Shakespeare's influence on Karl Marx : the Shakespearean roots of Marxism /
by Christian A. Smith.
- First edition.
- New York : Routledge, 2021.
- 1 online resource (336 pages).
- Routledge studies in Shakespeare .
AcknowledgementsChapter I: In Love in ShakespeareChapter II: "But where then? That is the question"Chapter III: Standing the World on its Feet: The Rheinische Zeitung Articles Chapter IV: "The point is to change it"Chapter V: "That smooth-faced gentleman, tickling Commodity"Chapter VI: "Such men are dangerous:" Politics, History and RevolutionWorks Cited
This volume presents a close-reading of instances of Shakespearean quotations, allusions, imagery, and rhetoric found in Karl Marx⁰́₉s collected works and letters which provides evidence that Shakespeare⁰́₉s writings exerted a formative influence on Marx and the development of his work. Through a methodology of intertextual and interlingual close-reading, this study provides evidence of the extent to which Shakespeare influenced Marx and to which Marxism has Shakespearean roots. As a child, Marx was home-schooled in Ludwig von Westphalen⁰́₉s little academy, as it were, which was Shakespeare- and literary-focused. The group included von Westphalen⁰́₉s daughter, who later became Marx⁰́₉s wife, Jenny. The influence of Shakespeare in Marx⁰́₉s writings shows up as early as his school essays and love letters. He modelled his early journalism partly on ideas and rhetoric found in Shakespeare⁰́₉s plays. Each turn in the development of Marx⁰́₉s thought ⁰́₃ from Romantic to Left Hegelian and then to Communist ⁰́₃ is achieved in part through his use of literature, especially Shakespeare. Marx⁰́₉s mature texts on history, politics and economics ⁰́₃ including the famous first volume of Das Kapital ⁰́₃ are laden with Shakespearean allusions and quotations. Marx's engagement with Shakespeare resulted in the development of a framework of characters and imagery he used to stand for and anchor the different concepts in his political critique. Marx⁰́₉s prose style uses a conceit in which politics are depicted as performative. Later, the Marx family ⁰́₃ Marx, Jenny and their children - was a central figure in the late-nineteenth-century revival of Shakespeare on the London stage, and in the growth of academic Shakespeare scholarship. Through providing evidence for a formative role of Shakespeare in the development of Marxism, the present study suggests a formative role for literature in the history of ideas.