This book contains Christopher Caudwell’s 1937 treatise, “Illusion and Reality”. It is a work of Marxist literary criticism that develops the idea that each individual era of British poetry stems from a novel economical paradigm in bourgeois society. Christopher St John Sprigg (1907–1937), more commonly known by his pseudonym 'Christopher Caudwell', was a British Marxist poet and thinker. In early life, he made his way to Marxism and set about rethinking everything in light of it, from...
Christopher Caudwell’s The Crisis in Physics is a stylish and readable analysis of the lines of connection between scientific theories and economic realities. Caudwell provides a trenchant critique of mechanism and positivism. In the words of J.B.S. Haldane, The Crisis in Physics offers a “quarry of ideas” for future philosophers: a wealth of insights and arguments that demands continuing critical reflection.
Considered by many to be the most innovative British Marxist writer of the twentieth century, Christopher Caudwell was killed in the Spanish Civil War at the age of 29. Although already a published writer of aeronautic texts and crime fiction, he was practically unknown to the public until reviews appeared of Illusion and Reality: A Study of the Sources of Poetry, which was published just after his death. A strikingly original study of poetry’s role, it explained in clear language how...
