- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9781846310256
- eISBN:
- 9781846312557
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781846310256.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter focuses on the literary achievements and socio-political outlooks of John Cowper Powys. It demonstrates that his very important life-philosophy is best understood as a form of ...
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This chapter focuses on the literary achievements and socio-political outlooks of John Cowper Powys. It demonstrates that his very important life-philosophy is best understood as a form of individualist anarchism. The chapter examines some of his philosophical books that elaborate his personal philosophy of individual self-liberation.Less
This chapter focuses on the literary achievements and socio-political outlooks of John Cowper Powys. It demonstrates that his very important life-philosophy is best understood as a form of individualist anarchism. The chapter examines some of his philosophical books that elaborate his personal philosophy of individual self-liberation.
Sam Wiseman
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780990895886
- eISBN:
- 9781786945228
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9780990895886.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
John Cowper Powys’ relationship with the landscapes of Dorset and Somerset is explored in the ‘Wessex novels’. Wolf Solent (1929), A Glastonbury Romance (1933), Weymouth Sands (1934) were written in ...
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John Cowper Powys’ relationship with the landscapes of Dorset and Somerset is explored in the ‘Wessex novels’. Wolf Solent (1929), A Glastonbury Romance (1933), Weymouth Sands (1934) were written in the United States, and this chapter examines the specific influence of a peripatetic, cosmopolitan existence upon the development of Powys’ literary style. Despite his opposition to increasing urbanisation and mechanisation, Powys’ novels tend to ironise such concerns, recognising the potential epistemological benefits of modernity. He resists essentialist notions of identity and rootedness; despite an intensely nostalgic affection for Dorset and Somerset in his work, there is an ever-present recognition that our sense of place is always a dreamlike, imaginative creation rather than an authentic mode of belonging. Consequently Powys emphasises the values of movement, marginality, liminality and comedy: his novels are not tragic narratives of human struggles to belong, but jumbled, bathetic, and ‘atmospheric’ worlds that deliberately lack a strong sense of linear direction. They engage with perspectival developments of modernity, and thus represent a distinctively rural form of modernism. Ultimately, this represents a specific type of engagement with place that stems, in part, from Powys’ unique sense of nostalgia, contrast and distance (geographical, temporal and cultural).Less
John Cowper Powys’ relationship with the landscapes of Dorset and Somerset is explored in the ‘Wessex novels’. Wolf Solent (1929), A Glastonbury Romance (1933), Weymouth Sands (1934) were written in the United States, and this chapter examines the specific influence of a peripatetic, cosmopolitan existence upon the development of Powys’ literary style. Despite his opposition to increasing urbanisation and mechanisation, Powys’ novels tend to ironise such concerns, recognising the potential epistemological benefits of modernity. He resists essentialist notions of identity and rootedness; despite an intensely nostalgic affection for Dorset and Somerset in his work, there is an ever-present recognition that our sense of place is always a dreamlike, imaginative creation rather than an authentic mode of belonging. Consequently Powys emphasises the values of movement, marginality, liminality and comedy: his novels are not tragic narratives of human struggles to belong, but jumbled, bathetic, and ‘atmospheric’ worlds that deliberately lack a strong sense of linear direction. They engage with perspectival developments of modernity, and thus represent a distinctively rural form of modernism. Ultimately, this represents a specific type of engagement with place that stems, in part, from Powys’ unique sense of nostalgia, contrast and distance (geographical, temporal and cultural).
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9781846310256
- eISBN:
- 9781846312557
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781846310256.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter discusses the reformulation of John Cowper Powys's political and social outlook as a result of the Spanish Revolution and the resultant impact on his fiction and other writings. It ...
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This chapter discusses the reformulation of John Cowper Powys's political and social outlook as a result of the Spanish Revolution and the resultant impact on his fiction and other writings. It traces the way in which he came to adopt social anarchism. Powys calls himself an ‘anarchistic individualist’ in his literary works and later committed himself to the ‘social ideal’ of ‘philosophical anarchy’.Less
This chapter discusses the reformulation of John Cowper Powys's political and social outlook as a result of the Spanish Revolution and the resultant impact on his fiction and other writings. It traces the way in which he came to adopt social anarchism. Powys calls himself an ‘anarchistic individualist’ in his literary works and later committed himself to the ‘social ideal’ of ‘philosophical anarchy’.
David Goodway
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9781846310256
- eISBN:
- 9781846312557
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/UPO9781846312557
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
From William Morris to Oscar Wilde to George Orwell, left-libertarian thought has long been an important but neglected part of British cultural and political history. This book seeks to recover and ...
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From William Morris to Oscar Wilde to George Orwell, left-libertarian thought has long been an important but neglected part of British cultural and political history. This book seeks to recover and revitalize that indigenous anarchist tradition. It succeeds as simultaneously a cultural history of left-libertarian thought in Britain and a demonstration of the applicability of that history to current politics. The author argues that a recovered anarchist tradition could — and should — be a touchstone for contemporary political radicals. Moving from Aldous Huxley and John Cowper Powys to the war in Iraq, this volume will energize leftist movements throughout Britain and the rest of the world.Less
From William Morris to Oscar Wilde to George Orwell, left-libertarian thought has long been an important but neglected part of British cultural and political history. This book seeks to recover and revitalize that indigenous anarchist tradition. It succeeds as simultaneously a cultural history of left-libertarian thought in Britain and a demonstration of the applicability of that history to current politics. The author argues that a recovered anarchist tradition could — and should — be a touchstone for contemporary political radicals. Moving from Aldous Huxley and John Cowper Powys to the war in Iraq, this volume will energize leftist movements throughout Britain and the rest of the world.
Sam Wiseman
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780990895886
- eISBN:
- 9781786945228
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9780990895886.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
This book examines a renewed focus upon rural landscapes, culture and traditions among English interwar modernist writers, specifically D.H. Lawrence, John Cowper Powys, Mary Butts and Virginia ...
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This book examines a renewed focus upon rural landscapes, culture and traditions among English interwar modernist writers, specifically D.H. Lawrence, John Cowper Powys, Mary Butts and Virginia Woolf. All of these figures have a profound sense of attachment to place, but an equally powerful desire to engage with the upheavals of interwar modernity and to participate in contemporary literary experimentation. This dialectic between tradition and change is analogous to a literal geographical shuttling between rural and metropolitan environments, and all four writers display imagery and literary techniques which reflect those experiences. The first chapter emphasises ambivalence in the work of Lawrence, and argues that this is inextricably bound up with his intimate, empathic understanding of place. Chapter Two argues that Powys has a similarly ambivalent relationship with modernity, but defuses this through a fantastical, nostalgic lens; he develops a sense of the landscape as layered, expressing a kind of temporal cosmopolitanism. Chapter Three notes a vexed relationship with modernity and place in the work of Butts; like Powys she attempts to resolve this through a re-enchantment of place, promoting a cosmopolitan reimagining of rural England. Finally, Chapter Four posits Woolf as a figure able to manage tensions between urban and rural, modern and traditional, reflected in the development of an ‘urban pastoral’ form. In all four writers there is evidence that modernism’s expansion of perspectives can be fruitfully extended to those of place and nonhuman animals; the central stress in the conclusion is on the need to incorporate such perspectives.Less
This book examines a renewed focus upon rural landscapes, culture and traditions among English interwar modernist writers, specifically D.H. Lawrence, John Cowper Powys, Mary Butts and Virginia Woolf. All of these figures have a profound sense of attachment to place, but an equally powerful desire to engage with the upheavals of interwar modernity and to participate in contemporary literary experimentation. This dialectic between tradition and change is analogous to a literal geographical shuttling between rural and metropolitan environments, and all four writers display imagery and literary techniques which reflect those experiences. The first chapter emphasises ambivalence in the work of Lawrence, and argues that this is inextricably bound up with his intimate, empathic understanding of place. Chapter Two argues that Powys has a similarly ambivalent relationship with modernity, but defuses this through a fantastical, nostalgic lens; he develops a sense of the landscape as layered, expressing a kind of temporal cosmopolitanism. Chapter Three notes a vexed relationship with modernity and place in the work of Butts; like Powys she attempts to resolve this through a re-enchantment of place, promoting a cosmopolitan reimagining of rural England. Finally, Chapter Four posits Woolf as a figure able to manage tensions between urban and rural, modern and traditional, reflected in the development of an ‘urban pastoral’ form. In all four writers there is evidence that modernism’s expansion of perspectives can be fruitfully extended to those of place and nonhuman animals; the central stress in the conclusion is on the need to incorporate such perspectives.
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9781846310256
- eISBN:
- 9781846312557
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781846310256.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Anarchism, or left libertarianism, is a political ideology that advocated the abolition of the State and parliamentarianism. It is considered a type of socialism, but closely related to liberal ...
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Anarchism, or left libertarianism, is a political ideology that advocated the abolition of the State and parliamentarianism. It is considered a type of socialism, but closely related to liberal thought because of its liberal traditions and a strong radical liberalism. Anarchism flourished in countries such as France, Russia, Spain, and Italy. This book examines anarchism as a social movement and explores the reasons why it failed to flourish in Britain. It discusses libertarian communists or socialists individuals who represent a full spectrum of anarchist diversity, from the individualism of John Cowper Powys to the near syndicalism of Christopher Pallis.Less
Anarchism, or left libertarianism, is a political ideology that advocated the abolition of the State and parliamentarianism. It is considered a type of socialism, but closely related to liberal thought because of its liberal traditions and a strong radical liberalism. Anarchism flourished in countries such as France, Russia, Spain, and Italy. This book examines anarchism as a social movement and explores the reasons why it failed to flourish in Britain. It discusses libertarian communists or socialists individuals who represent a full spectrum of anarchist diversity, from the individualism of John Cowper Powys to the near syndicalism of Christopher Pallis.
