Begin this unit by viewing our presentation on Marxist Criticism 

Slides and Notes for the presentation on Marxist Criticism

Here is a list of scholars to explore to further your understanding of this theory:

• Karl Marx - (with Friedrich Engels) The Communist Manifesto, 1848; Das Kapital, 1867; "Consciousness Derived from Material Conditions" from The German Ideology, 1932; "On Greek Art in Its Time" from A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, 1859

• Leon Trotsky - "Literature and Revolution," 1923

• Georg Lukács - "The Ideology of Modernism," 1956

• Walter Benjamin - "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," 1936

• Theodor W. Adorno

• Louis Althusser - Reading Capital, 1965

• Terry Eagleton - Marxism and Literary Criticism, Criticism and Ideology, 1976

• Frederic Jameson - Marxism and Form, The Political Unconscious, 1971

• Jürgen Habermas - The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity, 1990

When doing a Marxist Reading of a text, consider these foundational questions of Marxist Criticism:

• What classes or socioeconomic statuses are represented in the text?

• Are all the segments of society accounted for, or does the text exclude a particular class?

• Does class restrict or empower the characters in the text?

• How does the text depict a struggle between classes, or how does class contribute to the conflict of the text?

• How does the text depict the relationship between the individual and the state? Does the state view individuals as a means of production or as ends in themselves?

To better understand how critics might apply a Marxist lens, read William Wordsworth's " I Wander Lonely as a Cloud" and view the accompanying video below, which demonstrates a Marxist Reading of Wordsworth's poem.

"Advertisement for the Waldorf-Astoria" by Langston Hughes 

James Mercer Langston Hughes (February 1, 1901 – May 22, 1967) was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist from Joplin, Missouri. One of the earliest innovators of the literary art form called jazz poetry, Hughes is best known as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance.

Hughes's poem “The Advertisement For Waldorf-Astoria” is a parody of a magazine advertisement in Vanity Fair and is considered one of Hughes’s most direct indictments of the economic inequality in the 1930s. 

For more on Langston Hughes, check out his biography on poets.org - HERE and John Green's lecture on Hughes and the Harlem Renaissance from CrashCourse - HERE.

Want a visual? Below, you'll find a dramatic representation of Hughe's poem along with brief critical commentary.

Oscar Wilde- "The Happy Prince"

Oscar Wilde was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1854 to a writer mother, a writer and a physician father. He was an excellent student, receiving scholarships and graduating with honors. Wilde married and had two children; however, he had a homosexual love affair for which he was put on trial, convicted of indecency, and imprisoned in Britain for two years. He then spent the last three years in exile in Paris, France, before dying in 1900.

Of Oscar Wilde’s various short works for children, ‘The Happy Prince’ (1888) is his signature tale, a definitive statement about the relationship between inner and outer beauty. ‘The Happy Prince’ is a sad tale that owes much to earlier fairy stories, especially the tales of Hans Christian Andersen. However, it is also a typically Wildean story.

For additional insights, read ‘Wilde’ Times: A Marxist Reading of Oscar Wilde’s “The Happy Prince" (HERE). For more biographical information on Wilde, click HERE and HERE.