The literary theory that I’m going to analyze in this paper is Marxism.
When I first read about the different theories I thought of several ones like
Feminism or New Criticism but I finally chose this one because I worked in
a previous paper on a poem that shows very clear these Marxist ideas and I
supposed that it would be easier for me to understand this topic. I will comment
on it at the end of this paper.
Marxist literary theory or criticism is based on the politic, social and philosophical
movement worldwide known. The Marxism movement began with Karl Marx, a German
philosopher and revolutionary who wrote Das Kapital in 1867.It is the basic
work of the communist movement. Marx was also the first Marxist literary critic
due to his writings about great European writers such as Goethe and Shakespeare.
Marx met Friedrich Engels in 1843 and wrote together with him The German Ideology
(1846) and The Communist Manifesto (1848). In The German Ideology, Marx and
Engels discussed the relationship between the arts, politics, and basic economic
reality in terms of a general social theory (virtuaLit).
Regarding to the literary approach, Marxism understood works of literature
or art as the reflection of what was happening mostly in society but also
in other contexts of life. The works were based on the historical context
of that moment. In Marxist ideology, the main focus was on the differences
between the dominant and the repressed classes, it tended to look for tensions
and contradictions within literary works and also within society (1993 Project).
It is also understood as “a reactionary literature that aims at marketing,
devoting and enforcing the ruling classes’ ideology and as a progressive
literature that champions the oppressed in their long and bitter struggle
against the decadent bourgeois order” (Marxist Literary Theory).
The characteristics of this theory are quite simple. In the case of works
of art, they look for the conditions for their publications; they research
who was the audience and what kind of values they suggest (Marxist Literary
Criticism).
What Marxist literary critics do with texts in order to analyze them is always
related with the topic: social classes. The main aim is to find if the text
reveals any ideological oppression of a dominant economic class. Critics analyze
if the text reflects or resists a dominant ideology, if the main character
of the literary work affirms or resists bourgeoisie values, on which perspective
is told the story and if the lower economic groups are devalued or the dominant
ones given privilege (Marxist Literary Criticism).
But there are also more possible analyses. Here are some other questions to
ask about the text: What is natural, just and right in the text? What are
the power relations? What negative aspects are excluded? Is there any opposition
poor/rich, young/old? Which term of the binary is privileged, what is repressed
or devalued? What people, classes, areas of life, experiences, are 'left out'?
(Ideology Handout).
The most important theorists were Georg Lukács (1885-1971) and Bertolt
Brecht (1898- 1956). Lukács wrote in 1923 History and Class Consciousness
and became the leading Marxist theoretician of literature. Brecht, in contrast,
detested social realism, and his famous technique of "defamiliarization"
or what is called in German “Ferfremdungseffekt” was an attempt
to show the problems of the capitalist system (Marxist views).
Of course there are subtypes of Marxist theories. The most spread ones “The
Frankfurt School lead by Horkheimer, Adorno and Marcuse. They also rejected
social realism and criticise all kind of commercial exploitation. European
Structuralist Marxists see society as the fundamental reality but there are
differences between them because Marxists believe in society as a historical
entity and Structuralists believe in that society too, but ruled by unchanging
rules. Post-structuralist Marxism views literary criticism as a science, but
it also is a way of showing our ideology (Marxist views).
Finally, in order to give an example to this theory, I would like to comment
on the poem “The Cry of the Children” written by Elizabeth B.
Browning, who wrote it as a response to a Parliamentary Commission regarding
the abuse of children in mines in 1843. It shows very clearly how literature
reflects the social problems and the different economic classes.