Marxists on literature : an anthology

534 Pages·1975·15.571 MB·English

by  David Craig (editor)

' Jk. vr ^ .
I :M«
m
■frm^
’Mi
Ti
1 k
NUNC COCNOSCO EX PARTE
I HOMAS). BATA LIBRARY
TRENT UNIVERSITY

r-
■ ■
. • o^^i'ivrsW
• v •■' l!VY«0-.Cf
■ *..■ i' .;ji-r>DWiJ
‘ *
'■ ^
' ' .-.nnk>'bA44X!)Sfi(^VC
' . •/’>\i
nS
*ju^
i
J jf
v/A ■^'.)i'i...' V*.; V ••;, 1^; ?..V-V'.
-;'
, Vtt -> _ ; < /I \< ,(_„J,- . ,.- j , y y. 'A
%
k.
(-.
EDITED BY DAVID CRAIG
Marxists on Literature
An Anthology ';
@
PENGUIN BOOKS
TrMH Unl»««l»T Vtmtrt
ffTf>»OftOU«4<,
Penguin Books Ltd,
Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England
Penguin Books, 625 Madison Avenue,
New York, New York 10022, U.S.A.
Penguin Books Australia Ltd,
Ringwood, Victoria, Australia
Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 2801 John Street,
Markham, Ontario, Canada L3R 1B4
Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, 182-190 Wairau Road,
Auckland 10, New Zealand
First published 1975
Reprinted 1977
Introduction and selection copyright © David Craig, 1975
All rights reserved
Made and printed in Great Britain by
Hazell Watson & Viney Ltd,
Aylesbury, Bucks
Set in Linotype Granjon
t
Except in the United States of America,
this book is sold subject to the condition that
it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise,
be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated
without the publisher’s prior consent in any
form of binding or cover other than that in which it is
published and without a similar condition
including thb condition being imposed on the
subsequent purchaser
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements 7
Introduction 9
GEORGE THOMSON
1. Speech and Thought 25
2. TTie Art of Poetry 47
GEORGEI PLEKHANOV
3. On the Social Basis of Style 76
CHRISTOPHER CAUDWELL
4. English Poets: (i) The Period of Primitive
Accumulation 95
G. M. MATTHEWS
5. Othello and the Dignity of Man no ’
DAVID CRAIG
6. Towards Laws of Literary Development 134
V. G. KIERNAN
7. Wordsworth and the People i6i
KARL MARX
8. Letter to Lassalle (19 April 1859) 207
FRIEDRICH ENGELS
9. Letter to Lassalle (18 May 1859) 210
ARNOLD KETTLE
10. Dickens and the Popular Tradition 214
JACK MITCHELL
11. Aesthetic Problems of the Development of the
Proletarian-Revolutionary Novel in Nineteenth-
Century Britain 245
5
333461
FRIEDRICH ENGELS
12. Letter to Minna Kautsky (26 November 1885) 267
13. Letter to Margaret Harkness (April 1888) 269
GEORGEI PLEKHANOV
14. On ‘Art for Art’s Sake’ 272
GEORG LUKACS
15. Tolstoy and the Development of Realism 282
V. I. LENIN
16. Articles on Tolstoy 346
LEON TROTSKY
17. The Formalist School of Poetry and Marxism 363
GEORG LUKACS
18. Franz Kafka or Thomas Mann? 380
LU HSUN
19. Some Thoughts on our New Literature 395
20. A Glance at Shanghai Literature 400
BERTOLT BRECHT
21. Theatre for Pleasure or Theatre for Instruction 412
22. The Popular and the Realistic 421
23. On Rhymeless Verse with Irregular Rhythms 429
VICTOR SERGE
24. The Writer’s Conscience 435
MAX ADERETH
25. '^haX\s'UtteratureEngag6e} 445
ERNST FISCHER
26. The Loss and Discovery of Reality 486
Appendix A
A. A. ZHDANOV
From Report on the Journals Zvezda and
Leningrad, 1947 514
Appendix B
Extracts from the Resolution Adopted by the
Central Committee of the French Communist
Party, 1966 527
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
For permission to use copyright material acknowledgement is made
to the following:
Lawrence & Wishart Ltd for ‘Speech and Thought’ from The First
Philosophers and ‘The Art of Poetry’ from The Prehistoric Aegean,
both by George Thomson; for 'Othello and the Dignity of Man’ by
Geoffrey Matthews from Shal^espeare in a Changing World, edited
by Arnold Kettle; for ‘Report on the Journals Zvezda and Leningrad,
1947’ from On Literature, Music and Philosophy by A. A. Zhdanov;
for ‘English Poets: (t) The Period of Primitive Accumulation’ from
Illusion and Reality by Christopher Caudwell.
V. G. Kiernan for ‘Wordsworth and the People’, his own essay in
Democracy and the Labour Movement, edited by John Saville, pub¬
lished by Lawrence & Wishart Ltd.
Arnold Kettle for ‘Dickens and the Popular Tradition’, his own essay
in Zeitschrift fiir Anglisti\ und Ameri\anistil(, 1961, No. 3, published
by V.E.B. Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, Berlin.
Jack Mitchell for ‘Aesthetic Problems of the Development of the
Proletarian-Revolutionary Novel in Nineteenth-Century Britain’, his
own essay in Zeitschrift fiir Anglisti\ und AmeriXanisti\, 1963, No.
3, published by V.E.B. Deutscher Verlag der Wbsenschaften, Berlin.
The Merlin Press Ltd for ‘Tolstoy and the Development of Realism’
from Studies in European Realism and ‘Franz Kafka or Thomas
Mann?’ from The Meaning of Contemporary Realism, both by
Georg Lukics.
Methuen & Co. Ltd for ‘Theatre for Pleasure or Theatre for Instruc¬
tion’, ‘The Popular and the Realistic’, ‘On Rhymeless Verse with
Irregular Rhythms’, all by Bertolt Brecht, taken from Brecht on
Theatre, edit^ by John Willett; © 1957,1963 and 1964 by Suhrkamp
Verlag; translation © 1964 by John Willett.
7
Vlady Kibalchich for ‘The Writer’s Conscience’ by Victor Serge from
Nou/, No. 7.
Victor Gollancz Ltd for ‘What is LittSrature EngagM' from Cowj-
mitment in Modern French Literature by Max Adereth.
Econ Verlagsgruppe for ‘The Loss and Discovery of Reality’ from
The Necessity of Art by Ernst Fischer, translated by Anna Bostock
(Penguin Books, 1963).