The Future of the English

J. B. Priestley

Background Information

Ⅰ. About the Author

John Boynton Priestley, English novelist, playwright and essayist, was born on 13. Sept. 1894, Bradford, Yorkshire. He was the son of a schoolmaster and served in the British army during World War I. After the end of the war he attended Cambridge, where he studied English literature,

modern history, and political science. In 1922 he went to London, where he soon established himself as a critic, essayist and novelist. In 1929, The Good Companions, a novel about the joys and sorrows of the members of a repertory company in the North of England, appeared and was enormously popular in both Great Britain and America. Priestley has perhaps identified himself more successfully than any other novelist in the first half of the 20th century with the thoughts and feelings of the ordinary Englishman, a being whose character he outlines with vigor and good humor. In 1977 he was awarded the Order of Merit, an honor limited to twenty-four “living greats”, one of the highest honors in England.

Other novels: Angel Pavement (1930) They Walk in the City (1936) The Doomsday Men (1938)Let the People Sing (1939) Festival at Farbridge (1951) English Journey (1939)Thoughts in the Wilderness (1957) The English (1973).

Dramas and plays: Dangerous Corner (1932) , Laburnum Grove (1933) , When We Are Married (1938), Time and the Conways (1937), I Have Been Here Before (1938), Johnson over Jordan (1939), An Inspector Calls (1945).

英国剧作家，小说家，批评家。生于1894年9月13日，卒于1984年8月14日。1929年出版代表作流浪汉小说《好伙伴》，1931年与诺布洛克合作将其改编成同名剧本，后又拍成影片，并于1974年改编为音乐剧，于是成为当时最有吸引力的剧作家之一。他的剧作主要描写约克郡人们的生活和向往，以刻画人物见长。作品有《危险的角落》、《金链花小树林》、《安乐土的末日》、《我曾来过这里》、《时间和康威一家》、《当我们结婚的时候》、《夜晚的音乐会》、《远在约旦的约翰逊》、《长镜子》、《巡官登门》、《椴树》、《夏日的梦》、《龙口》等。

Ⅱ. Englishness

Englishness is the quality of being English or of having characteristics regarded as typically English. 

1. It is instinctive feeling and not rational thought that shapes and colors actual events in England.

2. The English do not feel at home in the contemporary world, representing the accelerated development of our whole age.

3. They are suspicious of largeness, severe efficiency an Admass.

4. The English are also deeply suspicious of change for change’s sake. 

5. The English have a sense of community, decent fellow feeling, fairness. 

6. The English are at heart and at root an imaginative people immediately responsive to any suggestion of drama in their lives. 

III. Admass

Chiefly used in Britain, the term has two meanings and can be used both as a noun and an adjective. The first meaning of the word is a system of commercial marketing that attempts to influence the great masses of consumers by mass media advertising.

The second meaning of the word as a noun is the section of the community that is regarded a readily influenced by advertising and mass communication.