Marxian Imagination : Representing Class in Literature

by Markels, Julian

• ISBN13: 9781583670972
• ISBN10: 1583670971
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-09-01
• Publisher: Monthly Review Pr

Summary

The Marxian Imaginationis a fresh and innovative recasting of Marxist literary theory and a powerful account of the ways class is represented in literary texts.Where earlier theorists have treated class as a fixed identity site, Markels sees class in more dynamic terms, as a process of accumulation involving many, often conflicting, sites of identity. Rather than examining the situations and characters explicitly identified in class terms, this makes it possible to see how racial and gender identities are caught up in the processes of accumulation that define class. Markels shows how a Marxian imagination is at work in a range of literary works, often written by non-Marxists.In a field notorious for its difficulty,The Marxian Imaginationis a remarkably accessible text. Its central arguments are constantly developed and tested against readings of important novels, ranging from Dickens's Hard Times to Barbara Kingsolver's Poisonwood Bible. It concludes with a telling critique of the work of the major Marxist literary theorists Raymond Williams and Fredric Jameson.

Author Biography

Julian Markels is professor emeritus of English at Ohio State University, Columbus

Table of Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS	8	(3)
PART ONE The Literary Representation of Class
1 A Mandan Imagination	11	(20)
2 Class in Dickens from Hard Times to Little Dorrit	31	(16)
3 Representing Class in the Realist Novel	47	(20)
PART TWO Some Consequences for Critical Theory and Practice
4 "Socialism-Anxiety": The Princess Casamassima and Its New York Critics	67	(18)
5 The Gramscian Ordeal of Mendel Le Sueur	85	(20)
6 Denying the Imagination in Mandan Cultural Studies: Raymond Williams and Fredric Jameson	105	(20)
7 Coda: Imagining History in The Poisonwood Bible	125	(10)
NOTES	135	(16)
INDEX	151