Twentieth Century Interpretations of 1984: A Collection of Critical Essays

136 Pages·14.091 MB·English

by  George Orwell, Eric Arthur Blair

HfiRIN COUNTY FREE LIBRARY
CENTURY
1TH
3I 1I1I1I1I0I0I2I4I3I 0I1I4I6
INTERPRETATIONS
OF
* 1984
SAMUEL HYNES
Edited by
A COLLECTION OF CRITICAL ESSAYS BY
Isaac Deutscher IrvingHowe AldousHuxley
• •
WyndhamLewis • StephenSpender • Lionel Trilling
and 7others
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Each volume of sf
TWENTIETH CENTURY oOJ
o
INTERPRETATIONS
presents the best of modern commentary
on a great work of literature,
and an original introduction
n
to that work by an outstanding authority.
Analyzing themes, style, genre,
structural elements, artistic influences,
and historical background,
the essays define the place of the work
in its tradition
and make clear its significance
for readers of today.
-<&^>~
"Perhaps every age needs its own night-
mares, and 1984 is ours. It is a nightmare
peculiar to our own time, for only in this
century has totalitarianism become an actu-
ality, and thus a subject for the human
imagination: only when there were boots in
human faces, could one imagine a boot
stamping on a human face—forever.
. . .
"Starting from Orwell's proposition that
personal identity is fixed and private, one
can go on to other propositions: that the
past is unchangeable, that truth is objective,
that words have fixed meanings. And that
love is possible. Taken together these propo-
sitions define a relationship to reality that
we take for granted: 1984 is horrible be-
cause in it every one of these propositions
is denied. For these ideas have been funda-
mental to western, liberal culture since the
(continued on back flap)
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English Utopia, by A. I* Morton.—Bibliography (p. 116-117)
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TWENTIETH CENTURY
INTERPRETATIONS
OF
I984
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2010
http://www.archive.org/details/twentiethcenturyOOhyne
M
TWENTIETH CENTURY
INTERPRETATIONS
OF
1984
A
Collection of Critical Essays
Edited by
Samuel Hynes
/£&
Prentice-Hall, Inc. ff5%\ Englewood Cliffs. N. /.
18901
© 1971 by Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. A SPECTRUM BOOK.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any
means without permission in writing from the publisher. C-o-13-622605-1; P-0-13-
622597-7. Library of Congress Catalog CardNumber78-160533. Printedin the United
States of America.
987654321
10
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'
Contents
Introduction
by Samuel Hynes
—
Part One Reviews
1984 20
by V. S. Pritchett
Orwell on the Future 24•
by Lionel Trilling
—
Part Two Essays
—
1984 The Mysticism of Cruelty 29 \
by Isaac Deutscher
1984: History as Nightmare 41
by Irving Howe
The Strangled Cry
54
by John Strachey
Introduction to 1984 62
by Stephen Spender
The Road to 1984 *«•
by George Kateb
Orwell and the Techniques of Didactic Fantasy 88
by Alex Zwerdling
—
Part Three Viewpoints
Aldous Huxley:
Letter to George Orwell 102#
vi Contents
Herbert Read:
1984 103
Wyndham Lewis:
Climax and Change 105
A. L. Morton:
From The English Utopia 109
Chronology of Important Dates 112
Notes on the Editor and Contributors 114
Selected Bibliography 116