Take Back the Past: Myths of the Twentieth Century

by George Watson

Overview

Critical theorists in our time sought foundations of knowledge because they knew there were none to be found, and critical scepticism became a convenient way of burying evidence and saving face. By now, however, no-one is interested, the audience has gone home, and the case for studying literature needs to begin again. It cannot start too soon. In Take Back the Past, George Watson considers the reasons for the apparent failure of the previous centuryis critics to find the theoretical foundations of critical judgement. He asks why is it more fashionable to look knowing than to know, and cites political and historical reasons for this lapse in knowledge and critical thinking. In this new study, a worthy addition to his work on the subject, Watson contemplates the collapse of socialism in the late 20th Century and how it lead to the denial of knowledge and the general degeneration of literary thought. 'My object here' - he tells the reader - 'is to find a way back to a sense of a unity of knowledge and the objectivity of judgement: to recover a radical purpose of literature.'

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780718830670
Publisher:	The Lutterworth Press
Publication date:	02/22/2007
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.70(d)

About the Author

George Watson is Fellow in English at St. John’s College, Cambridge. He has published a number of books on literature and political thought, including 'The Literary Critics', its sequel, 'Never Ones for Theory?', 'The English Ideology', 'Lost Literature of Socialism' and 'Take Back the Past', also published by The Lutterworth Press. He has been Sandars Reader in Bibliography, and is editor of the New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature.