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had declared its "intention of keeping the literary intelligentsia "out of it; yet after three years of war almost every writer, however undesirable his political history or opinions, has been sucked into the various
Ministries or the BBC" or, if already in the armed forces, into public relations "or
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which always contained some people who were bored or "all but frankly hostile and who couldn't remove themselves by the simple act of turning a knob". He points out that the unpopularity of poetry contrasts with the "good-bad" poetry, "generally of a patriotic or sentimental kind" and with "folk
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He points out a small consolation in that "the bigger the machine of government becomes, the more loose ends and forgotten corners there are in it" and that as long as they are "forced to maintain an intelligentsia", there will also be a minimum of freedom. Finally, he urges those "who care for
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Orwell refers to the fact that placing the poet in front of a microphone and having to read his poem out loud has an effect not only on the audience but also on the poet. He states that over the past two hundred years poetry has come to have less connection with music and the spoken word, with
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The essay goes on to refer to the fact that broadcasting is "under the control of governments or great monopoly companies which are actively interested in maintaining the status quo and therefore preventing the common man from becoming too intelligent."
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Notable for including Orwell’s sentence: "Poetry on the air sounds like the Muses in striped trousers", the article mentions some of the material used in the broadcasts, mainly by contemporary or near-contemporary
English writers such as
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edited by M. J. Tambimuttu, published in 1942 included the poem "September 1, 1939" but misprinted the title as "September 1, 1941"; this may have been the source of Orwell's error.
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Orwell gives the title as "September 1941"; however there is no poem by Auden of that title. Almost certainly the reference is to Auden's poem "September 1, 1939". An anthology
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One number of the programme was on the subject of war and included two poems by Edmund
Blunden, Auden’s "September 1941", extracts from "A Letter from Anne Ridler" by
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The key to broadcasting poetry was to engage the audience – of one – in order to avoid the "atmosphere of frigid embarrassment" of the "grisly"
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Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell Volume 2: My Country Right or Left
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literature to turn their minds to this much-despised medium" which has "powers for good".
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He gives the example of the
British Government which, at the beginning of
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The Indian
Section of the BBC published a collection of the broadcasts,
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Politics vs. Literature: An
Examination of Gulliver's Travels
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lyrical and rhetorical poetry having almost ceased to exist.
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161:Orwell, Sonia and Angus, Ian (eds.)
28:. Orwell had by then left the BBC.
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704:Inside the Whale and Other Essays
589:Politics and the English Language
554:A Good Word for the Vicar of Bray
631:Some Thoughts on the Common Toad
624:Second Thoughts on James Burnham
325:Down and Out in Paris and London
20:" is an essay by English writer
835:British Empire in World War II
540:Confessions of a Book Reviewer
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547:Decline of the English Murder
140:Bibliography of George Orwell
610:The Prevention of Literature
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596:The Politics of Starvation
494:Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool
399:Spilling the Spanish Beans
282:Keep the Aspidistra Flying
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466:Raffles and Miss Blandish
459:Poetry and the Microphone
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193:Poetry and the Microphone
18:Poetry and the Microphone
660:Such, Such Were the Joys
452:The Lion and the Unicorn
438:The Art of Donald McGill
431:My Country Right or Left
830:Essays by George Orwell
617:Riding Down from Bangor
333:The Road to Wigan Pier
274:A Clergyman's Daughter
165:, 16 (London, Penguin)
790:The Orwell Foundation
515:Reflections on Gandhi
508:Toward European Unity
750:Eileen O'Shaughnessy
696:Betrayal of the Left
568:The Moon Under Water
480:Notes on Nationalism
445:England Your England
392:Shooting an Elephant
306:Nineteen Eighty-Four
102:Revolt in the Desert
745:Victor Gollancz Ltd
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487:The Sporting Spirit
341:Homage to Catalonia
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740:Secker and Warburg
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26:New Saxon Pamphlet
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54:Henry Treece
50:Dylan Thomas
38:Herbert Read
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825:1943 essays
682:As I Please
674:Collections
638:Why I Write
298:Animal Farm
42:W. H. Auden
34:T. S. Eliot
819:Categories
317:Nonfiction
198:Faded Page
146:References
730:Orwellian
378:The Spike
371:A Hanging
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200:(Canada)
134:See also
723:Related
258:Fiction
806:Portal
795:Statue
762:(1949)
715:(1946)
707:(1940)
699:(1941)
356:Essays
344:(1938)
336:(1937)
328:(1933)
309:(1949)
301:(1945)
293:(1939)
285:(1936)
277:(1935)
269:(1934)
251:Novels
68:, and
652:1950s
409:1940s
363:1930s
93:Byron
525:1946
196:at
99:'s
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