Selections from Cultural Writings

by Antonio Gramsci (Editor), William Boelhower (Translator), David Forgacs (Editor)

Though he died as Benito Mussolini's prisoner, leaving only newspaper articles and fragmentary notes, Antonio Gramsci is now seen as the most significant Marxist thinker since Lenin. This volume is the first English translation of his writings on culture, organically and coherently edited from his journalism and his Prison Notebooks . Gramsci writes about the popular and the great artists from Jules Verne to Dante, but not as so many timeless monuments. He sees artworks in the context of their reception and their absorption in particular cultures and histories. He is sensitive to the politics of culture as well as to the demands of philological scholarship, as his superb work on Dante in this volume shows. We have in this book Gramsci's changing views on particular literary movements and authors, as well as his ideas on the nature of proletarian and popular cultural criticism. Throughout he is concerned with cultural analysis and strategy rather than literary criticism by itself. The headnotes and footnotes prepared by Forgacs and Nowell-Smith address themselves both to the circumstances surrounding the composition of each segment and to the central problems of contemporary Gramsci scholarship. Antonio Gramsci is the twentieth-century writer who has most brilliantly and suggestively explored the ties that bind culture and politics. The publication of this collection is an event of major significance for theorists of all sorts.

Genres: Politics, Philosophy, Essays, Italy, Sociology, Nonfiction, History

464 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1985

About the author

Antonio Francesco Gramsci was an Italian Marxist philosopher, linguist, journalist, writer, and politician. He wrote on philosophy, political theory, sociology, history, and linguistics. He was a founding member and one-time leader of the Italian Communist Party. A vocal critic of Benito Mussolini and fascism, he was imprisoned in 1926, where he remained until his death in 1937.

During his imprisonment, Gramsci wrote more than 30 notebooks and 3,000 pages of history and analysis. His Prison Notebooks are considered a highly original contribution to 20th-century political theory. Gramsci drew insights from varying sources — not only other Marxists but also thinkers such as Niccolò Machiavelli, Vilfredo Pareto, Georges Sorel, and Benedetto Croce. The notebooks cover a wide range of topics, including the history of Italy and Italian nationalism, the French Revolution, fascism, Taylorism and Fordism, civil society, the state, historical materialism, folklore, religion, and high and popular culture.
Gramsci is best known for his theory of cultural hegemony, which describes how the state and ruling capitalist class — the bourgeoisie — use cultural institutions to maintain wealth and power in capitalist societies. In Gramsci's view, the bourgeoisie develops a hegemonic culture using ideology rather than violence, economic force, or coercion. He also attempted to break from the economic determinism of orthodox Marxist thought, and so is sometimes described as a neo-Marxist. He held a humanistic understanding of Marxism, seeing it as a philosophy of praxis and an absolute historicism that transcends traditional materialism and traditional idealism.

Reviews

[Eli Za · Rating 4 out of 5]

بخش اعظم کتاب از میان یادداشت‌های زندان گرامشی انتخاب شده است. یادداشت‌هایی که به شکل بخش‌های کوتاه با موضوعات مختلف نوشته شده‌اند. ترجمه روان، همراه با زبان شیوا و نه چندان پیچیده متن، تجربه مطالعه را به تجربه‌ای دلنشین تبدیل کرده است، البته با ذکر این نکته که خاص‌بودگی بعضی از یادداشت‌ها که در رابطه با شرایط دوره تاریخی خاصی از ایتالیا نوشته شده، با وجود اسامی شخصیت‌ها و روزنامه‌های ایتالیایی ممکن است برای یک خواننده عادی بی‌اطلاع از تاریخ ایتالیا چون من، کسل‌کننده باشد. اما بیشتر یادداشت‌ها با وجود اینکه در زمینه تاریخی خاصی نوشته شده‌اند، حاوی درس‌های ارزشمندی برای ما و زمانه ما هستند.

گرامشی اگرچه نقش بسیار مهمی برای روشنفکران، در جهت افزایش آگاهی توده‌های مردم قائل است، اما معتقد است که ایفای این نقش نمی‌تواند شکل «حمایت پدرانه»، یا «آموزش یک بزرگسال به کودکان» را به خود بگیرد. بلکه مستلزم فرآیند پویاتری از رابطه متقابل میان روشنفکران و توده مردم است. طنین این اندیشه گرامشی در بخش‌های زیادی از کتاب به گوش می‌رسد.

نکته جالب توجه دیگر، تأکید گرامشی بر بسترهای فرهنگی است که هنر از دل آن زاده می‌شود. به عنوان مثال، اگر تولیدات ادبی در یک فرهنگ دچار سترونی شود، و یا تحت هژمونی فرهنگ خارجی قرار گیرد، راه‌حل از دید گرامشی نقد بیرحمانه سنت و تلاش برای زایش فرهنگی نو است که از دل آن هنر و ادبیات نو زاده می‌شود. این همان چیزی است که دقیقا عکس آن را بومی‌گرایان یا مدافعان علوم اسلامی در ایران انجام می‌دهند!

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating look at how dialectical materialism can be applied to culture, and how this approach can be used towards the goal of creating a new working class hegemony.

[Joana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Um ensaio sobre várias formas de cultura como a literatura e o jornalismo. Recomendo a leitura, gostei muito!

[Henry YZX · Rating 3 out of 5]

some interesting essay, but lots of it inaccessible because of my limited knowledge of early 1900 Italian cultural history