Towards Materialist Criticism

Content:Louis Althusser (1918—1990) is an outstanding marxist philosopher in 21st century.In some of the works and articles he wrote before his death,he expressed his opinions about literature and art indirectly by dramatic criticism and painting criticism.These texts are different from both traditional marxist criticism and prevailing bourgeois criticism. In fact,it is a new kind of critical practice,and opens up a new critical space which we may call it "materialistic criticism"of marxism tentatively. The purpose of this thesis is to summarize Althusser’s literary and art criticsim which is only a few but extremely valuable,and to analysis the significance of "position war" of this kind of criticism,the effect of materialistic epistemology and the practicality and militancy of ideological criticism,so as to present several aspects of "materialistic criticism" and put forward the possibility of this critical method.The introduction of this thesis firstly emphasizes that if we want to understand Althusser’s thought of literature and art,we must do it by theoretical "detour" and we must discuss it in combination with the whloeness of Althuser’s thought.At the same time,the thesis points out that this is the destiny shared by all marxists,which means they will not understand literature and art from any essentialist perspective,such as so-called "literary ontology" or "artistic ontology",but reveal the real appearance of literature and art from their external and by their relationship with political struggle and "position war".In the first and second chapters,it briefly sums up the current status of research at home and abroad,and the main content of the nine texts on Althusser’s discussing about litrature and art.The main task of the third chapter is to reveal the nature of Althusser’s criticism,pointing out that litarary and art criticism is also a kind of "practice" by using Althusser’s philosophical theory for reference,just like Althusser considering "philosophy" as "revolutionary weapons",and it aims to expose the idological fantasy of bourgeois writers,artists and critics who are always boosting "belles-lettres", "pure art" and "art for art’s sake", from the outside to the inside and by"replacing" to take the materialistic and political position, so as to have political voice heard. Therefore, what Althusser practices is a kind of political criticism, rather than aesthetic criticism. If it is insistently claimed that he possesses aesthetic theories, they are political by nature, because Maxism aesthetics is Maxism political problems in the final analysis.The forth chapter is primarily concerned with the relationship between literature and art and ideology.It is mainly discussed from three aspects.Firstly,it puts literature and art into the category of reproduction by Althusser’s discussion on AIE,and emphasizes that literature and art are not only a kind of productive practice as Marx and Benjamin had posed long before,they are also a kind of reproduction,especially the reproduction of production relations. Secondly,it explains "the real art is not ideology" which Althusser wrote,and points out that "real art" is just an abstract concept.The reason why literature and art can be distant from ideology is that there exsits "language" which is a kind of material vehicle.The last point is to reveal three ideologies that Althusser’s critical practice dedicated to criticize,namely hedonism,formalism and humanism.The conclusion of this thesis:1.The materialistic criticism pioneered by Althusser is a political criticism,and its foundation is marxist historical science;2.Literary and artistic creation is actually a process of reproduction of production relations,and it undertakes the task of shaping social subjects;3.The real literature and art are not ideology,but distant from ideology,exposing it and making people "see" and "perceive"it,and the media 4.Materialistic criticism is against hedonism,formalism and humanism in the creation of literature and art.In one word,materailistic criticism is a kind of political practice in the field of literature and.art, and it aims to fight for hegemony against bourgeoisie.