Tillie Olsen and the Dialectical Philosophy of Proletarian Literature by Anthony Dawahare

Abstract

Reviewed by: Tillie Olsen and the Dialectical Philosophy of Proletarian Literature by Anthony Dawahare Jennifer Forsberg TILLIE OLSEN AND THE DIALECTICAL PHILOSOPHY OF PROLETARIAN LITERATURE, by Anthony Dawahare. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2018. 148 pp. $90.00 cloth; $85.50 ebook. In Tillie Olsen and the Dialectical Philosophy of Proletarian Literature, Anthony Dawahare presents the "intellectual milieu" of proletarian literature in the twentieth century and aims to "disclose, historicize, and analyze" dialectical materialism in Tillie Olsen's work and legacy (pp. 9, xii). The book identifies Olsen as a representative author of proletarian literature, tracing the evolution of her writing alongside changing socialist thought. Dawahare emphasizes the every-day application of abstract philosophical ideas and connects them to feminist, Marxist, and humanist interventions both in Olsen's work and across public discourse more generally. This focus fully realizes the sophistication of Olsen's literary contributions, drawing on her fiction and poetry to "demystify" the academic discourse surrounding Marxist theory for both "casual readers and scholars alike" (pp. xvi, xii). Dawahare's approach to Olsen's body of work dedicates extensive time to unpacking the philosophical, political, and artistic context of proletarian literature. The first chapter, "Proletarian Literature and Dialectical Theory," is dense with social history but provides a purposeful introduction to the "omnipresence and importance of dialectical theory within the proletarian literary movement" as it existed in Olsen's 1930s (p. 2). Dawahare admits the challenging scope and attempts to distill the unruly content, covering both a broad philosophical history as well as an occasionally contentious critical treatment of theory and praxis by scholars. In several areas Dawahare substitutes breadth with quotes by major players, which tends to overwhelm and disorient the focus of the chapter. This in turn limits Dawahare's curation and close reading—two considerable strengths in subsequent chapters. Regardless, Dawahare is able to sift through concepts to advance a central definition to both the book and to Olsen's work: that the dialectic is an agent of change, "internal to social systems," able to use "contradiction as the motor of development" (pp. 11, 19). As a literary scholar, Dawahare utilizes a wealth of specialized literary discourses, drawing heavily on the work of Marxist critics such as Georg Lukács. Despite field-specific additions, the writing remains accessible, framed through a multi-disciplinary lens that successfully transforms the abstraction of theory into material application. Recognizing the dialectic-as-change as a key technique of proletarian writing, Dawahare demonstrates the ability of literary experimentation in the 1930s to expose "the systemic determinations of working-class life" (p. 35). The first of Dawahare's compelling and illustrative close readings analyzes Olsen's early work Yonnondio: From the Thirties (1974). Dawahare marks Olsen's [End Page 173] literary growth within literary debates of representation, most significantly the charged use of working-class representation as a feature of the opposing views of proletarian and modernist projects. Dawahare highlights the importance of literature's subject-object conflict in dialectical study, providing a foundation for the overall goal of the monograph: to denote how powerfully Olsen synthesized political debates within both the content and form of her art. At the core of the book is an examination of Olsen's work through the philosophy and technique of dialectical materialism. Dawahare's critical approach to Olsen's work clearly and deliberately historicizes the political thinking that influenced dialectical critique, as well as illustrates the development of new ideas within socialist thought and how they transformed mid-twentieth century narratives. This practice is well exemplified by Olsen's mid-century collection Tell Me A Riddle (1961). Dawahare's careful close readings of the stories "Tell Me a Riddle" (1960) and "Hey, Sailor, What Ship" (1957) especially provide clear indication that a dialectical style can articulate the universal condition of the exploited. By showcasing how Olsen "[reconnects] the fragment of experience," Dawahare effortlessly identifies proletarian literature's direct assault on modernist alienation in an effort to "comprehend reality" (p. 71). Dawahare's analysis of Tell Me A Riddle has command over both the literary text and the political contexts of the postwar as they are represented in art. Dawahare rightfully champions Tell Me A Riddle as...