Analysis On The Thought Of Cultural Materialism Of Raymond Williams

Since the middle of 20 century, the research of western Marxists has been close to the social reality. Under the influence of Marxism, Raymond Williams, the representative of Birmingham school, viewed the development of culture at the standpoint of future of human culture exceeding the traditional points of culture noble, by criticizing the tradition of elite culture theory, and historically reviewing and rebuilding the concept the "culture" and "mass". He created the new field of explaining the culture from the social angle and in the condition of multi-language environment, changing the traditional pattern of literature theory. Raymond Williams enlarged the concept scope of "culture" to every layer of the society from the point of social criticism. During the dialogue with Marx, the unique materialistic culture concept was formed, which became one of theory footstones of Birmingham school. Raymond Williams's research is closely related with the culture materialism. The thought of culture research and schools of culture research can be known by our researching him, and Marxism can be further understood by comparison with other schools of Marxism.The thesis consists of four parts: Raymond Williams in culture research school, deconstructive discourse analysis on the thought of Raymond Williams, meaning token: rebelling, challenging and exceeding elitism, the meaning of cultural materialism of Raymond Williams.The first part illustrates the uprising of Birmingham school, their analysis of culture research and the influence of Raymond Williams in it.The second part analyzes the redefinition of "culture" in the thought of culture research of Raymond Williams. He compared "culture and civilization", which demonstrates his particular opinion. The third part presents Raymond Williams' criticizing elite culture and supporting "the masses culture" .He studied the cultural crisis and proposed the suppose of tending towards common culture.The fourth part analysises the particular cultural materialism of Raymond Williams. It is summarized that culture research is broken through and developed by Raymond Williams, on the basis of further supplement and development by combination with "ideology" of Althusser.