 Welcome back to NPTEL, the National Program on Technology Enhanced Learning. As you are aware, these lectures are being brought to you by the Indian Institutes of Technology and the Indian Institute of Science. We are in module 4 of these series of lectures and you are aware that the fourth module is devoted entirely to literary criticism. We have several schools of criticism here, which we are going to talk about to discuss and we have already been through two of these and today the topic is Marxist literary criticism. In the last two lectures, we looked at some of the important postulations given by classical literary criticism and by liberal humanism and we are now today moving into a very important, if not the most important school of literary criticism, which has had a rich tradition and a long history. Before we go to Marxist literary criticism proper, it is very important for us to know what Marxism as an approach, as an ideology, well as a critical tool, as an analytical tool entails. Some of you we are sure are aware of the main postulates, the main theoretical, you could say the main propositions of Marxism as a whole, but let us at the beginning of today's lecture first look at what the main points in Marxism are. You are aware that the two most important figures in Marxism are Karl Marx and his collaborator Frederick Engels and you also aware that the most perhaps the most famous treatise by them written by them is entitled the Communist Manifesto. Now, what exactly is Marxism or as an approach and as said as a tool, as an analytical tool, studying society, politics, philosophy, literature. What are the most important things that we as students of language or literature ought to know. So, let us come to the first slide here, generally their approach is known as historical materialism. Now, we need to look at first at these two terms, historical and materialism or history and matter. Before we ask the important questions within historical materialism, we need to know what materialism is. Materialism does not mean materialistic or somebody who you know somebody for whom material things or say luxury goods or consumer goods are you know are very dear or are you know somebody who lives a life that is known as a materialistic quote unquote materialistic life. Here it is different. Idealism is usually understood versus another term in philosophy namely idealism. Now, obviously I cannot go you know into detail about these, but suffice it for us here to know that idealism is an approach is an is a school of thought is an ideology. So, to speak that looks you know or that considers the idea or the spirit as the most you know as a source source or whether it is life or the source of meaning or the source of our destinies. The one of the most important proponents of idealism was the German philosopher G. W. F. Hegel. Hegel believed in what is what he called the absolute spirit. He believed in a in a in a platonic sort of way. We know that Plato believed in forms that are eternal and this world being only a mere reflection of those eternal forms. Likewise, Hegel believed in the idea that everything emanated from an eternal idea idea with a capital I idea and that we are a mere reflection of that eternal idea or God or absolute spirit. On the other hand materialism completely rejects the idea or you know the idea or you know forms or God or absolute spirit as the source of all life, all meaning and all movement in history. Materialism holds that matter is supreme, that all meaning, all life, all social arrangements are destinies. So, to speak now here by destiny I do not mean the way we understand destiny in you know pre-ordained sort of a religious sort of ways that destiny simply how our lives are going to work themselves out. The source of all this is matter, more about that a while. So, suffice it for us to understand here at this stage simply with these two terms historical materialism that the source of all meaning the source of our life, the source of all our arrangements social economic political is matter and it has a historical, you know it has a history behind it. The kind of lives that we are leading here today is a result of history looked at from a material sense. So, you understand what materialism is that it is not being materialistic in the sense of liking you know fancy cars etcetera. So, let us look at the slide here what would historical materialism seek to study. Historical materialism seeks to study things like the organization and structure of societies. So, it would ask questions like how are societies organized and structured and second how do these societies develop and change. So, in the first case is really the structure and the organization of society and the second is society in motion. What leads to social change? Why do societies change? We know that societies do not remain the same social arrangements rules regulation norms etcetera. The kind of lives that we lead are you know these are never the same these change. So, Marxism true is historical materialist approach seeks to give us answers right. So, here we see in the slide that the structure of societies and the causes of change of societies the movement of societies the nature of their movement. These are you know basically speaking these are the things that are sought to be understood by Marxism as a whole as you know we have not yet moved into Marx's literary criticism. Next again the two very important terms in Marxism. So, we know that we are we study socio-cultural change structure, organization and change and we ask the question how why do societies change and what are the causes of social change right. So, Marx's health that among other things the forces of production those productive forces which contribute towards the production of our material lives right and the relations of production that is the relations of between you know or among people in the production process right among people are sorry are determined by or are related to so to speak to the forces of production. These together we understand as what they called what Marx called the mode of production that is every historical epoch is going to be characterized by a certain mode a certain mode of production or you could say a certain way of production. Now, let me give you a few examples what are these modes of production modes of production are as we know these are you know this really is a it is it is interesting that Marxism is both a micro and a micro theory. So, if you look at history, history is explained in Marxism as you know marked by different ways of production production of what production of essentially our material lives right. Now, examples here would be for instance ancient slavery in ancient slavery you had a certain way of production in feudalism you had a certain way of production where land was the most important factor and the relations of production essentially were you know may be characterized by two sort of binary you know binary opposite social state our life for instance the landlord and on the other hand the tenant who works on the land and on the landlords farm sorry. Now, these are relations of production which are sort of corresponding to the mode of production that is there in the time. So, social change is explained as you know a crisis so to speak happening in history during certain times when the forces of production are you know the forces of production are not sort of in sync with the relations of production when the forces of production are they develop at such a what are forces of production forces of production you know are different factors that go into the production process technology could be one science and technology for instance. And these are the social organization is such that they the social relations of production act as as Marx says act as chains or fetters on the forces of production the forces of production eventually sort of are free of free themselves from the social relations of production and society moves into you know if you if you want to understand this the understand the source of why society changes because the forces of production and relations of production are sort of at odds right and the forces of production you know sort of are free from the social relations of production and society moves on to another epoch. Then the next important terms are the base and the superstructure Marx argued that every in every society and every mode of production every epoch there is what we call we can have a two tier almost an architectural sort of metaphor is used here a two tier structure of you know and sort of an infrastructural base and the superstructure the base if you look at the slide here the base comprises again the forces of production and the relations of production the base is an economic base to put it very simply here of course the base is an economic base now Marx says that according to right this is very important according to the nature of the economic base there would arise corresponding superstructural elements now in the superstructure he said these are essentially to put it you know to use one term only for it is these are cultural elements for instance corresponding to now remember we are using words like corresponding to Marx never meant that these are deterministic that the base is completely going to determine he kept it more you know he gave it more space really and he understood the enormous complexity of the superstructural elements ok. So, he says that these are determined by all these correspond to right the economic base and here we find the legal system for instance then social very important social institution like the family, religion, education and eventually our consciousness now when we study Marx's literary criticism what are we going to do where are we going to place the literary text it is obvious to us that the literary text would be in the superstructure my correct here the products art for instance the products of our consciousness right like art will also be related to the economic base that is the forces of production and the relations of production or what we may call the mode of production this is very important for us to understand before we go to study what Marx's literary criticism is again to quickly recapitulate Marxism studies or Marxism the aim of Marxism is to study the organization and structure of society. Second to study how societies and why societies change how they develop from one epoch to another we call it historical materialism because we understand the past in terms of our in relation to in very important relation to history or to the present to history that is the present is always determined by history and you know we do away with the idealist Hegelian way of looking at the idea is the most important source of everything and here the idea is replaced by matter. So our material economic arrangements right give rise which is the base give rise to the superstructural elements in our culture among which we find art also or being a very important part. So Marx lay great importance on social consciousness right for instance as we will find later on he said that our consciousness does not determine you know the kind of societies we have, but it is the kind of societies we have that eventually or that will always determine the kind of consciousness that we have. Here when we say consciousness we do not mean simply you know aware you know as being conscious or as being aware of things right. We mean by consciousness here we mean really our everything our mental consciousness, our emotional consciousness, our intellectual consciousness, our moral consciousness right. So all our norms or so called virtues or so called you know evil aspects or you know everything that is part of our consciousness our ideas of good and bad, our ideas of for instance the best social and the best economic or the best political arrangement. Our ideas of the best literary texts for instance these are all to be understood in the term consciousness here it is not just being like I am conscious or I am aware of my surroundings in a sort of cognitive sort of way. So let us read from this slide which will make this first point clear to us. When we talk about historical materialism we have to remember these words from Marxism that men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please. They do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly found given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all the death generations ways like a nightmare on the brain of the living. Now we obviously these are these words are beautifully put this says that we there is no doubt we make our own history or we make our own destinies, but the past plays most important part in sort of the carving out of our destinies or of our histories. Now we are going to move into Marx's literary criticism proper and what I have done in this lecture is obviously there are several ways you know in which you can or we could talk about Marx's literary criticism. Sometimes we can just refer to one book for instance Terry Gildon's very important book on Marx's literary criticism. What I have done here however is I have tried you know tried to bring to you some of the important formulations commenced in pronouncements on Marx's literary criticism from a couple of sources in a bit to enrich our understanding of Marxism. And in that with that view in mind we have first a quotation from Klekinov who says that the social mentality of an age is conditioned by that age's social relations. This is nowhere quite as evident as in the history of art and literature. We talked about social relations of production just a while ago when we referred to the two very important terms the forces of production and the social relations of production in Marxism. Now this is how we move into literary criticism from Marxism and one of the better ways is to put it through Klekinov for instance what does he say? He says here that the social mentality of any age is conditioned or is determined by the social relations of that age. This is a point also when we saw when we talked about the base and the superstructure the base. Now here Klekinov lays more importance on the social relations of production. He says that the social relations of production now again what is the social relations of production? Simply put for instance in a capitalist system the worker the worker and the owner of the means of production the capitalist that is a relation social relation of production. The relation between or among workers that also is a relation of production which is determined by the way the production process is arranged is very important and the economic mode of production that is all and the forces the nature of the forces of production even the degree of development of the forces of production. Now the social relations condition the kind of mentality now this mentality is also related to the word consciousness that we found a while ago. So, Klekinov says that you know how are we to gauge how are we to understand the nature even the complexities of the social mentality of any age. He says you only need to look at the art particularly the literature of a certain period. The literature of a certain period is more or less going to tell you what the social mentality of that particular epoch was like. Now, obviously it is not so simple as that all the literary texts of a certain age is going to be reflective of its social relations. It is of course, far more complex and it should be so, but if we have to theorize on the nature of the literary text in relation to the mentality social collective mentality of a particular period then we can safely say that the literature of a period shows us the social mentality in all again qualifying it in all its complexities, in all its different hues, in all its problem takes of that arises from the social relations of that particular epoch. And go back where does the social relation come from, where do the social relations of a particular age come from they eventually come from the mode of production or the economic arrangement. Do you understand? Now, from this slide really what we have done is we have begun to relate the literary text to Marx's propositions or to Marx's statements. To follow I hope this is this is an important point here in important juncture in our lecture today. So, we talked about historical materialism based on superstructure, forces of production, and we come to the we have come to the literary text as being you know as being a complex indicator so to speak of the social mentality that arises from the social relations and the economic relations of an age. So, this really is one of you know the part of theorizing of the literary text in relation to Marxism. Now, we will go straight to a quotation from Karl Marx himself from the Grunerys. Now, many say that Marx and also Engels did not really you know talk so much about the literary text about literature. Whatever you find are more or less sort of sporadic there are more collections on Marx and Engels on literature and art for instance, but it is said that their main focus was not obviously the literary text, but you know there are some brilliant insights that we get particularly from Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. When you look at some whenever or wherever they do talk about literature, art and its relation you know their relation to you know to social relations and forces of production the modes of production. We find some brilliant insights that are given which are then taken up by other scholars who practice criticism or theory from a Marxist perspective. One such quotation and this is something that is oft quoted is from the Grunerys. Now, let us read from here. Marx asks this question is Achilles possible when powder and shot have been invented and is the Iliad possible at all when the printing press and even printing machines exist. So, here first we find that Marx is through you know asking these questions is actually making a statement that in a time when there was the printing machine and the printing press, epics like the Iliad by Homer would not have been possible. In a way what is he saying? He is, see he is tying the literary text and epic to the material realities of its time by contrasting it the material realities of the time of Homer to the material realities of England for instance during the time of the printing press of the time of Jackson. He is proposing this that an epic like the Iliad would not have been written in a time of the printing press. The time of the printing press is also the time of the beginning of you know the rise of the middle class which is again important for the rise of the novel. So, the epic now takes a new form which is the novel in a time which is you know in a time which is very different not just you know not just as you know not not from the point of view of the ideas that were you know extend during the time, but also from the point of view of the material conditions. Let us read this again. Is Achilles possible when powder and gunshot have been invented and is the Iliad possible at all when the printing press and even printing machines exist? Is it now he asks is it not inevitable that with the emergence of the press bar the singing and the telling and the muse sees that is the conditions necessary look at this the conditions necessary for epic poetry disappear. In this question really he is giving us a statement that the way of the epic the nature of the epic is bound to disappear with the changes that are or with the disappearance of a certain material way of life. Do you understand he says singing the telling and the muse these sees to exist these factors of the epic these sees to exist you know with the emergence of the press. So now again this is yet another example of how materialism is then in this sense understood as the source of what even a of even the genre. How many changes in material lives can also change or in material conditions can also change the very genre of literary text. Then it is often argued that you know with Marxism a way of writing which is a realist mode is deeply entwined. Now Marx says and Engels demands on the artist now most of what I am reading here is from Terry Eagleton. Marxist and Engels demands on the artist include truthfulness of depiction almost a very similitude truthfulness of depiction a concrete historical approach to the events described and personages with live and individual traits reflecting typical aspects of the character and psychology of the class milieu to which they belong. So there is a certain not a mere reflectionism not a simplistic reflectionism, but you know from a Marxist point of view we would expect that the characters that are depicted in a novel for instance which is again you know which is again constrained by time and space you know where we know from which social milieu these characters come from at the time during which the time of the setting of a novel for instance Marx and Engels required or Marxism requires that the artist be faithful in his depictions or depictions of the characters and says the characters where even the individual traits of individual characters have to correspond to a certain type that was you know that was characteristic of a certain time. Now let us quickly read this again Marx and Engels demands on the artist include truthfulness of depiction a concrete historical approach to the events described and personages with live and individual traits reflecting typical aspects of the character and psychology of the class milieu to which they belong. The author of genuinely realistic works communicates his ideas to the reader not by didactic philosophizing right, but by vivid images which affect the readers consciousness and feelings by their artistic expressiveness. This word is very important here didactic there are many you know many scholars who are how shall we put it who are who are anti Marxist or who do not who argue against Marxist literary criticism importantly by saying that Marxist literary Marxist literary criticism is didactic right. So, in the sense that it is as they say too ideological right that it is almost again propagandist, but as Engels says Marxist literary criticism expects right a that the artist when he or she is you know is catching his characters delineating events for instance a be true to the actualities of those times and instead of philosophizing in a didactic or even in a doctrina fashion right would with vivid realist or realistic images right express their ideas or you know have the literary piece come out as an artistic expression which is far above the you know the didactic or moralizing philosophy that one would expect. This is very important what this also suggests that Marxist literary criticism was not looking for propagandist kind of literature it only asks that there be a connection there be not simply a connection, but there be a faithful you know depiction of the time and the types of characters that that were or are there in a particular in a particular stretch of time or space. Now, let me quote from Jauss his essay literary history as a challenge to literary theory because here it he makes an important distinction he talks about Marxism by making an important distinction between another school of thought that your many of us are here aware of that is a formalism particularly of the Russian school. Now, he says that the formalist school needs the reader only as a perceiving subject right who follows the directions in the text in order to perceive its form or discover its techniques or of procedure as you know form was enormously important in Russian formalism that is why the word formalism right form and he says that it is only enough for the reader to kind of discover you know the techniques or the formal aspects take joy and pleasure in sort of unraveling the you know identifying the formalist nature of you know formalist elements in a text. It assumes that the reader has the theoretical knowledge of a philologist sufficiently versed in the tools of literature to be able to reflect on them. So, you one expects that the reader should be in formalism should be well acquainted with you know the various tools or tools of analyzing literary text and should be able to discover so to speak the beauty of the formal elements. On the other hand he says the Marxist school on the other hand actually equates the spontaneous experiences is important where here the reader is assumed to be you know as he says sufficiently well versed or well trained in understanding the literary text, but on the other hand he says on the Marxist school actually equates to look at this word here the spontaneous experience of the reader with the scholarly interest of historical materialism. Now, by spontaneous we are not stopping at simply spontaneously experiencing a literary text along with one's spontaneous responsible literary text. One also expects the reader to bring in his or her scholarly interest of historical materialism which again let us read which seeks to discover relationships between now this is most important discover here you discover the form or the technique and take sort of you know take pleasure out of you know discovering the you know the nuances of technique and procedure. On the other hand in the Marxist you know approach what we do is we discover not the formal elements, but let us look at this here seeks to discover the relationships between the economic basis of production and the literary work as part of the intellectual superstructure. This I need you to really look at very carefully because it is really I bought in Niels's words you know it is because really I think he strikes the right code by saying that it is there is not that Marxist literary criticism engages itself only with kind of an archival work or almost you could say an even an architectural sort of work where you are trying to dig out history and trying to make you know a correlations between the text and you know the or the text position in his in space and time says no there is great joy this great spontaneity of the reader and when the reader is equipped with understanding the historical realities of the text. Then the pleasure the so called readerly pleasure of you know or the pleasure reading a text comes when you discover he says the relationship here between the economic basis of a particular age of or you know and its production process and the literary work as remember the part of the part of what part of the consciousness the cultural consciousness of a time or what he calls here the intellectual part of the intellectual production of the superstructure. This is very important for us to understand again what the three scholars we saw here a Plekhanov a of course, Marx himself when he asks the question would the Iliad have been possible or why on the other hand why is an epic not the most important genre during say for do you say the say 18th century England. It is because the material conditions have changed second we looked at Giorgi Plekhanov who said that the social mentality of an age is related to its social relations and we also know that the social relations are related to the forces of production of the economic arrangements and he claimed that nowhere is this relation most well you know sort of demonstrated than in the art and literature of a time. Then we found through Thierry Eagleton when he talks you know when he talks about the literary text here when he talks about when he talks about realism and he talks about the importance or even the expectation in Marxist literary criticism that there has should be you know a faithful depiction of characters you know of setting right according to the historical time in which the text is set. Then we came to Jaus who talks about who compares Marxist literary criticism and the formalist school and says that where as in the formalist school we try to unravel you know we try to get pleasure you know in the reading process by unraveling the formal structures of a text by unraveling you know the procedures that have been used. In contrast to that in Marxist literary criticism we have you know the spontaneous reading of a text tied to an understanding of the historical realities of that text and understanding a text a writer as you know part of the superstructural elements of any age as it says here to discover the relationship between the economic base of production and the literary work as part of the intellectual superstructure. These are immensely important formulations I would really say these are the core formulations that those of you who are beginning Marxist literary criticism we know this lecture is really a basic level lecture in a basic level course that has been designed for students particularly in engineering colleges who have their first exposure to language and literature. It is important for us to understand this systematically to find out what Marxism says a about society about social change in organization and b where the literary text lies as far as the entire Marxist framework is concerned. What according to them is the function of the literary text and secondly you know how is a reader to approach a literary text how is a reader to understand or perceive a literary text and we saw this in contrast to the formalist school. Then coming back to Terry Eagleton and again quoting from Marxism and literary criticism Eagleton says art and literature were part of the very air Marx breathed as a formatively cultured German intellectual in the great classical tradition of his society right Marx in fact some of you may not know Marx also had written poetry right and he had he had great he had great admiration for you know for the greatest of the writers like Shakespeare for instance and if you read Das Kapital and then some of his other works you will be surprised to find excuse me the literary allusions that we find in his text. We find here evidence of the accidentally fine mind who was not simply looking only you know you know only to make certain theoretical formulations on economics on culture on you know culture in the sense of the material lives that we lead. But we find here a person who was also you know also so well versed in literature and some of his writings really read like we saw in the example from Bruneris really you know read so you know read so beautifully when we look at them from an aesthetic point of view. Now Eagleton therefore says that art and literature he describes the milieu in which Marx was was writing art and literature were part of the very air Marx breathed as a formatively cultured German intellectual in the great classical tradition of his society. His acquaintance with literature from Sophocles to the Spanish novel Lucretius to pot boiling English fiction was staggering in its scope. The German workers circle he founded in Brussels devoted an evening a week to discussing the arts and Marx himself was an inveterate theater goer the claimer of poetry devourer of every species of literary art from Augustine prose to industrial ballads. This is Eagleton giving us the background of how Marx was also steeped among other things in literature. Then we come to a million Trotsky here because here we find you know how should I put it a variant of Marx's literary criticism that was you know that many feel was deeply a deeply polemical almost so to speak you know propagandist. So what I want to do here is you know bring to you what Trotsky kind of argued for in his seminal book literature and revolution published in 1924. So this kind of Trotsky's variant of Marx's literary criticism comes in for quite some flag from you know people who are who do not really follow the Marxist school of thought. Now let us look at the slide here Trotsky literature and revolution says that you know when one practices literary criticism one needs to one needs to lay focus on not you know the formal aspects not on you know the didactic aspects of the philosophy in the philosophy in there not on the so called spiritual aspects of a text he says that our job is to be polemical to be problematic to be interventionist. So that when we perform literary criticism on a text we are not simply looking at certainly not just a description of what the text is saying we are not looking at this formal aspects we need to be interventionist literary critic needs to intervene in the text in order to show the inequalities that are there in society in order to foreground the exploitation that is there in society hence called polemical or interventionist. So he says let us look at the slide again literary criticism should be polemical should be interventionist the literary critic should eventually help in giving shape to to to cultural policy to social policy and one should declare this is very important with Trotsky and one should declare what one stands on art and sorry culture is one should also declares one declares one's intellectual position right. So Trotsky here was very clear on the job so to speak or the function of a writer or sorry of a critic. So Trotsky says that culture feeds on the sap of economics and the material surplus is necessary so that culture may grow develop and become subtle he says in the social roots and the social function of literature that our Marxist conception of the objective social dependence and social utility of art when translated into the language of politics does not at all mean a desire to dominate art by means of decrease and orders. Culture is Trotsky seeking to defend his view of what Marxist criticism ought to be like he says we just because we want to study the objective social dependence and the social utility of art does not make does not mean that it is propagandist. So we will stop here indeed there is so much else to talk about I could only bring just a few critics here we should have also looked at Lucache and his theory of the novel and we could have also looked at some of you know a way in which some of the texts may be looked at from you know an actual text would have been decoded from a Marxist perspective. What I wanted to do is first to bring to you some of the you know the very core very elementary things that we should know about Marxism because you cannot go straight to Marxist literary criticism without knowing what Marx had to say about society about the organization structural society and though and why you know social you know social change happens in the first place and we therefore, saw well let me let me now you know pose some questions right. So, that we can we do this recap by posing some questions for instance if I ask you a question like this how did Marx look at social structure and social change how we going to answer that question one of the ways in which to answer this question obviously is to say that Marxism is an approach which is historical which is materialist. Then we go on to say the importance talk about the importance of history in Marxism in general in Marxist general theory in particular and we say that the source the source of meaning the source of you know understanding a literary text the source of our social lives our cultural arrangements the source of the kind of the nature of our social relations that we have and eventually the source of the literary text is not you know is not something that is you know that is that is sort of outside of the material world that we live in the source is not the idea we have to go beyond the idea and say that our social consciousness our literary consciousness comes from matter that is the most important thing matter in the sense of the way our material lives are arranged right. The way ways in which the economic base works right the rules and regulations which determine the production the distribution and consumption of material goods that leads to as we understood a superstructure right that base leads to a superstructure and that superstructure is conditioned though of course in very complex ways by the economic base and what was what is entailed in the superstructure in the superstructure we found are entailed social institutions like the family like religion like education and consciousness art literature second if you know we if we ask how is sort of how is the literary text the social mentality of an age and third the social relations of an age how are these related then we take recourse to Lekhanov's words for instance and we say that Marx's literary text looks at the social mentality Marx's literary criticism looks at the social mentality of an age as being best demonstrated or indicated so to speak by art and literature art and literature are the best best vehicle so to speak of the social mentality of an age now that social mentality is again related to the social relations of productions that are there at a certain given point of time and finally the social relations of production are determined by why what the way the economic arrangement is done in society to follow then next we may ask a question like what is you know we can ask what is you know the mode of writing that is most conducive so to speak to Marx's literary criticism or that is expected from a writer and we say that the realist mode is the mode of writing that is most conducive to an artist according to Marx's literary criticism and the realist mode demands this from an artist that he or she does not sort of go away from the type of characters that are possible in a certain age or in a certain given socio-cultural milieu we cannot move away from that if we have to be faithful to our depiction you know or in our depiction of characters and setting the setting should also reflect so to speak in however problematic and complex way should be reflective of the actual material conditions that were extant in that time so this is demanded from the and in this case it is really perhaps the realist novel the realist novel that you know is the best exemplar of what Marx's literary criticism expects a writer to do so that was what and we also remember Marx saying in the Brunerist that the epic is not sort of possible of course one can self consciously write you take say that well I am in the 21st century and I am going to write an epic we are not talking about that the epic is in a different sense not possible in a time where for instance there is a printing press and where material conditions are very different from say ancient Greece for instance and then in there we saw he said that the Iliad is not possible you know the characters like Achilles are not possible in a time when the material conditions are very different it is very important for us you know there are many critiques of what is called the vulgar school of Marxist criticism in the sense that in the sense that one always expects one always expects a propagandist kind of writing while we are always you know for instance the worker is you know the worker is shown to be to be in a very simplistic way the finest of characters whereas the for instance the capitalist is shown to be in a way the characters are not fleshed out there are no complexities that is the vulgar kind of Marxist criticism that many have perhaps rightly so attacked we also looked at Trotsky and literature and revolution one of you know the classic pieces in Marxist literary criticism and one that has been attacked also a lot by scholars who are against Marxist literary criticism by pointing to the fact that he always asked for interventionist you know an interventionist mode by the literary critic and by the artist for polemics for you know eventually shaping cultural policy right but Trotsky himself says that well just because we want to find out the you know you know and sort of scientific systematic objective we want to carry out an objective inquiry through the literary text into the socio-cultural relations of production into the economic base does not mean that we are doing it in a doctrinaire sort of way right. So, there is perhaps sought a balance between you know the pleasure of reading a text for its own sake and of course bringing in social change by showing the way the text willingly or unwillingly reveals the social inequalities and the realities of exploitation of a certain age. So, these are some of the questions that are important that may come up well there is indeed so much else to talk about as far as Marxist literary criticism is concerned but stay with this it is enough for us at this juncture to simply look at these important points this say foundational points that we have raised in our lecture and in the next lecture we shall move on with another school of criticism thank you for now see you next time.