While in Bruges, I also visited second hand book store De Slegte and while I passed on René Wellek’s Theory of Literature, I bought Sir Kenneth’s Clark 1969 book Civilisation. This book contains the script of the BBC television series with the same name.

From the foreword:

“Writing for television is fundamentally different from writing a book.

[In writing for television] “generalisations are inevitable and, in order not to be boring, must be slightly risky. There is nothing new in this. It is how we talk about things sitting round the room after dinner; and television should retain the character of the spoken word, with the rhythms of ordinary speech, and even some of the off-hand imprecise language that prevents conversation from becoming pompous.”

“I believe in television as a medium, and was prepared to give up two years of writing to see what could be done with it.”

See also: 1969 – television – civilization