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

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.

Ian Britain (Author)

9780521021296, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 20 October 2005

360 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2 cm, 0.542 kg

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.

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.

Subject Areas: History of ideas [JFCX]