Marxist Literary Criticism

Literary Criticism

You admire the delightful variety, the inexhaustible riches of nature. You do not demand that the rose should smell like the violet, but must the greatest riches of all, the spirit, exist in only one variety? I am humorous, but the law bids me write seriously. I am audacious, but the law commands that my style be modest. Grey, all grey, is the sole, the rightful color of freedom. Every drop of dew on which the sun shines glistens with an inexhaustible play of colours, but the spiritual sun, however many the persons and whatever the objects in which it is refracted, must produce only the official color! Karl Marx, Comments on the Latest Prussian Censorship Instruction

Marx/Engels on Literature and Art Comprehensive index to references to art, literature, culture and literary criticism in the writings of Marx and Engels.	Lenin on Literature and Art Speeches and statements by Lenin on Art and Culture. Lenin and the Bourgeois Press, Boris Baluyev.
Vygotsky On Literature and Art Works on the psychology of Art and analysis of a number of works of literature.	Trotsky on Literature and Art Index to works of Trotsky on art, literature and culture.
Georg Lukács Theory of the Novel Tagore’s Gandhi Novel Holderlin’s Hyperion Goethe: The Sorrows of Young Werther Dostoyevsky	Diego Rivera & André Breton Manifesto for an Independent Revolutionary Art
Henrik Ibsen Debate Engels, Mehring, Kautsky, Plekhanov, Trotsky, Lunacharsky and Havelock Ellis on the significance of Ibsen, plus full texts of his plays. Jenny (Westphalen) Marx Theatre Reviews from London of the 1870s by Jenny von Westphalen, Marx's wife.	Maxim Gorky Includes Pushkin: An Appraisal D. S. Mirsky Pushkin, 1934 Realism, 1935 Robinson Crusoe, 1935 Romanticism, 1937 Walter Scott, 1937 E. M. Braudo Richard Wagner: A Marxist Interpretation, 1935
Pierre Bourdieu Classes and Classifications, from Distinction, 1979	William Morris William Morris Archive
Soviet Discussion on Romanticism French, German and English Romanticism, Vladimir Fritsche, 1908 Romantic Literature, Anatoly Lunacharsky, 1924 Brief history of literary Romanticism, Isaak Nusinov, 1930 Russian Romantics, Pavel Lebedev-Polyansky, 1931 Romanticism, Viktor Zhirmunsky, 1934 The Romantic Period of German Literature, A. Lavretsky, 1934 Romanticism, D. S. Mirsky 1937 German Romanticism, V. Geiman 1939 Romanticism, A. Vishnevsky 1941 Romanticism, Georg Lukács 1945 Novalis, A. S. Dmitriev 1975 German Romanticism, Franz Mehring, 1911	Eleanor Marx The difference between Byron and Shelley, with Edward Aveling, 1888 Shelley and Socialism, with Edward Aveling, April 1888 Dramatic Notes, February 1890 - February 1891 Literature Notes, August 1890 - February 1891 A Doll’s House Repaired, March 1891 A. Lavretsky (Iosif Moiseevich Frenkel) Tyutchev, Seeker of Grace, 1918 On Literary Influence, 1925 Brief History of Literary Criticism, 1925 The realistic drama, 1930 Milton’s style, 1934 The Romantic Period of German Literature, 1934
Soviet Writers’ Congress 1934 Problems of Poetry in the U.S.S.R., Bukharin Soviet Literature, Maxim Gorky World Literature and Tasks of Proletarian Art, Radek Greetings to Romain Rolland, Radek Andrei Zhdanov On Literature, Music and Philosophy Speech at the Congress of Soviet Writers, 1934 Report on the Journals Zvezda and Leningrad, 1947 Speech at Conference of Soviet Music Workers, 1948 Speech at Conference of Soviet Philosophical Workers, 1947 Aleksandr Dmitriev The Century of Humanism, 1990	Communist Party of Australia Art and the Struggle, by D. Diamond, November 1943 Art and the Individual, by Kathleen Watson, March 1944 A Further Reply to John Reed’s Views, by H.M., July 1944 “Infantile Disorder” on the Cultural Front, by John Reed, July 1944 A Criticism of Adelaide’s “Angry Penguins” by Vic O'Connor, 1944 Hoax Renders Service to Literature, by Katherine Susannah Prichard, March 1945 Fascist Mentality in Australian Art and Criticism, by B. Smith 1946 On “What Shall We Ask of Writers?”, by Max Brown 1946 Art for the People, by J. B. Miles, August 1948
Women and Marxism Archive Fiction and poety written by women on the working class, women's issues, and Marxism, and biographies written by women revolutionaries.	Dora Montefiore The Voice of the Outcast in Literature Wagner as a Revolutionary Some Notes on the Early Flemish Painters
Georg Plekhanov Historical Materialism and the Arts, 1899 French Drama and Painting of the 18th Century, 1905 Art and Social Life, 1912	Georges Politzer Who Do You Write For, 1933. A. K. Dzhivelegov Rabelais, 1935
Writings in Aesthetics and Criticism Letter to N. V. Gogol, V. G. Belinsky 1847. Plato's Idealism, Dmitry Pisarev 1861. Proletarian Poetry, Aleksandr Bogdanov 1923 On Being the Right Size, JBS Haldane 1928 The Work of Art, Andre Malraux 1935. Shakespeare: A Marxist Interpretation, Aleksandr Smirnov 1936 Literature and Ideology, James Farrell 1942 What is Aesthetics, G.A. Nedozchiwin 1972 Literature and Revolution: Trotsky, Cliff Slaughter 1980. Boris Tomashevsky Pushkin: A Marxist Interpretation, 1929 A. S. Dmitriev German Literature from Holderlin to Wagner, 1991	Anatoly Lunacharsky Heroes of Action in Meditation, 1909 On Pushkin, 1922 Taneyev and Scriabin, 1925 Theses on the Problems of Marxist Criticism, 1928 Chernyshevsky’s Ethics and Aesthetics, 1928 Dostoyevsky’s “Plurality of Voices” (Re Bakhtin on Dostoyevsky), 1929 Jonathan Swift and A Tale of a Tub, 1930 George Bernard Shaw, 1931 Heine the Thinker, 1931 Vladimir Mayakovsky, Innovator, 1931 Alexander Blok, 1932 Maxim Gorky, 1932 Richard Wagner, 1933 The Man Who Painted Happiness. Renoir, 1933 Bacon and the Characters of Shakespeare’s Plays, 1934 Marcel Proust, 1934 Ibsen, 1934 Pushkin as Critic, 1937
Others A Sad Day For Soviet Arts, V. Karalasingham, 1969. Alexander Solzhenitsyn: Soldier, Prisoner, Writer, R. Weerakoon, 1972. Revolutionary Art, H. Arvon, 1973.	F. D. Klingender Marxism and Modern Art: An approach to social realism, 1943 Viktor Zhirmunsky J. G. Herder, 1959 P. S. Kogan Nietzsche, 1905
Voronsky On Art, A. K. Voronsky, 1920. Scoundrels and Toadies, A. K. Voronsky, 1926. Émile Zola The Experimental Novel, 1893.	Bertolt Brecht Speech at the Second Congress of Writers for the Defense of Culture, 1937. Roman Kutov An Essay on the History of Literature, 2014
Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer The Culture Industry, Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer	Alasdair MacIntyre Culture and Revolution, Summer 1961 Sergei Turaev Young Germany, 1989

From the Reference Archive

Philosophy of Aesthetics, Hegel c. 1817
The Aesthetic Relations of Art to Reality, Nicholas Chernyshevsky 1853
The Sociology of Literature, Leo Lowenthal
Elements of Semiology, Roland Barthes
Of Grammatology, Jacques Derrida
The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, Frederic Jameson