Though I am admittedly as ideologically far away from Marxism as a person could probably be, I must confess that I have found the Marxist approach to literary theory to be a compelling one. The questions raised by Marxists, such as whose story is being told, what the economic conditions were at the time of publication, and what kind of ideology is reflected in the text, are all, I believe, intriguing and vital ways to examine a text closely.
As someone interested in the field of publishing, I found the figures presented in Richard Ohmann's article "The Shaping of a Canon: U.S. Fiction, 1960-1975" to be revealing. On page 1884 of the text, Ohmann lists the number of ads vs. the page of reviews from the big publishing houses. The numbers were not surprising. Publishing giants like Random House and Little, Brown had the highest number of advertisements and the highest number of reviews, while smaller houses had considerably smaller numbers in both topics. Though the article was published years ago, I believe Ohmann's point is still valid.
Certainly, these numbers reflect scary facts for Marxist critics. Marxist criticism attempts to challenge the system of power in society, while the world of publishing seems to play into the idealogies of the bourgeoisie. In this way, the dominant "class" in publishing (groups such as Random House, for example) oppresses the lower "classes" in publishing, such as Ohmann's listed houses of Dutton, Lippincourt, and Harvard.
The issues of economic and political power have always interested, and yet I've rarely, if ever, applied these subjects to my literary encounters. After reading Ohmann's article and doing some independent research on Marxist criticism, I wonder how my readings of certain texts would be altered when approaching from a Marxist viewpoint. Whose story is being told in this text? What audience is being targeted by this text? All of these are vital questions when approaching a piece of literature as a Marxist critic.
More than the other views of literary criticism we've encountered so far this semester, I've found Marxist Criticism to be a compelling way to engage with literature. In examining literary texts through a different viewpoint and questioning the ideologies represented in the text, I may develop fuller and deeper understanding of a text. I find Marxist criticism to be an intriguing way to critique a text because it forces one to go beyond a selfish reading from one's own background and viewpoint to a reading that takes into account all economic groups and political ideologies.
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2 comments:
I agree, Marxist criticism is an interesting school of literary therory. It requires the reader to think about things that we might not normally think of, such as economic status and class conflicts. With the research of the publishing houses, it does make you wonder, who is literature written for?
yes, I think I initially found Marxism much more compelling than many other schools of theory such as formalism or poststructuralism. In Marxism I felt a kind of ethical imperative, or at least a social justice imperative, that was congenial to my Christian view of the world. Also, Marxisms emphasis on material conditions of cultural production struck me as usefully incarnational in a particular sense of that word. Allowing me to see connections between metaphysical/ideological principles and embodied experience.
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