Marxism and Literary Theory Flashcards

Marxism and Literary Theory

• Marxism is a materialist philosophy that interprets the world based on the concrete, natural world and society, opposing idealist philosophy that posits a spiritual world influencing the material one.

• Marxism aims to change the world, not just interpret it, as stated by Karl Marx: "The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it."

Classical Marxism: Basic Principles

• Society progresses through class struggle, leading to social transformation.

• Class struggle originates from the exploitation of one class by another.

• In the feudal period, tension existed between feudal lords and peasants.

• In the Industrial Age, the struggle is between the capitalist class (bourgeoisie) and the industrial working class (proletariat).

• Classes have common interests; in capitalism, the proletariat and capitalist class are always in conflict.

• Marx believed this conflict would lead to socialism.

• Marx adopted the concept of the dialectic from Hegel but applied it to the material world.

• Hegel was an idealist philosopher who believed the world is governed by thought and material existence is the expression of an immaterial spiritual essence.

• Marx's dialectic is known as dialectical materialism, arguing that mental/ideological systems are products of social and economic existence.

• Dialectical materialism is the science of the general and abstract laws of development of nature, society, and thoughts.

• It views the universe as an integral whole with interdependent elements.

• Internal dialectical contradictions within things are the primary cause of motion, change, and development.

Base and Superstructure

• The concept of base and superstructure explains the relationship between material production and culture.

• The base represents socio-economic relations and the mode of production.

• The superstructure includes art, law, politics, religion, and ideology.

• Culture is governed by historical conditions and power dynamics in society.

• Morality, religion, art, and philosophy reflect real-life processes.

• Cultural products are directly related to the economic base of a society.

• The Frankfurt School of Marxist aesthetics was founded in 1923 in Germany.

• Figures like Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno, and Herbert Marcuse combined Formalism with Marx and Freud's theories.

• They studied mass culture and communication and their role in social reproduction and domination.

• The Frankfurt School created critical cultural studies models analyzing cultural production, political economy, cultural text politics, and audience reception.

Art as Social Production

• Marxist scholars like Walter Benjamin and Bertolt Brecht viewed art as a social production.

• Walter Benjamin's essay, The Author as Producer (1934), questions the literary work's position within the relations of production of its time.

• Artistic production relies on techniques of production, such as publishing and theatrical presentation.

• A revolutionary artist should revolutionize the forces of artistic production, creating new social relations between artist and audience.

• Authors, readers, and spectators become collaborators.

• Brecht's experimental theatre embodies Benjamin's concept.

Louis Althusser's Contributions

• Louis Althusser introduced concepts like overdetermination and ideology.

• Overdetermination is an effect arising from multiple causes, challenging simplistic base-superstructure notions.

• Ideology is a system of representations with a historical role in society, obscuring social reality by naturalizing beliefs and promoting supportive values.

• Civil society spreads ideology through law, textbooks, religious rituals, and norms.

• Ideology is instituted by the state through Repressive State Apparatuses (RSA) and Ideological State Apparatuses (ISA).

• RSA includes law courts, prison, police, army, etc.

• ISA includes political parties, schools, media, churches, family, art, etc.

• Althusser integrated structuralism into Marxism, viewing society as a structural whole with autonomous levels (legal, political, cultural) articulated by the economy.

Antonio Gramsci's Concepts

• Antonio Gramsci introduced concepts like Hegemony and the Subaltern.

• Hegemony is the domination of a society by powerful classes, often through consent rather than force; it represents the moral and intellectual leadership of the upper class.

• Subaltern refers to exploited groups lacking class consciousness and now represents marginalized sections like Dalits, women, and minorities.

Raymond Williams and Cultural Materialism

• Raymond Williams contributed significantly to Marxist critique of culture and the arts.

• He was interested in the relationship between language, literature, and society.

• Williams coined Cultural Materialism, characterized by:

  • Historical context

  • Theoretical method

  • Political commitment

  • Textual analysis

• Cultural materialism provides different perspectives based on what is suppressed or revealed in reading from the past.

• Culture is a constitutive social process that creates different ways of life.

• Meaning creation is a practical material activity.

• Structures of feeling are evolving values formed as we react to the material world and are subject to change.

• Key works include The Country and the City (1973) and Marxism and Literature (1977).

Mass Culture

• Mass culture is a pejorative term used by conservative literary critics and Marxist theorists to describe commodity-based capitalist culture as inauthentic and manipulative.

• It is contrasted with authentic high culture and an idealized people's culture.

• High culture is seen as the peak of civilization for an educated minority.

• Both authentic people's culture and minority elite culture are seen as lost to the standardization of industrialized mass culture.

• The romantic idea of the 'artistic object,' produced by the ‘artistic soul', is allied to a sense of complexity and authenticity of a work of art.

• Quality work is distinctive in the subtlety, complexity, and adequacy of its formal expression of content and requires skill and work by readers to access a genuine aesthetic experience.

• Mass culture is seen as superficial, formally inadequate, and produced by capitalist corporations to maximize profits.

• It is inauthentic because it is not produced by 'the people', manipulative due to its primary purpose to be purchased and unsatisfying, requiring little work to consume.

• These views are shared by conservative critics like F.R. Leavis and the Frankfurt School.

• Adorno and Horkheimer coined 'the culture industry' to describe capitalist corporations producing commodities that appear democratic but are authoritarian and standardized; thus, mass culture is mass deception.

• This involves structuring the human psyche into conformist ways of the 'authoritarian personality'.

Hegemony and Counter-Hegemony

• William Blake and Antonio Gramsci reached similar conclusions about a powerful cultural force: hegemony.

• Blake described it as "mind-forg'd manacles," and Gramsci termed it "hegemony."

• According to Carl Boggs, hegemony permeates civil society (trade unions, schools, churches, family) with values, attitudes, and beliefs that support the established order and class interests.

• Hegemony operates as a "general conception of life" for the masses and a "scholastic programme" for intellectuals, perpetuated by agencies of ideological control and socialization.

• Gramsci distinguished between "direct domination" (authority backed by force) and hegemony (spontaneous consent to the general direction imposed by the dominant group).

• Language is a crucial medium for exercising hegemony.

• Historical effects of domination are embodied in "common sense," which is uncritically absorbed.

• "Common sense" is fragmented and incoherent, varying across individuals.

• The state is the most consistent exerciser of hegemony, through schools and courts, along with private initiatives.

• Hegemony maintains capitalist power by instilling doubt and discouragement and by obscuring the power of sophisticated practitioners of hegemony such as academicians.

• Ignoring hegemony cedes power to those who argue for the existing order as natural and unchangeable.

• Hegemony has become more complicated and effective in the capitalist period due to increases in the scope, power, and sophistication of the hegemonic apparatus.

• Understanding power and subjectivity requires a holistic approach that considers all aspects of behavior as overdetermined.

• Blake and Gramsci focus on hegemony more accurately than other writers.

• Seeing Blake's work through Gramsci's ideas enhances understanding of his significance as a poet, addressing the interaction of social power and human desire.

• Hegemony is the source of "marks of weakness, marks of woe" and the power of thought to restrain and dismay.

• It obscures perceptions and instills fear, especially of erotic and sexual being, and most fundamentally, the fear of historical change.

• Gramsci's hegemony describes what Blake opposes, including methods of domination and imposed values.

• Recognizing Blake's perception of hegemony allows avoiding reductive readings of his work.

• His awareness of hegemony's systemic nature leads to complex language and a new mythological armature.

• Blake's obscurities and difficulties for readers are partly a defense against hegemony's power.

• Raymond Williams notes Blake's revisions in "London" emphasizing the organization of the city in terms of trade and the imposed, self-imposed organized repression.

• A key breakthrough for Blake was the coming to consciousness of hegemony, which transformed the poem from a specific indictment of militarism to one about the effects of the capital system.

• Blake discovered that it is "every face" which bears the marks of a system in which all must live.

• Like Gramsci, Blake realized hegemony is characterized by a network of connections among those with power resulting in frightened and narrowed perceptions.

• The perception about perception is key to hegemony theory.

• Williams sees Blake's counter-hegemonic purpose as forcing into consciousness the suppressed connections to see the human and social order as a whole.

• Blake calls for radical modes of thought and perception to change ourselves and the social world.

• Love is always blind to faults, inclined to joy, and breaks all chains, while deceit is lawful, cautious, and forges fetters for the mind.

• The understanding of hegemony during "London" is developed further to address sexual relations, insisting on holistic interrelatedness.

• The mind's manacles are fearful, selfish, and egotistical, anticipating attacks on privilege.

• Blake anticipates Reich, Brown, Marcuse, and the Frankfurt school in asserting love's counter-hegemonic potential to break chains.

• The absence of a holistic view has flawed readings of Blake, neglecting the interpenetration of desire and political forces.

• Erdman reduced mind-forged manacles to direct results of tyranny, focusing on domination rather than hegemony.

• On the other hand, seeing manacles as purely self-imposed ignores Blake's denunciation of those who instill fear and profit from it.

• Bloom's separation of political, moral, and mythic levels is an error, whereas Blake sees these areas in dialectical interpenetration.