Polemic (Magazine)
Encyclopedia
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.

Edited by the ex-Communist Humphrey Slater
Humphrey Slater
Humphrey Richard "Hugh" Slater was a British author and painter.Brought up in South Africa, he attended the Slade School of Art in the mid-1920s, and exhibited an abstract painting at Lucy Wertheim's gallery, a leading London gallery....

, 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 Miller
Henry Valentine Miller was an American novelist and painter. He was known for breaking with existing literary forms and developing a new sort of 'novel' that is a mixture of novel, autobiography, social criticism, philosophical reflection, surrealist free association, and mysticism, one that is...

, Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic. At various points in his life he considered himself a liberal, a socialist, and a pacifist, but he also admitted that he had never been any of these things...

, A. J. Ayer, Stephen Spender
Stephen Spender
Sir Stephen Harold Spender CBE was an English poet, novelist and essayist who concentrated on themes of social injustice and the class struggle in his work...

, Stephen Glover, George Orwell
George Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair , better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist...

, C. E. M. Joad
C. E. M. Joad
Cyril Edwin Mitchinson Joad was an English philosopher and broadcasting personality. He is most famous for his appearance on The Brains Trust, an extremely popular BBC Radio wartime discussion programme...

 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
Philip Toynbee
Theodore Philip Toynbee 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 which are published...

, Hugh Trevor-Roper, Dylan Thomas
Dylan Thomas
Dylan Marlais Thomas was a Welsh poet and writer, Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 11 January 2008. who wrote exclusively in English. In addition to poetry, he wrote short stories and scripts for film and radio, which he often performed himself...

, Diana Witherby, Stuart Hampshire
Stuart Hampshire
Sir Stuart Newton Hampshire was an Oxford University philosopher, literary critic and university administrator. He was one of the antirationalist Oxford thinkers who gave a new direction to moral and political thought in the post-World War II era.Hampshire was educated at Repton School and at...

, Geoffrey Grigson
Geoffrey Grigson
Geoffrey Edward Harvey Grigson was a British writer. He was born in Pelynt, a village near Looe in Cornwall.-Life:...

, Ben Nicholson
Ben Nicholson
Benjamin Lauder "Ben" Nicholson, OM was a British painter of abstract compositions , landscape and still-life.-Background and Training:...

, Adrian Stokes
Adrian Stokes (critic)
Adrian Stokes was a British writer and painter, known principally as an influential art critic. He was also a published poet.- Background :...

, J. D. Bernal
J. D. Bernal
John Desmond Bernal FRS was one of Britain’s best known and most controversial scientists, called "Sage" by his friends, and known for pioneering X-ray crystallography in molecular biology.-Origin and education:His family was Irish, of mixed Italian and Spanish/Portuguese Sephardic Jewish origin...

 C. H. Waddington and John Wisdom
John Wisdom
Arthur John Terence Dibben Wisdom was a leading British philosopher considered to be an ordinary language philosopher, a philosopher of mind and a metaphysician. He was influenced by G.E...

.

Orwell's essays

  • "Notes on Nationalism
    Notes on Nationalism
    "Notes on Nationalism" is an essay written in May 1945 by George Orwell and published in the first issue of Polemic .In this essay, Orwell discusses the notion of nationalism, and argues that it causes people to disregard common sense and become more ignorant towards factuality...

    " (Polemic, No 1 - October 1945 - written in May 1945)
  • "The Prevention of Literature
    The Prevention of Literature
    "The Prevention of Literature" is an essay published in 1946 by the English author George Orwell. The essay is a concerned with freedom of thought and expression, particularly in an environment where the prevailing orthodoxy in left-wing intellectual circles is in favour of the communism of the...

    " (Polemic, No 2 - January 1946)

  • "Second Thoughts on James Burnham
    Second Thoughts on James Burnham
    "Second Thoughts on James Burnham" is an essay first published in 1946 by the English author George Orwell...

    " (Polemic, No 3 - May 1946)
  • "Politics vs. Literature: An Examination of Gulliver's Travels
    Politics vs. Literature: An Examination of Gulliver's Travels
    "Politics vs. Literature: An Examination of Gulliver's Travels" is a critical essay published in 1946 by the English author George Orwell. The essay is a review of Gulliver's Travels with a discussion of its author Jonathan Swift...

    " (Polemic, No 5 - September–October 1946)
  • "Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool
    Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool
    "Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool" is an essay by George Orwell. It was inspired by a critical essay on Shakespeare by Leo Tolstoy, and was first published in Polemic No. 7 ....

    " (Polemic, No 7)
  • Orwell also contributed an (unsigned) editorial to (Polemic, No 3 - May 1946)
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