ABSTRACT
This book examines the relationship between ‘class’ and ‘literature’ from the late medieval period to the present. I put these terms in quotation marks because they are problematic and I will use quotation marks whenever I need to emphasise the problematic nature of such terms. I base this book on the conviction that class still has a role to play in understanding the nature of literary works. In particular I am concerned to show that there is a link between the economic form of capitalism and ‘literary’ representation. As such this book is different from the prevailing view in literary studies that it is not necessary to relate ‘culture’ back to some prior cause in order to understand it. I use Karl Marx’s (1818-83) analysis of class but also look briefly at Max Weber’s (1864-1920) view of the subject. These two thinkers are widely recognised as the most influential commentators on class and, as Stephen Edgell (1993) has noted, contemporary sociologists adopt and modify one or other of these paradigms.
