ABSTRACT
To begin on a (somewhat Hoggartian) personal note, it is now nearly thirty-five years since I first set pen to paper to draft the overview essay and bibliography on literature and society textual analysis which appeared in Working Papers in Cultural Studies 4 in Spring 1973. While this fact may appear to lend some inherent credibility to what follows in this twenty-first century re-sit, it will soon become apparent to the knowledgeable reader that this Introduction has two considerable limitations. Its author is, often, too close to the material – too inclined to explain (or explain away) the characteristics of the articles being introduced in terms of their micro-origins, rather than placing them in a broader subsequent intellectual and political context. Secondly (and unlike the other introductory essays in these two volumes) the credentials of the author, such as they may be, do not include any current standing or authority in the field; my own professional trajectory, especially in the last two decades, has taken me elsewhere than (certainly with any depth) into the issues of literature/society/theory/cultural studies.
