Raymond Williams

Dzieła

• 1958Culture and Society 1780–1950 (Kultura i społeczeństwo 1780–1950)

  Od Burke’a i Cobbetta przez Milla, Carlyle’a, Arnolda, Ruskina i Morrisa po Lawrence’a, T. S. Eliota, Leavisa i Orwella: jak idea kultury stała się trybunałem apelacyjnym wobec społeczeństwa przemysłowego, gdy kultura, przemysł, demokracja, klasa i sztuka zmieniały znaczenie.

• 1977Marxism and Literature (Marksizm i literatura)

  Przerabia marksistowską teorię kultury: baza i nadbudowa stają się aspektami jednego materialnego procesu społecznego, hegemonia Gramsciego – przeżywanym systemem znaczeń i wartości, podważanym przez formy rezydualne i wyłaniające się i rejestrowanym w „strukturach odczuwania”; Williams nazywa to stanowisko „materializmem kulturowym”.

Stanowisko

Williams is on the map as a founder of cultural studies and as a Marxist theorist of culture. “Culture and Society 1780–1950” (1958) traced how the words industry, democracy, class, art and culture changed their meaning in response to the industrial revolution, from Burke and Cobbett to Leavis and Orwell, and argued for a “common culture” built on the working-class idea of solidarity. “The Long Revolution” (1961) defined culture as a whole way of life and developed the “structure of feeling” as a term for the lived experience of a period. “Keywords” (1976) traced the history of the words in which modern society understands itself. In “Marxism and Literature” (1977) he reworked Marx’s base and superstructure and Gramsci’s hegemony into a “cultural materialism” that treats culture as material production within society and distinguishes dominant, residual and emergent forms. Stuart Hall counted “Culture and Society” and “The Long Revolution” among the founding texts of cultural studies; Edward Said built on “The Country and the City” (1973) while noting how little it says about empire. Williams also wrote on drama, television and Wales and belonged to the New Left. Critics have questioned his focus on England and his idea of rooted communities; these objections are set out under “Context & critique”.

Życie i kontekst

Raymond Henry Williams was born on 31 August 1921 in Pandy, near Abergavenny on the Welsh border; his father was a railway signalman and secretary of the local Labour Party. From King Henry VIII Grammar School in Abergavenny he won a state scholarship to read English at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1939, and joined the Communist Party there, a membership that later lapsed. From 1941 he served in the army and fought as an anti-tank officer in Normandy in 1944. After graduating in 1946 he taught adult education classes for the Oxford University Extra-Mural Delegacy and the Workers’ Educational Association in East Sussex until 1961 and co-founded the review Politics and Letters. In 1961 he became a fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge, and from 1974 to 1983 he was the university’s first Professor of Drama. Besides criticism he wrote novels, beginning with Border Country (1960). He died in Saffron Walden on 26 January 1988.

Dalsze główne dzieła

• Border Country (1960)
• The Long Revolution (1961)
• The Country and the City (1973)
• Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society (1976)