 | |
| Author | Christopher Caudwell |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Subject | English poetry Marxist literary criticism |
| Publisher | Macmillan |
Publication date | 1937 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover & Paperback) |
| Pages | 351 pp. |
| OCLC | 02673519 |
Illusion and Reality is a book of Marxist literary criticism by Christopher Caudwell published in 1937.
Illusion and Reality was written quickly during the summer of 1935, while Caudwell was in the process of a political conversion to Marxism. Portions of the manuscript were produced at a rate of 5,000 words a day. [1] In its use of political theory and history the book was influenced by the philosophy of Karl Marx, but it also was strongly indebted to the literary criticism of I. A. Richards. [2]
Caudwell develops two main arguments in Illusion and Reality. First, each unique era of British poetry (The Romantic Period, The Age of Pope, etc.) develops from a particular economic arrangement in bourgeois society. Caudwell writes:
Caudwell, here, is working within the Marxist framework of base and superstructure and argues that both the poetic form and the content are determined by the economic base. To further illustrate this point Illusion and Reality includes a table that outlines the "General Characteristics" of the capitalist economy in Great Britain during ten different eras and their related bourgeois poetic forms, or "Technical Characteristics," from that same period. For example, Caudwell writes:
| General Characteristics | Technical Characteristics | |
|---|---|---|
| The Era of Mercantilism and Manufacture, 1688–1750 | The Eighteenth Century.--Pope The shortage of labour makes the bourgeoisie continue to ally itself with the agricultural capitalist (the Whig "aristocrat") in order to maintain the laws and restrictions which will keep down the price of labour through the stage of manufacture. Poetry reflects a belief in the rightness and permanence of forms and restrictions, good taste and upper-class "tone". | The outward "rules" are now accepted, not as a compromise but as obvious and rational ingredients of style, measure, polish and the antithesis which restrains natural luxuriance. Vocabulary becomes formalised and elegantly fashionable. [4] |
The table provides an outline for the historical progression of forms that Caudwell examines in Illusion and Reality and exemplifies the connection Caudwell sees between poetry and economic social relations.
Caudwell's second major claim is that the act of creating poetry is a response by human instincts to the unfavorable conditions of bourgeois life. In this argument, Caudwell modifies the Freudian understanding of the creative process through Marx.
Illusion and Reality was published shortly after Caudwell's death and was welcomed by Marxist critics who viewed Caudwell as something of a martyr. Among the non-Marxist literary establishment it received little notice.
In the Winter (1950–51) issue of The Modern Quarterly, Maurice Cornforth published an article that challenged Caudwell's opinion of poetry—particularly as it appeared in Illusion and Reality. Cornforth argued that Caudwell's theory of poetry was idealized, dependent on a Freudian concept of pre-social 'instincts' that was incompatible with Marxism. George Thompson answered Cornforth in the next issue (Spring 1951) by reaffirming Illusion and Reality's contribution to Literary criticism. The next two issues (Summer and Autumn) saw the publication of another twelve responses, all differing on the value of Caudwell's theory. Further responses were also published in journals in both Great Britain and the United States. The debate provoked a re-evaluation of Illusion and Reality and 'The Caudwell Controversy' became an important intellectual moment in the evolution of the British Socialist movement. [1]
As Marxist Literary theory underwent a 'cultural turn,' Illusion and Reality was increasingly seen as dogmatic and rigid in its discussion of bourgeois poetry. The debate shifted away from its use of Freudian concepts to its ties with Stalinist Marxism. In Culture and Society (1958), Raymond Williams said of Illusion and Reality that it had "little to say of actual literature that is even interesting" and that the book "is not even specific enough to be wrong." [5] Terry Eagleton remarked about Caudwell in 1976 that "there is little, except negatively, to be learnt from him." [6] Even E. P. Thompson, one of Caudwell's most generous late-interpreters, argued that the status of Illusion and Reality should be downgraded among Caudwell's works in favor of Studies in a Dying Culture (1938). [1] From the late 1950s until the late 1980s, Illusion and Reality was equated with vulgar Marxism. However, Christopher Pawling's 1989 book on Caudwell sought to restore the reputation of Illusion and Reality by suggesting that it belongs to what Raymond Williams called an "alternative Marxist tradition" that included Antonio Gramsci, György Lukács, and Lucien Goldmann. [7]
Fredric Jameson is an American literary critic, philosopher and Marxist political theorist. He is best known for his analysis of contemporary cultural trends, particularly his analysis of postmodernity and capitalism. Jameson's best-known books include Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (1991) and The Political Unconscious (1981).
Terence Francis Eagleton is an English literary theorist, critic, and public intellectual. He is currently Distinguished Professor of English Literature at Lancaster University.
Christopher Caudwell was the pseudonym of Christopher St John Sprigg, a British Marxist writer, literary critic, intellectual and activist.
Maurice Campbell Cornforth was a British Marxist philosopher.
Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict as well as a dialectical perspective to view social transformation. It originates from the works of 19th-century German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. As Marxism has developed over time into various branches and schools of thought, currently no single, definitive Marxist theory exists.
Criticism of Marxism has come from various political ideologies and academic disciplines. This includes general intellectual criticism about dogmatism, a lack of internal consistency, criticism related to materialism, arguments that Marxism is a type of historical determinism or that it necessitates a suppression of individual rights, issues with the implementation of communism and economic issues such as the distortion or absence of price signals and reduced incentives. In addition, empirical and epistemological problems are frequently identified.
Marxist aesthetics is a theory of aesthetics based on, or derived from, the theories of Karl Marx. It involves a dialectical and materialist, or dialectical materialist, approach to the application of Marxism to the cultural sphere, specifically areas related to taste such as art, beauty, and so forth. Marxists believe that economic and social conditions, and especially the class relations that derive from them, affect every aspect of an individual's life, from religious beliefs to legal systems to cultural frameworks. From one classic Marxist point of view, the role of art is not only to represent such conditions truthfully, but also to seek to improve them ; however, this is a contentious interpretation of the limited but significant writing by Marx and Engels on art and especially on aesthetics. For instance, Nikolay Chernyshevsky, who greatly influenced the art of the early Soviet Union, followed the secular humanism of Ludwig Feuerbach more than he followed Marx.
The critique of ideology is a concept used in critical theory, literary studies, and cultural studies. It focuses on analyzing the ideology found in cultural texts, whether those texts be works of popular culture or high culture, philosophy or TV advertisements. These ideologies can be expressed implicitly or explicitly. The focus is on analyzing and demonstrating the underlying ideological assumptions of the texts and then criticizing the attitude of these works. An important part of ideology critique has to do with “looking suspiciously at works of art and debunking them as tools of oppression”.
The sociology of literature is a subfield of the sociology of culture. It studies the social production of literature and its social implications. A notable example is Pierre Bourdieu's 1992 Les Règles de L'Art: Genèse et Structure du Champ Littéraire, translated by Susan Emanuel as Rules of Art: Genesis and Structure of the Literary Field (1996).
Marxism is a method of socioeconomic analysis that originates in the works of 19th century German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Marxism analyzes and critiques the development of class society and especially of capitalism as well as the role of class struggles in systemic, economic, social and political change. It frames capitalism through a paradigm of exploitation and analyzes class relations and social conflict using a materialist interpretation of historical development – materialist in the sense that the politics and ideas of an epoch are determined by the way in which material production is carried on.
Why Marx Was Right is a 2011 non-fiction book by the British academic Terry Eagleton about the 19th-century philosopher Karl Marx and the schools of thought, collectively known as Marxism, that arose from his work. Written for laypeople, Why Marx Was Right outlines ten objections to Marxism that they may hold and aims to refute each one in turn. These include arguments that Marxism is irrelevant owing to changing social classes in the modern world, that it is deterministic and utopian, and that Marxists oppose all reforms and believe in an authoritarian state.
Marxist humanism is an international body of thought and political action rooted in an interpretation of the works of Karl Marx. It is an investigation into "what human nature consists of and what sort of society would be most conducive to human thriving" from a critical perspective rooted in Marxist philosophy. Marxist humanists argue that Marx himself was concerned with investigating similar questions.
In Marxist theory, society consists of two parts: the base and superstructure. The base refers to the mode of production which includes the forces and relations of production into which people enter to produce the necessities and amenities of life. The superstructure refers to society's other relationships and ideas not directly relating to production including its culture, institutions, political power structures, roles, rituals, religion, media, and state. The relation of the two parts is not strictly unidirectional. The superstructure can affect the base. However the influence of the base is predominant.
Marxism was introduced by Karl Marx. Most Marxist critics who were writing in what could chronologically be specified as the early period of Marxist literary criticism, subscribed to what has come to be called "vulgar Marxism." In this thinking of the structure of societies, literary texts are one register of the superstructure, which is determined by the economic base of any given society. Therefore, literary texts are a reflection of the economic base rather than "the social institutions from which they originate" for all social institutions, or more precisely human–social relationships, are in the final analysis determined by the economic base.
Marxist philosophy or Marxist theory are works in philosophy that are strongly influenced by Karl Marx's materialist approach to theory, or works written by Marxists. Marxist philosophy may be broadly divided into Western Marxism, which drew from various sources, and the official philosophy in the Soviet Union, which enforced a rigid reading of Marx called dialectical materialism, in particular during the 1930s. Marxist philosophy is not a strictly defined sub-field of philosophy, because the diverse influence of Marxist theory has extended into fields as varied as aesthetics, ethics, ontology, epistemology, theoretical psychology and philosophy of science, as well as its obvious influence on political philosophy and the philosophy of history. The key characteristics of Marxism in philosophy are its materialism and its commitment to political practice as the end goal of all thought. The theory is also about the struggles of the proletariat and their reprimand of the bourgeoisie.
Chinese Marxist philosophy is the philosophy of dialectical materialism that was introduced into China in the early 1900s and continues in the Chinese academia to the current day.
Western Marxism is a current of Marxist theory that arose from Western and Central Europe in the aftermath of the 1917 October Revolution in Russia and the ascent of Leninism. The term denotes a loose collection of theorists who advanced an interpretation of Marxism distinct from both classical and Orthodox Marxism and the Marxism-Leninism of the Soviet Union.
Historical materialism is the term used to describe Karl Marx's theory of history. Marx locates historical change in the rise of class societies and the way humans labor together to make their livelihoods. For Marx and his lifetime collaborator, Engels, the ultimate cause and moving power of historical events are to be found in the economic development of society and the social and political upheavals wrought by changes to the mode of production. Historical materialism provides a challenge to the view that historical processes have come to a close and that capitalism is the end of history. Although Marx never brought together in one published work a systemic or comprehensive description of historical materialism, his key ideas are woven into variety of works from the 1840s onward. Since Marx's time, the theory has been modified and expanded. It now has many Marxist and non-Marxist variants.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to Marxism:
Marxist cultural analysis is a form of cultural analysis and anti-capitalist cultural critique, which assumes the theory of cultural hegemony and from this specifically targets those aspects of culture which are profit driven and mass-produced under capitalism.