Illusion and Reality
Encyclopedia
Illusion and Reality is a book of Marxist literary criticism
by Christopher Caudwell
published in 1937.
was in the process of a political conversion to Marxism
. Portions of the manuscript were produced at a rate of 5,000 words a day. In its use of political theory and history the book was influenced by the philosophy of Karl Marx
, but it also was strongly indebted to the literary criticism
of I. A. Richards
.
Caudwell
develops two main arguments in Illusion and Reality. First, each unique era of British poetry (The Romantic Period
, The Age of Pope, etc.) develops from a particular economic arrangement in bourgeois
society. Caudwell writes:
Caudwell
, here, is working within the Marxist framework of base and superstructure
and argues that both the poetic form and the content are determined by the economic base. To further illustrate this point Illusion and Reality includes a table that outlines the "General Characteristics" of the capitalist economy in Great Britain
during ten different eras and their related bourgeois
poetic forms, or "Technical Characteristics," from that same period. For example, Caudwell writes:
|-
! !! General Characteristics !! Technical Characteristics
|-
| The Era of Mercantilism and Manufacture, 1688-1750 || The Eighteenth Century.--Pope The shortage of labour makes the bourgeoisie continue to ally itself with the agricultural capitalist (the Whig "aristocrat") in order to maintain the laws and restrictions which will keep down the price of labour through the stage of manufacture. Poetry reflects a belief in the rightness and permanence of forms and restrictions, good taste and upper-class "tone". || The outward "rules" are now accepted, not as a compromise but as obvious and rational ingredients of style, measure, polish and the antithesis which restrains natural luxuriance. Vocabulary becomes formalised and elegantly fashionable.
|}
The table provides an outline for the historical progression of forms that Caudwell examines in Illusion and Reality and exemplifies the connection Caudwell sees between poetry and economic social relations.
Caudwell's
second major claim is that the act of creating poetry is a response by human instincts to the unfavorable conditions of bourgeois
life. In this argument, Caudwell
modifies the Freudian understanding of the creative process through Marx
.
death and was welcomed by Marxist critics who viewed Caudwell as something of a martyr. Among the non-Marxist literary establishment it received little notice.
published an article that challenged Caudwell's
opinion of poetry—particularly as it appeared in Illusion and Reality. Cornforth argued that Caudwell's
theory of poetry was idealized, dependent on a Freudian
concept of pre-social 'instincts' that was incompatible with Marxism
. George Thompson answered Cornforth
in the next issue (Spring 1951) by reaffirming Illusion and Realitys contribution to Literary criticism
. The next two issues (Summer and Autumn) saw the publication of another twelve responses, all differing on the value of Caudwell's
theory. Further responses were also published in journals in both Great Britain
and the United States
. The debate provoked a re-evaluation of Illusion and Reality and 'The Caudwell Controversy' became an important intellectual moment in the evolution of the British Socialist movement
.
. In Culture and Society
(1958), Raymond Williams
said of Illusion and Reality that it had "little to say of actual literature that is even interesting" and that the book "is not even specific enough to be wrong." Terry Eagleton
remarked about Caudwell
in 1976 that "there is little, except negatively, to be learnt from him.". Even E. P. Thompson
, one of Caudwell's
most generous late-interpreters, argued that the status of Illusion and Reality should be downgraded among Caudwell's works in favor of Studies in a Dying Culture (1938). From the late 1950s until the late 1980s, Illusion and Reality was equated with vulgar Marxism
. However, Christopher Pawling's 1989 book on Caudwell
sought to restore the reputation of Illusion and Reality by suggesting that it belongs to what Raymond Williams
called an "alternative Marxist tradition
" that included Antonio Gramsci
, György Lukács, and Lucien Goldmann
.
Marxist literary criticism
Marxist literary criticism is a loose term describing literary criticism based on socialist and dialectic theories. Marxist criticism views literary works as reflections of the social institutions from which they originate...
by Christopher Caudwell
Christopher Caudwell
Christopher Caudwell is the pseudonym of Christopher St. John Sprigg , a British Marxist writer, thinker and poet.He was born into a Catholic family living at 53 Montserrat Road, Putney district, south-west London...
published in 1937.
Overview
Illusion and Reality was written quickly during the summer of 1935, while CaudwellChristopher Caudwell
Christopher Caudwell is the pseudonym of Christopher St. John Sprigg , a British Marxist writer, thinker and poet.He was born into a Catholic family living at 53 Montserrat Road, Putney district, south-west London...
was in the process of a political conversion to Marxism
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
. Portions of the manuscript were produced at a rate of 5,000 words a day. In its use of political theory and history the book was influenced by the philosophy of Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
, but it also was strongly indebted to the literary criticism
Literary criticism
Literary criticism is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often informed by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of its methods and goals...
of I. A. Richards
I. A. Richards
Ivor Armstrong Richards was an influential English literary critic and rhetorician....
.
Caudwell
Christopher Caudwell
Christopher Caudwell is the pseudonym of Christopher St. John Sprigg , a British Marxist writer, thinker and poet.He was born into a Catholic family living at 53 Montserrat Road, Putney district, south-west London...
develops two main arguments in Illusion and Reality. First, each unique era of British poetry (The Romantic Period
Romantic poetry
Romanticism, a philosophical, literary, artistic and cultural era which began in the mid/late-1700s as a reaction against the prevailing Enlightenment ideals of the day , also influenced poetry...
, The Age of Pope, etc.) develops from a particular economic arrangement in bourgeois
Bourgeoisie
In sociology and political science, bourgeoisie describes a range of groups across history. In the Western world, between the late 18th century and the present day, the bourgeoisie is a social class "characterized by their ownership of capital and their related culture." A member of the...
society. Caudwell writes:
-
- "When we use the word 'modern' in a general sense, we use it to describe a whole complex of culture which developed in Europe and spread beyond it from the fifteenth century to the present day. There is something 'modern' in Shakespeare, Galileo, Michael Angelo [sic], Pope, Goethe and Voltaire which we can distinguish from Homer, Thales, Chaucer and Beowulf, and compare with Valery, Cézanne, James Joyce, Bergson and Einstein. This complex itself is changeful--no epoch of human history has been so variegated and dynamic as that from the Elizabethan age to ours. But then, the economic foundations too have changed, from fuedal to 'industrial'. This culture complex is the superstructure of the bourgeois revolution in production--a revolution whose nature was first analyzed completely by Marx in Das Kapital. Modern poetry is capitalist poetry.
Caudwell
Christopher Caudwell
Christopher Caudwell is the pseudonym of Christopher St. John Sprigg , a British Marxist writer, thinker and poet.He was born into a Catholic family living at 53 Montserrat Road, Putney district, south-west London...
, here, is working within the Marxist framework of base and superstructure
Base and superstructure
In Marxist theory, human society consists of two parts: the base and superstructure; the base comprehends the forces and relations of production — employer-employee work conditions, the technical division of labour, and property relations — into which people enter to produce the necessities and...
and argues that both the poetic form and the content are determined by the economic base. To further illustrate this point Illusion and Reality includes a table that outlines the "General Characteristics" of the capitalist economy in Great Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
during ten different eras and their related bourgeois
Bourgeoisie
In sociology and political science, bourgeoisie describes a range of groups across history. In the Western world, between the late 18th century and the present day, the bourgeoisie is a social class "characterized by their ownership of capital and their related culture." A member of the...
poetic forms, or "Technical Characteristics," from that same period. For example, Caudwell writes:
|-
! !! General Characteristics !! Technical Characteristics
|-
| The Era of Mercantilism and Manufacture, 1688-1750 || The Eighteenth Century.--Pope The shortage of labour makes the bourgeoisie continue to ally itself with the agricultural capitalist (the Whig "aristocrat") in order to maintain the laws and restrictions which will keep down the price of labour through the stage of manufacture. Poetry reflects a belief in the rightness and permanence of forms and restrictions, good taste and upper-class "tone". || The outward "rules" are now accepted, not as a compromise but as obvious and rational ingredients of style, measure, polish and the antithesis which restrains natural luxuriance. Vocabulary becomes formalised and elegantly fashionable.
|}
The table provides an outline for the historical progression of forms that Caudwell examines in Illusion and Reality and exemplifies the connection Caudwell sees between poetry and economic social relations.
Caudwell's
Christopher Caudwell
Christopher Caudwell is the pseudonym of Christopher St. John Sprigg , a British Marxist writer, thinker and poet.He was born into a Catholic family living at 53 Montserrat Road, Putney district, south-west London...
second major claim is that the act of creating poetry is a response by human instincts to the unfavorable conditions of bourgeois
Bourgeoisie
In sociology and political science, bourgeoisie describes a range of groups across history. In the Western world, between the late 18th century and the present day, the bourgeoisie is a social class "characterized by their ownership of capital and their related culture." A member of the...
life. In this argument, Caudwell
Christopher Caudwell
Christopher Caudwell is the pseudonym of Christopher St. John Sprigg , a British Marxist writer, thinker and poet.He was born into a Catholic family living at 53 Montserrat Road, Putney district, south-west London...
modifies the Freudian understanding of the creative process through Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
.
Early Reviews
Illusion and Reality was published shortly after Caudwell'sChristopher Caudwell
Christopher Caudwell is the pseudonym of Christopher St. John Sprigg , a British Marxist writer, thinker and poet.He was born into a Catholic family living at 53 Montserrat Road, Putney district, south-west London...
death and was welcomed by Marxist critics who viewed Caudwell as something of a martyr. Among the non-Marxist literary establishment it received little notice.
1950-1951 Caudwell Controversy
In the Winter (1950–51) issue of The Modern Quarterly, Maurice CornforthMaurice Cornforth
Maurice Campbell Cornforth was a British Marxist philosopher. When he began his career in philosophy in the early 1930s, he was a follower of Wittgenstein, writing in the then current style of analytic philosophy...
published an article that challenged Caudwell's
Christopher Caudwell
Christopher Caudwell is the pseudonym of Christopher St. John Sprigg , a British Marxist writer, thinker and poet.He was born into a Catholic family living at 53 Montserrat Road, Putney district, south-west London...
opinion of poetry—particularly as it appeared in Illusion and Reality. Cornforth argued that Caudwell's
Christopher Caudwell
Christopher Caudwell is the pseudonym of Christopher St. John Sprigg , a British Marxist writer, thinker and poet.He was born into a Catholic family living at 53 Montserrat Road, Putney district, south-west London...
theory of poetry was idealized, dependent on a Freudian
Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis is a psychological theory developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis has expanded, been criticized and developed in different directions, mostly by some of Freud's former students, such as Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav...
concept of pre-social 'instincts' that was incompatible with Marxism
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
. George Thompson answered Cornforth
Maurice Cornforth
Maurice Campbell Cornforth was a British Marxist philosopher. When he began his career in philosophy in the early 1930s, he was a follower of Wittgenstein, writing in the then current style of analytic philosophy...
in the next issue (Spring 1951) by reaffirming Illusion and Realitys contribution to Literary criticism
Literary criticism
Literary criticism is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often informed by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of its methods and goals...
. The next two issues (Summer and Autumn) saw the publication of another twelve responses, all differing on the value of Caudwell's
Christopher Caudwell
Christopher Caudwell is the pseudonym of Christopher St. John Sprigg , a British Marxist writer, thinker and poet.He was born into a Catholic family living at 53 Montserrat Road, Putney district, south-west London...
theory. Further responses were also published in journals in both Great Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
and the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. The debate provoked a re-evaluation of Illusion and Reality and 'The Caudwell Controversy' became an important intellectual moment in the evolution of the British Socialist movement
History of socialism in Great Britain
The History of socialism in the United Kingdom is generally thought to stretch back to the 19th century. Starting to arise in the aftermath of the English Civil War notions of socialism in Great Britain and Northern Ireland have taken many different forms from the utopian philanthropism of Robert...
.
Later Criticism
As Marxist Literary theory underwent a 'cultural turn,' Illusion and Reality was increasingly seen as dogmatic and rigid in its discussion of bourgeois poetry. The debate shifted away from its use of Freudian concepts to its ties with Stalinist MarxismStalinism
Stalinism refers to the ideology that Joseph Stalin conceived and implemented in the Soviet Union, and is generally considered a branch of Marxist–Leninist ideology but considered by some historians to be a significant deviation from this philosophy...
. In Culture and Society
Culture and Society
Culture and Society is a book published in 1958 by Welsh leftist writer Raymond Williams, exploring how the notion of culture developed in the West, especially Great Britain, from the eighteenth through the twentieth centuries....
(1958), Raymond Williams
Raymond Williams
Raymond Henry Williams was a Welsh academic, novelist and critic. He was an influential figure within the New Left and in wider culture. His writings on politics, culture, the mass media and literature are a significant contribution to the Marxist critique of culture and the arts...
said of Illusion and Reality that it had "little to say of actual literature that is even interesting" and that the book "is not even specific enough to be wrong." Terry Eagleton
Terry Eagleton
Terence Francis Eagleton FBA is a British literary theorist and critic, who is regarded as one of Britain's most influential living literary critics...
remarked about Caudwell
Christopher Caudwell
Christopher Caudwell is the pseudonym of Christopher St. John Sprigg , a British Marxist writer, thinker and poet.He was born into a Catholic family living at 53 Montserrat Road, Putney district, south-west London...
in 1976 that "there is little, except negatively, to be learnt from him.". Even E. P. Thompson
E. P. Thompson
Edward Palmer Thompson was a British historian, writer, socialist and peace campaigner. He is probably best known today for his historical work on the British radical movements in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, in particular The Making of the English Working Class...
, one of Caudwell's
Christopher Caudwell
Christopher Caudwell is the pseudonym of Christopher St. John Sprigg , a British Marxist writer, thinker and poet.He was born into a Catholic family living at 53 Montserrat Road, Putney district, south-west London...
most generous late-interpreters, argued that the status of Illusion and Reality should be downgraded among Caudwell's works in favor of Studies in a Dying Culture (1938). From the late 1950s until the late 1980s, Illusion and Reality was equated with vulgar Marxism
Orthodox Marxism
Orthodox Marxism is the term used to describe the version of Marxism which emerged after the death of Karl Marx and acted as the official philosophy of the Second International up to the First World War and of the Third International thereafter...
. However, Christopher Pawling's 1989 book on Caudwell
Christopher Caudwell
Christopher Caudwell is the pseudonym of Christopher St. John Sprigg , a British Marxist writer, thinker and poet.He was born into a Catholic family living at 53 Montserrat Road, Putney district, south-west London...
sought to restore the reputation of Illusion and Reality by suggesting that it belongs to what Raymond Williams
Raymond Williams
Raymond Henry Williams was a Welsh academic, novelist and critic. He was an influential figure within the New Left and in wider culture. His writings on politics, culture, the mass media and literature are a significant contribution to the Marxist critique of culture and the arts...
called an "alternative Marxist tradition
Western Marxism
Western Marxism is a term used to describe a wide variety of Marxist theoreticians based in Western and Central Europe, in contrast with philosophy in the Soviet Union...
" that included Antonio Gramsci
Antonio Gramsci
Antonio Gramsci was an Italian writer, politician, political philosopher, and linguist. He was a founding member and onetime leader of the Communist Party of Italy and was imprisoned by Benito Mussolini's Fascist regime...
, György Lukács, and Lucien Goldmann
Lucien Goldmann
Lucien Goldmann was a French philosopher and sociologist of Jewish-Romanian origin...
.