Origins of British Marxist Literary Theory

The present paper aims to make an objective assessment ofthe achievements made by the earliest British Marxist theorists and critics in the 1930s. It begins with an inquiry into the cultural and social roots for the lack of a profound Marxist intellectual tradition in Britain which was greatly responsible for the late emergence of British Marxist literary criticism. Then it is followed by an introductory analysis of the representative critical works from the hands of three famous Marxist critics of the period: Christopher Caudwell, Ralph Fox and Alick West. In the due course, it reveals their critical insights and theoretical originalities often neglected by some prominent critics and scholars of present day and points out their intellectual defects due to the limits of the time.