THEORETICAL CONTEXT OF THE STUDY
3.2 Definitions of Marxism and its historical development
3.3.3. Terry Eagleton and his Marxist theoretical orientation
Eagleton in the introduction to his book, Marxism and literary criticism, states that:
No doubt we shall soon see Marxist criticism comfortably wedged between Freudian and
79
mythological approaches to literature, as yet one more stimulating academic 'approach,' one more well-tilled field of inquiry for students to tramp."
(Eagleton, 2002, p. iv).
What this entails is the functional role of literature as a bridge to complement the inquiry into Marxism. This is because Marxism is a complex field of inquiry and Marxist literary criticism too is no doubt a complex one due to the diverse ways it views literature and art. When Eagleton discusses Marxism and literary criticism, he explores culture, historical materialism, economics, politics and the social conditions of men in society and how this manifests in literature. Of concern however, is the fictional text of the Nigerian authors I am studying and how the texts reflect the theoretical approach of Eagleton.
In the introduction to the book, Marxist literary theory (1996) Eagleton expresses the view that culture to Marxism is at once absolutely vital and distinctly secondary because culture is the place where power happens to be crystallised and certain approaches are bred. It is also in culture that there is a visible representation of what he calls ‘superstructural’ evidence that becomes specialised in artistic institutions. To Eagleton therefore, culture is more than just ideology, but it is not a neutral and transcendent entity either. He proceeds to advise that:
Any Marxist criticism worth the name must thus adopt a well-nigh impossible double optic, seeking on the one hand to take the full pressure of a cultural artefact while striving at the same time to displace it into its enabling material conditions and set it within a complex field of social power (Eagleton & Milne, 1996, p.7).
What this means is that the cultural analysis of a text from the perspective of literary criticism should avoid a singular narrative of such cultural embodiment but it should also take into consideration the material history that manifest in the interpretation of it and which will provide a style of social consciousness.
This view is of importance because the cultural narrative of Soyinka’s Death and the king’s horseman, Rotimi’s Kurunmi and Ogunyemi’s the Vow exceeds the cultural recognition of the texts. It also foreshadows the material history as
80
well as the politics involved in the culture, which is evident in a Marxist analysis of the plays.
Eagleton’s theoretical position is also developed as a way of investigating the historical, economic, and social issues. The Marxist principle according to Eagleton, does not deal overtly with theories of literature. Eagleton stresses that there is no one orthodox Marxist school (as there is an orthodox Freudianism), but instead a multiplicity of Marxist readings. Eagleton's debate in demonstrating this diversity used the familiar derogatory expression ‘vulgar Marxism’ to refer to the basic deterministic notion that a literary work is nothing more than the direct product of its socio-economic base that produces the struggles and conflicts in literature especially those that I am analysing.
Soyinka’s plays feature those socio-economic forces that constantly create the dis-equilibrium amongst characters. This position is also affirmed by Fredric Jameson’s articulation of ‘eclectic Marxism’. These thinkers therefore have expanded the scope of the Marxist theory in their attempt to find a deeper expression of the Marxist literary and cultural theory by embracing these subjectivities and by providing a framework for literary analysis.
This is one reason why Eagleton asserted that Marxist criticism embraces more than merely a re-emphasising of cases set out by the founders of Marxism. It also comprises more than what has become known in the West as the 'sociology of literature'. Eagleton envisions and proposes that the text, apart from its historical relevance, also concerns itself with the sociology of literature that ensures its effectiveness in literary production. To him the means, mode and method of literary production defines how books are published as well as the social circumstance of the author and the audience. The audiences’ level of literacy and their social determinant of taste defines their worldview when it comes to analysing the text.
Eagleton’s major objective is to establish a materialist aesthetic by maintaining the “reality of art as ‘material practice’” (Eagleton, 2002, p.44). He proceeds to contend that it is probable to “set out in schematic form the major constituents of a Marxist theory of literature, with the task of criticism being to analyse the
81
complex of historical articulations of these structures which produce the text”
(Eagleton, 2002, p.44-45). There is according to Eagleton a General Mode of Production. The method of production is the harmony of certain forces and social relations of material production. Each social creation is characterised by a blend of such modes of production, one of which will be dominant (Eagleton, 1976, p.45). Eagleton uses the term General Mode of Production to represent the central mode of production. Eagleton proposed that, “there is a Literary Mode of Production which is a substructure” of the General Mode of Production. There is a “unity of certain forces and social relations of literary production in each social formation. Indeed, there will be a number of distinct modes of literary production, one of which will normally be dominant”
(Eagleton, 1976, p.45).
The major strength of Eagleton’s main approach to the Marxist literary theory lies in his insistence on the significant relationship between literature and ideology. For Eagleton, every work has something to say about society and about the ideas that serve to maintain the prevailing social relations. He points to the particular ways in which literature is used as a means of ideological conditioning in culture by stating that:
From the infant school to the University faculty, literature is a vital instrument for the insertion of individuals into the perceptual and symbolic forms of the dominant ideological formation, able to accomplish this function with a naturalness, spontaneity and experienced immediacy possible to no other ideological practice (Blackledge, 2012. p.56).
The ‘Marxist literary critic’ can perform a variety of diverse social roles. On the one hand, he can exist within the academic establishment, providing an alternative Marxist view to the orthodoxies of university convention. In recent times however, the numerous compilations of critical viewpoints that are published for the benefit of students may not be considered complete without the presence of a token Marxist (Blackledge, 2012).
82
Eagleton therefore developed by extension in his ‘Marxist literary criticism’ a theory that explicates the relation between the text and ideology derived largely from the work of Macherey. Eagleton articulates this by saying:
The text is, as it were, ideologically forbidden to say certain things; in trying to tell the truth in his own way, for example, the author finds himself forced to reveal the limits of the ideology in which he writes.
He is forced to reveal its gaps and silences, what it is unable to articulate. Because a text contains these gaps and silences, it is always incomplete. Far from constituting a rounded, coherent whole, it delays a conflict and contradiction of meanings; and the significance of the work lies in the difference rather than unity between these meanings (Eagleton, 2011.
p.79).
Eagleton’s theoretical uncertainties therefore culminate in a political ambiguity.
His work deals precisely in a period when class struggle is effectively on the downturn. Eagleton’s own works, then, just as much as those he studied are filled with various forms of contradiction. He however contests the ideological contraption of ‘literature’ and defends the conventional evaluations of traditional literary criticism. Eagleton recognizes the need for revolutionary writing, yet dissolves the intentions of the author in a swamp of determinations.
3.4. How Fredric Jameson, Georg Lukacs’ and Terry Eagleton provide a