Saturday, October 25, 2008

Marxist Criticism

A brief overview of Marxist Criticism (group 5):

Marxist Criticism is a reflection of social institutions paying close attention to the background and ideology of the author when looking at literary works. Literature influence by Marxist Criticism sometimes clearly reflects the author's class. Class struggle plays a large role in Marxist views and there is a lot of emphasis put economical/ ideological state of affairs. Marxist Criticism influenced western writers such as James Joyce and Richard Wright to name a few. Marxist Criticism does address economical, social/ political issues, yet also addresses cultural sciences.

Recurrent terms in Marxist Criticism include:

Base Vs. Superstructure: the economic base- superstructures emerging from this base include philosophy, religion, art, law and politics

Ideology: a culture's shared beliefs or values. What the culture finds to be standard and valuable. Ideology is influenced by economics in Marxist Criticism.

Hegemony: Influences the way things look and their meaning. This influence also leads to the way people within a particular culture believe reality to be.

Reification: The way people are changed into "commodities" and found beneficial in Market Exchange. The media will express pathos, yet underneath that "fake" expression of emotion they flourish upon sad/ tragic events economically.

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