Marxists on Literature: An Anthology

Marxists on Literature: An Anthology
David Craig (Editor)


Penguin Books
ISBN :9780140218091
Paperback 528 Pages


Marxists on Literature includes pieces by Thomson (2), Plekhanov (2), Caudwell, Matthews, Craig (2), Kiernan, Marx, Engels (3), Kettle, Mitchell, Lukac (2), Lenin, Trotsky, Lu Hsun, Brecht, Serge, Adereth and Fischer. At first glance, a liberal principle of selection seems to be at work, and the Introduction makes great play with the idea that there is no unified Marxist view of literature. But this selection is offered as representative of the ‘rich and various’ Marxist interpretations of literature, and it is not representative. George Thomson gets three times as much space as Trotsky. There is no Benjamin, no Goldman, no Williams, no Sartre, no Eagleton, no Anderson – in fact, no work from Marxist contributors to New Left Review or to Working Papers in Cultural Studies. No piece (apart from the Introduction) is newer than ten years old. Can it be that these writers represent Marxist critical traditions ‘rather different from the ones represented in this book’ (to quote Craig’s weak excuse for omitting the seminal work of Raymond Williams) or have nothing significant to say? Or are there other reasons for leaving out the work of writers whose life’s work has been spent negotiating with the kind of Marxism represented by Craig? In any event, the pretended Marxist pluralism must be seen as liberalised Stalinism, or Stalinised liberalism.

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