Marxist literary criticism From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigation Jump to search Marxist literary criticism is a loose term describing literary criticism based on socialist and dialectic theories. Marxist criticism views literary works as reflections of the social institutions from which they originate. (Clarification: In fact, most Marxist critics who were writing in what could chronologically be specified as the early period of Marxist literary criticism subscribed to what has come to be called "Vulgar Marxism." In this thinking of the structure of societies, literary texts are one register of the Superstructure, which is determined by the economic Base of any given society. Therefore, literary texts are a reflection of the economic Base rather than "the social institutions from which they originate" for all social institutions, or, more precisely human social relationships, are in the final analysis determined by the economic Base). According to Marxists, even literature itself is a social institution and has a specific ideological function, based on the background and ideology of the author. The English literary critic and cultural theorist, Terry Eagleton, defines Marxist criticism this way: Marxist criticism is not merely a 'sociology of literature', concerned with how novels get published and whether they mention the working class. Its aim is to explain the literary work more fully; and this means a sensitive attention to its forms, styles and, meanings. But it also means grasping those forms, styles and meanings as the product of a particular history.[1] The simplest goals of Marxist literary criticism can include an assessment of the political 'tendency' of a literary work, determining whether its social content or its literary form are 'progressive'. It also includes analyzing the class constructs demonstrated in the literature. Further, another of the ends of Marxist criticism is to analyze the narrative of class struggle in a given text. Does the text serve to perpetuate the ruling class ideology, such as in the novels of Jane Austen, most explicitly in Pride and Prejudice with its famous opening line laying bare such an ideological moment, "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife"[2]; to subvert that ideology, such as William Morris's News from Nowhere; or to signify both a perpetuation and subversion of the dominant ideology, such as in the works of Charles Dickens with Hard Times being the novel that most openly textualizes such a double signification as it offers a damning criticism of capitalism while also and at the same time seeking a perpetuation of a class-structured society. History Karl Marx's studies have provided a basis for much in socialist theory and research. Marxism aims to revolutionize the concept of work through creating a classless society built on control and ownership of the means of production. In such a society, the means of production (the Base in the architectural metaphor Marx uses to analyze and describe the structure of any given society in written human history) are possessed in common by all people rather than being owned by an elite ruling class. Marx believed that Economic Determinism, Dialectical Materialism and Class Struggle were the three principles that explained his theories. (Clarification: Though Marx does attribute a teleological function to the economic, he is no determinist. As he and Engels write in The Communist Manifesto, the class struggle in its capitalist phase could well end "in the common ruin of the contending classes,"[3] and as Terry Eagleton argues in Why Marx Was Right, "Capitalism can be used to build socialism, but there is no sense in which the whole historical process is secretly labouring towards this goal")[4] The Bourgeoisie (Dominant class who control and own the means of production) and Proletariat (Subordinate class: the ones who do not own and control the means of production) were the only two classes who engaged in hostile interaction to achieve class consciousness. (Clarification: In Marx's thought, it is only the proletariat, the working class, that must achieve class consciousness. The bourgeoisie is already quite well aware of its position and power in the capitalist paradigm. As individuals, workers know that they are being exploited in order to produce surplus value (value produced by the worker that is appropriated by the capitalists); however, the working class must realize that they are being exploited not only as individuals but as a class. It is upon this realization that the working class reaches class consciousness). Marx believed that all past history is a struggle between hostile and competing economic classes in state of change. Marx and Friedrich Engels collaborated to produce a range of publications based on capitalism, class struggles and socialist movements. These theories and ideologies can be found within three published works: The Communist Manifesto Preface to the Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859) Das Kapital or Capital (1867) The first publication Communist Manifesto (1848) argues that ‘the history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggle’.[5] As class struggle is the engine room of history, to understand the course of history, one must analyse the class relations that typify different historical epochs, the antagonisms and forms of class struggle embodied in such class relations. This involves the development of class consciousness and follows the revolutionary movements that challenge the dominant classes. It extends to rating the success of these revolutions in developing new modes of production and forms of social organization.[6] In contrast to the Manifesto, Preface to the Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859) and Capital (1867) focus on the unfolding logic of a system, rather than class struggle. These provide an alternative account of historical development and emphasize the self-destructive contradictions and law of motion of specific modes of production.[7] The Preface argues that society’s economic organization consists of a distinctive pattern of forces and relations of productions. From this foundation arises a complex political and ideological superstructure,[8] where economic development impacts upon societal progress. Capital was more concerned with the genesis and dynamic of capitalism. As Mclellan (1971) states, ‘it refers to class struggle mainly in the context of the struggle between capital and labour, within capitalism, rather than over its suppression’.[9] Capital was less concerned with forecasting how capitalism would be overthrown, than considering how it had developed and how it functioned.[10] The key to understanding this logic was the ‘commodity’ form of social relations – a form that was most fully developed only in capitalism. Ideologies It is through the theories of class struggle, politics and economics that Marxist literary criticism emerged. The thought behind Marxist Criticism is that works of literature are mere products of history that can be analyzed by looking at the social and material conditions in which they were constructed.[11] Marx’s Capital states that 'the mode of production of material life determines altogether the social, political, and intellectual life process. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but on the contrary their social being, that determines their consciousness.' Put simply, the social situation of the author determines the types of characters that will develop, the political ideas displayed and the economical statements developed in the text. The development of Marxist criticism Although Marx and Friedrich Engels detailed theories of socialism in the mid-nineteenth century, it was not until the 1920s that Marxist literary theory was systematized. The greatest impetus for this standardization came after the October Revolution of 1917 in Russia. The event instigated a change in belief around socialist ideals in government and society.[12] While these ideals developed, socialist realism was accepted as the highest form of literature – a theory based on an art movement that depicted and glorified the proletariat's struggle towards societal progress. These ideas guided both literary creation and official literary criticism in the Soviet Union,[13] where works focused on the lives of the different classes. In the years since then, the beliefs of some Marxist schools regarding literary theory have been modified to acknowledge that literary creation is a result of both subjective inspiration and the objective influence of the writer's surroundings.[14] This system of belief relies on the social classes as well as the economic and political development of society. Thus, Marx’s theories intertwined with the emerging ideologies of the new Russian movement and spread throughout the world. Writers influenced by Marxist criticism In addition to being the guiding principle behind most literary works in Soviet Russia, Marxism also greatly influenced many Western writers. Richard Wright, Claude McKay, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and Bertold Brecht were deeply influenced by Marxist and socialist theories of the day, and much of this type of reflection is evident in their writings of the time.[15] Marxist aesthetics Marxist aesthetics is a theory of aesthetics based on, or derived from, the theories of Karl Marx. It involves a dialectical and materialist, or dialectical materialist, approach to the application of Marxism to the cultural sphere, specifically areas related to taste such as art, beauty, etc. Marxists believe that economic and social conditions, and especially the class relations that derive from them, affect every aspect of an individual's life, from religious beliefs to legal systems to cultural frameworks. From one classic Marxist point of view, the role of art is not only to represent such conditions truthfully, but also to seek to improve them (social/socialist realism); however, this is a contentious interpretation of the limited but significant writing by Marx and Engels on art and especially on aesthetics. For instance, Nikolay Chernyshevsky, who greatly influenced the art of the early Soviet Union, followed the secular humanism of Ludwig Feuerbach more than he followed Marx. Marxist aesthetics overlaps with the Marxist theory of art. It is particularly concerned with art practice, with the prescribing of artistic standards that are deemed socially beneficial. This materialist and socialist orientation may be seen to invoke (however problematically) the traditional aims of scientific inquiry and the scientific method. Some notable Marxist aestheticians include Anatoly Lunacharsky, Mikhail Lifshitz, William Morris, Theodor W. Adorno, Bertolt Brecht, Herbert Marcuse, Walter Benjamin, Antonio Gramsci, Georg Lukács, Terry Eagleton, Fredric Jameson, Louis Althusser, Jacques Rancière, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Raymond Williams. Roland Barthes must also be mentioned here. Not all of these figures are solely concerned with aesthetics: in many cases, Marxist aesthetics forms only an important branch of their work, depending on how one defines the term. For example, a Marxist aesthetic may be latent in Brecht's work, but he formulated his own distinct theory of art and its social purpose. One of the chief concerns of Marxist aesthetics is to unite Marx and Engels’ social and economic theory, or theory of the social base, to the domain of art and culture, the superstructure. These two terms, base and superstructure, became an important dichotomy in The German Ideology (1846), which however was not published during their lifetimes. Likewise Marx's early Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, which, though widely regarded as important for treating the themes of sensuousness and alienation, first appeared only in 1932 (the slated 1846 publication was canceled) and in English only in 1959.[1][2] The manuscripts were therefore unknown to art theorists during, for instance, the often antagonistic debates on art in the early Soviet Union between the constructivist avant garde and the proponents of socialist realism. The controversy over the unusual design[3] of the original documents adds another twist.[4] Many theorists touch upon important themes of Marxist aesthetics without strictly being Marxist aestheticians, Joel Kovel, for instance, has extended the concepts of Marxian ecology which deeply implicates aesthetics. He is also a part of the struggle to bridge the space between Marx and Freud, which has Marxist aesthetics as a central concern.[5] Current themes within the field include research on the effect of mass-produced industrial materials on the sensed environment, such as paints and colors.[6] A strong current within the field involves linguistics and semiotics, and arguments over structuralism and post-structuralism, modernism and post-modernism, as well as feminist theory. Visual artists, as diverse as Isaak Brodsky or Diego Rivera and Kasimir Malevich or Lyubov Popova, for example, for whom written theory is secondary, nevertheless may be said to be connected to Marxist aesthetics through their production of art, without necessarily declaring themselves aestheticians or Marxists in writing. Likewise, in this spirit Oscar Wilde, Dziga Vertov, Sergei Eisenstein, Orson Welles, Jean-Luc Godard, Pablo Picasso, Richard Paul Lohse, for example. Such a view could apply to many visual and other artists in many fields, even those who have no apparent and/or voiced connection to Marxist politics or even those ostensibly opposed; in this respect consider Anton Webern. Probably it would be fair to say that two of the most influential writings in Marxist aesthetics in recent times, and apart from Marx himself and Lukacs, have been Walter Benjamin's essay The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, and Herbert Marcuse's One-Dimensional Man. Louis Althusser has also contributed some small but significant essays on art and his theory of ideology also impacts in this area ("Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses"). The field remains polemical, with camps of modernists, post modernists, anti modernists, the avant garde, constructivists, social realists and socialist realists all referencing back to an ostensible Marxist aesthetic theory that would underpin their art practices by grounding an art theory. Literature and Revolution (Russian: Литература и революция) is a classic work of literary criticism from the Marxist standpoint written by Leon Trotsky in 1924. By discussing the various literary trends that were around in Russia between the revolutions of 1905 and 1917 Trotsky analysed the concrete forces in society, both progressive as well as reactionary, that helped shape the consciousness of writers at the time. In the book Trotsky also explained that since the dawn of civilisation art had always borne the stamp of the ruling class and was primarily a vehicle that expressed its tastes and its sensibilities. Nonetheless he went on to argue against the seemingly obvious conclusion that after a proletarian revolution the proletariat as ruling class should therefore strive to create its own proletarian art as many at the time thought. To illustrate this he points out that the bourgeoisie as a class had time and resources to form its own culture way before the bourgeois revolutions in Europe in the 19th century while the proletariat by its position in society is deprived not only of culture but primarily the material means to attain it. Therefore, unlike previous revolutions in history the proletariat takes power not to install itself as a ruling class forever and hence create its own distinct culture but to create a society in which the existence of classes is materially impossible. Therefore, the task of the proletariat in power with respect to art after seeing to the more pressing needs of daily life (one must not forget Russia was a war-torn backward country) is to assimilate all the cultural achievements of the past and lay the foundations for a truly classless and human culture and art in the future. Trotsky's conviction of the heights human beings can reach once the fetters of oppression are thrown asunder is illustrated by the following quote from the book: "It is difficult to predict the extent of self-government which the man of the future may reach or the heights to which he may carry his technique. Social construction and psycho-physical self-education will become two aspects of one and the same process. All the arts – literature, drama, painting, music and architecture will lend this process beautiful form. More correctly, the shell in which the cultural construction and self-education of Communist man will be enclosed, will develop all the vital elements of contemporary art to the highest point. Man will become immeasurably stronger, wiser and subtler; his body will become more harmonized, his movements more rhythmic, his voice more musical. The forms of life will become dynamically dramatic. The average human type will rise to the heights of an Aristotle, a Goethe, or a Marx. And above this ridge new peaks will rise."[1]