524 AonrrrNp Rrcn

released courage to name, to love each other, to share risk and grief and cele-
bration. Tnnnv EacrnroN
To the eye of a feminis! the work of western male poets now writing
reveals a deep, fatalistic pessimism as to the possibilities of .hu.rgu, whethei
societal or personal, along with a familiar and threadbare use of women (and
nafure) as redemptive on the one hand, threatening on the other; and a new From Marxism
tide of phallocentric sadism and overt woman-hating which matches the sex- and Literary Criticism
ual brutality of recent films. "Political" poetry by men remains stranded
amid the struggles for power among male groups; in condemning U.S. impe_
rialism or the Chilean junta' the poet can claim to speak for thã oppressed
while remaining, as male, part of a system of sexuar oppression. The enemy 1976
is always outside the self, the struggle somewhere etse. T'he mood of isola-
tion, self-pity, and self-imitation that pervades "nonpolitical" poetry suggests
that a profound change in masculine consciousness will have to piecedãarry
new male poetic-or other-inspiration. The creative energy of patriarchy is
fast running out; what remains is its self-generating for destruction.
As women, we have our work cut out for us. "n"rgy

In the preføce úo Marxism and Literary Criticism, Terry Eøgleton (b. 194Ð zurites
ironicølly: "No doubt use shnlt soon see Marxist criticism comfortøbly wedged be'
tween Fieudinn ønd mythological approaches to literature, øs yet one more stimuløt-
ing acødemic'øpproach,' one tnore wett-tilled fíeld of inquiry for students to tramp."
Hle urges øgainst such øn øttitude, belieaing it "døngerous" to the centrøIity of
MarxiÁm øl øn øgent of social chønge. Despite his wørning, horneaer, and becøuse of
his claims for the significance of Mørxist criticism, Eagleton's opening chapters,
dealing wiih two topics centrøI to literary críticism, are here presented for some
thou ghtful " tr ømp ín g. "
-Mørxism,
which in some quørters remains a pejoratioe term, is in føct an indis-
pensøble concern in modern intellectuøl history. 6ee the headnote to the essay by
'KnrI
Mørx, pøge 310.) Developed primørily as a u)ny of examining historicøL, eco-
nomic, and sociøI issues, Mørxist doctrine does not deøl explicitly raith theories of lit-
erature; consequently, there is no one orthodox Marxist school (as there is øn orthodox
Freudianísm) but rather ø dizsersity of Marxist reødings. Eagleton's own discussion
pørtly
'refer-to
illustrøtes this diaersity: he uses the derogatory term "aulgør Mørxism" to
the simplistic deterministic notion th.øt ø literøry work is nothing more than
the direct product of its socioeconomic base. Awøre also of how Mørxist theory can be
peraerted, Eagleton in another chapter is scornful of such politically motiuated cor-
'ruptions
ot tht Stolinist doctrine of sociatist realism, an extension of støtist
propaganda thnt hød chitting fficts on ørt and ørtists in the former soaiet union.
'
r¡t, many sophisticated Mørxist uitics, Eøgleton stresses the complicated in-
terrelationshþs between the socioeconomíc base and the hætitutions ønd aølues
(including líterøture) thøt comprise the superstructure. But precisely becøuse those
reløtionships are so complex, a wide aaríety of criticøl thought høs been brought to
bear on them. Thus, Eagleton takes as his størting point an ønalysis of hozu oaríous
Marxist critics høae øddressed themselaes to pørticular questions of literøry analysis.
Subsequent chapters of his book, example, explore the role that the writer plays in
for

5).5
 526 Trnny Eacrsrolr
ødaancing the cause of the working class (proletøriqt) ønd the extent to ruhich litera-
ture is ø commodity, øs much the product of economic øctiaity as the automobile.
Other problems central to Marxist critical discussions include questions such
as: whøt is the reløtionshþ between literøture ønd ideology? Hoza does literature
de-
aelop out of the life of a society? Are there
formøl løuts of literature that distønce it
from the forms of the material zoorld? Is the primary function of criticism to desqibe,
to expløin, to interpret, or to eaaluate? To whøt extent is language separable
from so-
ciety and ideology separøble from lønguøge? To zuhøt exteit iøs lvlarxßm, itsetf a
body of theory, been influenced by other modern interlectuøI currents such as psycho-
ønalysis, existentialism, structurølism, ønd semiotics? Far
from being the monolithic
dogma its detractors suggest, Marxism is a liring body of thought, sãeking to ønswer
questions such as these, which are often ignored ín other approaches to literature.
l. Literature and History
Marx, Engels and Criticism
Ip K¡nr Ma,nx and Frederick Engels are better known for their political and
economic rather than literary writings, this is not in the least b".àrrr" they re-
garded literature as insignificant. It is true, as Leon Trotsky remarked in Lit-
erøture ønd Reoolution (7924), that'there are many people in this world who
think as revolutionists and feel as philistines'; but Marx and Engels were not
of this number. The writings of Karl Marx, himsetf the youthlul author of
lyric poetry, a fragment of verse-drama and an unfinishedcomic novel much
influenced by Laurence steme, are laced with literary concepts and allusions;
he wrote a sizeable unpublished manuscript on art and religion, and plarured
a joumal of dramatic criticism, a full-length study of Balzaõ and
a treatise on
aesthetics. Art and literature were part of the very air Marx breathed, as a
formidably cultured German intellectual in the great classical tradition of his
society. His acquaintance with literature, from sophocles to the spanish
novel, Lucretius to potboiling English fictiory was staggering in its scope; the
German workers'circle he founded in Brussels devoted an evening a week to
discussing the arts, and Marx himself was an inveterate theatrã-goer, de-
claimer of poetry, devourer of every species of literary art from Àugustan
prose to industrial ballads. He described his own works in a letter to Engels
as forming an 'artistic whole', and was scrupulously sensitive to questions
of
literary style, not least his own; his very first pieces of joumalism^argued for
freedom of artistic expression. Moreover, the pressure of aesthetic àorr.upt,
can be detected behind some of the most crucial categories of economic
thought he employs in his mature work.
Even so, Marx and Engels had rather more important tasks on their
hands than the formulation of a complete aesthetic theory. Their comments
on art and literature are scattered and fragmentary, glancing allusions rather
than developed positions. This is one reason why Marxist álticism involves
more than merely re-stating cases set out by the founders of Marxism. It also
M¡.nxrsu ¡,No Lrrrn¡.nv Cnrrrcrsrr 527
involves more than what has become known in the West as theffiociology of
literature'. The sociology of literature concerns itself chiefly with what might
be called the means of literary production, distribution and exchange in a
particular society-how books are published, the social composition of
their authors and audiences, levels of literacy, the social determinants of
'taste'. It also examines literary texts for their 'sociological' relevance, raiding
Iiterary works to abstract from them themes of interest to the social hisìõäan.
The.e@t work in this field, and it forms one asoect of
:--.:¡-...-.!{.
Marxist criticism as a whole; but taken by itself it is neither particularly
Marxist nor particularly critical. It is, indeed, for the most part a suitably
@,4gggqgd version of Marxist criticism, appleplgls_ for Westem'con-
Gumption?l
Marxist criticism is not merely a 'sociology of literature', concerned wlh
how novels get published and whether they mention the working class.llts
aim is to expløúz the liteJ:ary-1,-elkm"gre fully; and this means a sensitive at-
tention . But it also means grgsp-*g thgse
forms, styles and meanings eg t[e plo-ducfs of a" partigdar lgstory. The
painter Henri Matisse once remarked that all art bçars the im
tg11çel_epggh, but that great art is that in which this imprint is most deeply
marked. Most students of literature are taught otherwise: the greatest art is
that which timelessly transcends its historical conditions. Marxist criticism
has much to say on this issue, but the'historical' analysis of literature did not
of course begin with Marxism. Many thinkers before Marx had tried to ac-
count for literary works in terms of the history which produced them; and
one of these, the German idealist philosopher G.W.F. Hegel, had a profound
influence on Marx's own aesthetic thought. The of Marxist criti-
cism, then, lies not in its historical to but in its revolu-
tlgr,g¡y itself.
Base and Superstructure
The seeds of that revolutionary understanding are planted in a famous pas-
sage in Marx and Engels's The German ldeology (18a5-6):
The production of ideas, concepts and consciousness is first of all di-
rectly interwoven with the material intercourse of man, the language
of ry4!_!ife. Conceiving, thinking, the spiritual intercourse of men,
appear here as the direct efflux of men's material behaviour . . . we
do not proceed from what men say, imagine, conceive, nor from
men as described, thought of, imagined, conceived, in order to ar-
rive at corporeal man; rather we proceed from the really active
man. . . . Consciousness does not determine life: life determines con-
sclousness.
A fuller statement of what this means can be found in the Preface to A Contri-
bution to the Critíque of Political Economy (1859):
 MmxIs.u eNp Lrr¡nenv Cnlucrs¡n 529
528 Trnnv EecrBrow

In the social production of their life, men enter into definite relations they are constrained into them by material necessity-by the nature and
that are indispensable and independent of their will, relations of pro- stage of development of their mode of economic production.
duction which correspond to a definite stage of development of their To understand King Leør, The Dunciad or Ulysses is therefore to do more
material VE The sum total of thçCg-IgleËqns of pro-
duction constitutes _the_.economic structure of sociely, the real foun-
dation, on which rises a legal and political suPerstructure and to
which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode
of of material life conditions the rn-
t4þgt{Lltf in general. It is not the consciousness of men
"ftosgts
that determines their being, but on the contrarv. th4åpgsl3llqitg
that determines their consciousness.
clqlçlggs. This is not an easY task, since an ideology is nevgr aSlmp-lp-æflec-
tion of a ruling class's ideas; on the contrary, it is always a coqPþx
4 phenomenon, wb&h-qey jnc-glg9.5ltqço*$iSÉg,ev-encontr4di.ç-þry,views
of the world. rontraerrtàãa'o.ri¿Grtó'gfr îqelqtrsta¡L¿våelË-prcqÞgJqþ-
stage, the development of new modes tions between different lna and to do that means
!gr{ wç kno¡,1as feudalism. At a later
of pôa"itl"e organisation is based on a changed set of social relations-this w stand in the mode
time between the capitalist class who owns those means of productiorç and Alt this may seem a tall order to the student of literature who thought he
the proletarian class whose labour-power the capitalist buys for profit. Taken was merely required to discuss plot and characterization. It may seem a con-
(õgether, ihese 'forces' and 'relations' of production form what Marx calls fusion of literary criticism with disciplines like politics and economics which
by ought to be kept separate. But it is, nonetheless, essential for the fullestexpla-
þ" ".ono-ic structure of society', or what is more commorùy knownbase, nutio^ of any work of literature. Take, for example, the great Placido Gulf
f-arxism as the economic 'base' or 'i¡-frastructure'. From this economic
rffivaluate the fine artistic force of this episode,
as Decoud and Nostromo are isolated in utter darkness on the slowly sinking
lighter, involves us in subtly placing the scene within the imaginative vision
of the novel as a whole. The radical pessimism of that vision (and to grasp it
fully we must, of course, relate Nostromo to the rest of Conrad's fiction) can-
not simply be accounted for in terms of 'psychological' factors in Conrad
himself; for individual psvcholosv rs also a social The pessimism of
Conrad's world view is rather a unique transformation into art of an ideolog-
ical pessimism rife in his period-a sense of history as futile and cyclical, of
individuals as impenetrable and solitary, of human values as relativistic and
irrational, which marks a drastic crisis in the ideology of the western bour-
geois class to which Conrad allied himself. There were good reasons for that
ideological crisis, in the history of imperialist capitalism throughout this pe-
riod. conrad did not, of course, merely anonymously reflect that history in
(. .,
critic Georgy it 'The social mentalify his fiction; is individuall ln , rçp¡¡*ond11g toa
As the Russian
byi is nowhere quite eral history sense of it in
of an age is conditioned
as evident as in the h-istory of art and Literary works are not mys- concrete terms. But it is not to see how Conrad's personal standing,
as antartstoãratic'Polish exile deeply committed to English conservatism, in-
tensified for him the crisis of English bourgeois ideology.
It is also possible to see in these terms why that scene in the Placido Gulf
should be artistically fine. To write well is more than a matter of 'style'; it
also means at one's w hich can
are to the realities of men's in a certain situation. This is cer-
!i¡+e.asd+lac-e; it is those
and g,e,1p*e_!gted. Moreover/ men are not free to choose their sociq] IclAlLonC¿ tainly what the Placido Gulf scene does; and it can do it, not just because its

l:
,1 1 -.¡r. '
 530 T¡nnv E¡.crnrox
author happens to have an excellent prose-style, brt bç_._gggg_hft$C!94çel
situation allows him access lg_puch ¡1glSlrf.s. \Atrhether those insights are in
ffi 'ñã.tioñurli; (Conrad's are certainly the latter)
is not the point-any more than it is to the point that most of the agreed
major writers of the twentieth cenfury-Yeats, Eliot, Pound, Lawrence-are
political conservatives who each had truck with fascism. Marxist criticism,
rather than apologising for the fact, explai4Ðit-sees that, in the absence of
genuinely revolutionary art, only a radical conservatism, hostile like Marx-
ism to the withered values of liberal bourgeois society, could produce the
most significant literature.
Liter atur e an d Sup erstructur e
It would be a mistake to imply that Marxist criticism moves mechanically
from'text'to 'ideology' to 'social relations' to'productive forces'. It is con-
cemed, rather, Vtt}l. t}lre_unru of thçt" 'lgyglrl*gf y. Literature may be
part of the superstructure, but it is no!¡grþ- ttre pas-qiç:$@ ol$"
b-4r€ Engels makes tffiph Hoch in 189õ:
"lg""g5
According to the materialist conception of history, the determining
element in history is ultimately the production and reproduction in
real life. More than this neither Marx nor I have ever asserted. If
therefore somebody twists this into the statement that the economic
element is t}:te only determining one, he transforms it into a meaning-
less, abstract and absurd phrase. The economic sifuation is the basis,
but the various elements of the superstructure-political forms of
the class struggle and its consequences, constifutions established
by the victorious class after a successful battle, etc.-forms of
law-and then even the reflexes of all these actual struggles in the
brains of the combatants: politic al, legal, and philosophical theories,
religious ideas and their further development into systems of
dogma-also exercise their influence upon the course of the histori-
cal struggles and in many cases preponderate in determining their
form.
¡. Engels wants to deny that there is any mechanical, one-to-one correspon-
'' ¡lence between base and superstrucfure; elements of the supersfructure con-
stantly react back upon and influence the economic base. The g¡atç{ialist$re-
SLgf h"ip_t_oly.49ggt}'ul qr:53¡l3:!:ü c_h.a¡rgq,tþe grogg-of history; bu!-¡t
insists that art can be an active element in such change. Indeed, when Marx
came to cónsider the relation between base and superstrucfure, it was art
which he selected as an instance the and indirectness of Ie-
In the case of the arts, it is well known that certain periods of their
flowering are out of all proportion to the general development of so-
ciety, hence also to the material foundation, the skeletal structure, as
M¡,nxrsu ¡.Np Lrrnnenv Cnlrrcrs¡n 53r
it were, of its organisation. For example, the Greeks compared to the
modems or also Shakespeare. It is even recognised that certain
forms of art, e.g. the epic, can no longer be produced in their world
epoch-making, classical stafure as soon as the production of art, as
such, begins; that is, that certain significant forms within the realm
of the arts are possible only at an undeveloped stage of artistic de-
velopment. If this is the case with the relation between different
kinds of art within the realm of art, it is already less puzzling that it
is the case in the relation of the entire realm to the general develop-
ment of society. The difficulty consists only in the general formula-
tion of these contradictions. As soon as they have been specified,
they are already clarified.
Marx is considering here what he calls 'the unequal relationship of the devel-
opment of material production. . . to artistic production'. It does not follow
that the greatest artistic achievements depend upon the highest development
of the productive forces, as the example of the Greeks, who produced major
art in an economically undeveloped society, clearly evidences. Certain major
-
artistic forms like the epic are only possible in an undeveloped society. Why
then, Marx goes on to ask, do we still respond to such forms, given our his-
torical distance from them?:
But the difficulty lies not in understanding that the Greek arts and
epic are bound up with certain forms of social develoPment. The dif-
ficulty is that they still afford us artistic pleasure and that in a certain
respect they count as a norm and as an unattainable model.
Why does Greek art still give us aesthetic pleasure? The answer which Marx
goes on to provide has been universally lambasted by unsympathetic com-
mentators as lamely inept:
A man cannot become a child again, or he becomes childish. But
does he not find joy in the child's naiveté, and must he himself not
strive to reproduce its fruth at a higher stage? Does not the true
character of each epoch come alive in the nature of its children? \Alhy
should not the historic childhood of humanity, its most beautiful un-
folding, as a stage never to retum, exercise an eternal charm? There
are unruly children and precocious children. Many of the old
peoples belong in this category. The Greeks were noûnal children.
The charm of their art for us is not in contradiction to the undevel-
oped stage of society on which it grew. (It) is its result, rather, and is
inextricably bound up, rather, with the fact that the unripe social con-
ditions under which it arose, and could alone rise, can never return.
So our liking for Greek art is a nostalgic lapse back into childhood-a piece
of unmaterialist sentimentalism which hostile critics have gladly pounced
on. But the passage can only be treated thus if it is rudely ripped from the
context to which it belongs the draft manuscripts of 1'857 , known today as
-
 ï M¡nxrsu ¡r.rp LIrBn¡.nv Cnrrrcrsvr 533
532 T¡nnv Eecrrrow
has 'a very high degree of
fhe Grundrisse. Once returned to that context, the meaning becomes instantly state of the economy. Art, as Trotsky comments,
autonomy'; it is noi tied in any simple one-to-one
way to the mode of pro-
apparent. The Greeks, Marx is arguing, were able to produce major art not ln "AI.td is deter-
duction. yet Marxism claims tåo that, in the last analysis, art
spite of but becøuse o/ the undeveloped state of their society h--angn=_,t*sg- we to explain this apparent dis-
mined by that mode of production' How are
eties. which have not _y9! u1rggtgglte tþ9- fragmeglj¡g 'divisio-n of-laþq r'
f.**" to capitatiìñf'thJoverwhqlming of 'q"¡!it'by 'quantltyl uhieh re- crepancy?
srrltt fro- commödity.-p--ro-duètion-and restless, çontinual4"":!9l1çn!:f Letustakeaconcreteliteraryexample'A'vulgarMarxist'caseabout
-the T.S. Eliot's The Wøste Lønd migtll úe that the poem
is directly determined by
a certain 'measure' or harmg-Jry çan be a-c-hie¡¿eùbe- and exhaus-
i[-e-proarlgtive {orç-gs,
qt¿qgn mãn and-\Talure-a harmq4y-¡r-19cise-l¡rdepend,qnt uBott-Ès-liryited ideological and economic faiors-by the spiritual emptiness
which springs from that crisis of imperialist capi-
gt Ç:ç-e&-gg_-Cr9!y. The 'childlike''world of the Greeks is attractive be- tion ofiourgeois ideology
Wut. thit is to explain the poem as an im-
"g$fe
cause it thrives within certain measured limits-measurç andlimits w\!-ch
talism known as the Firãi World
are brutally overridden by_b,ourgeois society in its limitless demand to_pro-
mediate,reflection,ofthoseconditions;butitclearlyfailstotakeintoaccount
the text itself and capitalis-t
a whole series of 'levels'which'mediate'between
duce and consume. Historically, it is essential that this constricted society about the s9ç1q! s-rtTtion CJElþlhim- ì
õhó"f¿ ¡e brokän up as the productive forces expand beyond its frontiers; economy. It says nothing, for instance,
society, as an
but when Marx speaks of 'striv(ing) to reproduce its truth at a higher stage', self_a writer living arlambiguous relationship with English
,aristocratic, American expatriate who became a glorified city clerk and yet
he is clearly speaking of the communist society of the future, where unlim- than bourgeois-
ited resources will serve an unlimitedly developing man. identified deeply with the conservative-traditionalist, rather
commercialist, elements of English ideology' It says nothing about that
Two questions, then, emerge from Marx's formulations tnthe Grundrisse. ol its structure' content' intetnal
The first concerns the relation between 'base' and 'superstructure'; the sec- i4gsþgls. morq-general fo¡¡,nsl-nothing
Jrd io* alt these ur" p.oãr."d by the extremely complex
ond concerns our own relation in the present with past art. To take the sec-
ond question first: how can it be that we modems still find aesthetic appeal in class-relationsofEnglishsocietyattrletime.Itissilentabouttheformql{
';;Ëity' Eliot' despite his extreme political
the cultural products of past, vastþ different societies? In a sense, the answer lgngqegg-of lhe Inøúe land-iboutwhy
cqq¡e5l4tism, was an mønt-gørde p*oet wh-o selected certain'progressive' ex-
Marx gives is no different from the answer to the question: How is it that we literary forms available to him' and
moderns still respond to the exploits of, say, Spartacus? We respond to Spar- perimental techniques fro,,, ih" niåttry of
'or, we learn nothing from this approach
tacus or Greek sculpture because our own history links us to those ancient *t,u, ideoiogicãl basis he did this.
gave rise at the time to certain forms of
societies; we find in them an undeveloped phase of the forces which condi- about the social conditions which
;spirr.luality', part-Cþistian, part-Bri-{dhi1t' which the poem draws on; or of
tion us. Moreover, v¡_e_ find in those ancient societies lnrimily,e- imlge 9f (F1aqe1) a1d bourgeois
'measure' between man and Nature which capìtahst s&îety neìèisaäly aé- what role a certain kind of Ëoutg"oit uai¡oopology
philosophy (F.H. Bradley's idealiãm) used.by the poem fulfilled in the ideo-
sttoyl and which sócialist socièfy can reproduce at a*n incomparably higher we are unilluminated about Eliot's social po-
'history' in wider terms than our ìogical iormation of the period.
!e1e!. We ought, in other words, to think of erudite' experimental élite with
own contemporary history. To ask how Dickens relates to history is not just sition as an artist, part åf a self-consciously
(tþ9 sqq{pres-?r liltle magS:TÐ at their
to ask how he relates to Victorian England, for that society was itself the pu.ti.,rtu, modes o? publication lhe
w¡icn tf,at impli-ed, and its effect 9n
product of a long history which includes men like Shakespeare and Milton. It ãirporul; or about the kind of audiencé
We remain ignorant about the relation b.e.
is a curiously narrowed view of history which defines it merely as the 'con- the poem,s styles and deviçgs.
ffi. aes{retic tþ,e_q;ielassociated- wit-þ it-of what role
temporary moment' and relegates all else to the 'universal'. One answer to "fãJ*ptuyr"n¿tn"
the problem of past and present is suggested by Bertolt Brecht, who argues ,n;ïá"r¡,,.it. ir the idãology- of the time, and how it shepeq thq-çql-
that 'we need to develop the historical sense . . . into a real sensual delight' squçtþnpfthepo-çmitself. , ,1--r!^
to take tþese \
\Àlhen our theatres perform plays of other periods they like to annfüilate dis-
Any coTplete undårstqq¡ding of rle -wøste Laryd ^w-oyldr}g1d
poem -to the
tance, fill in the gap, gloss over the differences. But what comes then of our
(urd p.ügÐ ÌäLOt, into- accoynt. It is not a.mafter-o-f reducittg !þe
but is it rn*-tter of introducing so
Àtui" o'f ö*u*go*ry .upit"l!!T; neither a
delight in comparisons, in distance, in dissimilarity-which is at the same capita!9m may to all '-
time a delight in what is close and proper to ourselves?' many j-ud^iciorrg .orrrfnèiionäìt at Tythsg as crud'e-as
the contrary: all of the-elements I have
The other problem posed by ttre Grundrisse is the relation between base intents and purpose, U" f"tgoqèn' On
author,s cfà'ss-p9g¡tion, ideological forral4rd their relation to
and superstrucfure. Marx is clear that these two aspects of society do not ""i-år"*itthå literaryproducti-on,
form a symmetricøI relationship, dancing a harmonious minuet hand-in-hand iü[;";;i,,rpirit""rryqdpr,îlo1iphy,techniquesjf
throughout history. Each element of a society's superstructure-art, law, "#n"ä¿.-n<*l'"raäJ"í¡rv;r9"sr.tto-tn"buse/s,'p"ñt.qcelãq:.:d,l:ä:\
of thes_e elements
I
-'
politics, religion-has its own tempo of development, its own internal evolu- lMarxisJ èritiãism looks f".is ttt" ,tt l que coniunctttre i¡t:l \
of elements can be contlated wrmJ
tion, which is not reducible to a mere expression of the class struggle or the I *"
I ":- frio* äè The Wasie Land. No one these
 Menxrsu ¡rrp Lrr¡nenY Cnlrrcrs¡n 535
5j4 Trnnv E¡crproN

another: each has its own relative independ ence. The Waste Land can indeed be what it feels ln
explained as a poem which springs from a crisis of bourgeois ideology, but it
conditions. , art does
has no simple iorrespondence with that crisis or with the political and eco- experience. It _iÞlreld.qfiLhtuì-ideology-Lut*als9-¡44nages to.distance
nomic conditions which produced it. (As a poem, it does not of course know it- itself from i to the poinljyhere it permitg us.to Jçeli And' p e;çg!ye-'-tþe- pe-01-
self as a product of a particular ideological crisis, for if it did it would cease to
from h ¿iñã this, art does-.,ryg! e-naþle ql"lo-&rcl¿-the
to_g¡eqP_llgq P art truth since for Althusser 'knowledge' in the strict
exist. t needs to translate that crisis into !çrmg
- sense means s cientific knowledge the kind of knowledge of, say, capitalism
-
which Marx's Cøpital rather than Dickens's Hørd Times allows us' The differ-
ence between science and art is not that they deal with different objects, but
that they deal with the same objects in different ways. science gives us con-
ceptual knowledge of a situation;,q1t_gives us the experience of that situation,
Liter atur e an d Ide olo gY which is equivalent to ideology.$tú by dojgathis, it allows us to .'¡99,-tþXa:
ture thai,idgg,iggy,--elê"tb"t- b:ggp to l49ye ug-lglvarçls tþt*fuI!-usdçr-
-o-f
s-tandins oi ideology which is scienllfic knqwle{ge. "
How literature can do ihis is more futly developed by one of Althusser's
colleagues, Pierre Macherey. hr his Pour Une Théorie de Iø Production Littéraire
(7966), Macherey distinguishes he terms 'illusion' (meaning
essentially, ideology), and o¡{inagr id-.e_oJ_qgiç3! g:_
""p in
-:'1... rience of men- 1S on the writer to work; but
ri *õftng on it he transforms it into different, it a shape and
experience in ways that prohibit a true understanding of his society, ways structure. It is by giving ideology a determinate form, fixing it within certain
thåt are consequently false. All art springs from an ideological conception of fictional limits, that art is able to distance itself from it, thus revealing to us
the world; there is no such thing, Plekhanov comments, as a work of art en- the limits of that ideology. Lr doing this, Macherey claims, art contributes to
tirely devoid of ideological content. But Engels' remark suggests that art has our deliverance from the ideological illusion.
u -å." complex relationship to ideology than law and political theory, which I find the comments of both Althusser and Macherey at crucial points
rather more transparently embody the interests of a ruling class. The ques- ambiguous and obscure; but the relation they propose between literature and
ideology is nonetheless deeply suggestive. Ideology, for both critics, is more
than an amorphous body of free-floating images and ideas; in any society it
are possible llsre. One is that literature is in a certain has a certain structural coherence. Because it possesses such relative coher-
artisfic form-that works of literature are just expressions of the ideologies ence, it can be the object of scientific analysis; and since literary texts'belong'
of their time. They are prisoners of 'false consciousness', unable to reach be- to ideology, they too can be the object of such scientific analysis. A scientific
criticism would seek to the work in terms of the ideolosical
yond it to arrive at the truth. It is a position characteristic of much 'vulgar
in its art: it
ir4arxist' criticism, which tends to see literary works merely as reflections of
to and distances it from
d.ominant ideologies. As such, it is unable to explain, for one thing, why so out the
it. The finest indeed done
much literature actually challenges the ideological assumptions of its time.
The opposite case seizes on the fact that so much Literature challenges the slaifñgpõñf-is Lenin's brilliant anal,Ees*ef Tolstoy. To do this, however,
and it is to this quei-
ideology it confronts, and makes this part of the definition of literary art it- means eraspmg
"=v-
üç-rieIg'-iy elyÆ -41Øû,structqçe;
self. Authentic art, as Emst Fischer argues in his significantly entitled Árf tion that we can now furn.
Against Ideology (7969), always transcends the ideological limits of its time,

2. Form and Content

History and Form

Irr his early essay ,The-E3olution of Modern Drøma (1909), the Hungarian Marx-
to it. the in which men the ist critic Georg l.tÙács'writes that 'the þ9.1y roçlal ele*g$, rylit"g-qgg isJhe-
world, course, us too- r-lor--lm\¡This is noitne kind of comment wrucn has come to be expected of
 M¡.nxIsu ¡Np Lrrrn¡.nv Cmrrclslr 537
536 Trnnv EecrproN

termine the -'f,o;ms' of !!9-"9tæerqtrgcigre' 'Lorqitself'

Fredric ]ameson has
Marxist criticism. For one thing, Marxist=*i9*lqll¡ff !14ditig4a!!¡¡ 9-PPaqCd co¡te¡t
all kinds of literary formalism, ataekins-that:nbred to sheq ,"ãu*ãã ill tttlrrli*'onA for- (1971), '!s but lhe-working.gu! ofthat form
"ttentto" in @e'. To those who reply irritably
¡iaprq¡a;Aa#r'i.r.;;u;nt".a¡'.1¡e-@1¡'.'æi.n.,qf .."-et{1ed1¡çs:!t ur,¿ .orrter,t ure lr*"puãlu anyway-that the distinction
is artificial-it is
*-a_é!itrea; fäiäe. It has, indeed, aqçd tqç
ieiätiq¡shÞ-betwsqn suc!ç¡!t-
1-n
as well to say immediately that ihis is of course t'oe
in practice' Hegel himself
icat teitrnociãðy and tþg b-eþ3y,io-u11¿f a4vanqe¿ c4p!!4!lC"Lqg-ç,i911.9s-' For an- of
otlier thing, a good aeh of-trriãriist ciiticism has in practice paid scant atten- recognized ihis: 'Contení', he wrote, 'is nothing but the transformation
into
tion to questions of artistic form, shelving the issue in its dogged pursuit of forniinto content, and form is nothing but the transformation of content
are theo-
political content. Ma¡x himself believed that literature should reveal,a q¡r![y form,. But if form and content are inseparable in practice, they
between
of form and content, and burnt some of his own early lyric poems on the retically distinct. This is why we can talk of the varying relations
grounds that their rhapsodic feelings weré dangerously unrestrained; but he the two.
Those relations, however, are not easy to grasp' Marxist criticism
sees
was also suspicious of excessively formalistic writing. In an early newspaper in the endi
article on Silesian weavers' songs, he claimed that mere stylistic exercises led form and content as dialectically related, ánd yet wants to assert
tortuously but
to
,perverted content" which in turn impresses the stamp of 'vulgarity' on lit- thç+r-Æeçy.gf.gonJS$ m {eterm*r4þg þm' The point is Put'
erary form. He shows, in other words, a diøIecticøl grasp of the relations in .o.ããÇüy=nffirá,. itr n¡s ftti Norlt and the People (1937), when he de-
question: form is the product of content, but reacts back upon it in a double- claresthat,Formisprod.ucedbycontent,isidenticalandonewithit,and,
edged relationship. Marx's early comment about oppressively formalistic thoughtheprimacyisonthesideofcontent,formreactsoncontentand
rela-
law in ttre Rheinische Zeitung-'form is of no value unless it is the form of its ,.,."rr"i."*uios passive'. This dialectical conception of the forrn content
hand' it attacks
content'-could equally be applied to his aesthetic views. tionship sets itself against two opposed positions' On the one
(epitomizelby the Russian Formalists of the 1920s) for
I"g$ggg&ågg*go$of4LeldCg!te$, Marx was being faithtuI to the that formalist school
of a
Hegelian tradition he inherited. Hegel had argued tn t}le Philosophy of Fine whom content i, -"i"ty a functión of form-for whom the content
the poem deploys'
Art (1835) that 'every definite content determines a form suitable to it'. 'De- poem is selected merely to reinforce the technical devices
But it also criticizes the 'vulgar Marxist' notion that artistic form is merely an
fectiveness of form', he maintained, 'arises from defectiveness of content'. In- itself' Such a
deed for Hegel the history of art can be written in terms of the varying rela- artifice, externally imposedän the turbulent content of history
ø Dying Culture
tions between form and content. Art manifests different stages in the position is to be ro""a in christopher caudwell's studies in
distinguishes between what he calls 'social
development of what Hegel calls the 'World-Spirit', the 'Idea' or the 'Ab- tfSSS). Lr that book, Caudwell
solute'; this is the 'content' of art, which successively strives to embody itself ù"inj'-tn" vital, instinctual stuff oi hrrttturr experience-and.a society's
having become
adequately in artistic form. At an early stage of historical development, the forms of consciousness. Revolution occurs when those forms,
are burst asunder by the dlmamic' chaotic flood of 'so-
Worid-spirit can find no adequate formal realization: ancient sculpture, for ossified and obsolete,
'social being' (content) as
cial being, itself. Caudwell, in other words, thinks of
example, reveals how the 'spirit' is obstructed and overwhelmed by an ex- he lacks, that is to
inherentiy formless, and of forms as inherently restrictive;
cess of sensual material which it is unable to mould to its own PurPoses. at issue. \Alhat he
Greek classical art, on the other hand, achieves an harmonious unity between
,uy, u ,,,ffi.iently d.ialectical understanding of the relations
does not see is tirat 'form' does not merely process the
raw material of 'con-
content and form, the spiritual and the material: here, for a brief historical Marxism already
moment, 'content' finds its entirely appropriate embodiment. In the modern å.,i1, f".u"re that content (whether social or literary) is for
structure. Caudwell's view is merely a variant of
infor:med;it has a significani
world, however, and most typically in Romanticism, the spiritual absorbs the the chao-s of reality''
the bourgeois critical comm-onplace tbet Srljglganizes
sensual, content overwhelms form. Material forms give way before the high- ae çbnqlis? Fredrrc
:@,dG ia"orqgielj[æ'fig:cif see]r€ rçdry
est development of the Spirit, which like Marx's productive forces have out- logic of content" of which social or
stripped the limited classical moulds which previously contained them. ]ameson, by contrast, sffiããäñe'inner
literary forms are transformative products'
It would be mistaken to think that Marx adopted Hegel's aesthetic it is not sur-
wholesale. Hegel's aesthetic is idealist, drastically oversimplifying and only
Given such a limited view of the form-content relationship,
to a limited extent dialectical; and in any case Marx disagreed with Hegel prisingthatEnglishMarxistcriticsofthelg30sfalloftenenoughintothe
)rr.rlguî Marxisti mistake of raiding literary works for their ideological con-
over several concrete aesthetic issues. But both thinkers share the belief that It is
artistic form is no mere quirk on the part o-f the indiv-idual artist. ESl¡ns-arg- tent and relating this directly to the class-struggle or the economy.
against this dang:er that Lukács's comment is meant to
wam: th3ggg-þ"ggt
fgltp, rather than abEtraetable content' of the
.nãË:"4 trñ;i"r-"íu.òr.é" doi¡¡n and i""ot"iitarz"d âs lfurJ conle;Lt ofdgglggyln3lt.gle the-ve¡¡¡
work precisely_ry li!
"* is in this sense prior to'forrr.',just as for Marxism it
iiself chãnges. 'Content' @tøm¡a the-ilñrässã¡ rListorv_in the titerary

îfðñãnges in a sociefy's material 'content', its mode of production, which de- ,-ry ftya" q o,4ð superioi.f orm f-o s qclal docul4qntatio4'*
 538 Trnnv EecrrroN Manxrsn. ¡No LIr¡n¡.nv Cnnclsn 539
';l
Form and Ideology novel; and as we shall r9þ!!qn9 þSjwe-qt
see lateì,f-t-e¡nbodlece-.-qpççfûq.re-!of

VVhat does it mean to say ttt"t,iifelqly-fq-19' 9gþi-1h a suggestive

author and audience. It is the dialectical
to In
between
a form, then, the writer
g
Marxist IS
comment in Literature and Reaolution, Leon Trotsky maintains that 'The rgþ-
finds his He may combine and
tionship between form and content is deterynined by the fact._t-hqt lLe ngfy
trânsmute available to him from a literary tradition, but these forms
ior* ir ai*o""r!4,-p, fi.ffi -*a ãrrot.rrea- urLd.er -the. pressrue ofu n i n!e{ themselves, as well as his permutation of them, are
need, of a collecti.v.e psyg.hqlog!ça!-demand which, like everytþing.els-e. ..
The lanzuageq and-de i - w"fi to hand
has its social.*rggls'. Slæ+&ant aevelopments t
ùl c€{eqdg¡gg-içel.11gdgå9f !ercep;þ1,cegqin-codif, gdwaysof .i¡!çrp-reqJig
g
realify; and the extent to which he can modify or remake those languages de-
and (as we shall see new relations between artist and au-
pends on more than his personal genius. It depends on whether at that point
dience. This is evident enough if we look at well-charted examples like the
in history, 'ideology' is such that they must and can be changed.
lñãmæil'in eighteenth-centurv England. The novel, as Iãn Watt has
argued, reveals in its very form ac}¡ranzed set of interests. No mat-
ter what content a particular novel of the time may have, it shares certain for-
Lukács and Literary Form
mal structures with other such works: a shi!!4g g,fþJ_eryrt frg¡4_lhç-Iglqqntic
1nd_s,up_ernatural!gndividlra,þ_sy-chsleg¡r*an{_l¡q*qline:-qp3llglce;acon- It is in the work of Georg Lukács that the probiem of literary form has been
cept of life-like, substantial 'character'; a co¡c_em with thç ¡natçrial fortunes most thoroughly explored. In his early,gqVlef¿þl-¡lork, The Theory of the
of an ln¿ivi¿ual protagonist who moves through an unpredictably evolvin-g, Noael (1920),Lukács follows Hegel in seeing ttÉ¡owelas the 'bourgeois epic',

-linear
narrative and so on. This changed form, Watt claims, is the product of
an increasingly confident bourgeois class, whose consciousness has broken
beyond the limits of older, 'aristocratic' literary conventions. Plekhanov ar-
gues rather similarly in French Dramøtic Literature ønd French 18th Century
Painting that the transition from classical trasedy to sentimental comedv in
France reflects a shift from aristocratic to boufgçpis-"Valrcs. Or take the break
from 'naturalism' to 'expressionism' in the European theatre around the turn
of the century. This, as Ra)¡mond Williams has suggested, signals a break-
down in certain dramatic conventions which in tum embody specific'struc-
tures of feeling', a set of received ways of perceiving and responding to real-
ity. Expressionism feels the need to transcend the limits of a naturalistic
theatre which assumes the ordinary bourgeois world to be solid, to rip open
that deception and dissolve its social relations, penetrating by symbol and
fantasy to the estranged, self-divided psyches which 'normality' conceals.
1|tq {-ary¡orrLhg ofSlrqgg,.qlygü9rr. lhçrr,åæfçg e þpgt t
tion in bourseois
.*-.--- ideolosv,
...4r'. as
..-
confident mid-Victorian notions of "rørye-
selfhood
and to splinter anÇ cru¡gbJe-in the façe of gr9rytnålyg4d
-relationshi¿b*uå*
capitalist crises.
There'li,'ñiíedless to say, no simple, symmetrical relationship between
changes in literary form and changes in ideology. Literary form, as Trotsky
reminds us, has a high degree of autonomy; it evolves partly in accordance
with its own internal pressures, and does not merely bend to every ideologi-
cal wind that blows. Just as for Marxist economic theory each economic for-
mation tends to contain traces of older, superseded modes of production, so
kaces of older literary forms survive within new ones. lprm-LUt_q4-a sug-
is partly shaped
out
in the case of the
but an epic which unlike its classical counterpart leveals-lhe homelessnesg -
is at (
Cl4 a1leryqo-1 of rnan in mòdep socie,!y.]n Greek classical society man
home in the universe, l1lo"iru;ithi.-i'iounded, complete world of imma- --
nent meaning which is adequate to his soul's demands. The novel arises
is sha!þre-d; the
wq¡ld,elth91!9q,
but
The
Theory of the Noael. For the Marxist Lukács of Studies in European Reølism and
The Historicøl Notsel, t}:re artists are those who
g4gel4¡gjtgetÐglllgg jp-a-{t,þv!,!i9_al'sqqgplof-cep"ltetisa_thegrça!
ilrite.draws these dialeçtiglly logglher into a cornplex to!3$þ1, His fiction
tfrus murors, ln mlcrocosmic form, the complex totality of society itself. In
doing this,
names
as much asBalzac and Tolstoy; the three great periods of historical 'realism'
are ancient Greece, the Renaissance, and France in the early nineteenth cen-
tury. A ',realist' work is rich in a complex, comprehensive set of relations be-
tween man, nature and history; and these relations embody and unfold what
for Marxism is most 'typical' about a particular phase of history. By tþç lW1-
cal' Lukács denotes those latent forces in any society which are from a Marx-
isf viewpoint most higtorically -sigtlfiSa.tt and progressivæ, which layþre

:-- -. 't-.:: :: -a\'

 M¡nxrsn ¡¡vo Lrmn¡nY Cmrrcrsu 54L
540 Trnnv EacrnroN

tk qpçiçly't inner structure an-d- dynamic. Th9_t-1s! of the 1e1þ.y{t91is*!o

fläh oirt ihesä'ttrrìôat' rrengi_and forces in sênslously-r"ealized indivi{gels
ànd actibns; in doing so he iinks the--indlvidual to the sgcþl whole, and in-
forms each concrete pa-rtiggla¡_o_f-,spciallife with the Power of the 'woll-4-
historical' the significant movemerrts of history itself .
-
Lukács's major critical concePts-'tolaltty', 'typically', 'world-historical'-
are essentially Hegelian rather than directly Marxist, although Marx and
Engels certainly use the notion of 'typicatity' in their own literary criticism.
Engels remarked in a letter to Lassalle that true character must combine typi-
cality with individuality; and both he and Marx thought this a major achieve-
ment of Shakespeare andBalzac. A 'typical' or'reþresentative' character in-
carnates historical forces without thereby ceasing to be richly individualized;
and for a writer to dramatize those historical forces he must, for Lukács, be

<
.J
!.\;

\y

essence and existence, type and individual'

Goldmann and Genetic Structuralism

dity of the total social process'. For the successors of the realists-for, say,
Flaubert who follows Balzac-history is already an inert object, an externally
given fact no longer imaginable as men's dlmamic product. B"ulÞ111 4::
prived of tbe_hisrorical fondilions w!1gh pve 1t_þ[th, ,splinters and dec]ine_s
._ --;:-;;: on the one hand and'formalism' on the other.
into 'naturalism'
lì-- '
u.tsiaor,'h".e ràt i"t,a.t is th-e failure of ihe E,,,opean revo-
lutions of 1848-a failure which signals the defeat of the proletariat, seals the
demise of the progressive, heroic period of bourgeois Power, freezes the class-
struggle and cues the bourgeoisie for its proper, sordidly unheroic task of
consolidating capitalism. Bogrgeois i{eo]pgdqgq!Þ-ils-puevíous revolution-
1ry i{gals-,- {ehiltoricizes iglity and.aecep..!;-society as I þct. Balzac
¡tatu¡;al
dìpicts tne Usfþg! qtlggglpg-gg"el4¡t Jþe capita!1s-L-{egra4etion of man,
*hile-Es ¡=q4ssog1þassiye!y-,1egi,sæ!l al-re-ad+..$egra+ed capitalist
-wo1ld
 543
M¡nxrsu tNo Lrtnn^qnY Cmuclsu
542 Trnnv Etcrrro¡¡
ratherthananaturalorganism;yetaveinof,organistic,thinkingaboutthe
structure of categories it displays' Two apparently quite different writers the several scan-
art object runs throughïuch oi his criticism' It is one of
may thus be shor,in to belong to ih" ru*"
collective mental structure. Genetic, throws out to bourgeois and
are histori- dalous propositions which Pierre Macherey
because Goldmann is conceÃed with how such mental structures criticism alike that he rejects this belief. For Macherey, a work
neo_Heieüån
callyproduced-concerned,thatistosay,withtherelationsbetweena is tied to ideology not so much by what it says as
by what it does not say' It is
woilivision and the historical conditions which give rise to it' in the signifi caä silences of a text, in its gaps and absences' that the presence
the most ex-
Gold.mann's work on Racine inThe Hidden God is perhaps of ideolãgy can be most positively felt. It is these silences which the critic
in Raci¡e,s drama a certain
emplary model of his critical method. He discerns *rrrt *uiá 'speak'. The text is, as it were, ideologically forbidden to say cer-
in their
recurrent structure of categories-God, world, Man-which
alter way' for example' the author
,content, and interrelationsJrom play to play, but which disclose a particular tain things; in trying to tell the truth in his own
finds himself forced to reveal the limits of the ideology within which he
worldvision.Itistheworldvisionofmenwhoarelostinavaluelessworld, writes.Heisforcedtorevealitsgapsandsilences,whatitisunabletoarticu-
acceptthisworldastheonlyonethereis(sinceGodisabsent)'andyetcon- late. Because a text contains theãe'gaps and silences,
it is always incomplete'
tinuå to protest against lt-to justify themselves in the name of
some ab- it displays a conflict and
Far from constituting a rounded, coherent whole'
of this world vi-
solute value which is always niaaen from view. The basis
as jansenism; contradictionofmeanings;andthesignificanceoftheworkliesinthediffer-
sion Goldmann finds in thsFrench religious movement known ence rather than unity b"etween these"meanings.
\^ryrerea-s a critic like Gold-
of certain displaced so-
and he explains ]ansenism, in turn, as the product a
mann finds in the work a central structure, the work for Macherey is always
de robe' t]rte
cial group in seventeenth-century France-the so-called noblesse
,de-centred,
;there is no central essence to it, just a continuous conflict and dis.
and yet
court officials who were economically dependent on the monarchy 'dispersed','diverse"'irregular': these are the
becoming increasingly powerless in tire face of that monarchy's growing ab- farity of meanings. 'scattered', literary work'
needing the Crown but åpitfr"t, which lvlacherey uses to "*pt"tt his sense of the
solutism]The cor,t.ááiËtory situation of this group, \¡Vhen Mach"r"y u.grr", that ttre work is 'incomplete" how-e¡19r' he does
of the world
politically opposed to it, isLxpressed in Jansenism's refusal both not mean that there is ã piece missing which the critic could fill in' On the
'world-historical'
änd of u'y åårir" to change iì historlcally. All of this has a
contrary, it is in the naturå of the worÈto be incomplete' tied as it is to an ide-
bourgeois
significance: l¡'e noblessehe robe, themselves recruited from the otogy *ti.h silences it at certain points' (it is' if you like' complete in its in-
royal absolutism and
.lãrr, ,"pr"rent the failure of the bourgeoisie to break .oripl"t".t"rs.) The critic's task is not to fill the work in; it is to seek out the
establish the conditions for capitalist development' how this conflict is pro-
relations between p.l"'.ipf" of iís conflict of meanings, and to show
\zvhat Goldmann is seeking, then, is a set of structural
ãrr."a Uy the work's relation to ideology'
literarytext,worldvisionandhistoryitself'Hewantstoshowhowthehis- a num-
of to tâke a fairly obvious example: tnDombey ønd Sott Dickens uses
torical situation of a social grouP or class is transposed' by the mediation ber of mutually .órrni.tillg languages-realist, melodramatic, pastoral, alle-
itsworldvision,intothestructureofaliterarywork.Todothisitisnot comes to a head in the
or vice versa; gorical_in hiÁ portrayat äf evãnts"; and this conflict
enough to begin with the text and. work outwards to history, iu^orrs railway chaptár, where the novel is ambiguously torn between con-
which moves constantly
*hut"is requiied is a d.ialectical method of criticism tradictory resPonses to ihe railway (Íeat,protest' approval'
exhilaration etc')'
to the others'
between text, world vision and history, adjusting each reflectinj tnis in a clash of styles and symbols. The ideological basis of this
marred by
Interesting as it is, Goldmann's ciitical enterprise seems to me ambiguió; is that the novel is divided between a conventional bourgeois ad-
certain major flaws. His concept of social consciousness, for example, is
anxiety about its in-
of a social miration of industrial progress'and a petty-bourgeois
Hegelian ráther than Marxist: hã sees it as the direct expression
disruptive effectJ. It sympathizes with those washed-up minor
class, just as the literary work then becomes the direct
expression of this con- ""i"Ufy at the same time as it
characters whom the new *ortd nàs superannuated
sciousness. His wholá model, in other words, is too trimly
symmetrical' which has made
the un- celebrates the progressive thrust of indlstrial capitalism
unable to accommodate the dialectical conflicts and complexities, them obsolete. In discovering the principle of the work's conflict of mean-
evenness and discontinuity, which characterize literature's
relation to soci- complex relationship to Victo-
ings, then, we are simultaneoisly analysing its
efy.Itdeclines,inhislaterworkPouruneSociologieduRomøn(7964),intoan rianideologY....
essentially mechanistic version of the base-suPerstructLrre
relationship'

Pierre Macherey and' Decentred' Form

the literary work
Both Lukács and Goldmarur i¡herit from Hegel a belief that
should. form a unified totality; and in this they are close
to conventional po-
a
totality
sition in non-Marxist criticism. Lukács sees the work as a constructed