Marxist literary criticism begins with the presupposition that the causes for art are material. Though Marxist criticism is not monolithic, they all deny spiritual realities. When they differ, it is in the different material causes they identify: strictly economic or diffusely political.
From this materialist premise comes the following covenant.
- The content of literature never displays its overt meaning. Literary works hide their material causes. Readers (if they’re Marxist) determine what their work truly means.
- Not only does a work’s content not mean what it overtly says. Authors don’t understand what their work means either. They often unconsciously display their own economic and political relationships.
- We find the cause for the conventions or rules that govern a work of art in an era’s economic and political context.
- Readers themselves judge works based on their economic and political circumstances. Marxist critics can correctly analyze the judgments of past readers.
- Literary form manifests political commitments. How an author writes has political implications, not just what an author writes.
Marxist criticism constitutes an alternative interpretive covenant. These critics follow the money and the confession.
In contrast, Christian criticism responds with the premise of a transcendent and immanent God and Paul’s reminder that “we wrestle not against flesh and blood.” Reducing a work of art to its material causes misses the point.
Experiments in Criticism 