| In this study I compare the work of A. A. Smirnov and Paul N. Siegel, two older Marxist critics of Shakespeare, to that of cultural materialist Jonathan Dollimore and Marxist feminist Jean E. Howard. While these critics differ on issues ranging from Shakespeare's ideology to materialist methodology, I contend that they all accept two fundamental Marxist claims (articulated here by Terry Eagleton): "that material production is the ultimately determinant factor of social existence, and ... that the class struggle is the central dynamic of historical development.";Smirnov, a Soviet critic writing in the heyday of socialist realism (1930s-1950s), argues that the class struggles of the late Tudor/early Stuart periods explain Shakespeare's "bourgeois humanism" and the formal and thematic changes found in the playwright's work. Smirnov's criticism is trail-blazing, but it is also marred by "economism," a methodological flaw whereby the ideological "superstructure" is viewed as a direct reflection of the economic "base.";An American Marxist who began publishing in the late 1940s, Siegel mobilizes the views of E. M. W. Tillyard and several British historians to claim that Shakespeare expresses the "Christian humanist" world view of the Tudor new aristocracy. Siegel attempts to "materialize" Tillyard; however, his work also contains a number of idealist assumptions that he shares with traditional and Marxist humanist critics.;Influenced by poststructuralism, structural Marxism, "queer theory," and feminism, British cultural materialist Jonathan Dollimore has helped revitalize Shakespeare studies. His criticism is in many ways more sophisticated than that of Smirnov and Siegel; yet, unlike them, he fails to provide an historical narrative explaining the ideological modulations that he discovers in Shakespeare's work.;The American Marxist feminist Jean E. Howard has championed certain "postmodern" positions and has criticized "the class reductionism and economic determinism of classical Marxism"; however, I argue that she ultimately adheres to the basic Marxist principles mentioned above. Her discussion of Shakespeare's work is highly sensitive to its "overdetermined" character and ideological contradictions, and her most recent book clearly demonstrates a point that Gayle Greene made nearly twenty years ago: Marxism and feminism "can benefit from a recognition of common aims and concerns."... |
