Marxism and Literature

Marxism and Literature, one of Raymond Williamss truly pathbreaking books has survived its historical moment and continues to exert a fascinating force. Typically idiosyncratic in form  a series of brief illuminating vignettes of some vital topics in materialist criticism  it is equally challenging and original in its content. Williams was at once close to Marxism and a robustly independent critic who made his own unique intellectual voyage. It is the combination of political sympathy with a powerfully distancing perspective which allows this deeply felt study at once to comment on its subject and effectively to reinvent it.