Reading notes on: Marxist Literary and Cultural Theory by David Anshen (2017)
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In this section Anshen briefly discusses the debate whose literary discussion was later published as Aesthetics and Politics (New Left Books, 1977).
DEBATE(S) ON FORM AS POLITICS AMONG THE IDEOLOGICAL CRITICS
Lukács
[....]For Lukács, the answer to an increasingly complicated state of affairs where knowledge of the totality of social relations becomes increasingly difficult finds a partial solution in realism as both the content and form of literature. This led to an overstated, extreme dismissal of modernism as being too close to the 'appearances' of social life rather than literature serving to highlight the truth of society residing in a total picture that becomes increasingly difficult to perceive. In an odd way, modernism gets criticised for its mimetic and mirroring features, while realism receives praise for its dialectical critique of society.
[....]capturing appearances has been a literary virtue at least since Aristotle's defence of mimesis, which Lukács only sees as possible if characters are situated in a social context.
[....]and the correct dialectical unity of appearance and essence.
[....]To those who might argue that realism was a set of conventions and convictions that correspond to a certain moment in the birth of capitalism, Lukács points to the timeless nature of realism, which he exemplifies through the example of the admittedly masterful works of Thomas Mann.
[....]modernism implies the 'negation of history'
[....]to the degree that literature removes readers from the world, it clearly serves as an obstacle to politics. Modernism does often appear to deny humans the capacity for solidarity, class-consciousness, unity and the ability to situate events and problems within a historical structure that can be altered positively.
[....]Lukács's concerns that art not merely mimic the atomistic view of humans engendered by the dog-eat-dog existence of capitalist daily lifestyles and formal devices link to a worldview that promotes right-wing anti-humanism.
[....]Trotsky separated the politics of the novel from his appraisal of its aesthetic significance, something Lukács fails to do.
Brecht
[....]using art to 'render reality to men in a form they can master', while non-specific, leaves open multiple approaches to representation of a critical nature. This seems persuasive because Brecht historicises formal approaches and critical standards that the more absolute approach of Lukács seems to miss.
In his famous writings on theatre and art such as 'The Modern Theatre is the Epic Theatre' (1930) and his 'A Short Organum for the Theatre' (1949), he lays out his conviction that Aristotelian conceptions of empathy, catharsis, identification, resolution and emotional transport based on the power of the plot render spectators passive and open to ideological manipulation. Instead, Brecht advocates formal techniques designed to facilitate active, involved debate and analysis by audiences rather than spoon-feeding perspectives to the spectators.
Adorno
Theodor Adorno rejects and polemicises against both Lukács and Brecht.
[....]his doubt that art can meaningfully comment on or represent crimes seemingly unrepresentable in their horrors.
[....]negates content or remained extremely abstract and creates disharmonious and jarring aesthetic experiences. His models of valid art were the atonal music of Schoenberg, extremely abstract forms of visual art and high modernism.
[....]work of Beckett and Kafka become examples of a modern kind of form of 'realism' in Adorno's polemics with Lukács. In a world where alienation reigns supreme, fragmented existence becomes realism.
[....]differences in this three-way debate revolve around what positive functions literature can play in an increasingly mediated, complex, confusing, disempowering and alienating existence where human subjects increasingly experience life, in the common analysis of all three, as isolated individuals.
[....]as Lukács and Brecht both recognise, along with Adorno, that the common condition that dominates modern social life forces individuals into a narrow, ideological zone of existence, then art that wishes to critique life must address such conditions both formally and as content.
[....]To attempt to represent characters in a social condition, as Lukács advocates, ignores the goal of representing conditions that block awareness of the interconnection of the individual with the network of increasingly abstract economic networks that shape life. On the other hand, in Adorno's view, the depiction of disorienting, shocking and seemingly exaggerated experiences in a subjective and often confusing form, as we find in Kafka or Beckett, remains the only meaningful form for art. It allows the 'autonomous art' a space for authentic political and aesthetic critique in a world that increasingly limits such space.
[....]Once again, for good or bad, the refuge of aesthetes becomes, to paraphrase James Joyce, silence and cunning.
[....]many Marxists look to the politics of form without any particular partisanship for an exclusive method.
Jay
8 November 2021
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