What is the History of Popular Culture? (i)

It is easier to participate in, to enjoy, to deplore, or to explore popular culture than it is to define it. This is not simply because there are difficulties in relating popular culture to culture (and sub-cultures) or to folk culture – some of these difficulties are of the historian's making, particularly the Marxist historian's – but because of the inherent difficulties in defining 'culture' itself. It was not because of his particular political or cultural stance that T.S. Eliot chose to collect 'notes towards a definition of culture' rather than to offer a definition of his own.

I seldom use the term 'popular culture' myself, although I am deeply interested in its history and in the various meanings attached to it. The language of 'mass culture' has appealed to me even less, although I have tried to trace its history too. I have found some of the detailed American studies of selected aspects of it extremely stimulating, particularly those with a sense of fun. I like the attempt too to evaluate as well as to analyse and interpret. This has its origins in literature rather than in social studies. Story-telling counts.