ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book provides a hostile account of the politics of modern literary theory. It argues that literary theorists and critics, influenced by their own marginal position in the economy, have abandoned the one element of Marxism which has explanatory value: the principle that human culture and cultural history are mainly determined by their economic basis. Classical Marxism, with its theory of epochal social transformation, makes even Aeschylus and Milton relevant to present-day politics. Karl Marx did not reconcile the two: he merely rebaptised his own culturalism as cultural materialism. Many radical positions remained, which had some connections with Marxism. Marx thought Balzac, a reactionary writer who uncovered the nature of capitalism, far more important than any purely propagandist socialist could be.
