On Williams's Criticism Of Cultural Materialism

"Country" and "city",as the two basic ways of human living,have a lasting vitality in literary writing.In The Country and the City Raymond Williams uses his cultural materialism theory to comment the English city-country of literature since sixteenth century,and he outlines a city-country writing history in British literary tradition for the selective narrative premise of writing history.In the use of the method of criticism,Williams mixes social history criticism and close reading,which communicates the external and internal of the text.This thesis tries to excavate the characteristics of cultural materialism criticism based on The Country and the City,and explores the functions and limitations of cultural materialism criticism.The thesis is divided into five chapters.The first chapter outlines the theoretical framework of cultural materialism from the whole.First of all,this chapter use "culture" and "historical materialism" as the two key words to start with this theoretical term.Secondly,from the perspective of ideological origin,this chapter analyzes the inheritance and development of cultural materialism which Leavisism and Marxism.Finally,this chapter focuses on the structure of feeling,which is the core term of cultural materialism.The second chapter focuses on the critical context of The Country and the City,which is the structure of feeling of Williams' s writing.Firstly,this chapter points that the tide of urbanization brought by the rapid development of capitalism and the growth of the working class are the realities which can not be ignored in the age of Williams.Secondly,this chapter explains the early British cultural studies and the Frankfurt School's influence on Williams' s concept of urban and rural.Finally,from the perspective of Williams' s personal experience,this chapter observes the emotional starting point of Williams' s concern about urban and rural issues.The third chapter gives a detailed explanation of the criticism of The Country and the City.Williams criticizes the writing tradition of " the disappearing rural economy " which is throughout the sixteenth century to early twentieth century in British literature,and he discusses the two main sources of this writing tradition which are nostalgia Pastoralism traditional and City progressive.The chapter takes time as a clue to analyze and discuss the characteristics and the structure of feeling of the concept of urban and rural in each period of literary writing.From the flowing historical view,this literary writing reveals the bias of nostalgia Pastoralism traditional and the hypocrisy of City progressive.The fourth chapter focuses on the critical method of The Country and the City.Based on Williams' s literary view and language view,the thesis points out that Williams' s critical method is the integration of social historical criticism and close reading.At the same time,this chapter is also recognized that the emphasized point of this integration lies in the social historical criticism.The fifth chapter mainly grasps the function and limitation of cultural materialism criticism through the critical practice of The Country and the City.This chapter believes that the function of cultural materialism criticism lies in the reinterpretation of Marxism's theory of "economic base-superstructure".On the other hand,it also provides a solution for the series of problems caused by the antagonism between city and rural areas.The limitation of cultural materialism criticism is exaggerating the role of culture and making culture cover up literature.But these limitations still have great significance for cultural criticism.