Why
I Write was written in 1946, a well-known essay on writing.
In “Why I Write”, he says, “What I have most wanted
to do throughout the past ten years is to make political
writing into an art.” As Orwell suggests, a central
feature of nineteen-thirties fiction is its development
away from the “aesthetic emotions and personal relations”
which had concerned political events and public causes
of the period.
Orwell started with his early life
experience in the essay, emphasizing the importance
of background information in assessing a writer’s motives
in writing. Then he put forward four motives for writing,
namely, sheer egoism, aesthetic enthusiasm, historical
impulse and political purpose. Approaching to the end,
he reemphasized the importance of political orientations
in writing and suggested a combination of aesthetic
consideration and political concern together in writing
so as to avoid producing purple passages, sentences
without meaning, decorative adjectives and humbug.
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