Practical Problems In Gramsci 's Literary Criticism

Unlike others, when Gramsci talks about literature, "literature" is not a beginning, not a positivist type of object, but the presence of a vacancy. What causes this is the fact that the "national-popular" literature does not exist, the social dimension of this problem is reflected in the divide between the literary tradition and the spiritual life of the people, and past literary experience make no sense:the textual and spiritual literary tradition only comes from the narrow "economic-corporative" spirit of the intellectuals; some popular literary genre are infected by foreign intellectuals, while some of them make people’s morality and knowledge remain at a lower level. What he calls the phenomenon "literature cannot produce literature" means that, Intellectuals cannot go beyond the "economic-community" spirit, creating a cultural hegemony in order to improve people’s standard of morality and knowledge, create new spiritual life, instead of relying solely on in-house production is destined to make the reader abandon literary writer. Thus, his literary criticism always implies a related problem of practice:the formation of the people-nation, it is a political practice of creating new spiritual life and new man, this closely relates to the creation of the "new literature", the "national-popular" literature. The new "national-popular" literature is,a part of the practice, but also the literature-emotional level of the practice, and literary criticism must create the conditions for its formation.The first chapter will overview the modern Gramsci research status in homeland and abroad, and thus make a bibliography of Gramsci studies publishing status, which mainly focuses on three parts:Italian academia, it is rooted in the soil of the parent Gramsci theory and practice and political practice; English academia, dissemination and interpretation of Gramsci’s theory it played an important role in making it burst out of the great intellectual vigor; domestic researchers, they have done a lot of works of the translation and research of Gramsci’s theory.The second chapter looks at the text of literary criticism of Gramsci, it sketch out the outline of Gramsci literature thoughts. Gramsci’s theory was born from the Marxist tradition, and the concept "practical philosophy" brings in the traditional theory personal characteristics, and his particular writing situation make understanding his thoughts create difficulties. Gramsci’s literary criticism scattered in various forms of style, such as notes, commentary and letters, and the lack of paper forms in the strict sense, although Gramsci himself did not form an integrated system, but by analyzing the development of his thought process the consistency of "elements", we can roughly determine the theoretical framework and key concepts of Gramsci, and literary criticism is an important part of the problem of civil society’s hegemony.The third chapter introduces Althusser’s "problematic" concept, on the one hand we can use it to distinguish the object from the theoretical dimension to the practice of theory, on the other hand it aimed at confirm the position of literary criticism in the practical problem of the formation of the "national-popular" literature, and direct communicate to historical materialism of the Marxist tradition. By breaking the literature’s seemingly independent and self-sufficient presence, seeing literature as a social practice again in civil society, Gramsci made the situation analysis of the balance of power of social groups, rejected the empirical literary criticism sense, instead of militant-and therefore criticism must have the popularity, the party spirit. For this reason, literary criticism must help literature has to draw a line between the old literary form and the new form of literature in the history of the movement in the situation of static balance, and the relationship between literature and social history is ultimately to return to a final matter:the issues of people, an "integrated social relations", namely a "have a lot of wealth and relationships", a man in the future of the "situation", an out of state of chaos, " a factor of the order". And in the end of this chapter, we will explore the return to Materialism in Gramsci’s thought.In the fourth chapter, "literature" cannot become a "national-popular" literature just exposed the generation of sustainable social crisis, the textual and spiritual literary tradition’s prosperity and foreign culture’s wanton penetrate are making this problem covered by various accidental phenomenon, thus, "literature" must be re-established culture shaped by hegemony. To achieve this goal, create a "national spirit" of continuity, we must create a new "balance of power" in the past with traditional literary experience to understand their position in the "situation" in that it produces a unique "battle of criticism".when Gramsci talked about Pirandello’s play, especially the relationship between it and the theater of drama when it comes to dialects, as well as when addressing how popular fiction loved by the people, to redefine the "realism" "content" and "form" concept and so on, he went beyond the traditional critical discourse in the narrow sense, these are literary criticism in Gramsci’s way to solve the "nation-people" literature, and even the "nation-people" the formation of the problems of Practice creatively reflect positive condition, which is decided by the identification that Gramsci is a party member rather than a purely literary critic.