Matthew Arnold: Victorian Critic, Literature, and Society
Matthew Arnold: The Critic’s Critic
Matthew Arnold (1822-1888), the Victorian poet and critic, was ‘the first modern critic’ and could be called ‘the critic’s critic’, being a champion not only of great poetry, but of literary criticism itself. The purpose of literary criticism, in his view, was ‘to know the best that is known and thought in the world, and by in its turn making this known, to create a current of true and fresh ideas’. He influenced a whole school of critics including new critics
Read MoreMarx and the Industrial Revolution: Class Struggle and Social Change
Karl Marx and the Industrial Revolution
Karl Marx (1818-1883) lived during a period when the First Industrial Revolution was consolidating in England. Around 1830, France and Belgium joined the process, and about 1870, the Second Industrial Revolution began, with Germany and the U.S. taking prominence. The agrarian revolution and improvements in hygiene and medicine led to population growth, resulting in migration to industrial centers. This gave rise to the modern city with its problems of overcrowding
Read MoreScientific and Technical Texts: Characteristics and Structure
Scientific Texts
I. Features
In the transmission of cultural content, it is generally possible to distinguish between two kinds of discourse:
- Experimental science and art, whose main objective is to convey factual knowledge of reality.
- Humanities or social sciences, whose primary object of study is the human being.
They differ in their approach and their methods: the first served empirically verifiable data, while in the humanistic disciplines, content is not always verifiable, and logical reasoning
Read MorePanchayati Raj: Decentralized Governance in India
Panchayati Raj: Decentralized Governance in India
Panchayati Raj is a decentralized system of governance in India, established to empower local self-government at the grassroots level. It plays a vital role in rural development and involves the participation of people in decision-making. The system operates under the framework of the Constitution of India, particularly following the 73rd Constitutional Amendment Act of 1992, which provided it constitutional status.
Historical Background
- Ancient Period:
Historical Materialism: Marx’s Scientific Theory of History
Historical materialism is the Marxist science of history. Marx’s materialism affirms man as the protagonist of history. Thus, Marxist materialism is the assertion of these two ideas:
- The relationships that man establishes with nature and with other men are material relations. In other words, men “tear” nature’s property. Then, men produce and exchange material goods to satisfy their material needs. Marx calls this the social production of life.
- These relationships give rise to the ideology and legal-
Blasco Ibáñez: Industrialization and Worker Conditions in Early 20th Century Spain
This text is a fragment of a novel by Blasco Ibáñez, a Valencian writer and novelist deeply involved in politics. He is considered a naturalistic author who vividly describes situations, especially the living conditions of workers. This is a first-hand account, as he describes a situation he knew well, reflecting the late 19th and early 20th centuries, around 1904, when industrialization was beginning in Spain.
The Rise of Industry
Industrialization in Spain began mainly after the end of the Carlist
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