Paul Lafargue: The First Marxist Literary Critic

Paul Lafargue, Marx's son-in-law and disciple, was one of the first to apply Marxist methods of analysis to literary criticism. In studies of Chateaubriand, Hugo, Daudet, and Zola, he saw their novels as an instrument of bourgeois domination. Chateaubriand, for example, was cited for reinforcing the religious sentiments now favored by the more conservative middle classes. Lafargue's criticism, insofar as it attacked the cultural heritage of les bourgeois conquérants, was conceived of as a weapon in class warfare, and in the 1880s and early 1890s introduced social classes into literary criticism. (LD)