"The Special American Conditions": Marxism and American Studies

Abstract

In a limited sense, this is a book; in many senses, it is unrecognizably Marxist. For American intellectuals, pro and contra Marx, this is probably as it should be. While it may come close to impossible to think about progressive change without engaging Marxist categories, one of the lessons to be drawn from Kenneth Burke's career is that an American (self-reliant) Marxism is fundamentally an absurd proposition. The active critical soul in America, from Emerson to Burke, joins parties of one, because it is there, in America, that critical power flourishes. -Frank Lentricchia, 19831