الفهرس 
The Marxist Critical TheoryOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
The thesis focuses on one of the most influential thinkers of the period
between the First and the Second World Wars, Walter Benjamin (1892-1940).
He is well-known as a German philosopher, critic, essayist, and cultural theorist.
His work is marked by a multiplicity and plurality of interests that made his
ideas difficult to be included in complete, full-length books. He is one of the
most important Marxist critics whose work touches upon issues that are popular
and suitable to the modern age. He is the first Marxist critic who could benefit
from modernism in a way that is fit for the production of a revolutionary
political awareness of the working class. This is through his theory of the
mechanical reproduction of the work of art.
Benjamin’s career as a critic can be divided into two major periods: 1916 -
1925 and 1925 - 1940.
The first period (1916 - 1925) is called the period of ” ’early’ ” Benjamin
(the period before Benjamin’s turning to Marxism). In this period, his literary
criticism was consistent but esoteric, interested in philosophical, religious, and
metaphysical interests and concentrated on the cult value or the aura of the work
of art and that the receiver of a work of art is not public but God. The output of
this period is a group of great works such as ”On the Language as Such and on
the Language of Man” (1916), ”On the Programme of the Coming Philosophy”
(1918), ”The Concept of Art Criticism in German Romanticism” (1919), ”The
Task of the Translator” (1921), and ”The Origin of German Tragic Drama”
(1925).
The second period (1925 - 1940) is called the period of ”’mature’ ”
Benjamin (the period of Benjamin’s Marxism). It witnessed the emergence of
new ideological horizons of Benjamin’s thinking that were ”neither consistent
nor univocal”. It is divided into three main phases of Benjamin’s development as
a Marxist critic.
The first phase is what Benjamin called ”Dialectical Images”. As a
Marxist beginner, Benjamin began to pay his attention to criticize the bourgeois
society and to bring together a certain number of rules and advice for writers and
critics through separated and unconnected images. The output of this stage is his
first Marxist work ”One-Way street” (1928).
The second phase is Benjamin’s theory of ”mass culture.” It is
characterized by an ideological connection between Benjamin and the German
playwright, Brecht. In this stage, Benjamin paid his attention to the questions of
aesthetic reception and the necessity for the refunctioning of the bourgeois
apparatus for the production of revolutionary mass culture. In spite of the
importance of this stage, it is confronted by a fierce critique especially from
Adorno and Horkheimer who regarded Benjamin’s theory of mass culture as
producing a cheap and commercial art. The output of this stage is four of the
most important essays by Benjamin: ”What Is Epic Theatre?”, ”A Little History
of Photography” (1931), ”The Author as Producer” (1934), and ”The Work of
Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” (1936).
The third phase is how Benjamin intermingled his Marxist and earlier
theological ideas. In this stage, Benjamin returns to his emphasis on traditional
art against the modern technological developments deploring the destruction of
aura and experience showing that this destruction is the destruction of history as
a whole. The fruits of this stage are three of influential essays: ”The Storyteller:
Reflections on the Works of Nikolai Leskov” (1936), ”On Some Motifs in
Baudelaire” (1939), and ”Theses on the Philosophy of History” (1940).
Benjamin is considered as one of the most argumentative Marxist critics
where some critics considered his Marxism as a mere experiment or a passing
interest in his life while others considered him as a Marxist. This argumentation
is due to three main reasons: first, the fusion of Benjamin’s theological,
philosophical, literary, and Marxist ideas; second, his abstention from clear
declaration of his commitment to Marxism; third, the ambivalence of his critical
ideas sometimes as a supporter and sometimes as an objector to the same ideas.
That is why the main objective of this thesis is to argue that Benjamin is a
Marxist critic and that his Marxism was not just a passing interest in his life but
rather a deep belief in Marxist principles. To accomplish this objective, the
thesis has adopted an analytical/ theoretical method through concentrating on the
three main phases of Benjamin’s development as a Marxist critic.
The thesis is divided into an introduction, four chapters, and a conclusion.
The introduction paves the way for the thesis as a whole by showing the
importance of the topic, the reasons behind its choice, its method, the problem
and aim of the thesis, and some difficulties that encountered the researcher.
Chapter One, ”The Marxist Critical Theory” provides a rather extensive study
of Marxism, its history since Marx, its important principles, and the most
famous and important Marxist critics and tides with their important ideas from
Lukacs to the recent developments of Marxism of Eagleton and Jameson.
Chapter Two, ”Benjamin: The Marxist Critic” examines two main points: 1)
Benjamin’s first phase as a Marxist critic through his theory of ”Dialectical
Images” and 2) Benjamin’s second phase as a Marxist critic through his theory
of mass art and his creative relationship with Brecht. Chapter Three, ”Art
and Technology” proceeds to examine the concept of aura and the idea of the
mechanical reproduction of works of art through film and photography to have a
mass art with a political revolutionary awareness. Chapter Four, ”Benjamin: The
Literary Critic” discusses Benjamin’s third phase as a Marxist critic and how he
intermingled his Marxist and earlier theological ideas of art. The conclusion
sums up the main arguments propounded in the thesis, the main findings arrived
at, and the main reasons that justify them.