Development of Marxist Criticism
Although Marx and Friedrich Engels detailed theories of Socialism in the mid-nineteenth century, it was not until the 1920s that Marxist Literary Theory was systematized. The greatest impetus for this standardization came after the October Revolution of 1917 in Russia. The event instigated a change in belief around socialist ideals in government and society. While these ideals developed, socialist realism was accepted as the highest form of literature – a theory based on an art movement that depicted and glorified the proletariat’s struggle towards societal progress. These ideas guided both literary creation and official literary criticism in Russia, where works focused on the lives of the different classes. In the years since then, the Russian beliefs regarding literary theory have been modified to acknowledge that literary creation is a result of both subjective inspiration and the objective influence of the writer's surroundings. This system of belief relies on the social classes as well as the economic and political development of society. Thus, Marx’s theories intertwined expertly with the emerging ideologies of the new Russian movement and spread throughout the world.
Read more about this topic: Marxist Literary Criticism
Famous quotes containing the words development of, development, marxist and/or criticism:
“Other nations have tried to check ... the fulfillment of our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions.”
—John Louis O’Sullivan (1813–1895)
“For the child whose impulsiveness is indulged, who retains his primitive-discharge mechanisms, is not only an ill-behaved child but a child whose intellectual development is slowed down. No matter how well he is endowed intellectually, if direct action and immediate gratification are the guiding principles of his behavior, there will be less incentive to develop the higher mental processes, to reason, to employ the imagination creatively. . . .”
—Selma H. Fraiberg (20th century)
“The Marxist analysis has got nothing to do with what happened in Stalin’s Russia: it’s like blaming Jesus Christ for the Inquisition in Spain.”
—Tony Benn (b. 1925)
“To be just, that is to say, to justify its existence, criticism should be partial, passionate and political, that is to say, written from an exclusive point of view, but a point of view that opens up the widest horizons.”
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)