Marxist Literary Criticism: Workers of The World, Unite!

Workers of the
MARXIST LITERARY CRITICISM World, Unite!

MARXIST CRITICISM
• Based on the theories of Karl Marx (and

philosopher Georg W. F. Hegel), this school
concerns itself with class differences, economic
and otherwise, as well as the implications and
complications of the capitalist system
• "Marxism attempts to reveal the ways in which

our socioeconomic system is the ultimate
source of our experience" (Tyson 277).
• Interested in answering the overarching

question, whom does it [the work, the effort,
the policy, the road, etc.] benefit? The elite?
The middle class? Marxist critics are also
interested in how the lower or working classes
are oppressed - in everyday life and in
literature.
.
Karl Marx (1818-1883)
MARXIST CRITICISM
The Material Dialectic
• "...what drives historical change are the material

realities of the economic base of society, rather
than the ideological superstructure of politics, law,
philosophy, religion, and art that is built upon that
economic base" (Richter 1088).
• Marx asserts that "...stable societies develop sites

of resistance: contradictions build into the social
system that ultimately lead to social revolution
and the development of a new society upon the
old" (1088).
• According to Marx, the revolution will be led by

the working class (others think peasants will lead
the uprising) under the guidance of intellectuals.
Once the elite and middle class are overthrown,
the intellectuals will compose an equal society
where everyone owns everything (socialism - not
to be confused with Soviet or Maoist
Communism).
MARXIST CRITICISM
Major theorists
Typical questions: Karl Marx - (with Friedrich Engels) The Communist

Manifesto, 1848; Das Kapital, 1867; "Consciousness
• Whom does it benefit if the work or effort is Derived from Material Conditions" from The German
Ideology, 1932;
accepted/successful/believed, etc.?
"On Greek Art in Its Time" from A Contribution to the
• Which class does the work claim to represent? Critique of Political Economy, 1859
• What values does it reinforce? Leon Trotsky - "Literature and Revolution," 1923
• What values does it subvert? Georg Lukács - "The Ideology of Modernism," 1956
• What conflict can be seen between the values the Walter Benjamin - "The Work of Art in the Age of
Mechanical Reproduction," 1936
work champions and those it portrays?
Theodor W. Adorno
• What social classes do the characters represent?
Louis Althusser - Reading Capital, 1965
• How do characters from different classes interact or
Terry Eagleton - Marxism and Literary Criticism, Criticism
conflict? and Ideology, 1976
Frederic Jameson - Marxism and Form, The Political

Unconscious, 1971
Jürgen Habermas - The Philosophical Discourse of

Modernity, 1990
KEY TERMS
Capitalism: the economic base which values
private ownership and profit for individuals
Labor: employees, workers
Capital: employers, owners, major investors
Base: a society’s values embedded in economy,
property, material, and means of production
Superstructure: a society’s ideology, laws,
politics, education, which reflect the base
Reification: the way in which people or things
are turned into commodities useful in market
exchange
“It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on
the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness.”
(Marx)
KEY TERMS
Exploitation: the difference between
the value of production and what a
worker is paid by the owner
Alienation: the results of capitalism on
the worker; the separation between the
worker and others due to exploitation
on the job.
Marginalization: placing lower classes
and people of color in the margins
socially, economically, and politically
Hegemony: cultural, economic, social,
and political dominance, or what reality
is for the majority of people within a
given culture
MARXIST CRITICISM
The literature that emerged from this kind of
analysis focuses on individuals in the grips of
a class struggle.
It emphasizes persons of the lower class and

their constant oppression by the upper
class.
Marxist criticism pays special attention to the

division of class, class struggle, oppression,
and political background of the story. In other
words, this criticism focuses more on the
social and political elements of a work than
its aesthetic (artistic and visual) value.
ART, LITERATURE, & IDEOLOGY
• Art and literature are among

the vehicles by which the
bourgeoisie impose their value
system on the proletariat. The
arts can make the current system
seem attractive and logical, thus
lulling the workers into an
acceptance of it.
• Works of art and literature are
enjoyable, so the audience is
unaware of being manipulated.
MARXIST AESTHETICS
Socialist realism
Sanctioned theory and method of literary
composition prevalent in the Soviet Union
from 1932 to the mid-1980s.
Maxim Gorky, a proponent of literary socialist
realism, published a famous article titled
"Socialist Realism" in 1933.[14] During the
Congress of 1934, four guidelines were laid
out for socialist realism.[15] The work must
be:
 Proletarian: art relevant to the workers and
understandable to them.
 Typical: scenes of everyday life of the people.
A form of socialist realism at the Museum of
Socialist Art, Sofia, Bulgaria  Realistic: in the representational sense.
 Partisan: supportive of the aims of the State and
the Party
Isaak Brodsky, Lenin in Smolny (1930)

MARXIST AESTHETICS
MARXIST AESTHETICS
I wandered lonely as a cloud For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
They flash upon that inward eye
When all at once I saw a crowd,
Which is the bliss of solitude;
A host, of golden daffodils;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
And dances with the daffodils.
Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
THE HIDDEN TEXT IN MARXISM
Along with psychoanalytical,
feminist, and cultural
criticism, Marxist literary
criticism concerns itself not
with what the text says but
what it hides.
As Terry Eagleton, a leading
Marxist critic, writes, the task
of Marxist literary criticism
“is to show the text as it
cannot know itself, to
manifest those conditions of
its making (inscribed in its
very letter) about which it is
necessarily silent.”

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Workers of the

MARXIST LITERARY CRITICISM World, Unite!

• Based on the theories of Karl Marx (and

• "Marxism attempts to reveal the ways in which

• Interested in answering the overarching

• "...what drives historical change are the material

• Marx asserts that "...stable societies develop sites

• According to Marx, the revolution will be led by

Typical questions: Karl Marx - (with Friedrich Engels) The Communist

Frederic Jameson - Marxism and Form, The Political

Jürgen Habermas - The Philosophical Discourse of

It emphasizes persons of the lower class and

Marxist criticism pays special attention to the

• Art and literature are among

Isaak Brodsky, Lenin in Smolny (1930)

Continuous as the stars that shine

The waves beside them danced; but they

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