Words and Men. — Part 1 (1933)

From the October 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Socialist analyses literature

To analyse literature we must first discover its sources. Three things are fundamental to the subject: rhythm, speech and writing. A survey of the origins and relationship of these three is, therefore, essential if we are to understand the vigorous growth and complicated development of the many phases of literature in later ages.

Let us begin with rhythm, which is the basis of all art-forms. Rhythmic sound in particular was almost certainly the earliest form of art. The reason lies in what may be called brain and nerve economy: regular pauses, or the periodic recurrence of stress, help listeners to focus their attention, and were early used as part of the ritual at tribal feasts. Such feasts would be accompanied by regular bursts of meaningless sound, of speech and of movement; these evolved into music, poetry and dancing, the three at first occurring simultaneously as a composite art-form very closely linked with religious rituals, and later branching off into their specialised channels. It will be noted that rhythm cannot occur as an art- form until there is some social existence, some degree of communal organisation.

Secondly, we must examine speech. Every higher land-animal is able to make sounds with its lungs, throat and tongue. Man, as he became social, developed from these purely emotional animal sounds—expressions of pleasure, pain, desire or fear—a system of labour-cries; they were closely connected with the need for rhythm already mentioned. and helped men to concentrate and economise their energy. To communicate with each other at this stage men seem to have had a crude gesture language, imitating with their hands the action to be done or the things desired. (This is a spontaneous impulse and can readily be observed in monkeys and young children; adults sometimes use it to supplement their words.) Frequently, of course, the rhythmic labour-cries and the gestures of the hands would take place at the same moment; thus arose a sub-conscious association between them. When, therefore, developing society and more complicated labour introduced the problem of "talking with your hands full," men easily compromised by letting their tongues, lips and palates give a rough and ready imitation of the previous hand-gestures, at the same time calling attention to their desires by emitting sounds from the lungs and larynx. Innumerable and convincing examples of the resemblance, in a given word, between the movements of the speech-organs and the corresponding hand-gestures are to be found in all the most primitive languages (A detailed exposition of this theory of the origin of speech can be found in "Human Speech," by Sir Richard Paget.) Now, this process was not necessary—and therefore could not exist—until human society existed; and it became more and more complex in direct ratio to the amount and organisation of labour and of collective activity generally. The languages of savage tribes, for example, have a mere four or five hundred words, as compared with the hundreds of thousands in French, German or English.

Without speech there is no thought; indeed, thought may be summarised as “inward speech," although this definition must be used warily. Many people contest it because they mistake for thought certain highly complicated emotions or reflex actions; neither of these is necessarily connected in any way with speech, but abstract rational thought cannot be dissociated from it. Words are the only means of crystallising complex associations, first of facts then of ideas, and storing them away for future reference and still further association. Since, therefore, thought is dependent on speech and speech on social organisation, it is clear that the form of society and the mode of production not only condition the form taken by thought, but decide its very existence.

Our third fundamental, writing, was an offshoot of painting, which in turn began as a form of "sympathetic magic”—that is, objects or incidents were depicted out of a passionate desire that they should appear or happen. (For painting as a form of Sympathetic Magic .see “Ancient Art and Ritual" by Jane Harrison; Home University Library.) This use of painting to record desires naturally led—as speech and thought developed—to its use in recording ideas; as thoughts, keeping pace with social evolution, became more complex, systems of writing grew increasingly intricate.

* * * *

It is not possible in these articles to survey the literary history of the whole world; ancient literature is closely interlaced with religious rituals and legends, and should be dealt with under the heading “Religion" rather than here; while modern developments are so bewilderingly diverse, and offer so many fascinating by-paths and magnetic individual writers, that we are tempted at every turn not to see the wood for the trees.

Nevertheless, modern literature is more easily understood than ancient, because we have at our disposal more historical facts relative to the period. It is besides more familiar and more palatable to the modern reader. We shall, therefore, after glancing at ancient and classical literature, approach our own times as rapidly as possible. It is necessary to narrow the field of observation; we shall for that reason confine our examples almost entirely to France and England, whose respective literatures afford the most abundant proof of the influence of social and economic forces on literary as on all other history.

* * * *

Greek drama is considered one of the comer stones of European culture. Its early forms have marked religious characters, and are obviously the direct outcome of tribal thanksgiving rituals, particularly of the communal dances.

As primitive society gave place to Barbarism and later forms—coincident with the development of tools, the change from small to large-scale agriculture, and the growth of commodity-production and a system of exchange—a chieftain class emerged, and literature more and more became a glorification of “heroes." It is noticeable that in such literature there is never any hint that ordinary men may become heroes; they are born, not made. And such was indeed the state of society at that time; men remained permanently, as a matter of course, in the class into which they were born. To this period belong the Homeric legends in Greece, the Hiawatha in North America, the Kalevala in Scandinavia, and the Cuchulain and Finn cycles in Ireland—all concerned with hunting exploits or wars between tribes and petty nations, and all frequently recording almost identical incidents.

Satires originated early in song-duels (these are still to be found among some African tribes) in which two groups, each having a leader or soloist, took turns to abuse and taunt each other in the most picturesque language they could muster. Simple allegories or parables, and through them symbolism in general, sprang from magical ceremonies intended to ensure good crops or propitiate spirits.

In the palmy days of Athens, under the chattel-slavery system, the ruling-class enjoyed unprecedented prosperity and leisure. Men studied each other and contemplated the universe. Ritual drama became human tragedy with Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, while the rapid advance of scientific knowledge in physics, mathematics and astronomy brought about the development of prose-writing. Plato, Herodotus, Socrates and Democritus all testified to the advance of learning, and with it of clear, precise expression, at this period. Similarly in Rome some time later the lucid, majestic rhythms of Cicero and the incisive dryness of Caesar reflected both a high degree of knowledge and a simple but rigid economic and political system. The poetry of Rome was mainly didactic or professorial; this again was symptomatic of chattel-slavery, for the knowledge was graciously imparted by a cultured few to the less enlightened of their fellow-rulers.

In the early and relatively static period of feudalism originality was sternly discouraged. Only “aristocratic" literature was countenanced; that is, songs and ballads directly commissioned by the lords and barons from singing poets (“troubadours") who plied for hire from castle to castle and, of course, piped whatever tune their buyers fancied. The best preserved and most famous of such lays are the French “ Songs of Deeds" (Chansons de Geste) of which the best known is the Song of Roland, story of the half-mythical Emperor Charlemagne and his bodyguard of twelve peers. The skeleton of this song-story is provided by ancient legends of the sun surrounded by the twelve signs of the Zodiac, and by rituals of the great Earth-Mother cult and of ancestor-worship; but these crumbling bones are clothed in most mediaeval flesh, and the behaviour and outlook of the characters are essentially feudal, particularly in their unswerving loyalty to their lords and their blind submission to an abstract Duty.

With the twelfth century Western Europe was entering upon the later stage of feudalism; the towns were increasing in number and size, commerce was extending, and a citizen or “burgher” class, independent of and opposed to the Lords of the Manor, was growing in power and confidence year by year. At this time Italy, self-contained and relatively prosperous, was the leader of thought and culture.

The divergent interests of barons and burghers reflected themselves in literature; a struggle began between conservative lyric poetry—given up to adulation of lords and sanctification of ladies— and the satirical realism of the "fabliaux” (notably “Reynard the Fox”) which were being chanted in the towns by the growing merchant class. These burlesque ballads depicted homely town life and mocked at courts and castles; their heroes were citizens and journeymen; they turned nobles and often priests into grotesques. At the same time we notice a growing use of dialect and colloquial speech in literature, as against Latin or the stilted old-fashioned Court language.

At this period also drama, which for centuries had been entirely religious in character, began to have a secular flavour. Irreverent comic relief or worldly advice was inserted between scenes of the Passion and Mystery Plays, and there grew up the Morality plays, in which, although the subject matter was still saturated with religious allusions and aspirations, the central characters were not supernatural but human beings.

The irruption of the burgher (or “bourgeois”) class into literature is seen at its height in Italy about 1300 with Dante, in England about 1400 with Chaucer, and in France about 1450 with Villon. This sequence is exactly in line with economic development in these three countries. The three poets, however, do not present exactly identical attitudes and emotions, for they did not write at exactly identical periods in relation to their respective countries. Dante was the very embodiment of bourgeois revolt, the supreme individualist ; he came before the success of the Italian burgher class, while' they were still weak and galled by the restrictions of feudalism, and is therefore essentially gloomy. Chaucer, on the other hand, wrote when the burghers of England, having gained power, were consolidating it, and he is full of pleasant humour and cheerful philosophy. The Frenchman, Villon, most interesting of the three, can be set in neither category. Nearer the threshold of the new society than Dante, he was both more jovial and alert—for life was growing fuller and held ever more diverse interests— and sourer, more sardonic, for life’s pitfalls and restrictions were more apparent and more keenly felt. His poetry reflected, accurately and subtly, bitterly and brazenly, the prolonged battle that was taking place between the old and the new, a battle contested not only in society at large, but in individual brains, and in particular the poet's own.

Stella Stewart.

(To be continued.)

Link to Part 2

Sociology of Eighteenth Century French Drama. by G. V. Plechanov. (1928)

From the July 1928 issue of the Socialist Standard

The study of the existence of primitive man confirms the fundamental statement of historical materialism, which declares that the consciousness of people is determined by their conditions. In support of this, it is enough to refer to the deductions made by Bucher in his remarkable research Arbeit und Rhythmus. He says :—

 “I came to the conclusion that labour, music and poetry at the first step of development were blended together, but the fundamental element of this triad was labour, and the two others were of secondary importance."

According to Bucher, the origin of poetry is explained by labor (Der Ursprung der Poesie ist in der Arbeit zu suchen), and one who is acquainted with the literature of this subject will not accuse Bucher of exaggeration. [1] Refutations launched by competent people are not concerned with the fundamental substance of Bucher’s theory, but only with certain secondary particulars. In essence, Bucher is undoubtedly right.

But his deduction primarily concerns itself with only the origin of poetry. However, what about its further development? How are poetry and art in general progressing in much higher steps of social evolution? Is it possible, and on what grounds, to note the existence of a causal relation between the state of being and the consciousness, between the technique and the economics on one side of society, and its art on the other?

We shall attempt to answer this question in this essay, and for this purpose shall treat of the history of the French drama during the eighteenth century.

It is necessary, first of all, to make a digression.

French society of the eighteenth century, from the point of view of sociology, is characterised primarily by the fact that it was a society divided into classes. This circumstance could not but reflect itself in the development of art. As a matter of fact, let us take even the theatre. On the stage of mediaeval France, as in all Western Europe, the main place was occupied by the so-called farce. Farces were written for the people and were acted before the people. They always served as an expression of the people’s views, its aims, and— what is especially necessary to note here— its discontents with the high class of society. But, beginning with the reign of Louis XIII, the farce begins to decline; it is considered as an amusement fitted only for lackeys and which is unworthy of people with a refined taste: "éprouvés des gens sages," as one French writer expressed it in 1625. Tragedy replaces the farce. But the French tragedy has nothing in common with the views, aims and discontents of the public mass. It represents a creation of the aristocracy and expresses the views, tastes and aims of the higher class of society. We will see what a deep impression this origin of class-division had upon the character of the tragedy; but, first of all, we wish to direct the reader's attention to the fact that in the epoch of the birth of the tragedy the aristocracy in France did not occupy itself with productive work, and lived by using that which was produced by the economic activity of the Third Estate (tier état). It is not difficult to understand that this fact could not but affect those productions of art which were arising in the aristocratic society, and which expressed the tastes of that society.

It is known, for instance, that the inhabitants of New Zealand praise the cultivation of certain native plants in their songs. It is also known that their songs are followed by a type of dancing which illustrates the motions performed by the cultivators of those plants. Here it is obvious in what manner the productive activity of man affects his art, and it is not less clear that since the upper class of society is not occupied with productive activity, as a result their art—which arises in their society—can have no direct relation to the public process of production. But does it mean that the causal dependence of consciousness upon conditions is enfeebled when a society is divided into classes? Absolutely not—for the division of society into classes is determined by the society's economic development. If art created by the upper class has no direct relation to the productive process, this also is explained by economic causes.

The materialistic interpretation of history, then, can be fully applied in this case, but it is understood that in this instance the undoubted causal connection between consciousness and conditions, between social relations—starting out on the ground of "work"—and art is not so easily disclosed. Here, between "work" on one side and art on the other, certain intermediate situations are formed which often attract the attention of scholars, and therefore make difficult the correct understanding of certain phenomena.

Having made this important digression, we shall return to our subject. First of all, we shall discuss tragedy. Taine states in his Lectures on Art:—

  “French tragedy appears at the time when the well-to-do and noble monarchy during the reign of Louis XIV organised the supremacy of manners, of fine aristocratic surroundings, a court life; and it disappears at the moment when the nobility—and morals—of court decline under the blow of the Revolution."

This is entirely true. But the historical process of the origin and especially the fall of the French classical tragedy was a little more complex than is presented by this famous art-theoretician.

Let us examine these kinds of literary productions in their form and substance.

From the side of form in the classical tragedy, it should first of all be noted that the famous three unities were the cause of so many disputes in the memorable period of French literature which involved the struggle between the romanticists and classicists. The theory of these unities had been known in France from the time of the Renaissance; but it became a literary law, and an indisputable rule of “good taste" not until the seventeenth century. "When Corneille wrote his Medea in 1629," Lanson remarks, "He knew nothing about the three unities." [2] As a propagandist of the theory of the three unities, Meré wrote during the 1630’s. In 1634 his tragedy, Sophonishe, was enacted—the first tragedy written in accordance with the "rules." It was the cause of a polemic in which the opponents of the "rules" put forth arguments much resembling the arguments of the romanticists. In defence of the three unities, the learned adherents to ancient literature were armed, and they had an absolute and firm victory. But to whom were they indebted for their victory? In any case not to the erudition in which the public was little concerned, but to the growing pretensions of the upper class for whom the naive scenic absurdities of the preceding epoch were getting intolerable.

  “Behind the unities was an idea which had to attract well-bred people" continues Lanson, “the idea of exact imitation of reality, capable of conveying the necessary illusion. In its real sense the unities represent the minimum of conditionality . . . Thus, the triumph of the unities was in the real sense a triumph of realism over imagination.” [3]

And thus the refinement of the aristocratic taste, increasing with the strengthening of “the noble and well-disposed monarchy," conquered. Further progressions of theatrical technique made an exact imitation of reality fully possible without the observation of the unities; but the representation of them was associated in the minds of the spectators with a whole series of scenes important and dear to them; therefore, their theory seemed to acquire an independent value, though depending on the indisputable demands of good taste. In the course of time the prevalence of the three unities was supported, as we shall see later, by other social causes, and the theory, therefore, was defended even by those who despised the aristocracy. The struggle with the theory of the unities became very difficult; in order to overthrow them the romanticists required much ingenuity, persistence and almost revolutionary energy.

Having touched upon theatrical technique, let us also note the following:—

The aristocratic origin of French tragedy also affected the art of the actors. Everybody knows that the acting of French players to this day. is characterised by a certain artificiality and even a stiltedness, which makes a rather unpleasant impression on a spectator unacquainted with this fact. Whoever saw Sarah Bernhardt will not dispute this with us. Such manner of playing is inherited by the French actors from the time when the classic tragedy reigned on the French stage. The aristocratic society of the seventeenth and eighteenth century would have revealed discontent had the actors of tragedy thought of acting with the naturalness and simplicity that enthralled the audiences of Eleanor Duse. Simple, natural acting absolutely contradicted all of the requirements of aristocratic aesthetics. The Abbé Du Bos proudly stated :—

  “The French do not limit themselves only with a costume to add the required nobility and dignity to the actors and the tragedy. We also demand that the actors speak in a higher and slower tone than that employed in common speech. This is a more difficult manner, but it has more bearing. Gesticulation must correspond to the tone, for our actors must display greatness and ability in everything they do."

But why did the actors have to display grandeur and nobility? Because tragedy was the child of court aristocracy and the leading characters were kings, heroes and, as a rule, such “high-place” persons, who, so to speak, the duty of service obliged to appear great and noble, if they really were not. A dramatist, in whose productions there was not the required conditional dose of court “nobility,” even though possessed of great merit, would never have received applause from the spectators of that period. This is best seen from the French opinions expressed about Shakespeare at that time, and through the influence of France even in England.

Hume found that Shakespeare’s genius ought not to be exaggerated; unproportioned bodies often seem taller than their actual height; for his time Shakespeare was good, but he did not fit in with the refined audience. Pope expressed regret that Shakespeare wrote for the populace and not for the well-bred. “Shakespeare would have written better,” he said, “had he enjoyed the protection of the monarch and the support of the court people.” Voltaire himself, who in his literary activity was a harbinger of a new era, inimical to the old order, and who gave to many of his tragedies a philosophic content, paid an enormous tribute to the aesthetic conceptions of aristocratic society. Shakespeare appeared to him a genial but rough barber. His opinion of Hamlet is noteworthy, indeed. He says :—

   “This piece is full of anachronisms and absurdities; in it Ophelia is buried on the stage, and this is such a monstrous spectacle that the famous Garrick got rid of the scene in the cemetery. This piece is rich with vulgarities. For instance, in the first scene the watchman says: 'I did not even hear the stamping of mice.' Must such absurdities be tolerated? Without doubt, a soldier speaks thus in the camp, but he must not express himself so on the stage before the selected persons of the nation—persons who talk in a noble tongue and in whose presence it is necessary to speak not less nobly. Imagine, gentlemen, Louis XIV in his glass gallery surrounded by his glistening court, and then imagine a jester covered with rags pushing the crowd of heroes aside—the great nobles and beauties which constitute the court—and proposing that they throw up Corneille, Racine, and Moliere for Punch and Judy, who possess sparks of talent, or make grimaces. What do you think? How was such a jester met? ”

These words of Voltaire not only indicate the origin of the French classic trageoy, but also the cause of its fall. [4]

Exquisiteness easily passes into affectation, and affectation excludes the serious and meditative refinement of the object.

The sphere of choice of objects must certainly have become narrow under the influence of the class prejudices of the aristocracy. Class conception of proprieties was clipping the wings of art. In this respect the demand which Marmontel put forth in the tragedy is extremely interesting and instructive:—

  “A both peaceful and well-bred nation, in which everyone thinks it necessary to adjust his ideas and feelings to the manners and customs of society, a nation where proprieties serve as laws—such a nation can allow only those characters which are softened with respect to their associates, and only such vices which are mitigated by propriety."

Class propriety becomes a criterion when valuing art productions. This is enough to bring forth the fall of classic tragedy. But this is not yet enough to explain the appearance on the French stage of a new kind of dramatic production. In the meantime, we see that in the 1830’s a new literary genre appears—the Comedie Larmoyante, the tearful comedy, which for a time had a fairly notable success. If consciousness is explained by conditions, if the so-called economics is in causal dependence to its economic progress, then the economics of the eighteenth century should also explain the appearance of the tearful comedy. The question is: Can it do it?

It not only can do it, but it did in part, though without any serious method. In proof we’ll refer, for instance, to Gettner, who, in his history of French literature, views the tearful comedy as a result of the growth of the French bourgeoisie. But the growth of the bourgeoisie, like the growth of any other class, can be explained only by the economic development of society. Therefore, Gettner, unsuspectingly and against his own desire—he is a great enemy of materialism, about which, by the way, he has the most stupid conception—applies the materialist interpretation of history. And not only Gettner! Brunetière, far better than Gettner, showed this causal dependence in his book, Les epoques du theatre francais. He writes :—

  “Since the time of the failure of Lau’s bank —to stop at this point—the aristocracy loses ground every day. It seems to hasten to do everything that a given class can do in order to . . . but especially does it (the aristocracy) become impoverished, while the bourgeoisie, the third estate, multiples its wealth, and, gaining more and more importance, acquires in addition the consciousness of its rights. As one poet afterwards expressed it, in their hearts a hatred was born simultaneously with the thirst for justice. Is it possible then that the bourgeoisie took no advantage of the theatre—such a means as it was of disposing propaganda and influence; that the bourgeoisie did not take their situation seriously; did not look with a tragic view at the inequalities which only amused the author of the comedies. Bourgeois gentilhomme and Georges Dandin? And, above all was it possible that this triumphing bourgeoisie became reconciled with the constant performances concerning emperors and kings and that it did not take advantage of its increasing wealth to demand the portrayal of its own life? ”

And so the tearful comedy was a portrait of the French bourgeoisie of the eighteenth century. Not incorrectly is it called the bourgeois drama. But Brunetière’s view, though correct, has a too general, and, therefore, abstract character. Let us develop it more fully.

Brunetière says that the bourgeoisie could not reconcile itself with the perpetual representations of emperors and kings. This is very probable after his emanations in the above citation, but so far it is only probable; it will become certain only when we investigate the psychology of at least a few persons who took an active part in the literary life of France at that time. To them the talented Beaumarchais—the author of several tearful comedies—belonged. What did Beaumarchias think, then, of the constant representation of only emperors and kings?

Decidedly and passionately he rebelled against it. He rarely laughed at the literary rule which caused tragedy to depict its heroes only as kings and others illustrious in this world, and which, on the other hand forced comedy to whip in people of the lower estate.

   "To depict the weal and woe of people of the Third Estate! Fi donc! One can only laugh at these! Ridiculous citizens and unfortunate kings—this is all that can be permitted on the stage. Very well, we shall remember that.” [5]

This sharp exclamation of one of the most outstanding ideologists of the Third Estate apparently proves, therefore, the psychological attitude of Brunetière. But Beaumarchais not only desired to portray the people of the Third Estate in their unfortunate situations. He protested also against the custom of choosing actors from the heroes of the ancient world.
  "What interest have I, a peaceful citizen of monarchial empire of the eighteenth century, with the events of Rome or Athens? Can 1 be intensely interested in the death of some Peloponnesian tyrant or in the sacrificing of a young princess in Aulis? All this does not concern me in the least; from all this I derive no significance." [6]

(Translated by Bessie Peretz for the 
“Modern Quarterly.")

(To be continued.)

Part II.

Notes:

[1] M. Herness remarks that the art of primitive decoration could develop only by depending upon industrial activity, and that those peoples who, like the Ceylon Vedas, as yet know nothing of industrial life, have no decoration. (Urgeschichte, der billenden Kunst in Europa. Wien, 1898, Page 38.) This conclusion is similar to the one made above by Bucher.
[2] Historie de la litterature francaise. Page 415
[3] Ibid.
[4] We will remark at this point that it was mainly this side of Voltaire's view-point that made him so repulsive to Lessing, the ideologist who adhered to German burgher-dom. This is well explained in F. Mering's book, Die Lessings Legend.
[5] Lettre sur la critique du Barbier de Séville.
[6] Essai sur le genre dramatique sérieux. Oeuvre 1. Page 11.

Sociology of Eighteenth Century French Drama. by G. V. Plechanov. (1928)

From the December 1928 issue of the Socialist Standard

Part 1.

Part II.
The choice of heroes from the ancient world was one of the numerous manifestations of the passion for the old, which itself was an ideological reflection of the struggle of the newly blossoming social state with feudalism. From the time of the Renaissance this love for the old civilisation passed over to the age of Louis XIV, which, as we know, has been compared to that of August. But when the bourgeoisie began to be imbued with an antithetical frame of mind, when in its heart “hatred together with a thirst for justice” began to grow, then the fascination of ancient heroes— fully shared by its educated representatives —appeared antedated, and the events of ancient history seemed to be insufficiently instructive. The hero of the bourgeois drama is “the man of the middle state,” more or less idealised by the ideology of the bourgeoisie. This characteristic case, of course, could not harm the portrayal.

Let us go further. A true creator of the bourgeois drama in France was La Chaussee. Now what do we see in his many productions. An opposition to this or other sides of aristocratic psychology, a struggle with these or other prejudices—or, if you choose, vices—of the nobility. The contemporaries valued, above all, the moral preaching these productions embodied. And from this point of view the tearful comedy was true to its origin.

It is known that the ideologists of the French bourgeoisie who aimed to give its portrayal in their dramatic productions, did not display much originality. The bourgeois drama was not created by them, but was carried over to France from England. In England this kind of dramatic production sprang up at the end of the seventeenth century as a reaction against the awful looseness which then predominated on the stage, and which was a reflection of the moral fall of the English aristocracy. The bourgeoisie—struggling with the aristocracy—wanted the comedy to become “worthy of the Christians,” and began to preach in it the mores of its class. The French literary innovators of the eighteenth century, borrowing extensively from English literature everything which corresponded to the conditions and feelings of the French bourgeoisie, carried to France this characteristic of the English tearful comedy. The French bourgeois drama, no less than the English, preaches the virtues of the bourgeois family. This is one of the secrets of its success. At first glance, it seems entirely inconceivable that the French bourgeois drama, which, around the middle of the eighteenth century, appeared to be an established literary production, fell to the background even before the classic tragedy, which, from all logic, should have receded before the bourgeois tragedy.

We shall shortly see how this strange circumstance is explained, but, before, let us say this;

Diderot, who, thanks to his passionate desire for innovation, could not but be attracted to the bourgeois drama, and who, as we know, participated in the new literary field (recall his Le fils naturalle in 1757, and his La pere de famille in 1758) demanded that the stage give a representation, not of a character, but of a condition—particularly a social condition. He was replied to in the following manner: Social conditions do not define a person.  "What is,” he was asked, “a judge in himself (le jugen soi)? What is a merchant in himself (le negociant eti soi)?" But here was a wide misunderstanding. Diderot talked not about the merchant en soi, but about the merchant of that time, and especially about the judge of that period. And that judges gave much of instructive material for very realistic scenic representation is best seen in the famous comedy, Le marriage de Figaro. Diderot’s demand was only a literary reflection of the revolutionary aims of the French “middle state” of that era.

(To be continued.)

Part II continued.

Sociology of Eighteenth Century French Drama. by G. V. Plechanov. (1929)

From the January 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

Part II

Part II—continued

A child of the aristocracy, the classic tragedy, unlimitedly and indisputably reigned on the French stage while the aristocracy predominated socially in the bounds assigned by the constitutional monarchy, which itself was a historic result of the lasting and embittered struggle of classes in France. When the supreme position of the aristocracy began to be a subject of dispute, when people of “the middle state” were possessed of a rebellious frame of mind, the extant literary conceptions began to appear to these people unsatisfactory, and the old theatre not instructive, enough. And then, simultaneous with the gradual fall of the classic tragedy, the bourgeois drama made itself evident. In the bourgeois drama the French “man of middle state" set his family virtues against the deeply-spoiled aristocracy. But that social contradiction, which France then had to solve, could not be decided by the aid of moral preaching. The subject was then not about the removal of aristocratic vices, but the removal of the aristocracy itself. It is understood that this could not come to pass without embittered struggle, and it is not less clear that the father of the family, in all fervent esteem of his bourgeois morality, could not serve as the model of an untiring and intrepid martyr. The literary portrayal of the bourgeoisie did not inspire heroism. And yet the opponents of the old order felt the need of heroism, were conscious of the necessity of the development of civic virtues in the Third Estate. Where was it possible, then, to find models of such virtue? There — where they searched before for standards of literary taste : in the ancient world.

So again the reversion to heroes of the old civilisations. Now the opponent of the aristocracy says no more — like Beaumarchais—“Of what concern to me, a citizen of a monarchical state of the eighteenth century, are the events of Athens and Rome?” Now the Athenian and Roman events re-awakened in the public the liveliest interest. But this interest took on another character.

If the young ideologists of the bourgeoisie were interested now in sacrificing a young princess of Aulis, they were interested in it mainly as a source of material for revealing superstition; if their attention could be attracted by the “death of some Pelopennesian tyrant,” then this attraction was due, not so much to its psychologic as its political side. Nor were they attracted by the monarchical age of August, but by the republican heroes of Plutarch. Plutarch became the text-book of the young bourgeois ideologists, as the memoirs of Mme. Rolland show. And this love for the republican heroes once more revived an interest in ancient life. Imitation of antiquity became the fashion, and it put a deep imprint upon all French art of the time. We shall note that, in addition, this same imitation weakened the interest in the bourgeois drama, because of the prosaicness of its substance, and for a long time delayed the death of the classic tragedy.

Historians of French literature frequently have asked themselves in surprise: what is the explanation of the fact that the plotters and workers of the great French Revolution remained conservatives in the domain of literature? And why did classicism fall only a long time after the fall of the old order? But in reality the literary conservatism of the innovators of that time was only external. If tragedy did not change as a form, then it suffered a necessary change in the matter of content.

Let us take Spartacus, the tragedy of Sorraine, which appeared in 1760. Its hero, Spartacus, is full of yearning for freedom. For the sake of his great idea he even refuses to marry the girl he loves, and all through the play he continues to talk about freedom and humanity. In order to write such tragedies and praise them, it was absolutely essential that one be not a literary conservative. An entirely new and revolutionary substance was poured into the old literary leather flasks.

Tragedies like those of Sorraine and Lemverre exemplify one of the most revolutionary demands of the literary innovator Diderot: they depict, not characters, but social conditions, and especially the revolutionary social tendencies of the time. And if this new wine was poured into old leather flasks, then it is to be explained by the fact that these leather flasks were overshadowed by the same antiquity, the general love for which was one of the most significant, most characteristic symptoms of the new social mood. Side by side with the diverse types of the classic tragedy, according to Beaumarchais, the bourgeois drama could not but seem too poor, too insipid, too conservative in its content.

The bourgeois drama was brought to life by the opposite attitude of the French bourgeoisie, and no longer was suitable for the expression of its revolutionary inclination. The literary portrayal accurately defined the transition of the bourgeois; therefore the characterisations ceased being interesting when the bourgeoisie’ lost these features and when these features ceased to seem pleasant.

The classic tragedy existed close to the time when the French bourgeoisie finally triumphed over the defenders of the new order, and when the love for the republican heroes of antiquity lost all social significance for the bourgeoisie. And when this time came, the bourgeois drama received new impetus, and suffered some necessary changes according to the peculiarities of the new social condition, but these changes were not important nor definite enough to prevent the drama’s asserting itself on the French stage.

Even those who refused to acknowledge any consanguineous relation between the romantic drama and the bourgeois drama of the eighteenth century would have to agree that the dramatic productions of, for instance, the son of Alexandre Dumas represent the bourgeois drama of the nineteenth century.

In the productions of art and literary tastes of a given time is expressed the social psychology; and in the psychology of a society which is divided into classes much will remain vague and paradoxical to us if we continue to ignore—as the historical idealists do, despite the best intentions of the bourgeois historical scientists—the mutual relation of classes and the class struggle.

(Translated for Modern Quarterly by Bessie Peretz.)

Concluded.

Interpreting Shakespeare (1950)

Book Review from the February 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

New books on the life, works and ideas of Shakespeare are continually added to the enormous literature on the subject. Recent additions have included Ivor Brown's "Shakespeare," Duff-Cooper's “Sergeant Shakespeare" (in which it is suggested that be must have served in the army to have gained his familiarity with military matters), and a reprint of Hesketh Pearson's lively and entertaining "Shakespeare" that Ivor Brown catalogues under the heading "Imaginative.” Pearson seeks to interpret Shakespeare’s writings in the light of political and other happenings at the time, and of Shakespeare's likely reactions to them. Writing during the recent war when, as Pearson puts it, the world had before its eyes in the persons of Hitler, Mussolini, etc., a large number of modem Julius Caesars. Pearson claims that Shakespeare, with a similar example to study at first hand in Queen Elizabeth, had a much better understanding of Caesar and of all dictators than is shown by G. B. Shaw in his idealised version of the ancient Roman dictator.

But for Socialists a much more profitable study is "Shakespeare—A Marxist Interpretation,” a short work by A. A. Smirnov, translated from the Russian and published in 1937 by the “Critics Group” (96, Fifth Avenue. New York).

Smirnov set out to relate Shakespeare's views to the basic economic and political changes and class struggles taking place in the 16th century.

He argues alike against those who see Shakespeare as "the ideologist of the feudal aristocracy” as against those who see him as "the ideologist of that section of the nobility which was acquiring bourgeois trappings.” To Smirnov, “Shakespeare was the humanist ideologist of the bourgeoisie, the exponent of the program advanced by them, when, in the name of humanity. they first challenged the feudal order, but which they later disavowed ” (Pages 92 and 93). According to this interpretation, which Smirnov supports with many quotations from the plays, Shakespeare in the early years portrayed in a favourable light the absolutist monarchy needed by rising Capitalism as a protection against the warring feudal barons. Later, that need became less urgent, the Monarchy and Court degenerated and leaned towards feudal reaction, and at the same time the narrow Puritan group emerged as a representation of capitalist interests and outlook.

Then Shakespeare, who was particularly antagonised by the Puritan hostility to the theatre, found himself, like other "humanists,” faced with the dilemma of the contrast between early bourgeois ideals and the sordid money-grubbing of the bourgeois way of life. To some extent he then "surrendered his former position and yielded to the taste of the reactionary aristocracy which held such triumphant sway over the London stage in 1610.” (P. 85.)

The evidence adduced by Smirnov is necessarily partly speculative and may or may not convince the reader; but those who follow his argument will at any rate appreciate that here is a serious study worth many of the more usual superficial interpretations.

It is not made clear whether Smirnov is, or was. a supporter of the Stalin regime in Russia and he wrote very guardedly when expressing dissent from views on Shakespeare held by some Soviet writers. But one of his tributes to Shakespeare would certainly now give offence to Stalin worshippers. He praises Shakespeare for having had the insight to realise "three centuries before the appearance of scientific history,” that the battle of Agincourt was not won by “a little group of well-born heroes, but by the English soldiers.” If Shakespeare lived in Russia now and wrote plays dealing with the war he would have to reshape his ideas and become a groveller. He would have to pay slavish tribute to "the great leader and supreme commander of genius. Generalissimo of the Soviet Union. Stalin." “the greatest man of our planet." "creator of Soviet military science.” etc., etc.

Edgar Hardcastle

Marxism and Literature (1991)

Book Reviews from the May 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

Engels once commented that he learned more about history by reading the novels of Balzac than the historians ever told him. Literature is part of history; it reflects and contributes to its struggles, even if that is not the writer's intention. In The Ideology of the Text (Open University Press. £8.99) Christopher Hampton launches a timely assault upon those who seek to explain literature purely in terms of the words contained within texts, as if these can be extricated from historical motion and converted into “pure” literary form. Hampton exposes such theories as being:

in essence a refutation of the Marxist position, which takes its stand on the assumption that there are pre-existent material conditions which we can identify and relate to. and which determine the ways in which we act and think and feel.

The “mystificatory detachment" of the post-modernist critics is seen by Hampton as an excuse by which critics opt out of the necessity of explaining the texts of literature in terms of their ideological status—the sense in which they express the class consciousness either of the oppressor or the oppressed.

He looks at a number of important writers (Shakespeare, Milton, Blake, Arnold, Morris) and attempts to treat the crucial question of how to decide their ideological colour. Shakespeare, for example, is seen as so much a part of the established English cultural institutions that quite absurd readings of his plays have emerged; Hampton cites G. Wilson Knight's use of Cranmer’s speech at the end of Henry VIII as justification for his support of the Falklands War. A remarkably good historical contextualisation of Shakespeare's writings is offered, a reading of which alone justifies the purchase or loan of this book.

Again, the treatment of the poetry of William Blake is fought for against those who would confine such texts to the history of harmless Christian prophecies. Blake, it is argued, made the historically crucial and ideologically distinctive choice to reject the pessimism of so many other poets—many of whom justified their right to call themselves poets by their unceasing miserableness. In the case of Blake, writes Hampton.

Though his world did its best, callously and indifferently. to break him, it failed. He was not a pessimist. He saw the world as it was, but he was not content to accept it as it was; for he saw it as it could be.

Substantiation of this assertion is abundantly provided. More than most, a writer who saw the world as it could become was the revolutionary socialist, William Morris. Hampton concludes that:

Today, the kinds of questions Morris asked about the destructive conditions of his time have not lost their urgency. However changed the particular circumstances that govern our lives in the late twentieth century, we still live under the domination of a capitalist economy which functions by feeding off the common wealth of the people and by imposing restrictive and stunting conditions upon them.

It is a cause for celebration that a writer of Hampton’s ability is throwing his weight behind the cause of clear Marxian analysis, and that, in the spirit of Marx, his book serves not merely to explain literature but to use it as a springboard to political action.

Revolutionary writings

Too many people who think of themselves as “Writers” and “Authors" place themselves in the precious literary arena where they feel they must be insulated from the filth of political ideas. As Hampton says, this luxury is not available to writers: those who are not with us are for them. John Graham has edited an excellent anthology of writings by those who were not afraid to contaminate their pens with the stains of class struggle. Yours For The Revolution (University of Nebraska Press) is about The Appeal to Reason, a newspaper which was published in Kansas between 1895 and 1922. Graham offers an interesting historical introduction to the newspaper, although he over-emphasises the journal’s socialist claims. In effect, it was a mish-mash of mainly reformist alongside some highly revolutionary writings. Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle was first serialised in The Appeal To Reason and Debs was a frequent contributor. Compared to the more solidly Marxian writings of De Leon, the pieces by Debs are rather tame, although the equal of anyone in terms of fiery rhetoric. The anthology contains some truly moving pieces; from Helen Keller, Mother Jones, Jack London as well as the individualistic editor, J. A. Wayland.

There is one letter which particularly moved the present writer: from a worker who was poor and ill and resolved to end his life and send what remained of his money to the journal that he had spent years trying to sell to workers. In “His Last Letter’ (as the piece was entitled) the anonymous writer urges readers. "I pray and beg of you to be of good cheer and courage. Do not fear to own the cause or blush to speak the name. If you can’t talk (nearly all persons can if they will try) you can do a world of good by distributing literature. Don’t let'em rest until such barbarous customs are completely abolished . . . Our principles cannot be refuted, for Right is on our side and we are bound to succeed . . .” Of course, the movement which he died supporting did not succeed, and only on the basis of revolutionary consciousness could success come. Those interested in the all-too-frequently neglected history of the American working-class movement should read this anthology.

Far from succeeding, in many ways there have been years of awful failure following the days of the Wobblies and The Appeal to Reason. In the USA the trade union movement has fallen prey to the organised bandits who have used it for their own corrupt purposes. Dan La Botz’s Rank and File Rebellion (Verso) tells the story, which has been ignored by the British media, of the Teamsters for a Democratic Union and their efforts to wrest control of their union from bureaucratic leaders of the Jimmy Hoffa variety. The book makes compelling reading. If you did not think that there were militantly-minded wage slaves in the USA, then this book will open your eyes. The modern Teamsters’ movement understands the importance of democracy to working-class organisation and that is a vital lesson (not to understand only in theory, but in practical activity). They could do worse than to turn to Yours For The Revolution to learn that, as well as democracy, the workers need to be organised to a purpose: the abolition of the wages system.

Steve Coleman