Marxist criticism & liberal humanism

So far from what I can tell, Marxist criticism and liberal humanism share little, if nothing, in common. The main tenet of Marxist criticism is that the social and political situation of a certain period influences the literature that is produced during that time.

Marxist criticism focuses on social, political and economic circumstances as ways of finding meaning in literature. Marxists analyze texts by using these views in order to understand society. An author's values, personal experiences, social class, etc. all influence their writing.

Unlike Marxism, the second tenet of liberal humanism finds the meaning of a text within the text itself; it relies only on the close reading of the words on the page. It doesn't place literature into a political or historical context. It also doesn't believe that the author's personal experiences influence their writing.

According to the first tenet of liberal humanism, which is closely linked to the second tenet, good literature is timeless. It transcends the period in which it was produced. However, Marxists would disagree (I think) and argue that literary texts must be studied as a work of the time period in which they were written. They would approach a text written in a different time by studying it in a historical context.

Marxists and liberal humanists would disagree on how to approach studying texts. Marxists have a predisposed bias when studying texts; they want to derive the meaning of the literature from the circumstances it was produced in. They are not able to approach texts without bringing in outside references to analyze it. Liberal humanists study the text itself to find its meaning; they don't put literature into context.

Introductory Post

Hey, it's me, Erica.

This blog is being maintained for academic purposes. I'm not new to blogging, but the subject this blog will be concentrating on (theory) is somewhat new to me. What's appealing about blogging on such an intimidating subject is that the writing style is much more informal; it's a place to keep bits and pieces of thoughts and ideas which can be referred back to and expanded on.

I'm interested in learning about theory as an object and instrument of study. I've interpreted texts to some extent in other classes but have never studied the study of literary and cultural texts. So far, it appears that there is no definite right or wrong way to study texts or interpret what meanings they may or may not be trying to convey.

I'm very excited to learn about all the different schools of literary and cultural theory because it seems like it will be a challenge for me. I'm also interested to find out if theory will address not only interpretation of texts, but what theorists determine is a text.

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