George Orwell - Why I write

Today I'm going to be talking about Why I Write, a collection of essays by George Orwell. The book was written in 1946. This particular edition is from the Penguin Great Ideas series, and it features four essays. Along with Why I Write there is Politics and the English Language, also from 1946, The Lion and the Unicorn which was a campaign for socialism written in 1940, and a piece called A Hanging from 1931. Today though I'd just like to concentrate on Why I Write and Politics and English because they go very well together as two essays.

The first move to why I write, this was written in 1946 and it is tempting to explain the reason for Orwell's writing and by proxy, because other people write. It defines four reasons, and I think are as relevant today as the first time he wrote more than 60 years ago. The first reason which he defines as "pure selfishness," the desire to seem clever, is to speak or to remain in memory after death. Ithink pure selfishness goes a long way to explain really find much written today, especially that made for marketing purposes.

Orwell's second reason is what he calls the "aesthetic enthusiasm," calls the perception of beauty in the outside world or, on the other hand, beauty in words and their proper disposal. I think most authors are beautiful pieces that flows in the same way that Orwell is writing: his writing is not extravagant, it is easy, but it is veryprecision. It moves on this subject later in his essay others.

His third reason why he writes, is what he calls "historical impulse, the desire is to see things as they are about to find out where to store the events and the publication of notices posterity.

His fourth reason is what he calls the "political purposes". It says to press with the word political in the broadest sense here, so the desire of the world in a certain direction to other people the idea of ALTERthe type of society we should strive for. Orwell said in this essay that he was not a political writer, but his other writings are not all that out! In this book alone, the lion and the unicorn, a socialist polemic - a part of this piece is not valid today as it once was, but it's a lot, especially the first part of the lion and the unicorn, which sometimes is published under the title England, this England. This is still important, but it's worthReading.

If we turn to the second part of this book, we look at the essay Politics and the English language from1946. This really is Orwell's reaction against the kind of writing that was prevalent at that time, the very formal, stuffy ways of writing, the concealment of the meaning of the writer instead of deleting it. He says that the writers deliberately try to hide what they say to make it palatable. In fact, the front cover does not mention the book I write - Ithink someone has confused - and out of politics and the English language. The quote, which is really what attracted me to the book first, "Political language is designed to tone is truthful and murder respectable, and give an appearance of solidity to pure wind." Enough!

Orwell six commandments, in fact, to write, as he sees it, are as follows:

1. Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are accustomed to seeing in print. It 'reallynot talking about stereotypes. Today there are still evident today, and some people have even suggested that stereotypes may be a good thing, because at least you already know the meaning of the term.

2. Never use a long word where a short will do. I think, these days, people really come to this point of view. There is the Campaign for Plain English, and the entire group of faux-informal friendly letter on gas bills and things - eachYour partner in those days (even if they do not!).

3. If you can cut a word, always cut it out.

4. This is a grammar for the people of you: never passive, in which the active use! Or you know what that means, or not! If not, Wikipedia can tell.

5. Never use a foreign phrase, scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent. The thing that really annoys me when people write something, if the Latin phrasesEnglish would be nice, for example, "in toto" instead of "total" or "complete".

6. Break these rules before you say anything is absolutely barbaric. This is the way in which Orwell wrote this essay, ironically, because he claims that things like war Couch barbarous people in the political language. This article was written 1946th If you see Bush and Tony Blair in the war in Iraq, and George, you see exactly the same thing is happening! It 'was a book written in 2007, calledUnspeak by Steven Poole, making it much the same place.

There is not much depth in the two essays in this book that I would like to discuss, I just wanted to make people aware of their existence. They are worth reading. The first, because I write, only 10 pages. The second is, Politics and the English language only 18 pages. They are quite easy to read, nice flow, but are still present, so I really recommend the bookno.