posted on 24 Aug 2022

Heart of the Heartless World: essays in cultural resistance in memory of Margot Heinemann, edited by David Margolies and Maroula Joannou

This collection of essays was published in 1995 after starting life in 1992 as a project to celebrate the 80th birthday of Margot Heinemann, the radical author, editor and political activist. At that point despite her advanced years she was still working but sadly it became, by the date of its release, a memorial to a life that ended later that same year.

So, who was Margot Claire Heinemann? I doubt very much whether many people could answer that question outside of a relatively small group of left-wing politicos or students of the progressive cultural politics of the mid-20th century. She only wrote one novel – you’ll find that reviewed on The Letterpress Project site here – but she was central to helping shape literary taste immediately before and after the Second World War as an editor and essay writer. She was also a committed member of the Communist Party she joined in 1931 and which became an affiliation she retained all her life.

In his introduction, David Margolis pithily captures the theme at the heart of this collection of essays:

“Their theme is ‘cultural resistance’, in keeping with someone whose life was devoted to fighting the injustice of society and for whom culture was one means of carrying on that struggle.”

Although Heinemann was a significant literary critic and political commentator, she had early aspirations to becoming a poet (this is how she met her husband John Cornford who was killed in the Spanish Civil War) and by 1936 she found herself in the full-time employment of the Communist Party. But it was as a passionate, committed teacher that many remembered her and was the arena in which she wielded most influence.

Margolis tells us:

“She taught many different types of student, from shop-girls on day release and miners at trade union schools to girls at an academic secondary school and undergraduates reading for English degrees. They knew she took them seriously, treating them as whole people with their own aspirations and desires, with personal histories and anxieties, with bodies as well as minds.”

What the essays in this collection do is twofold – they reflect the debates Heinemann herself engaged in about what exactly ‘cultural resistance’ is and they also focus on the kind of social changes that can be achieved by such ideas. 

There are three distinct groups of essay clustered together by theme. The first four essays address are concerned with definitions of cultural resistance and how literary forms can help shape social attitudes. In all honesty, although this is the logical starting point, the individual essays are dense and David Norbrook’s analysis of the ‘lost’ English Civil War poet, George Withers is best described as esoteric.

The next group of six articles consider the way the concept of cultural resistance has impacted on specific social and political movements. There are three or four essays that look at the idea of ‘people’s theatre’ and I found these the most engaging of the whole book. Colin Chambers’ ‘Unity Theatre’ is an excellent introduction to something that became a working class institution:

“Unity became a second home for many people, a place where they could escape the alien world and feel alive and useful among comrades.”

I also like Alan Sinfield’s ‘Closet Keynesians: Dissidence and Theatre’ which looks at how Marxist philosophy could be communicated effectively through modern theatre.

The final group of essays focusses down onto the role of specific individuals and authors – and there’s a specific essay here by the ever-excellent Andy Croft analysing Heinemann’s only novel. I would also commend the article by Maroula Joannou ‘Reclaiming the Romance: Ellen Wilkinson’s “Clash” and the Cultural Legacy of Socialist-Feminism.’

I recognise that for the average reader, this isn’t an easy book to get to grips with – it demands time and effort – and as is the case with these academic texts, you’ll want to pick and choose which of the contributions you spend time with.

The book is, I think, out of print but second hand copies can be found for around £15.

 

Terry Potter

August 2022