Unacknowledged legislation

by Christopher Hitchens

"Many have seen the encounter between literature and politics as necessarily fraught. Norman Podhoretz, for instance, examined the intersection under the rubric 'The Bloody Crossroads' (a term he borrowed from Lionel Trilling). Christopher Hitchens, in this sparkling engagement with literature and its producers, prefers a different approach. Taking inspiration from Shelley's description of the poet as an 'unacknowledged legislator', he shows that whilst the engagement between writers and those in power is not always smooth, it generally embodies a dialectic that is worth investigation." "Hitchens provides rich evidence that his own sallies as a political journalist are nourished by an erudite familiarity with a broad sweep of novelists, essayists and poets. In these pages Oscar Wilde's profound radicalism is uncovered; George Orwell's role as a fulcrum between left and right is carefully appraised; the languid irony and cosmopolitanism of Gore Vidal are celebrated; and a discussion of