Marxist Literary Theory: A Reader is designed to give both students and lecturers a sense of the historical formation of a Marxist literary tradition. A unique compilation of principal texts in that tradition, it offers the reader new ways of reading Marxism, literature, theory, and the social possibilities of writing. The collection is introduced by both editors: Terry Eagleton, writing at the point of what he describes as "the most grievous crisis in Marxism's fraught career", surveys the evolution of Marxist criticism, and addresses the profoundly problematic question of Marxism's future, especially as seen in the controversial light of postmodern theory. Drew Milne contributes a key essay on "Reading Marxist Literary Theory", exploring in the process the complex relations between Marx's writings and Marxism.
Represented in this reader are: Theodor W. Adorno, Louis Althusser, Aijaz Ahmad, Chida Amuta, Etienne Balibar and Pierre Macherey, Roland Barthes, Walter Benjamin, Ernest Bloch, Bertolt Brecht, Alex Callinicos, Christopher Caudwell, Terry Eagleton, Friedrich Engels, Lucien Goldmann, Fredric Jameson, V. I. Lenin, Georg Lukacs, Karl Marx, The Marxist-Feminist Collective, Jean-Paul Sartre, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Leon Trotsky, V. N. Volsinov, Galvano Della Volpe, Alick West, and Raymond Williams.