Marxist Criticism

Marxist criticism is a movement in literary studies that regards literature in connection with socioeconomic relations, class struggle, and ideology. Drawing on Karl Marx's doctrine of the base (the mode of production) and the superstructure (forms of social consciousness, including art), Marxist criticism investigates the social conditioning of artistic creation. Its most productive versions, however, avoid vulgar 'economic determinism.' György Lukács developed the theory of realism and the 'typical'; Antonio Gramsci, the concept of cultural hegemony; Walter Benjamin, the analysis of the work 'in the age of mechanical reproduction'; Theodor Adorno, the critique of the 'culture industry'; Fredric Jameson, the slogan 'always historicize.' Terry Eagleton popularized Marxist literary theory. This analytical tradition must be distinguished from the dogmatic 'socialist realism' imposed on Soviet writers as an obligatory method.