Politics vs. Literature

George Orwell set out 'to make political writing into an art', and to a wide extent this aim shaped the future of English literature. His descriptions of authoritarian regimes helped to form a new vocabulary that is fundamental to understanding totalitarianism.

While 1984 and Animal Farm are amongst the most popular classic novels in the English language, this new series of Orwell's essays seeks to bring a wider selection of his writing on politics and literature to a new readership.

About Politics vs. Literature

Politics vs. Literature, the fourth in the Orwell's Essays series, is, at heart, a review of Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels.

• Orwell shares a personal connection to the book, having been given a copy on his eighth birthday. He knows it inside out and thinks highly of it.
• He describes Gulliver's Travels as 'pessimistic,' noting that it 'descends into political partisanship of a narrow kind,' designed to 'humiliate man by reminding him that he is weak and ridiculous.'

Using Gulliver's Travels as an example of enjoying a book whose author one cannot stand, Orwell goes on to say that he considers the work a true piece of art, leaving the reader to reconsider the books on their own shelves.