Marxist Criticism
Marxist Criticism
Marxist Criticism
Historical Background
The Founders
• Karl Marx (1818-1883), a German philosopher, and Friedrich Engels (1820-
1895), a German sociologist (as he would now be called), were the joint
founders of this school of thought.
• Marx was the son of a lawyer but spent most of his life in great poverty as
a political exile from Germany living in Britain (he was expelled after the
1848 'year of revolutions').
• Engels had left Germany in 1842 to work in Manchester for his father's
textile firm. They met after Marx had read an article by Engels in a journal
to which they both contributed.
Progress as a result of
class struggle motivates by
economic, social, and
political advantage.
Historical Stages
Capitalism
Socialism
Communism
Lenin’s Marxist Criticism
(Leninist)
• The 'Leninist' which insists on the
need for art to be explicitly
committed to the political cause of
the Left (Vulgar Marxist.
1.Materialism
2. Class Struggle
The social classes are competing
in essence for control of the state
Marxist Literary Criticism
Marxist literary criticism maintains that a writer's social
class, and its prevailing 'ideology' (outlook, values, tacit
assumptions, half-realised allegiances, etc.) have a major
bearing on what is written by a member of t
hat class.