From: detcom-AT-sprynet.com
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 16:50:35 -0800
Subject: Re: Literature
To: marxism-AT-jefferson.village.virginia.edu
Cc: rubyg580-AT-aol.com



>
>>Are there any good marxist books on literature?  Particular authors, 
laws of
>>literatures development, etc.
>

What I think is really good is "Mao Tse-Tung on Literature and Art" 
(Foreign Languages Press, Peking 1967)  In this collection of 
articles, Mao asks:

"Literature and art for whom?
This problem was solved long ago by Marxists, especially by Lenin.
As far back as 1905 Lenin pointed out emphatically that our  
literature and art should "serve... the millions and tens of 
millions of working people"...

..."China's revolutionary writers and artists, writers and artists
of promise, must go among the masses; they must for a long 
period of time unreservedly and wholeheartedly go among the masses
of workers, perasants and soldiers, go into the heat of the 
struggle, go to the only source, the broadest and richest source,
in order to observe, experience, study and analyse all the
different kinds of people, all the classes, all the masses, all
the vivid patterns of life and struggle, all the raw materials
of literature and art.  Onlly then can they proceed to creative
work.  Otherwise you will have nothing to work with and you will
be nothing but a phoney writer or artist, the kind that Lu Hsun
in his will so earnestly cautioned his son never to become.

Although man's social life is the only source of literature and
art and is incomparably livelier and richer in content, the
people are not satisfied with life alone and demand literature
and art as well.  Why?  Because, while both are beautiful,
life as reflected in works of literature and art can and
ought to be on a higher plane, more intense, more concentrated,
more typical, nearer the ideal, and therefore more universal
than actual everyday life.  Revolutionary literature and art
should create a variety of characters out of real life and help
the masses to propel history forward.  For example, there is
suffering from hunger, cold and oppression on the one hand,
and exploitation and oppression of man by man on the other.
These facts exist everywhere and people look upon them as
commonplace.  Writers and artists concentrate such everyday
phenoma, typify the contradictions and struggles within them
and produce works which awaken the masses, fire them with
enthusiasism and impel them to transform their environment.
Without such literature and art, this task could not be fulfilled,
or at least not so effectively and speedily"

(From the article; Talks at the Yenan Forum on Literature and Art)

Check it out, it's highly readable and fascinating stuff.
Should be in any major library and in many used bookstores.

VICTORY TO THE PEOPLE'S WAR IN PERU!

Jay Miles / Detroit


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