Reading Experience Database
1450-1945

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Record 4152

Reading Experience:

Evidence:
[Bill Naughton was hurt that when he applied for conscientious objector status the tribunal was suspicious of his elevated vocabulary] '"I couldn't help feeling hurt", Naughton recalled, "that they should deny one the right to use the English language". That hit both ethnic and class nerves: he had been born in County Mayo of peasant stock. At any rate, he was using the language to read Locke, Nietzsche, Thoreau, Schopenhauer, Marx and The Faerie Queene. They were not easy to decipher at first, but as he pieced together an understanding of what he was reading, he became more critical and less deferential...'
Century: 1900-1945
Date: unknown
Country: England
Time: n/a
Place: n/a
   
Type of Experience (Reader):
silent aloud unknown
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown
Type of Experience (Listener):
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

Reader/Listener/Reading Group:

Reader:Bill Naughton
Age Adult (18-100+)
Gender Male
Date of Birth 1910
Socio-economic group: Labourer (agricultural)
Occupation: born a peasant, later author
Religion: n/a
Country of origin: Ireland
Country of experience: England
Listeners present if any:
(e.g. family, servants, friends, workmates)
n/a
Additional comments: n/a

 

Text Being Read:

Author: Edmund Spenser
Title: The Faerie Queene
Genre: Poetry
Form of Text: Print: Book
Publication details: n/a
Provenance: unknown

 

Source Information:

Record ID: 4152  
Source - Print  
  Author: Jonathan Rose
  Editor: n/a
  Title: The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes
  Place of Publication: New Haven
  Date of Publication: 2001
  Vol: n/a
  Page: 230
  Additional comments: n/a

Citation: Jonathan Rose, The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes (New Haven, 2001), p. 230, http://can-red-lec.library.dal.ca/Arts/reading/recorddetails2.php?id=4152, accessed: 28 March 2024

Additional comments:

See Bill Naughton 'A Roof Over Your Head' (London, 1945) and 'On The Pig's Back', no further details traceable.

 

 

Reading Experience Database version 2.0.  Page updated: 27th Apr 2016  3:15pm (GMT)