Abstract
This article will focus on some of the theoretical reflections on Raymond Williams’ cultural materialism aiming to delimitate the way in which they emerge, in his theory, both in a more structural layout - in terms of the class position of the agents, here thought of primarily in terms of cultural producers - and in a dimension of agency, whose possibility is given by the emancipatory path that his complex concept of culture allows us to glimpse. In this endeavour, it will be necessary to recover the critical dialogues established by Williams, mainly with other strands of historical materialism dedicated to the analysis of culture and with the canonical Cambridge tradition, where he got his formation. Thus, from the notion of culture thought as a space in dispute, Williams defends the conception of culture in general - and literature in particular - as a social practice by which agents establish a relation of opposition, enhancing the perception of social change.
Keywords:
Raymond Williams; Literature; Structure; Agency; Hegemony