As a student at Cambridge University in the late 1970s, I attended a number of lecture courses by Raymond Williams on modern tragedy, from Henrik Ibsen to Bertolt Brecht, and on Marxism and literature, which at the time was the subject of his latest book.
Two things struck me about these lectures. First, his natural authority. He was, in the words of his biographer Fred Inglis, “so unassailably assured”. He spoke without notes, clearly and concisely. They were among the best lectures I have ever heard.
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