Writing in Society

by Raymond Williams

Raymond Williams’s work was always concerned with the relation between culture and society. This book focuses on specific texts and authors, exploring the historical and cultural sources of their particular forms of writing. In it, Williams examines dramatic form and language in Racine and Shakespeare; the politics of fiction in the English Jacobin novel; David Hume and Charles Dickens and the changing characteristics of English prose; Robert Tressell, The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists , and the role of region and class in the English novel. Also included are Williams’s reflections on the rise of English studies, on their crisis as the literary traditions of Cambridge University were beset by the ‘structuralist controversy’, and on the wider implications of this redefinition of the critical field.

Genres: Theory, Nonfiction

278 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1983

About the author

Raymond Henry Williams was a Welsh academic, novelist, and critic. He taught for many years and the Professor of Drama at the University of Cambridge. He was an influential figure within the New Left and in wider culture. His writings on politics, culture, the mass media and literature are a significant contribution to the Marxist critique of culture and the arts. His work laid the foundations for the field of cultural studies and the cultural materialist approach. Among his many books are Culture and Society, Culture and Materialism, Politics and Letters, Problems in Materialism and Culture, and several novels.