Leo Lowenthal, "Sociology of Literature in Retrospect"

Translated and published in Critical Inquiry in 1987, but given in 1981; this is a precis of an intellectual autopbiography. Makes interesting reading after the much earlier essays. LL has apparently continued on the same tracks, though with increasing sophistication...still, all of the studies he reviews are of the large-scale sociology that one, after all, naturally associates with the Frankfurt School. Of interest: an assertion, following Adorno, of the reality of art, without descent into New Criticism--the study of the literary in itself is one of the individual writer's transcendance of ideological and historical context. (This is then recaptured by capital through the dumbing-down of Anna Karenina, Madame Bovary, etc. into ahistorical love stories).

Leo Lowenthal, "On Sociology of Literature" (1948)

Lowenthal gives four models of issues for investigation, and four metholodies for use in them. Of note: the sociology being done here is large scale: the writer on one side, and the society in general (or its alternate identities, such as "the reading public") on the other. There is essentially nothing in this particular essay about the social formations of small groups of readers or writers--this is perhaps suitable for literature in modern market conditions, but it is inapplicable to premodern situations.

Also: while most of this is quite smart, there is one hopelessly naive proposal, to "revive" authors by means of questionnaires, the standardization of which will apparently allow clear answers to what authors thought on any number of social topics, even though one is still just reading the texts and apparently making things scientific by having boxes to check.

Leo Lowenthal, "Sociology of Literature" (1932)

A refreshingly early take on historicizing literary studies--not much that is revelatory, but one is left wondering why this kind of critique had to be reinvented in the early 80's. One can't expect the depth of analysis that comes in the Frankfurt School's later and much longer critiques--but what is here is entirely sensible and intelligent, and is confessionally Marxist without leaning on dogmatism. Part IV is heavily into Germanistik, but the first three parts would make a nice reading for a senior seminar.