THE BEGINNING OF MARXIST LITERARY CRITICISM Literary Criticism Sandya Maulana, S.S.

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 Marx’s 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 Marx’s (and Engels’) influence on the sociological and historical study of literature. Marx’s 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.

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. Art and literature for Marxism are part of the superstructure of society, the society’s 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

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. Marx’s 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.