Abstract
The article proposes three theses on the status of literary and critical theory after the populist incursions of the “long 2016.” First: that an already-ailing “theory” failed to distinguish itself from professional class anti-populism during the political upheavals of Trump, Brexit, Corbyn, Bernie Sanders, and others. Second: that there is within literary theory’s history a concealed tradition of “literary populism”; the normative belief that good or desirable writing has some surreptitious connection to the idioms of ordinary people. And third: that there are lessons to learn from the broadly forgotten episode of Terry Eagleton’s critique of Raymond Williams in the late 1970s – where the charge was that Williams himself was a populist.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 41-59 |
Number of pages | 19 |
Journal | Anglica |
Volume | 33 |
Issue number | 3 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 24 Oct 2024 |
Keywords
- literary theory
- populism
- elitism
- Joseph North
- Raymond Williams
- Terry Eagleton
- literary populism
- Jeremy Corbyn
- Bernie Sanders