George Orwell: a Critic, Just Not Exactly a "Poet" Critic

Orwell's no-nonsense sentiment clearly emerged from his experience with WWII. Therefore, the question I raise is: Is Orwell best viewed as a product of his era or as a product of the American spirit?

I am continually interested in the role of creative critics in American culture. Rob Horning in, "George Orwell: forgiving and championing bad art" discusses two new Collections of Orwell's works by Harcourt.

On the nature of Orwell's essay writing style, Horning makes the following point: "Orwell is not an essayist who is content to describe an incident that's redolent with metaphoric possibility and let readers work it out if they choose. Generally he comes right out and states his purpose,"

This illustrates the difference between the Poet-Critic and the kind of cultural critic Orwell was. Consider a comparison between Orwell and Thoreau. The latter is very metaphoric, even symbolic in his criticism; he opens up a realm of interpretive potential in every sentence. Orwell, by contrast, has an approach (to paraphrase Horning) much like that of Nicholson's character from A Few Good Men.

Orwell's no-nonsense sentiment clearly emerged from his experience with WWII. Therefore, the question I raise is: Is Orwell best viewed as a product of his era or as a product of the American spirit? We can easily place his views, the platform of his essay writing, in modern terms. However, as Horning points out, in his Nicholson character comparison, Orwell is just too intense for most of us.

You might also like:
Where Have You Gone My Blue-Eyed Son: The Disappearance of the American Poet-Critic
Curt Cobain: the ironic role of the Poet-Critic