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Marxist Literary Criticism

(from Penguin's Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory) 

 Marxism: 
Karl Marx and Frederich Engels were concerned about explaining the capitalist theory and mode of production. Their approach was purely economic, political and philosophical.

Marxist Literary Criticism:Marxism has been adapted in terms of its principles and attitudes and modes of thought and inquiry to  create a Marxist theory of literature.

Marxist literary criticism is primarily interested in content.

It approches the content from Marx's philosophical standpoint about history in which the class struggle is fundamental and it views the text in terms of its socio-historical factors.

Content is the product of context. 

At its onset, Marxist criticism was devoted to a reconstruction of the past on the basis of historical evidence in order to find out to what extent a text is a truthful and accurate representation of social reality at any given time.

According to Trotsky, "Artistic creation is a changing and transformation of reality in accordance with the peculiar laws of art." (From Literature and Revolution, 1924)

Socialist realism is a concept that has developed from the Marxist and Communist views on literature and art. It required the writer or artist to be committed to the cause of the working-class. It also required that literature should be progressive and should display a progressive outlook on society. This necessitated forms of optimism and realism. It also required that literature should be accessible to the masses.

In this respect, how would socialist realism perceive both modernist and realistic literature and art?  (the answer to that question has been discussed in the classroom)

 George Lukacs' Theory of Reflection
it sees literary works as reflections of a kind of system that was gradually unfolding. In his view, the novel for instance, revealed or ought to reveal underlying patterns in the social order and provide a sense of the wholeness of existence with all its inherent contradictions, tensions and conflicts.

Frankfurt School and Critical Theory (Theodore Adorno, Max Horkheimer and Herbert Marcuse) they rejected the idea of realism more or less completely and developed what is known as 'Critical Theory'. Adorno advanced the idea that literature does not have direct contact with reality. He favored modernism in literature because it is 'distanced' from the reality it seeks to describe, and this 'distancing' enhances its critical reality. Thus, knowledge of reality is achieved indirectly or obliquely. As he put it:" Art is the negative knowledge of the actual world." Horkheimer was in favour of the avant-garde and modernism because they are hostile to passivity, acquiescence and sub-mission to the political status quo, and thus to any form of inhibitive or repressive ideology. Marcuse works through the idea that the autonomous work of art negates a repressive society.
(video optional)



 Lucien Goldmann's Theory of Homologies
Homologies are structural parallels between literature, ideas and social groups. In his view literary texts are not the work of individual geniuses but are based on 'transindividual mental structures' which belong to the groups or classes. The ideas which exist in these structures are discovered and then re-created in literary form by outstanding writers.

Louis Althusser's theory of different levels (economic base and superstructure) and relative autonomy (scientific Marxism)
He is not a traditional Marxist. In his opinion great works of literature do not express an ideology nor do they provide a 'conceptual understanding of reality.' He sees literature as an ideological form / state apparatus.
according to Andrew Robinson
Indeed, Althusser doesn’t really see the various social apparatuses as obeying the dictates of the economic base at all, though he also does not see them as entirely independent. This is expressed in the two concepts of ‘relative autonomy’ and ‘determination in the last instance’. In general, Althusser treats the different levels as de facto autonomous, and believes influences occur between all the levels. Some of the superstructures are ‘relatively’ autonomous, and function by their own logics (they have, in Althusser’s terms, their own ‘essences’). (from:https://ceasefiremagazine.co.uk/in-theory-althusser-2/ )

Marchery sub-text
A literary text, by virtue of its form and its fiction, distances itself from its ideology and also by the 'silences' or 'gaps' in the text, by what is not said. Theses silences / gaps not only conceal but also expose ideological contradictions. Such absences are suppressions within the text of its own unconscious. As he puts it: "There is a conflict within the text between the text and its ideological content." The task of the Marxist critic is to make vocal those silences and expose the text's unconscious content. Thus, he is concerned with a kind of sub-text.

Terry Eagleton's ideology 
Texts do not reflect reality but influence an ideology to produce the effect or impression of reality. By ideology he does not necessarily mean political or Marxist ideology but all systems and theories of representation which help to make up a picture of a person's experience. He examines ideologies outside the text and also the ideology of the text.

Frederic Jameson's the political unconscious 
Like Marchery he is concerned with the sub-text but more specifically with that sub-text which historically and ideologically constitutes the 'unspoken', the concealed and suppressed. Thus, a Marxist interpretation looks for levels of meaning in the mode of allegory.
(video optional)
  



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