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Sunchai Hamcumpai
ENG 520 –Approaches to Literary Theory
Dr. Donna Dunbar-Odom
11 May 2010
Marxist Literary Theory

There are four key concepts in the scholarship of Marxist literary theory: ‘culture’,

‘language’, ‘literature’, and ‘ideology’. These are important concepts for analysis, discussion,

and the presentation of Marxist scholarship, especially in the literary aspect. In Raymond

William’s Marxism and Literature, he stated the concepts as the following:

1. Culture This is the center of the formation of the concept. As it defined, ‘culture’

is ‘a system of meaning and values. It includes the whole way of life’. Culture in Marxist

theory is closely connected to ‘society’ and ‘economy’. Society shares the common practice

before culture becomes the general system of the order. In addition, ‘culture’ is the

representation of the collective transition which is built in society by the growth of human

faculties. The ‘economy’ connects with the society by which the management of the

household and community. Then the system develops to become the production forces for

economic system. The economic system performs the duty of distribution the resources

within the system. Exchange is another function that occurs when the system operates its

procedures among members. ‘Society’ in this system, includes the individual who formulates

the experiences to become ‘culture’.

The concept of culture in social organization signifies the notion of ‘civilizing’ and

‘civilization’. The first notion serves the ‘civil society’ in the positive extended. It expresses

the adjective as orderly, educated, and polite society. The second notion, ‘civilization’

represents the historical formation as the achieved state. This also implies the historical

process and progress. In eighteenth century, ‘civilization’ and ‘culture’ were used
interchangeably. ‘Civilization’ carried the sense of achieved state and development of the

process as well. But there was the attack of ‘civilization’ as it was the meaning of superficial

or artificial state from the natural state. It is more related to ‘external’ properties than the

‘internal’ development of the civil life. Therefore, ‘culture’ is more preferable in terms of the

cultivation from the arts, religion, institution, and social practices. ‘Culture’ provides

significant values and meanings. Civilization in a secular sense, ‘social order’ becomes the

condition to build internal human property. It is the distinguished condition to understand

social. In contrast, ‘civilization’ to Marxist, produces wealth, order, and refinement in social

development which seems to be benefit the whole society. But to cultural Marxism, it is the

‘internal’ civilized consciousness that is more important that the materials. Nonetheless,

civilization is accounted for the poverty, disorder, and degradation. Marxism emphasizes the

‘natural’ or ‘human’ order more than artificiality. Thus, the Marxism concept of culture as the

social constitution determines cultural history by the condition to social process. It

compromises ‘intellectual life’ and the ‘arts’ to develop cultural though, while reduces the

status of ‘superstructure’ which portrays political and social order.

2. Language The main aspect of language that Marxism takes into consideration is

the version that ‘reflects the reality’. The more especially marked is the effects of cultural

theory, in particular with the literary criticism. Key moments about language that the

Marxism theory interested in are the activity of language and the history of language. Those

dimensions support the question of how a human being thinks about language process and the

way it transferred in the world throughout the history. In eighteenth century, it was the

primary position which language being the central idea of how men made their society.

Previously, the connection between ‘language’ and ‘reality’ was separately conceived. The

constitution of ‘mental’ activity used language to name the ‘consciousness’ in the foundation

of idealistic thoughts. Language was used for indicating the reality – known as ‘logic’. It was
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studied in fixed forms of writing in the sense of formal and ‘external’ shape. The

interposition between ‘word’ and ‘thing’ is intrinsic in the concept of language for reality. It

also repeats Platonic convention that accesses to the ‘idea’ or ‘essence’ by using linguistic

‘form’. The knowledge that observed from the physical world is the integration between ‘art’

and ‘science’ that are altogether related with ‘culture’. To express the experiential knowledge

of the literature, the Marxist reveals its aesthetic values. Modes of contact with literary

materials can be expressed into: ‘text’ which is the record of past history, and ‘speech’ the

activity that speakers express their ideas toward the world.

The social nature of language, as Suassure studied in twentieth century, is expressed as a

system (langue) enables its utterances (parole) to found normatively. Then we have seen a

person use a certain codes to operate language according to its description and underlying

‘laws’. Marx and Engels pointed in The German Ideology that language functions as a

practical, constitutive activity.

(Williams) (Eagleton) (Rudich) (Goldstein)