James Turley reviews Mark Bould and China Miéville (eds) Red planets: Marxism and science fiction Pluto, 2009, pp293, £19.99
When English literature departments first arose in Anglo-Saxon academia, their purpose was in some ways relatively well defined. The bourgeoisie, so its political allies in the aristocracy and flunkies among the intelligentsia argued, was culturally bereft; worse, as the immediate superior in society to the labouring masses, it was the class that the latter ‘naturally’ looked to for spiritual guidance. The workers, however, were more civilised than the bourgeoisie, and the failure of leadership could result only in anarchy and the overthrow of the extant political order.
Literary studies may not seem the most likely cure for this social ‘ill’, but 19th and early 20th century ideologues such as Matthew Arnold were in thrall to its power. It could replace the old social glue of religion with a new one - inculturation into an organic national community, in which everyone has his or her place.
It does, as it turns out, take more than exposure to Shakespeare and Milton to stop a bread riot. Yet this eccentric project has left its mark on our society. The reach of ‘great’ literature into society is more penetrating than ever - no schoolchild can avoid a jaunt through Romeo and Juliet or King Lear; English lit is compulsory till 16. Meanwhile, the publishing industry makes a killing from repackaging Jane Austen as a chick-lit prophet (or splicing zombies into Pride and prejudice).
Another of the results is that, despite waves of attempts at ‘counter-canonisation’ along various critical lines, the Great Tradition (whatever that is) looms as large over our shoulders as ever. Any literature unlucky enough to be assigned a genre, particularly a genre with mass cultural appeal across different media, is likewise hived off from literary studies proper into a carefully delimited academic niche of its own.
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Friday September 30, 2011 14:22
by Chicherin
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