In recent years the left has transformed traditional approaches to literature and culture. Critical movements such as Cultural Materialism and New Historicism have succeeded to the point where they now constitute the new academic order. Scott Wilson explains and demonstrates the power of these modes of critical enquiry and explores their limitations. His book provides a forceful critical engagement with major figures in the field - Francis Barker, Catherine Belsey, Jonathan Dollimore, Terry Eagleton, Jonathan Goldberg, Stephen Greenblatt, Alan Sinfield - whose work represents a broad spectrum of positions from Marxism, which privileges class, to a radical criticism emphasising the politics of difference.
Cultural Materialism problematizes a number of fundamental Marxist assumptions with recourse to the theories of Georges Bataille. The author also shows how cultural materialism is applied in practice through readings of key Renaissance texts by, among others, Shakespeare and Spenser, and later work by Dollimore and Sinfield on queer theory, particularly with regard to Oscar Wilde.