CHRISTOPHER CAUDWELL, MARXIST APOLOGIST AND CRITIC A IIWcoTïW Vo. 6 Robert Gibbons A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate school of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY January 1967 Approved by Doctoral Committee Adviser Department of English ^7£77/ 11 , X TABLE OF CONTENTS 293581 CHAPTER PAGE I. FROM SPRIGG TO CAUDWELL.................................................................... 1 Sprlgg....................................................................... 1 Caudwell..... ........... 12 II. THE BOURGEOIS ILLUSION.................... 23 Background.......... ...................................................... 23 Preliminary Definitions and Distinctions................. 25 The Ideas............................................................................ 30 "Reality: A Study of Bourgeois Philosophy"............ 43 III. THE DYING CULTURE....................................... 49 Liberty................ ....................................... 51 The Literati......... .............................................54 The Hero.......................... 62 Religion and Ethics...................................... 67 Hlstory........................................................................................ 78 Psychology............................................................................. 83 Aesthetics........... 97 IV. CAUDWELL’S WORLD-VIEW....... ..................... ........103 Origin, Development, and Future of Poetry..104 Art and Science....................................................................... .....115 Dream-Work of Poetry... .................. 125 A Marxist Theory of Art............................................. ..130 V. EVALUATION............ ........... ..................... ................................................. 139 BIBLIOGRAPHY.......... ......................... ................... ............................................ 151 APPENDIX 158 PREFACE The pen name, "Christopher Caudwell," was reserved for the serious works of Christopher St. John Sprigg, who died in 1937. Under this pseudonym were published This My Hand (1936), Illusion and Reality (1937), Studies in a Dying Culture (1938)» Poems and The Crisis in Physics (1939)» and Further Studies In a Dying Culture (1949). With the exception of Poems, all of these were written in the last two years of his life» though only This My Hand, a novel» was published before his death. Illusion and Reality was at the printer's when he died» but all the rest were edited and published posthumously from his manuscripts; and the order of composition of the whole series is nearly impossible to determine. The chronology of any writer's works is usually relevant insofar as It helps to establish the development of his ideas. But since all of Caudwell's works were written within the same short developmental period» chronology becomes less important» not because it is absolutely Impossible to ascertain» but because logical development takes precedence. A logical pattern does emerge if his works are considered in the following order: The Crisis in Physics. Studies. Further Studies, and Illusion and Reality; and the books are much more understandable if they are studied in this order. As will be shown, Caudwell regarded dialectical materialism to be the cure for all the sickness in bourgeois society because it was the only philosophy which was not merely a system of thought. Because dialectical iv materialism was also a plan of action, it was relevant, not Just to thinking, but to living, to "the life processes of society," Dialec­ tical materialism Is the resolution to the old philosophical problem of the subject«object relation; and The Crisis in physlcsdestablishes the subject»object dichotomy as the fundamental error in bourgeois philosophy. The manifestation of this dichotomy in bourgeois culture provides the material for the other three books. Studies In a Dying Culture, less technical and less difficult than Further Studies, demon» strates how the subject-object dichotomy has led the bourgeois to a mistaken notion of freedom. Further Studies completes the task Studies began, the tracing of the contradictions In bourgeois ideoiogy»«psychology, history, philosophy, rellglon»»whieh arise from the subject«object dichot­ omy. And Illusion and Reality is an attempt, both successful and unsue» cessful, to integrate all the brandies of ideology into one consistent Marxian world»view. The two branches of bourgeois Ideology Which interested Caudwell the most were science and art. The need to release them from the stifling grlpofthe bourgeois illusion is a central theme that runs through Caudwell’s four major works. Also pervasive In these works are two mes* sages: first and most obvious, that bourgeois culture id dying and, sec­ ond, that leadership in the new proletarian culture must come from the ranks of the enlightened bourgeois. In reading Caudwell*s work, one is ever aware of the implication of a passage from Max Planck’s Where is Science Going? that Caudwell quotes in The Crisis in Physicsand that he uses as an epigraph to Studies In a Dying Culture: V "We are living in a very singular moment of history. It is a moment of crisis, in the literal sense of that word. In every branch of our spiritual and material civilisation we seem to have arrived at a critical turning-point. This spirit shows Itself not only in the actual state of public affairs but also in the general attitude towards fundamental values In per« sonal and social life. "... Formerly it was only religion, especially in its doc« trinal and moral systems, that was the object of sceptical attack. Then the Iconoclast began to shatter the ideals and principles that had hitherto been accepted in the province of art. Now he has invaded the temple of science. There is scarcely a scienti­ fic axiom that is not nowadays denied by somebody. And at the same time almost any nonsensical theory that may be put forward in the name of science would be almost sure to find believers and disciples somewhere or other.**1 lhe feeling of collapse of the old order, of culture tumbling about his ears, that Planck experiences is, according to Caudwell, the har­ binger of revolution. Caudwell believes the tensions and contradictions of bourgeois culture have become so unbearable that bourgeois society is going to explode and be resolved into a new order. The proletariat will, of course, be the moving force in this revolution; but the proletariat, unable to produce its own ideologists and intellectuals, needs the leadership of bourgeois intellectuals who will Join its ranks. This transference of loyalties Is first mentioned In The Communist Manifesto. That Caudwell knows this passage well and has taken its message to heart is apparent in all his work. Just as therefore, at an earlier period, a section of the no­ bility went over to the bourgeoisie, so now a portion of the bourgeoisie goes over to the proletariat, and In particular a portion of the bourgeois Ideologists who have raised themselves to the level of comprehending theoretically the historical movement * *The Crisis in Physics (London, 1939), p. 26, Vl as a «hole. They thus defend not their present, but their future Interests; they desert their own standpoint to place themselves at that of the proletariat.2 The Crisis in physics informs the bourgeois philosopher and scientist of the philosophical instability of bourgeois society; Studies and Further Studies demonstrate to the bourgeois historian, psychologist, scientist, artist, and philosopher the manifestations of that collapse in the ideological sphere; and Illusion and Reality Is an appeal to the bourgeois Ideologists and intellectuals of every dis­ cipline, but especially to the artists, to become leaders in the ranks of the proletariat. That Caudwell himself was such a men will become in­ creasingly clear. But Caudwell was not just another Marxist critic using quotations from Cap!tai and the Theses on Feuerbach to bludgeon every­ thing boureois simply because it was bourgeois; nor Is he entirely free of this fault. His feet were as firmly planted In the twentieth cen­ tury as they were in the nineteenth. Although Marx’s revelation of the economic laws of society is inevitably the starting point of every Caud- well argument, ;hls theories of art and of science are worked out in the very reputable context of the then most recent discoveries of modem psy­ chology, physlology,and physics, Whether Caudwell remained a thorough­ going Marxist or whether, as some of his Marxist critics claim, his theory of art is actually idealistic, is not the eoncem«ef this study, ^Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, in The Essential left (New York, 1962), p. 24. vii That he was a Marxist in spirit and intention is clear. Also clear is the fact that Caudwell's brand of Marxism cannot be dismissed out of hand. Instead of being stigmatized, he ought to be studied. This study is designed as an Introduction to Caudwell's ideas. Nothing is a satisfactory substitute for reading Caudwell, but a pre­ sentation of his ideas, disregarding the validity of his Marxism, is needed. The basic aim of the study, then, is explication and not criti­ cism. The ideas presented in Chapters 2-4 are Caudwell's. As the criti­ cism In Chapter S indicates, the primary Interest of the author is in Caudwell as a literary figure, even though the large bulk of his serious writing deals with fundamentally non-literary matters. I CHAPTER 1 PROM SPRIGG TO CAUDWELL