Transcript Slides
Literary Theory and Methodology Session Five: Marxist Criticism Agenda Jakobson’s model of communication Test Marxist Criticism: Some Key Concepts Examples Jakobson’s Six Factors of Verbal Communication context Addresser message contact code addressee Jakobson’s Six Functions of Verbal Communication Referential Emotive poetic phatic metalingual conative Mimetic criticism The literary work of art is a mirror. – It imitates, or reflects, or represents reality, or life, or the world. Prescribes the kinds of things a literary work ought to mirror. Marxist criticism 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. What is being / ought to be reflected? The nature of reflection Base and superstructure Class struggle History as a dialectic process Ideology Hegemony 1. What is being / ought to be reflected? Realism vs. Modernism Society vs. The individual 2. The nature of reflection How is reality being reflected? Is literature passive or active? 3. Base and superstructure Base: socio-economic relations between classes Superstructure: ideology, politics, religion, philosophy, literature (?) 4. Class struggle Capitalists vs. workers The means of production are privatized while the process of production is socialized 5. History as a dialectic process Dialectics and dialectical materialism Dynamic relationships of interconnectedness between the classes The internal tensions and contradictions between and among the classes 6. Ideology = superstructure A set of ideas, norms, and values that form a distortion of reality (opposed to science) False consciousness; hidden and illusory assumptions that naturalise our ways of making sense of and dealing with the world Terry Eagleton, Ideology: An Introduction The general material process of production of ideas, beliefs and values in social life Ideas and beliefs (whether true or false) which symbolize the conditions and life-experiences of a specific, socially significant group or class The promotion and legitimation of the interests of such social groups in the face of opposing interests Such promotion and legitimation when carried out by a dominant social power Ideas and beliefs which help to legitimatethe interests of a ruling group or class specifically by distortion and dissimulation Similar false and deceptive beliefs which arise not from the interests of a dominant class but from the structure of society as a whole 7. Hegemony The way a (small) class of people nonviolently maintains power over another (larger) class An Example: Graham Greene, ”I Spy”