British Communism and the Politics of Literature: 1928–1939, by Philip Bounds

Abstract

In British Communism and the Politics of Literature: 1928–1939, Philip Bounds attempts to rescue prewar British Marxist criticism from what E. P. Thompson once described as the “enormous condescension of posterity.” Focusing on figures such as Ralph Fox, Alick West, and Christopher Caudwell, Bounds highlights the sophisticated nature of thirties Marxism, arguing that its legacy lives in the literary theory of Raymond Williams and Terry Eagleton, and especially in the emphasis on literature as a practice and a sociocultural institution rather than a set of isolated “texts.” If Bounds's study has a weakness, it lies in his treatment of Caudwell, whose work is interpreted in a rather one-dimensional fashion as a reflex of his supposedly isolated position as an “autodidact.” But that apart, Bounds's book is a fascinating study that will undoubtedly stimulate a great deal of debate in Communist literary/cultural history for many years to come.

Key Words:

• 1930s
• British Literature
• Literary Theory
• Marxism
• Soviet Communism