MARXIST CRITICISM

DR. NILISH A. TARE

Late C. M. Kadhi Arts College,
Achalpur Camp, Dist. Amravati.
(MS) INDIA

The origin of the sociological approach to literature dates back to the early Greek thinkers.
Sociological Criticism starts with the simple conviction that relations of arts to society are
vitally important and that the investigation of these relationship may organize and deepen
one’s aesthetic response to a work of art. Art is not created in a vacuum, it is a social product
and hence a proper understanding of any art including literature is bound up with a study of
the particular social system that has given shape to it. The Sociological Critic is primarily
interested in exploring the social milieu and the extent and the manner in which the artist
responds to it. Although the sociological approach to literature has been widely used by
critics in the earlier years, it was with the spreading of the ideas of ‘Karl Marx’ that this
approach become a scientific method of literary interpretation.

INTRODUCTION

Origin :-

Karl Marx (1818-1883), a German philosopher and Friedrich Engels(1820-1895), a German

social scientist are the joint founders of what is called Marxism. The two Germans met in
England and formulated a theory which they called Communism in their ‘Communist
Manifesto’ in 1848.

The basic tenets of Marxism can he summarised as follows in the words of Marx himself :
The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways the point is to change it. It

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is not the consciousness of men that determines their living but on the contrary their social
being that determines their Consciousness.

Marx actually reversed the formulation of the 18th century German philosopher Hegel, and
his followers who thought that the world is governed by thought. According to Marx, all
mantel / ideal systems are the products of social and economic existence. In traditional
Markxist thinking, Marx and Engels viewed, ‘morality, religion and philosophy’ as ‘Fantoms
formed in brains of men’ and everything is determined by the nature of the economic base,
this is known as ‘Economic determinism.’

Basics :-

I. In the twentieth century Marxist critics emphasized the relationship between literature
and society and the social change evidenced in literature. Literature, so far, was
considered a reflection of society but society undergoes a continuous process of
change which would inevitably be projected in literature.

Marx and Engels thought that the essence, the nature and function of literature and
art, could be understood only by relating it to the prevailing social conditions and by
analyzing the social system as a whole. Literature and art as considered by them are
forms of social consciousness and social change is bound to create changes in
literature and art.

II. Marx’s main concern is to demonstrate the relationship between the material mode of
production and the aesthetic or artistic production. It is in this context that he talks
about the superstructure, an idea that has been attacked again and again by various
critics. This idea expressed in ‘The German Ideology’ can be summed up in the
following way. Productive methods determine the character of a culture. The forms
of consciousness are determined by the social being of men. The economic structure
is the foundation, on which rise the superstructure. The social change or the social
reaction of the base and the superstructure. The social change or the social
revolution is brought about by complex process of mutual action and reaction of the
base and superstructure. This leads up to another point of vital importance i.e. the
assumption that material activity and material intercourse ultimately create
consciousness. Hence, extreme importance of ‘Praxis’ in Marxist ideology. As Marx
said, “It is not the consciousness that determines life, but life determines
consciousness.”

III. According to Marxists, the view that literature, particularly poetry, is an expression of
divine inspiration or an inner subjective pressure of a mysterious nature is untrue and
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 untenable. Infect, the nature and mode of economic production create social relation,
in which men enter to form class relations and these class relations formed,
legitimatized and fostered in a particular way on the mental level, became the
ideology the society. In the Marxist view literature and art try to stabilize the
ideology.

IV. Contrary to popular understanding, the Marxist approach to literature is not reductive
and mechanical since it recognizes the complexity of the way in which the social
consciousness transforms itself into ideology and finally into art. This is evident
from what Engels said : “Political, juridical, philosophical, religious, literary, artistic
etc. development is based on economic development. But all this react upon one
another and also upon economic base.”

It is obvious then that no single factor can be considered as entirely responsible for
the creation or the formation of literature. The potential determinants that give
character to literature are not merely rooted in the economic structure, the base, but
are contained in various elements including the material, the conceptual, the
emotional and the social elements. The Marxist theory of culture implies diversity
and complexity. It also recognizes continuity and dynamism without disregarding
autonomy of various fields of human life. It is neither reductive nor anarchic. The
Marxist view of literature as mediation of culture recognizes diversity and autonomy
but necessarily relates literature to the social existence of man.

V. Influence of Althusser :-

In the second half of the twentieth century a number of efforts have been made to
revise and reinterpret Marxist theories. Among these, the work of ‘Louis Althusser’
merits special attention.

He accepts the arguments of Engels and argues that art ‘make us see’, in distanced
way, ‘the ideology from it is born, in which it baths, from which it detachers itself as
art and to which it alludes.” As for all Marxists, ideology is an important notion for
Althusser. According to Althusser it is a representation of the imaginary relationship
of individuals to their real conditions of existence. But art or literature achieves a
fictional distance or ‘retreat’ from the ideology of the creator. Althusser’s notion of
‘relative autonomy’ takes art and literature away from the crudity of the ‘economic
determinism’ and base / superstructure frame postulated by conventional Marxism.
Althusser uses another expression, over determinism, which names an effect arising
from a variety of causes acting together rather than just the economic factor.
Althusser argues that the economic structure will construct ideological practices
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 which in turn, will influence, art and literature in last instance, this in way, follows the
argument of Marx and Engels that good art has a degree of freedom from the
prevailing economic conditions which are its ‘ultimate determinants.’

VI. No discussion of sociological or Marxist approach to literature must stop without

mentioning the contributions of two contemporary thinkers. Fredric Jemeson in
America and Terry Eagleton in England who have made valuable contributions to
literary criticism by applying Marxist paradigms to different literary work in English.
Eagleton rejects Althussers view that literature can distance itself from ideology and
views literature as a complex networking of the existing ideological discourses. He
demonstrates the inter-relations between ideology and literary form in the novels
from those of George Eliot to D. H. Lawrence.

It is clear that as long as literature remains a social institution reflecting social problems, the
sociological approach will remain a strong force in literary criticism.

1) Contemporary Criticism : An Anthology, V. S. Sethurman

(Macmillan India Ltd. 1989.)
2) Modern Criticism and Theory : A Reader, David Lodge and Nigel Wood
(Longman, 2008)
3) Marxist Literary and Culture Theory : Devid Anshen (Orient Blackswan, 2019)
4) 20th Century Criticism : A Reader (Longman, 1986.)

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