There is a tense moment at the end of certain modern dramatic productions (it is a feature which has recently shown itself at Stratford) when the actors suddenly turn on the audience and, in the name of communication, begin menacingly to advance on them with ferocious and implacable bonhomie. But let me put you out of fear. As this conference draws to an end, it is not my intention to come smilingly amongst you in any physical sense. I know my place. Nor does the title of my paper make mocking reference to any here present in their professional capacities. Dog does not eat dog.

But my subject does involve our communication with each other in a different, more general, but no less ‘contemporary’ way. For when Ben Jonson nominated language as ‘the only benefit man hath to expresse his excellencie of mind above other creatures’ (Timber, or Discoveries), he was articulating an idea that has had modernity thrust upon it. In fact the concept of man as the Talking Animal, with language his distinctive feature, marking him off from the other animals, is one of those currently fashionable notions redeemed, we might now profitably allow, by its antiquity. For the classification of man as zoon logon echon (a living creature possessing speech) enjoyed currency before Aristotle, and Cicero offers a formula no less positive than Ben Jonson's when he claims that ‘it is in this alone, or in this especially, that we are superior to the animals; that we can converse amongst ourselves, and express our thoughts in speech’ (De Oratore 1.8.32).

CRASH

Let me begin with two voices: ‘Give up literary criticism!’ – the exasperation of a philosopher – and ‘We are not on trial; it is the system under which we live … It has broken down everywhere’ – the desperation of a politician. Both utterances surfaced in the same year, and the peculiar resonance they retain for modern British ears probably results from the fact that the year was 1929. I open with them because the crisis of 1929–30 and its bitter fruit still finds sufficient parallels in our current situation to make any echoes from its depths somewhat disturbing. On that basis alone it would not be unreasonable to argue that the period marks a genuine watershed in the development of British ideology. In May 1929 a general election had produced the second Labour government (albeit a minority one). Confident, hopeful, even with Ramsay MacDonald at its head, it rode full tilt into the great stock market crash of October of that year, inheriting the debacle that MacDonald's words attempt to grapple with: ‘We are not on trial; it is the system under which we live’. The apocalyptic atmosphere was heightened by the ungraspable nature of the breakdown. It was inexplicable, a text impossible to decipher. And when readings were forthcoming, the man and woman in the street found these difficult to understand and very far from reassuring.

CRASH

Let me begin with two voices: ‘Give up literary criticism!’ – the exasperation of a philosopher – and ‘We are not on trial; it is the system under which we live . . . It has broken down everywhere’ – the desperation of a politician. Both utterances surfaced in the same year, and the peculiar resonance they retain for modern British ears probably results from the fact that the year was 1929. I open with them because the crisis of 1929–30 and its bitter fruit still finds sufficient parallels in our current situation to make any echoes from its depths somewhat disturbing. On that basis alone it would not be unreasonable to argue that the period marks a genuine watershed in the development of British ideology. In May 1929 a general election had produced the second Labour government (albeit a minority one). Confident, hopeful, even with Ramsay MacDonald at its head, it rode full tilt into the great stock market crash of October of that year, inheriting the debacle that MacDonald’s words attempt to grapple with: ‘We are not on trial; it is the system under which we live’. The apocalyptic atmosphere was heightened by the ungraspable nature of the breakdown. It was inexplicable, a text impossible to decipher. And when readings were forthcoming, the man and woman in the street found these difficult to understand and very far from reassuring.

There is a tense moment at the end of certain modern dramatic productions (it is a feature which has recently shown itself at Stratford) when the actors suddenly turn on the audience and, in the name of communication, begin menacingly to advance on them with ferocious and implacable bonhomie. But let me put you out of fear. As this conference draws to an end, it is not my intention to come smilingly amongst you in any physical sense. I know my place. Nor does the title of my paper make mocking reference to any here present in their professional capacities. Dog does not eat dog.

But my subject does involve our communication with each other in a different, more general, but no less 'contemporary' way. For when Ben Jonson nominated language as' the only benefit man hath to expresse his excellencie of mind above other creatures' (Timber, or Discoveries), he was articulating an idea that has had modernity thrust upon it. In fact the concept of man as the Talking Animal, with language his distinctive feature, marking him off from the other animals, is one of those currently fashionable notions redeemed, we might now profitably allow, by its antiquity.