The Routledge Companion to Critical and Cultural Theory, 2nd Edition

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MACHEREY, PIERRE (1938-) French Marxist literary theorist and philosopher. Macherey's major work of 1966 was translated into English in 1978 as A Theory of Literary Production. He is also the author of The Object of Literature (1990) and studies of Hegel and Spinoza.

A Theory of Literary Production explores the relationship between literature and ideology. It is primarily concerned with the process of literary construction and production. Macherey argues that traditional critical discourses, which attempt either to render the text explicit or locate its ‘truth’, are inadequate. He proposes a new way of reading, one which draws attention to the contradictions, gaps, absences and silences which constitute the text. The unspoken — what ...