Marxist Criticism

 

Marxist Criticism

It is based socialist and dialectic theories of Karl Marx and this friend and Supporter Frederich Engels

(A conflict between Capitalist and Labours)

Literature itself is a Socialist institution and has a specific 'ideological function based on the ideology of the author.

 It views literary works as reflections of the social institutions from which they are originated.

Literature must reflect the class struggle and materialism. It is like historicism but focus is on the lower class

It has flourished outside the official Moscow line (soviets official literary canon) in various European Countries.

October Revolution/ Great October Socialist Revolution a.k-a Red October/October uprising (2504-1917)

It is the Bolshevik Revolution led by Lenin

It changed the belief around social ideals in govt. and society

Marxism focuses on lower class. It looks how literature functions in relation to other aspects of the super structure, particular ideology.

Ideology is beliefs, values and ways of thinking and feelings through which human beings perceive," Economy is the base on which super structure of socio political, ideological realities are built.

Ideology

The works of literature are mere products of history that can be analysed by looking at the social and material conditions in which they were constructed.

Key Concepts

Bourgeois: Owners of productions in society (Dominant class)

Proletariat: Workers in the society (Subordinating clan) wage earring working class

Capitalism : economy based or private ownership

Critics & Books

Karl Marx ( German) &Frederich Engels

Both collaborated to produce a range publications on capitation, class struggles and socialist movements

 These theories and ideologies can be found in 3 works.

1.     German Ideology (1846) - Marx

2.     Communist Manifesto (1848) - Marx

It is the history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggle"

3.     Preface to the Contribution of the Critique of political Economy(1859) Marx

        4.  Das Capital :Critique of political Economy (1867) - Marx

It is concerned with genesis and dynamics of capitalism

Origins of the family, poivate property & the state (1884)" Engel and Marx

Marx represented ideology. Engels described ideology. superstructure based on economy.

Engels described ideology  as "a false consciousness”

Betrott Brecht: A close friend of Walter Benjamin. He developed an experimental theatre based on Berjannin’s cocept.

Anti Aristotlelian Epic theatre in the early to mid 20th Century

 From German "Episches Theatre”  The term coined By "Piscator""

 He adopted the Russian formalist concept of De familiarization' as alienation effect.

It employs a mode of acting gestures (Combination of physical gestures)

He dismantled the traditional & natural theatre and produced a new kind of theatre altering the function at realities between stage and audience, text & producer, Producer & actor.

He rejected the Aristotelian concept of tragic play. It is also reaction against the "Naturalistic Approach"

It is based on assumption that the world is fired, giver and unchangeable and duty of art is to provide entertainment.

His famous contribution is “Alienation Effect"

This technique is to alienate the spectators from the performance and to prevent them from emotionally identified with the play.

It presents familiar experience in an unfamiliar light.

He employed techniques like Back Projection, song choreography and disrupting action rather than blending it smoothly.

 He believed in arousing the spectators capacity for action through his plays and transforming them from spectators to actors

He regarded play as a series of loosely connected scenes, dispenses with dramatic climaxe and use of songs to comment on the action.

A  Number of theatre practitioners responded to political climate through

Neo political theatre.

They are Brecht, Edwin Piscator, Vladimir Mankovsky, Meyher hold

George Luckas:  Hungarian Critic

He opposed the Frankfurt school, attacked the modernist writers of 20th century (preferred 19th Century writers of Realism)

He believed that text will reflect the society.

Reflectivism (or) Vulgar Marxism

The theory of the Novel (1971) (Novel)

History and Class Unconsciousness (1923) : Magnum Opus. It is a collection of essays.

“Novel is the epic of the world, that has been abandoned by the God”-  George Lukas

 Concept of Reification - Thingification of social relations.

 "Kafka or Thomas Mann?"  A well known essay, in which he argues ‘Mann as superior to Kafka.’

(Mann is for realism and Kafka is for modernism)

“Realism in the Balance"( 1938) essay

 Raymond Williams: Welsh Critic

He developed the theory of relations between literary works and social classes.

He is interested in relationship between language, Literature & Society

He is a leading figure of New leftwing& Culture - His word laid foundations for the field of “Cultural Studies"

“Cultural Materialism" - Theory by Raymond Williams

Culture and Society (1958) - explores the notion of culture

“ Marxism and Literature”. (1977)

Politics and Letters: interviews with new left Reviews (1979)

The Country and The City (1973).

 The Long Revolution (1961)

Terry Eagleton Student of Raymond Williams

 Marxism and Literary Criticism (1976)

Shakespeare & Society (1967)

Exiles and Emigres: Studies in Modern Literature (1970) 

 Criticism & Ideology. (1

The ideology of Aesthetic (1990)

Why Marx was right? (2011)

Literary theory: an Introduction (1983)

 

“Christopher Caudwell “ Illusions and Reality” (1937)) –

"Party Organization & Party Literature” (1905) Lenin's famous essay.

Frederic Jameson: Co-founded Marxist Literature.

 "The Political Unconscious (1981)"

“Marxism and form” (1971)

"Post Modernism or the Cultural logic of late Capitalist (1991)

Aizaz Ahmad (Indian) well known Marxist thinker

“In theory: classes, Nation, Literatures”(1992).

Adopted Structuralism

Louis Althusser - French Marxist philosopher, born in Algeria.

 Pour Marx (1965)" (for Marx)

"Ideology: Ideological state apparatuses” (1969)

It advances “Theory of ideology" Ideology is instituted through two apparatuses

 

1) RSA: Repressive State Apparatuses -use of Law, court, poison, Anny, police

2) ISA : Ideological state Apparatuses use of schools, political party, Media , family, Art church ete.

He says, “ working class is manipulated to accept the ideology of dominants.”

 He argued as “Literature and Art affect the society”

Notion of Homology: Parallel between artistic and Social form.

 Concept of Interpellation: Use of ideology in socê at political institutions, constitutes the individual identities

 Concept of over determinism = effect arises from various causes rather than a single

 

Piere Machery: French Marxist critic. Student of Althusser was influenced from Poststructuration.

Reading Capital (1965):  Landmark for French thought and radical theory.

Hegel or Spinoza:  philosophical essay.

Adopted Post structuralism

Antonio Gramsci - Italian critic Considered a key-Neo Marxist, a  founding member and  one time leader of Communist Party of Italy (CPI), imprisoned by Mussolini

 Prison Note Books - wrote more than 30 books and 3000 pages of history and analysis.

It is considered as highly original contribution to 20th Century political theory.

Concept of " Cultural Hegemony" - best known concept. Domination of particular section of society by powerful classes.

Term previously used by Lenin to denote the political leadership of the working class in a democratic revolution.

Concept of "Subaltern" coined by Gramsci.

It is a variety of different and exploited groups, who lack class consciousness.

Ex: Dalits, woman, Minorities.

Laclau&Mouffe: Post Marxists (deconstruction)

Hegemony &Socialist strategy deconstructed the Marx theories

Journals -Marxism

New left Review in (1960) by Stuart Hall and Perry Anderson contributed by EP Thompson, Raymond Williams, Terry Eagleton .

 Tel Quel-in 1960 - France

                     Radical Journal, writings of Derrida, Locan, kristeva.....