Toward Culture Critique: Studies In British Marxist Criticism

From 1880s to now, the British Marxist Critics, represented by William Morris, Christopher Caudwell, Raymond Williams and Terry Eagleton, experienced a long and endless culture critique journey. Basing on the criticism on the current reality of capitalism and combining the close relationship with society and literature through endowing the culture with a unique position, their theories used culture criticism as a platform for social ciriticism and literary criticism which made British Marxist Criticism different from not only the"Orthodox"Marxist Criticism but also the European Marxist Criticism .Under the impact of domestic traditions of"Culture and Society"and"Culture Marxism", British Marxist Criticism inherited and developed the critical soul of Marxism and introduced more culture critique in the turnning of Western Marxism. As one of the most complicated keywords in English,"culture"was defined by British Marxists as a continuious changing conception and historical formation. Therefore, literary criticism from cultural perspective became one of the most important distinguishing features of British Marxist Criticism. Firstly, the culture criticism transcended and deepened the traditional literary criticism so that there was not any permanent essence in literature but constructed in the social culture context. In another word, literture is a functional conception but not an actual existence. Secondly, the culture criticism broke the literary framework of Formalism and Elitism, trying to find more literary meanings in the society which emphasized on cultural and political connotations. Christopher Caudwell, Raymond Williams and Terry Eagleton, the typical British Marxists, all of them insisted on the interactive relationships between literature and social history and political critical function of literature in reality and did research in the cultural production background. This perspective created a great divergence between British Marxist Criticism and the traditional Marxist Criticism like Reflection. The British Marxist Critics, represented by Christopher Caudwell, Raymond Williams and Terry Eagleton, reconsidered the the proposition of base and superstructure and broke the traditional research framework of economic determinism, reductionism and mechanistic perspective so that broadened the theory forms of Marxist Criticism .This thesis picked up three outstanding critics of British criticism, Christopher Caudwell, Raymond Williams and Terry Eagleton as the research targets, pointed out the historical track of the development of British Marxist Criticism through clearing their literary and cultural theories. Centering on their culture citique qualities, this thesis also showed the originality of British Marxist Criticism through describing their literary consideration in the changing history.Christopher Caudwell confirmed that social being determined consciousness and social life was limited by economic base. At the same time, basing on the dialectical unificational epistemology in both subjectivity and objectivity, he advocated that art must be examined by dialectical and active views which defined the beauty and art as the dialectical unificational and pratical activities in both subjectivity and objectivity. Christopher Caudwell's literary criticism based on the historical materialism and the epistemology of the dialectical unification in both subjectivity and objectivity. It made him not only breakaway from the bourgeois literary criticism which unilaterally emphasized on subjectivity or objectivity, but also spaced out from the model of Stalinism. Evern more ,his theory made him become the British backer of Western Marxist Critics like Lukacs and Gramsci.Raymond Williams'cultural materialism was within historical materialism which was a critical theory of the specificities of material cultural and literary production. He argued against understanding the relationship between base and superstructure in abstract consideration. In his opinion, base determining superstructure did not mean that the former controled the latter but set limits on the latter. Literature and art was not only the component part of superstructure but also the part of base. He declared that Reflection and Mediation and so on which based on the abstrct elements were not thorough materialism because of their covering the materiality and sociability of literature and could not explained the creative and pratical problems which existing everywhere in human activities. In his eyes, literture was the process of material production. It was one of the processes of creating themselves and surrounding reality of human beings. He researched literature under the culture horizon, emphasising on the close relationship between literture, politics, economics and society, devoting himself to find the culture meaning and political connotation of literature.After distinguishing cultural materialism and Althusser's Ideological theory, Terry Eagleton applied himself to the reseach on the relationship between literature and ideology in order to pushing Marxist Literary Production into a new and higher period. In his mind, literture was not only in the part of base and superstructure, but also the process of material production and ideological production. Therefore, the urgentest duty of Marxist critics is illustrating the realtionship between the art as pruduction and the art as ideology now. Terry Eagleton showed that Marxist Criticism played an improtant role in improving the human society, it was a part of liberation of breaking away from oppression. So to some degree, all the literary criticism were related to politics. Facing the difficulty and crisis of Marxism, Terry Eagleton believed that the essential task of modern Marxist critics including himself was breaking the hard enclosure for Vulgar Marxism and Empiricism in order to construct mature Marxist Criticism.In conclution, as result of the unique social and cultural background, British Marxism Criticism developed and created its own theoretical feature and creative views as well as the theory frameworks. It played very profound and broad roles on the historical materialistic explaination on literture and estheticism as well as discussing the cultural connotation of literture and estheticism. Basing on dealing with the theories of Christopher Caudwell, Raymond Williams and Terry Eagleton, this thesis outlined the develping track of British Marxism Criticism in the whole Western Marxism and concluded its unique acdemtic results and theory contributions.