Literary Production Theory: From Brecht To Eagleton

This thesis discusses the theories of literary production of Western Marxism, flagged by Bertolt Brecht, Walter Benjamin, Pierre Macherey and Terry Eagleton, The author makes a comparison and interpretation of these ideas by putting them into the historical development of Western Marxism.The thesis consists of four parts. In "Foreword", it is proposed that Literary Production theories have disparate meaning to the different schools of literary criticism. Approximately, there are three kinds of them: Sociology of Literature. Cultural Studies and Western Marxism. From the view of sociology, Sociology of Literature investigates the social mechanism of literary production. Cultural Studies focus on the realm of distribution and consumption of literary products, while Western Marxism aims at keeping away from Vulgar Marxism and solving the problems caused by the pattern of base and substructure, so as to build a kind of Marxist literary criticism from the perspective of social production. In contrast with the positive stand of Sociology of Literature, Cultural Studies and Marxist Criticism are characterized by radicalism, but the radicalism of Marxism is based on the subjectivity of class and revolution, different from that of Cultural Studies, which is on Lacan's theory.Chapter one emphasizes the Productive Aesthetics of Bertolt Brecht. Under the influence of the leading Western Marxist Karl Korsch, Brecht maintains that literature is a part of social production and he stresses the constructive role of literature upon the society. Brecht, cutting a way of studying literature outside the pattern of base and substructure, lays cornerstone for the theory of Literary Production of Western Marxism.Chapter two is dedicated to Walter Benjamin's ideas of Literary ProductionBenjamin inherits the theory of Productive Aesthetics from Brecht and furthers the study of it. Firstly, Benjamin states that the technique of literature should be the same with the social productive technique, i.e. craft. Secondly, Benjamin presents the concept of literary productivity, which is inherited by Terry Eagleton.Chapter three discusses the view of Louis Althusser and Pierre Macherey on this theory. Their theory is built on the basis of Marxist structuralism pioneered by Louis Althusser. Althusser thinks that the social formation is a hierarchy of practices or structures, distinct one from another, and although, amongst them, the economic is causally primary, the others are relatively autonomous, possessing a specific effectivity. The economic level is only determining in the last instance. Althusser's idea of social formation rewrites the theory of base and substructure of traditional Marxism. According to Althusser, ideology and substructure, instead of being the reflection or expression of the base, have their own independent effects on the society. As a kind of ideological practice, literature is the production of ideology, which means that literature, by their special form devices, in the course of processing ideological materials, lay bare the limits and boundaries of ideology.Chapter four is concentrated on the theory of production of Terry Eagleton. Being aware of the formalism and abstraction of Althusser and Macherey, Eagleton remoulds their ideas in two aspects. Firstly, Eagleton makes the conjuncture of literature as social material production and ideological production; in other words, Eagleton puts the literary production into the concrete historical context. Secondly, Eagleton insists that literary criticism should be a political practice. Thus, Eagleton steers clear of the rational tendency of Althusser and Macherey. Although limited by Althusser's problematic, Eagleton, to some degree, carries on the radicalism of Brecht and Benjamin, Moreover, he stressed that literature, as a social production,has great effect on the revolution.