Louis Althusser Criticism

Since the central theme of this thesis is the study of Louis Althusser’s thoughts on art, literature and criticism, it is important to identify, analyze and evaluate all the constituting factors which can offer some help in its overall discussion and aspects. Unlike Althusser’s disorganized and scanty thoughts on the other themes of literary theory, Althusser spoke at length on theatre. Althusser’s treatment and comments on theatre show his prowess as a literary critic. He discusses theatre, the mechanism, characterization, theme, stage craft, aesthetic effects, the role of the writers and other dramatic devices. His criticism of theatre constitutes a major part of his literary criticism. The thesis rightly justifies the inclusion and analysis

Notes on a ‘Materialist Theatre’ (1962), was an analysis of a melodrama, a thoroughly ‘popular’ form of cultural production (Ferreter 98). In the first part of his essay, Althusser analyses Strehler’s production of the Milanese play “La Povera Gent” (‘The Poor People’, 1893), by Carlo Bertolazzi, which the latter had intended as the first part of a trilogy entitled “El Nost Milan” (‘Our Milan’). Strehler compressed the four acts of Bertolazzi’s play into a three- act production, with the latter title. What strikes Althusser most was that play is ‘remarkable for its internal dissociation’ (FM 134). Here Althusser illuminates his critical judgement. To him the play is remarkable since it has an internal dis-association of the things. We, thus, witness the value based judgement of Althusser on a piece of art. It can thus be said that however debatable his judgement would be, (since he justifies them brilliantly), we are unable to denounce them. It also provides answers to his critic who dismiss his literary theoretical

They signify the existential dimension of the human life. Althusser uses them to as a literary device for evaluation of stagecraft. Althusser argues for a complex, irregularly punctuated notion of duration, even as he casts suspicion upon the idea of a "centered" space, erroneously believed to reveal its internal structure when cut by a section. Althusser appreciates the manifestations of time in Strehler 's production, which appear to him appropriately complex and multi-layered. Accordingly, the itinerary of invisible time, which is conditioned by its state of ostensible absence, should not be equalled with the slow-moving chronicle of the everyday existence of the common folk, no more than it should be associated with the accelerated time of Nina 's experiences; it is rather the two structures in opposition which predicates the presence of invisible time. However, the full implication of invisible time does not emerge before the true limits of the time of melodrama can be established. This "articulated time," seemingly "moved from within by an irresistible force, "appears at the outset as "the dialectical time par excellence"(PT, p.