ABSTRACT
KARL MARX (1818-83) AND FRIEDRICH Engels (1820-95) are well-known as social scientists, political theorists, philosophers, and fathers of Marxism, which is both an economic and socio-political worldview and a theory of the development, reproduction and transformation of capitalism. One of the main tenets of this theory is the distinction between the base-the forms of economic organization or modes of production (from cooperative tribalism and feudalism to capitalism and communism)—and the superstructure-ideology or forms of social consciousness, such as religion, law, politics and art. Although later interpretations of this distinction are rather restrictive and deterministic, Marx’s defi nition and Engels’s elaborations stressed that the superstructure is not a passive product of the base, for the former may work with a considerable degree of autonomy. This is of key importance when it comes to understanding the way both authors approached literature. Language in general and as the substance of literature in particular is another kind of social practice and, therefore, is rooted in the material conditions of the base. This notwithstanding, literature is relatively autonomous, for its relation with the base is not merely refl exive.
