Culture as Politics

Christopher Caudwell (1907-1937) was the pen name of Christopher St. John Sprigg, a British Marxist poet, writer, and thinker. He joined the Communist Party in 1935, and soon became a dedicated grassroots activist, continuing his writing, even though none of his Marxist works were printed during his lifetime. In 1936, he left for Spain to join the International Brigades in the anti-fascist struggle against Franco. He was killed in the valley of Jarama, February 12th 1937, during his first day of battle. David Margolies is Professor Emeritus of English at Goldsmiths, University of London. He is the editor of the cultural politics journal Red Letters, edited Writing the Revolution: Cultural Criticism from Left Review, and is the author of Monsters of the Deep: Social Dissolution in Shakespeare’s Tragedies.