THE BEGINNING OF MARXIST LITERARY CRITICISM

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THE BEGINNING OF MARXIST LITERARY CRITICISM

• Literary Criticism
• Sandya Maulana, S.S.

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THE BEGINNING OF MARXIST LITERARY CRITICISM

• Although Karl Marx had been writers of poems and
  fiction, his works referred very little to the
  discussion and criticism of literature.
  Nevertheless, his philosophy has a very broad
  influence on critics and writers, giving birth to
  what would be called Marxist literary criticism.
  In this class, we will not discuss Marxs
  significance as a forefather of communism and
  class struggle, but rather we will discuss his
  importance in forming a literary movement that
  considers literature a sociological phenomenon to
  be treated similarly to other such phenomena. Due
  to the limited scope of this class, we will only
  discuss Marxs (and Engels) influence on the
  sociological and historical study of literature.
• Marxs and Engels comments on art and literature
  are scattered and fragmentary. This is one reason
  why Marxist criticism involves more than merely
  re-stating cases set out by the founders of
  Marxism. Part of it constructs the science known
  as the sociology of literature, which concerns
  mainly the means of literary production how
  books are published, the social composition of
  their authors and audiences, levels of literacy,
  the social determinants of taste, and the
  sociological relevance of literary texts. More
  than sociology of literature, Marxist criticism
  develops a sensitive attention to the forms,
  styles, and meanings of literary works as the
  products of a particular history. The originality
  of Marxist criticism, then, lies not in its
  historical approach to literature, but in its
  revolutionary understanding of history itself.

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KARL MARX AND FREDERICK ENGELS

• Marx designates the terms base or
  infrastructure to the forces and relations
  of production which form the economic structure
  of society. From this economic base, emerges a
  superstructure, certain forms of law and
  politics, a certain kind of state, whose
  essential function is to legitimate the power of
  the social class which owns the means of economic
  production. The superstructure also contains
  definite forms of social consciousness
  (political, religious, ethical, aesthetic, and
  others), which is what Marxism designates as
  ideology. The function of ideology, also, is to
  legitimate the power of the ruling class in
  society. The dominant ideas of a society are the
  ideas of its ruling class.
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• Art and literature for Marxism are part of the
  superstructure of society, the societys
  ideology. To understand literature, in Marxist
  literary criticism, is understand the total
  social process of which it is part. Literature
  may be part of the superstructure, but it is not
  merely the passive reflection of the economic
  base. Engels wants to deny that there is any
  mechanical, one-to-one correspondence between
  base and

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• superstructure elements of the superstructure
  constantly react back upon and influence the
  economic base. The materialist theory of history
  (which is part of Marxist understanding) denies
  that art can in itself change the course of
  history but it insists that art can be an active
  element in such change.
• Marx believed that literature should reveal a
  unity of form and content. He was suspicious of
  excessively formalistic writing. According to
  Marx, form is the product of content, but reacts
  back upon it in a double-edged relationship. Marx
  remarked that form is of no value unless it is
  the form of its content, a statement that could
  equally be applied to his aesthetic views. Marxs
  commentary on form and content of literature
  would inspire a lengthy discussion on the
  significance of both form and content in a
  literary work. This began with George Lukacs and
  Leon Trotsky and would later continue to involve
  more recent Marxist critics, such as Lucien
  Goldmann, Pierre Macherey, and Fredric Jameson.