SOURCE: "Relevance in Literature," in Twentieth Century Literature, Vol. 22, No. 1, February, 1976, pp. 19-25.

In this excerpted paper, which was originally presented as a lecture at Southampton College in 1974, Farrell asserts that genuine writing demands both knowledge of and respect for the past.

In recent years much has been said about relevance: relevance in education; relevance in the subject matter of what is taught in the various departments of colleges and universities; relevance in the books that are studied; relevance in the books that are read. And, generally speaking, topicality is what is meant by "relevance."

When we consider the general social, political, and economic problems of the immediate present, we do so in terms of how various people pose them. The posing of these questions is generalized and is, therefore, more or less abstract. And often when demands are made upon writers to write about the problems of...