Reviews for Język, polityka, społeczeństwo

The average rating for Język, polityka, społeczeństwo based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2013-09-05 00:00:00 Donna Williams "ALL I KNOW IS I HAD A COW AND PARLIAMENT TOOK IT AWAY FROM ME" - A COUNTRYMAN SPEAKING OF ENCLOSURE It was with a little trepidation that I began to read the Marxist critic Raymond Williams 35 year old book "The Country And The City". I need not have been worried. Its obvious that Williams, who was born in a Welsh border village, has a keen knowledge of the reality of countryside grounded in experience. He has usefully augmented this and expanded into other times and places during a life time of city bound study. It is this accumulated knowledge of the literature and reality of country and city as well as the relationship between the two over time that make this an interesting read. The majority of the book focuses on the country-side of the title, intelligent readings of the literature of the time against the reality of Britain's developing capitalist agricultural, the enclosure of the commons and depopulation. He never loses sight of the fact that the country is lived in and worked by people and in what context this occurs. This provides the framework for a thoughtful consideration of what would have been contemporary literature through the ages: what is written and what is not written, and how the various authors see the country. Initially much of the material is poetry and drama, I regrettably have never had much of a head for poetry but Williams makes such poets as Oliver Goldsmith, William Wordsworth and John Clare explicable. As time progresses more of the material considered is in prose: William Cobbet, Jane Austen, George Elliot, Thomas Hardy, Lewis Grassic Gibbon for example. All this is related to developments in the City, which Williams sees as being connected to the countryside. The reality of life in the city is likewise related to the literature of the times, his consideration of Dickens made me want to re-read at least some of his works. The book ends with an extended essay on the relationship between city and countryside, and steps back to take a global view which is still immensely relevant. There is also thoughts on the future as seen from when the book was written (1973), these unfortunately are still food for thought. Overall the book is a fascinating read, though difficult at times (I had to re-read paragraphs on a few occasions) I found it worth the effort. Well recommended, especially for members of the Countryside Alliance (do they still exist?).

Review # 2 was written on 2009-12-02 00:00:00 Brent Tripet A great mix of literary criticism - his readings of G. Eliot and Dickens are particularly impressive - history and political agitation. Williams starts with a discussion of the pastoral mode, which is valuable in itself. But the book really gets humming when he hits the early moderns, and starts to track the different ways that pastoral themes have been used and abused by people in different times and classes. This is in the middle portion of the book. The last few chapters finally started to get a bit too preachy. Now, I don't mind some preachiness about poverty and oppression and so on, since that's always nice to have. But preachiness about the 'decadent,' 'weak' tradition of 'country house' writing, which somewhat ambivalently includes Henry James, Ivy-Compton Burnett and, no doubt, Elizabeth Bowen is unnecessarily old-Marxisty. As the book draws to a close, you get the impression that Williams prefers Hardy to James, not because of any literary qualities, but because Hardy writes about threshing machines and grew up in the lower middle classes, while James writes about princesses and was a bit of a Brahmin. Now that may all be true, but then you're making judgment about who's the better political sociologist. And to turn around and say the real heirs of Austen and so on are detective story writers is more than bit whack. There's not much doubt that detective novels are the most conservative literary form in existence, Raymond. Too bad. Otherwise, 5 stars for great writing, avoiding theory b.s., and caring about books.