Identity and relationship : a contribution to Marxist theory of literary criticism / Jeremy Hawthorn

Dust jacket and spine list author's name as "J. M. Hawthorn".

Includes bibliographical references (pages 185-190) and indices.

1. Identity and relationship -- 2. A note on dialectics -- 3. Formalism and Marxism -- 4. The writer and the work -- 5. The reader and the work -- 6. The dynamics of literary response -- 7. Validity and value -- 8. The social and temporal context of literary response -- 9. Conclusion.

"This is a book on the theoretical principles of literary criticism. And it is a contribution to the understanding and development of the Marxist concept of dialectics. In both areas it makes an original and significant contribution. The literary work is considered, not as a 'thing in itself', always possessed of its unique changeless identity, but as the product of complex and dynamic social relationships within an ever-changing social context. And its 'value' is considered, not as something residing intrinsically in the work itself, but as something realised in the social processes from which the work emerges and into which it enters. From this standpoint Jeremy Hawthorn discusses basic problems about the understanding, appreciation and criticism of literature, as these have been presented in contemporary criticism. And he discusses such insistent questions as that of the relevance of information about a writer's life and the circumstances in which he wrote to appreciation and criticism of his work, and of the basis for the continuing value of a work written in some bygone age for people now living in an entirely different age." -- from the dust jacket.