Essays on Politics and Literature

This collection of essays gives a non-technical analysis of the essential relationship between politics and literature and makes a commonsense protest against the overly-theoretic separation of the two. The first group of essays are on general themes, including the effect of Political Theatre , the second group focuses on George Orwell while the final group celebrates notable events in modern theatre. Bernard Crick shows that much Political Theatre is often both bad theatre and simplistic politics, but that good producers bring out the political elements, even in apparently unpolitical dramas such as Twelfth Night . In his discussion of Orwell, he emphasises the role of biographer as historian rather than novelist , and challenges the view that the far Left dominated writing in the Thirties. Like Orwell he believes that good writing is not always for a good cause, and that the good cannot always write.