Grand Valley State University

The politics of literary theory, an introduction to Marxist criticism, Philip Goldstein

eng

Includes bibliographical references (pages 221-236) and index

The politics of literary theory

19669908

Philip Goldstein

an introduction to Marxist criticism

Introduction: in defense of politics -- Marxism and the humanities -- Classical versus cultural Marxism -- Historical varieties of cultural marxism -- Lukacs' procommunist realism -- Trillings' anticommunist realism -- The Frankfurt school of social theory -- Poststructuralist Marxism -- New criticism as/contra politics -- Empiricism as a literary tradition -- The liberal empiricism of I.A. Richards -- The conservative empiricism of Cleanth Brooks -- The liberal phenomenology of René Wellek -- Scholarly accounts of new criticism -- Feminist versions of the formal method: Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar -- Afro-American versions of the formal method: Henry Louis Gates, Jr. -- Marxist versions of the formal method: Terry Eagleton -- Humanism and the politics of truth -- The historical roots of humanism -- Authorial versus new critical humanism -- The liberal humanism of E.D. Hirsch, Jr. -- The Marxist humanism of Lucien Goldmann -- The poststructuralist critique of authorial humanism -- Gerald Graff's defense of liberal humanism -- The Marxist humanism of Raymond Williams -- Liberal and Marxist varieties of feminist humanism: Elaine Showalter and Judith Newton -- The politics of reading -- Reader-oriented criticism -- The conservatism of Wolfgang Iser and Norman Holland -- The liberalism of David Bleich and Stanley Fish -- The radicalism of Jane Tompkins and Tony Bennett -- The phenomenological approach -- Phenomenology and the philosopnhical tradition: Martin Heidegger and Edmund Husserl -- Phenomenology and the enterprising reader: Wolfgang Iser -- Phenomenology and social theory: Theodor Adorno -- The structuralist approach -- Roland Barthes -- Pierre Macherey, Terry Eagleton, and marxist feminism -- Jonathan Culler -- The marxism of Fredric Jameson -- Jameson and authorial humanism -- Jameson and the structuralist approach -- Jameson and poststructuralism -- Poststructuralism -- the politics of skepticism -- Althusser, Derrida, and Foucault -- Poststructuralist literary criticism: the textual approach of J. Hillis Miller and Paul de Man -- The textual feminism of Barbara Johnson -- Marxist versions of deconstruction: Terry Eagleton, Michael Ryan, and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak -- Poststructuralist literary criticism: the institutional approach of Stanley Fish, Frank Lentricchia, and Edward Said -- Conclusion: a practical example: Hardy's fiction and the politics of pessimism -- A formal reading -- An authorial reading -- Reader-response, phenomenological, and structuralist readings -- A deconstructive reading