Eliot’s literary-order concept smuggled dialectics in as novelty while masking its ideological function

Evidence

It is of course a profoundly dialectical concept. Indeed, the rhetorical seductiveness of the passage derives in large measure from the way in which the unnamed dialectical character of the notion is passed off on the reader as a new and more dynamic way of seeing things; nor is it any longer necessary at the present time, perhaps, to take inventory of the very precise functions—both literary and ideological—which it was designed to fulfill. — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 647

Categorization

• XREF: Jameson reading Eliot’s famous ‘existing monuments’ passage as covertly dialectical is precisely the Frankfurt-School technique of ideology critique — demystifying a canonizing gesture. — connects to: Genre form refracts rather than directly reflects political ideology — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 321; Form and content are mutually translatable terms in dialectical criticism — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 769; Postmodern theory’s claims of abandoned meaning serve an ideological role masking its own dominance (+1 more)
• QUESTION: Jameson declines to spell out the precise literary and ideological functions Eliot’s order-concept was designed to fulfill — worth chasing in later Jameson work.

Broader Connections

• Form and content are mutually translatable terms in dialectical criticism #corroborates (0.80) — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 769
• Postmodern theory’s claims of abandoned meaning serve an ideological role masking its own dominance #complicates (0.78)
• Thinking must hold dialectic and its opposite together at once #expands (0.75) — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia, 170
• Genre form refracts rather than directly reflects political ideology #expands (0.72) — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 321