Fabianism and Culture: A Study in British Socialism and the Arts c1884-1918

by Ian Britain

Overview

This book is an attempt to remedy the neglect of the cultural and aesthetic aspects of English socialism in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. An outstanding symptom of this neglect is the way in which the Fabian Society, and its two leading lights, Sidney and Beatrice Webb, have usually been depicted as completely indifferent to art and to the artistic ramifications of socialism. Most commentators have painted Fabian socialism as a narrowly utilitarian programme of social and administrative reform, preoccupied with the mechanisms of politics and largely obvious of wider, more 'human' issues. One of the basic aims of the book is to question this bleakly philistine image, by showing the basis of the Fabians' beliefs in romancism as well as utilitarianism.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521021296
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	10/20/2005
Pages:	360
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.79(d)

Table of Contents

Preface; List of abbreviations; Introduction; Part I. The Literary and Artistic Origins of Fabian Socialism: 1. Thomas Davidson, the new life fellowship and the earliest Fabians; 2. The young Webbs: towards a socialist partnership; 3. Three Fabians essayists and William Morris; 4. Bernard Shaw; Part ii. Art, Austerity and Pleasure in Fabian Socialism: 5. The Webb partnership: the practice of renunciation; 6. The Fabians as anti-ascetics; 7. Powerhouse or club?: artistic activities of the Fabian Society; 8. Platform or playhouse?: Fabian lecturing on the arts and the arts of Fabian lecturing; Part III. Fabianism, Elitism and Popular Culture: 9. Fabian attitudes to working-class culture; 10. Fabians, art and democracy; Conclusion; Notes; Bibliography; Index.