MARXIST CRITICISM, THE FRANKFURT SCHOOL AND WALTER BENJAMIN

Abstract

Marxist literary criticism has been developed on the basis of Marxist political ideas. Even though Marx makes important statements about culture and society in the 1850s Marxist criticism is a phenomenon that came into being in the twentieth century. According to Marx, the ideology, politics, and art which make up the superstructure of a society are all determined by the economic structure of that society. Karl Marx discusses the basic concepts of communism in his work ‚The Communist Manifesto‛ and asserts that societies and their economic systems are constantly in a process of evolution to crea te a classless society. The point in Marxist criticism is that literature cannot be separated or isolated from the ideological and the economic realities of the society in which this li terature is produced. On the other hand, the Frankfurt School, which is practically a neo Marxist one, is a critique of the enlightenment tradition. The radical change and the dif ference of critique between the two schools lie on the intellectual basis. As an Institute for Social Research originally, the Frankfurt School developed a neo-Marxist social the ory. The members of the Frankfurt School borrowed from the theorists of the late- nine teenth century. Its members were basically pluralists. Walter Benjamin is an important member of the Frankfurt School. He was also under the influence of Marxism and showed an inclination to Marxist School, too. Benjamin mixes social criticism and lingu istic analysis with historical nostalgia. The fundamental aesthetic differentiation for him is the one between creation and formation. According to Benjamin, criticism is the pre sentation of truth of a work of art. Criticism tries to culminate, complete and systemati ze what the work of art began