Farm anti-Semitism appeared Aspidistra Flying believed Bernard Crick big brother biography Blair Britain British Burma Burmese Days Carey CEJL cent century citations cited claim Clergyman's Daughter Collected Essays common Communist contemporary Crick critical culture Davison edited England English experience fact Farm and Nineteen Fascism feel fiction Flory George Orwell Gollancz Hitler Homage to Catalonia human intelligentsia Jews John Rodden journals Keep the Aspidistra Labour Party language left wing literary literature middle class mind modern Muggeridge Nazi never Newspeak Nineteen Eighty-Four novel Orwell argued Orwell's political Paris and London patriotism Peter Davison popular Prevention of Literature proles propaganda public intellectual published radical readers Review Revolution revolutionary Road to Wigan Russian satire scholars Secker sense Shooting an Elephant social socialist society Sonia Soviet Union Spain Spanish Stalin things thought totalitarianism Trilling truth understand Unicorn University Warburg Wigan Pier William Winston Smith