THE BRITISH IMAGINATION

by Arthur Crook ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

A from the Times Literary Supplement"" offers, besides ""self-scrutiny"", a sounding of ideas, influences, styles, achievements, and lacunae in the various British media and arts. Lively and less so. It is a consistently stimulating perspective of present day directions as well as the shape of things to come. A few general, generic conclusions are to be drawn: Autobiography (like the sermon- ""a natural art form"" which allows ""no riposte"") is perhaps too cosy and does not favor adventure of the body and mind; Religion shows an ingrained reticence as well as current bewilderment; Fiction is primarily a reflection of the social structure, and has not penetrated the workaday world; the cinema is still ""conformist and class-bound"" but is developing (thanks to television which drains off the worst), while the universities have and should present the greatest challenge to the British imagination. Radio, music, the ballet, art, architecture, the theatre (still the ""great middle-class stranglehold"" in spite of the raw, young talent of the past few years), children's books, publishing, criticism, psychology, poetry, even scattered spares (advertising, museums, snobbery, and the subdued role- ""the lady vanishes""- of women as a source of creative inspiration) receive the discerning consideration for which the Literary Supplement is justly admired... Perhaps largely for , but it is a sharp precis of symptomatic Anglo-Saxon attitudes, approaches and trends.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Atheneum

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1961

Categories: NONFICTION