''Polemic'' was a British "Magazine of Philosophy, Psychology, and Aesthetics" published between 1945 and 1947, which aimed to be a general or non-specialist intellectual periodical.
''Absent Minds: Intellectuals in Britain''
by Stefan Collini
Oxford University Press, 2006
,
Edited by the ex-Communist
Humphrey Slater, it was "sympathetic to science, hostile to the intellectual manifestations of romanticism, and markedly anti-Communist. Eight issues were published.
The first, published as a book to get round the prohibition of new journals imposed by war-time paper rationing, included contributions by
Henry Miller
Henry Valentine Miller (December 26, 1891 – June 7, 1980) was an American novelist. He broke with existing literary forms and developed a new type of semi-autobiographical novel that blended character study, social criticism, philosophical ref ...
,
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British mathematician, philosopher, logician, and public intellectual. He had a considerable influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, linguistics, ...
,
A. J. Ayer,
Stephen Spender
Sir Stephen Harold Spender (28 February 1909 – 16 July 1995) was an English poet, novelist and essayist whose work concentrated on themes of social injustice and the class struggle. He was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry by th ...
, Stephen Glover,
George Orwell,
C. E. M. Joad and Rupert Crawshay-Williams.
Orwell contributed five essays over the life of the magazine and Russell and Ayer contributed four each. Other contributors included
Philip Toynbee
Theodore Philip Toynbee (25 June 1916 – 15 June 1981) was a British writer and communist. He wrote experimental novels, and distinctive verse novels, one of which was an epic called ''Pantaloon'', a work in several volumes, only some of whi ...
,
Hugh Trevor-Roper
Hugh Redwald Trevor-Roper, Baron Dacre of Glanton (15 January 1914 – 26 January 2003) was an English historian. He was Regius Professor of Modern History at the University of Oxford.
Trevor-Roper was a polemicist and essayist on a range of ...
,
Dylan Thomas,
Diana Witherby,
Stuart Hampshire,
Geoffrey Grigson
Geoffrey Edward Harvey Grigson (2 March 1905 – 25 November 1985) was a British poet, writer, editor, critic, exhibition curator, anthologist and naturalist. In the 1930s he was editor of the influential magazine ''New Verse'', and went on to p ...
,
Ben Nicholson
Benjamin Lauder Nicholson, OM (10 April 1894 – 6 February 1982) was an English painter of abstract compositions (sometimes in low relief), landscape and still-life.
Background and training
Nicholson was born on 10 April 1894 in De ...
,
Adrian Stokes,
J. D. Bernal C. H. Waddington and
John Wisdom.
Orwell's essays
*"
Notes on Nationalism" (''Polemic'', No 1 - October 1945 - written in May 1945)
[Orwell, Sonia and Angus, Ian (eds.). ''The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell Volume 3: As I Please (1943-1945)'' (Penguin)]
*"
The Prevention of Literature" (''Polemic'', No 2 - January 1946)
[Orwell, Sonia and Angus, Ian (eds.). ''The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell Volume 4: In Front of Your Nose (1945-1950)'' (Penguin)]
*"
Second Thoughts on James Burnham
"Second Thoughts on James Burnham" ("James Burnham and the Managerial Revolution", when published as a pamphlet) is an essay, first published in May 1946 in ''Polemic (magazine), Polemic'', by the English author George Orwell. The essay discusses ...
" (''Polemic'', No 3 - May 1946)
*"
Politics vs. Literature: An Examination of Gulliver's Travels" (''Polemic'', No 5 - September–October 1946)
*"
Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool" (''Polemic'', No 7)
*Orwell also contributed an (unsigned) editorial to (''Polemic'', No 3 - May 1946)
Ayer's essays
* 'Deistic Fallacies', ''Polemic'', no. 1. (1945)
* 'Secret Session' (on
J.-P. Sartre), ''Polemic'', no. 2, pp. 60~3. (1945)
* 'Freedom and Necessity', ''Polemic'', no. 5, pp. 36~44. (1946) (repr. in ''
Philosophical Essays'', 1954]
* "The Claims of Philosophy", in ''Polemic'', no. 7, pp. 18~33 (1947)
epr. in ''iarchive:reflectionsonour0000unse_h1y2/page/51/mode/1up, Reflections on Our Age,'' 1949)
See also
*Bibliography of George Orwell
References
Defunct magazines published in the United Kingdom
Magazines established in 1945
Magazines disestablished in 1947
{{UK-mag-stub