CULTURAL

MATERIALISM

Cultural materialism originated in the works of Left -wing literary critic Raymond Williams. It
emerged as a theoretical movement in the early 1980s along with New Historicism. Raymond
Williams coined the term cultural materialism in the introduction of his book ’Marxism and
Literature ‘ published in 1977.He defines cultural materialism as” a theory of specificities of
material culture and literary production with in historical materialism”. The two components that
make up the phrase “cultural materialism” are further defined as follows: “culture” refers to all
cultural expressions, including popular media such as television, music, and fiction. In other
words, this strategy is not restricted to “high” cultural forms like the Shakespeare play.
Materialism refers to the opposite of idealism, an idealist believes that high culture exemplifies
the free and independent activity of the gifted human mind, materialism holds that culture is
incapable of transcending the material forces and relations of production. William viewed
culture as a productive process, for him the study of literatures of any age would reflect the
dominant values of that society. Material cultures such as novels, paintings, the architecture of
the city, were thus situated as cultural system of governance. Materials of culture were defined
as a tool of hegemonic political structures in a society. The term is defined by British critic
Graham Holderness as a politicized form of historiography, what this means is that the study of
historical material which includes literary texts within the very politicized frame work. This
includes the present with those literary text having some way helped us to shape this term.This
historical analysis of culture is drawn from Marxist historiography. It is the history of labour of
working class. In this, material history is embedded with the social process of culture. By social
process, William means creating “Specific ways of life” which he calls culture. The central
argument in cultural materialism is the concept that a culture and its literary products are always
influenced by the real material forces and relations of production in that historical era. That
means, the culture and literary products coming from a society is influenced by the real material
conditions existing in that society. A literary work produced in a society will reflect the social
and material conditions existing there. The dominant and week elements existing in that society
will be visible in the literary work. Cultural materialist critics understands physical world in
three levels.

1.Infrastructure

2.Structure

3.Super Structure

Infrastructure is called as a basic level or we called it as a foundation which incorporated with

the environment and its forces in it. It includes the material realities such as technological,
economic, and demographic factors.

Structure is the place in which the economic, social and political organizations of the society
operates.
Super structure is related to ideology and symbolism. All are connected to each other, any
change in the infrastructure will reflect the other planes and changes in the upper structures will
not affect the spheres of culture if it is not reflected in the infrastructure.

Cultural materialism was popularised in 1985 when it was first used by Jonathan Dollimore and
Alan Sinfield who are perhaps the best known of the cultural materialists in the subtitle for the
edited collection of their essay known as Political Shakespeare. They define the term as critical
method which has four characteristics. So Dollimore and Seinfeld tells us in political
Shakespeare that the process of cultural materialism combines the attention to three methods.

1 Historical context

2 Theoretical method

3 political commitment

4 Textual Analysis

When we combine these ideas we will get an idea of the phenomena called cultural materialism.
Let’s look at each of these four components in detail. The aim of historical context in the cultural
materialism is to allow literary texts to recover the history or to recover the histories of repressed
or lost for which other kinds of previous study had largely left ignored. The emphasis on
theoretical method signifies its break with liberal humanism and the absorbing of the lessons of
structuralism, post structuralism and other such approaches which had become prominent since
the 1970s. It emerged apparently almost a decade or so after its counterpart known as new
historicism. Thirdly the emphasis on political commitment signifies the influence of Marxist and
feminist approaches and perspectives and the break from the conservative crystal framework
with still had greatly dominated Shakespeare’s criticism. Lastly the textual analysis means that
there is a commitment to not just making theory of a very abstract kind but practicing it on
mainly iconic and canonical texts which continues to be the focus of massive amounts of
academic and professional attention.

So it would be consider as a relevant history not just what happened about four hundred years
ago but that of the times including our own which a Shakespearian work is produced and
reproduced and consumed and circulated. If you read a play by William Shakespeare during
Elizabethan period from that play you will be able to identify the economic and political system
existed in the real history of England at that time and the institutions of cultural production can
also be understood from the work, if you are reading it so closely. So such readings are
conducted by Cultural Materialists.

Thus in Cultural materialism there is an emphasis on the functioning of institutions through

which Shakespeare is now available to us in the present days and that should contain a look at
such entities as the royal Shakespeare company, the films which makes films based on
Shakespeare’s play, the publishers who produce text book for schools and colleges and so on. So
all these become subjects of study and scrutiny when you at the process of Cultural Materialism.