Tariq Ali is a very Charismatic and Engaging Speaker.Always stimulating , challenging.
This was a rare occasion to see his analytical skills applied to Literature and how it can never be detached from the political currents of the time.The definition of a classic work is one that articulated the sentiments of its time and managed to break out to universal appreciation.He perceptively identified the literature of today has a difficult task to express itself politically because of the corporate nature of publishing , leading onto the requirements to fill mass markets.An opposite reading to Zafons understanding that writers like Cervantes or Dickens were popular in their time.The faultline in the two theses appears to be the definition of being popular , as regards to being populist.Todays market can stifle the former and manufacture the later.
Tariq started , after a few ubiquitous ribald observations of the Festival sponsor the RBS , by mentioning post-reformation poets such as Milton were very much Politically active , even , like Schiller enjoying roles in the post-revolution cabinet.
Tariq thought Miltons dismissing of Shakespeare on the very narrow grounds that he tolerated the Monarchy , or rather the systems of Monarchy , was somewhat ungenerous if not extreme as , in Shakespeares day there was no other system that could even come close to a viable stable coherent alternative.Such a narrow parameter to dismiss the work of a master was unkindly unkind.Marxs , certainly , was a great admirer of Shakespeare , heavily quoting the Bard when describing the excesses of elites of his day.
The historical conditions in the time of Cervantes were also cited to allay the false understanding his work was non-political charades.Cervantes was operating at a time when Jews and Muslims had recently been ethnically cleansed , yet others had been made to forcibly convert , yet still the inquisition was diligent with an astonishing zeal to find and discover those that had converted , though not quite enough to convince they did not closetly retain the old Semitic beliefs.Cervantes was one such forcibly converted citizen and , according to Tariq , his work has to be seen in that light to get a full appreciation of his work.Even to this day , the relevant Spanish Ministries are very touchy about even acknowledging , yet alone admitting , the Semitic ancestry of Spains greatest literary figure.
He also discussed the French figures Stendhal and Balzac , The Scarlet and the Black was highly praised by Balzac in public though he confided to Friends in private that Stendhal mentioned everything except the one those mattered to French society most at the time...Money.
Having chided Milton, albeit mildly , for dismissing Shakespeare on a very narrow margin , Tariq then seemed to use the Milton Doctrine to fault Tolstoy portrayal of Kutuzov.Tariq main objection is that Kutuzov owned Serfs.It has to be said in those days , just like in Shakespeares days Monarchy was the system , even the lower middle class had Serfs.Dostoyevski's wedding dowry contained an allowance of serfs.It is ungenerous to find fault with Tolstoy on that narrow point as it was unkind of Milton to do so about Shakespeare.Tolstoys portrayal of Kutozov had to reflect the unassailable fact he was the Commander-in-Chief , and he was placed to defend the Slavs from a foreign invasion.Tolstoys real political contribution is that he replaced the genuinely hagiographical history taught in Czarist Russia with a realism merging events and narrative to try get inside the heads of the protagonists in order to understand and explain root causes to such things as War without exciting the censor.
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