MARXISM AND CRITICAL THEORY

Marxist literary ideas frequently concentrate on the depiction of class conflict and the
reinforcing of class distinctions in writing. While employing conventional methods of
literary analysis, Marxist theorists prioritize the ultimate social and political meanings of
literature over aesthetic considerations. Theorists of Marxism frequently support writers
who are sympathetic to the working classes and writers whose works question the
economic equality present in capitalist nations. In keeping with the totalizing nature of
Marxism, literary theories derived from the Marxist paradigm have sought to grasp not
only the relationship between economic and literary production, but also that between
all forms of cultural production. The Marxist perspective has sought new ways to
comprehend all forms of cultural production as well as the connection between
economic and literary development. Literary theory and practical criticism have been
profoundly influenced by Marxist social and historical analyses, particularly in the growth
of "New Historicism" and "Cultural Materialism."
The Hungarian theorist Georg Lukacs contributed to an understanding of the
relationship between historical materialism and literary form, in particular with realism
and the historical novel. Walter Benjamin broke new ground in his work in his study of
aesthetics and the reproduction of the work of art. The Frankfurt School of philosophers,
including most notably Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, and Herbert Marcuse—after
their emigration to the United States—played a key role in introducing Marxist
assessments of culture into the mainstream of American academic life. These thinkers
became associated with what is known as “Critical theory,” one of the constituent
components of which was a critique of the instrumental use of reason in advanced
capitalist culture. “Critical theory” held to a distinction between the high cultural heritage
of Europe and the mass culture produced by capitalist societies as an instrument of
domination. “Critical theory” sees in the structure of mass cultural forms—jazz,
Hollywood film, advertising—a replication of the structure of the factory and the
workplace. Creativity and cultural production in advanced capitalist societies were
always already co-opted by the entertainment needs of an economic system that
requires sensory stimulation and recognizable cliché and suppressed the tendency for
sustained deliberation.
Since the Frankfurt School, Raymond Williams, Terry Eagleton, and Frank Lentricchia in
the United Kingdom and Fredric Jameson in the United States have had a significant
impact on literary theory. Williams is linked to the creation of "Cultural Materialism" and
the Cultural Studies Movement, which began in the 1960s at Birmingham University's
Center for Contemporary Cultural Studies, as well as the New Left political movement in
Great Britain. Eagleton is renowned for being a Marxist theorist and for popularizing
theory with the publication of his well acclaimed overview, Literary Theory. Through his
analysis of theoretical developments, After the New Criticism, Lentricchia also rose to
prominence. Jameson is a more multifaceted theorist who is renowned for both his
influence on Marxist theories of culture and for being one of the key players in
theoretical postmodernism. Jameson's work on consumer culture, architecture, film,
literature, and other fields exemplifies the dissolution of academic disciplines that is
occurring in the field of Marxist and postmodern cultural theory. In his writings, Jameson
explores the ways in which the structural elements of late capitalism—in particular, the
conversion of all culture into a commodity—have become ingrained in every aspect of
our communication practices.