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پیشدرآمد� بر نظریه� ادبی
چاپ اول ۱۳۸۰ توسط نشر مرکز
تري ايگلتون، که از صاحب‌نظرا� سرشناس نقد ادبي معاصر اروپا است، در اين کتاب، مکاتب و ديدگاه‌ها� عمده� کنوني نقدادبي از قبيل ساخت‌گرايي� ساخت‌شکني� نظريه� دريافت، نشانه‌شناسي� نظريات متکي بر روان‌کاو� و اصالت زن، و امثال آن‌ه� را شناسانده و بررسي مي‌کن�. شيوه� او شيوه‌ا� است انتقادي، و بيشتر به طرح پرسش‌ه� و نکته‌ه� مي‌پرداز� تا پاسخ‌ها� قطعي، اما سرانجام نتيجه مي‌‌گير� که هر ديدگاهي در نقد ادبي،خصلت� سياسي دارد. ويراست دوم کتاب که اکنون در دست شما است مطابق ويراست دوم متن اصلي و شامل يک فصل جديد است که به بررسي تحولات نظـريه� ادبـي در دوره� پـس از ويـرايش نخسـت کتـاب يعني سال‌ها� 1983 تا 1996 مي‌پرداز� و مباحث مطـرح در نظريات فمينيستي، پساساختارگرا، و پسامدرنيست را تحليل مي‌کن�.
تري ايگلتون، که از صاحب‌نظرا� سرشناس نقد ادبي معاصر اروپا است، در اين کتاب، مکاتب و ديدگاه‌ها� عمده� کنوني نقدادبي از قبيل ساخت‌گرايي� ساخت‌شکني� نظريه� دريافت، نشانه‌شناسي� نظريات متکي بر روان‌کاو� و اصالت زن، و امثال آن‌ه� را شناسانده و بررسي مي‌کن�. شيوه� او شيوه‌ا� است انتقادي، و بيشتر به طرح پرسش‌ه� و نکته‌ه� مي‌پرداز� تا پاسخ‌ها� قطعي، اما سرانجام نتيجه مي‌‌گير� که هر ديدگاهي در نقد ادبي،خصلت� سياسي دارد. ويراست دوم کتاب که اکنون در دست شما است مطابق ويراست دوم متن اصلي و شامل يک فصل جديد است که به بررسي تحولات نظـريه� ادبـي در دوره� پـس از ويـرايش نخسـت کتـاب يعني سال‌ها� 1983 تا 1996 مي‌پرداز� و مباحث مطـرح در نظريات فمينيستي، پساساختارگرا، و پسامدرنيست را تحليل مي‌کن�.
332 pages
First published January 1, 1983
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About the author
Terry Eagleton
151books1,216followersWidely regarded as England's most influential living literary critic & theorist, Dr. Eagleton currently serves as Distinguished Professor of English Literature at the University of Lancaster and as Visiting Professor at the National University of Ireland, Galway. He was Thomas Warton Prof. of English Literature at the University of Oxford ('92-01) & John Edward Taylor Professor of English Literature at the University of Manchester 'til '08. He returned to the University of Notre Dame in the Autumn '09 semester as Distinguished Visitor in the English Department.
He's written over 40 books, including Literary Theory: An Introduction ('83); The Ideology of the Aesthetic ('90) & The Illusions of Postmodernism ('96).
He delivered Yale's '08 Terry Lectures and gave a Gifford Lecture in 3/10, titled The God Debate.
He's written over 40 books, including Literary Theory: An Introduction ('83); The Ideology of the Aesthetic ('90) & The Illusions of Postmodernism ('96).
He delivered Yale's '08 Terry Lectures and gave a Gifford Lecture in 3/10, titled The God Debate.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 355 reviews
September 12, 2014
From Terry Eagleton’s Literary Theory for Toddlers: An Introduction. Phenomenology: Tigger tells Pooh that he must distinguish between the phenomena and noumena of a pot of honey. That his intentionality towards the honey is narrowing his awareness of his surroundings, pushing him into a false structure of consciousness where the honey is both a perpetual fantasy and an instrument of real-life fixation. He tells Pooh he must separate his intentionalities to avoid becoming corrupted and driven by his desire for honey. Hermeneutics: Tigger tells Winnie that he must forget about honey and concentrate on the Heideggerian being-with of bear relatedness. He must suppress the empirical evidence around the existence and necessity of honey as a thing-in-itself and take an antipositivist approach to his own need for honey in a godless and indifferent universe. Reception Theory: Tigger tells Winnie that the only reason he is so popular as a character is that readers can “relate� to his being orange and craving frequent honey. Their life experiences have shown them that things with orange bears and honey are an essential part of the human condition, and require enshrinement in the literary pantheon for almost entirely no other reason. Structuralism: Tigger tells Pooh that his preoccupation with honey is part of larger woodland structure dating back to the stone age, and that “honey� has always been a signifier triggering hunger and savagery in the heart of orange bears, long before Milne gave them the consciousness to understand the signified of “honey� as a delicious bee-made product popularly served in pots. Semiotics: Tigger tells Pooh that honey is merely a symbol for part of a larger racial and class struggle among woodland beings. Across the woodland culture, the word “honey� can symbolise the tyrannous oppression of the orange bears over beavers or squirrels, or the totalitarian confiscation of honey among the lower orders. To bees, “honey� is understood as a priceless trading commodity frequently being plundered by cuddly pirates, whose struggle remains unacknowledged among the wider woodland populace. Post-structuralism: Tigger tells Pooh that the destabilised meaning of his quest for honey is more significant for the reader, whose quest for honey will loom even larger once Pooh’s quest is complete. But more importantly, “honey� is a binary opposition which also means “Jacuzzi,� so Pooh’s system of language is under severe scrutiny. Psychoanalysis: Tigger tells Pooh that his craving for honey is merely a way of screwing his mother and killing his father and venerating his very curly and unseen penis. (From p12, p54, p87, p99, p123, and p149).
January 30, 2013
Eagleton deserves a lot of credit, because I can now say that I've put paid to a two hundred-plus page book on Literary Theory and never suffered a single dull moment. And while the author was fully engaged throughout—offering up energized summations and interpretations of the evolving schools of theory that developed out of the study of (English) literature and, subsequently and consequently, the structures of language itself, before launching polemical broadsides from the Marxist perch (with its material metaphysics) whence he declaims with brio—a surprising proportion of this book's pleasurable qualities come from the very subject being brought under explicatory lenses. Who'da thunk that something sheltered beneath the dullest of rubrics would inveigle, inflame, and incite this general reader to the point that I've ordered After Theory, Eagleton's two decade on follow-up? What's more, while I'll probably never make use of the systems herein at any point during a future review, they've settled themselves comfortably and solidly within the mnemonic recesses of my brain, and have already begun to work their memes when I review how I've structured various fictional works collecting electronic and airborne dust across a smattering of hard-drive platters and yellow legal pads.
It's a beguiling progression in a field once mocked by teachers of the classics and philology, mirroring the material world in its historical pathbreaking, which turns around a combination of explosive population and techno-industrial growth, broad cultural leveling, and spiritual-metaphysical implosion. From the Romantic attachment to an individual interpretation of the nebulously populated field of literature, wherein meaning was self-derived and -inhering, taken from a text fully in the possession of its author and timeless in its insistence upon deriving personally situated pleasures, things change drastically by the time we arrive in the seventies with post-structuralism in full operation, gleefully prying apart blocks of words in order to harvest the bounty of enchained potential meaning recrudescent between flickering signifier and untethered referent and scattering all claims of absolute knowledge to the four winds of metaphorical delusion. The elusive quality of truth, meaning, and other verities within the symbolically-riddled essence of human language is presented in all of its compelling modern journey; and the tendencies of the various critical epistemologies—Romanticism, Formalism, New Criticism, Hermeneutics, Reception Theory, Structuralism and Post-Structuralism, along with Psychoanalytical contributions—to ahistorical, ideological, and/or activist blinders is set against their driving forces at play within a world suffering waxing and waning degrees of optimism, pessimism, radicalism, and disillusionment.
Eagleton's goal is to show how selective, and ultimately ineffectual, critical theory is: with what constitutes Literature proving itself historically tendentious, the field either wallows in subjective tastes that defy analysis or engages in a cycle of division, inspection, and assignation of signifiers at the expense of what is being signified. While the early schools of critical theory were blind to the ideological memes and structure immanent within literary works, both expressive of—and dedicated towards maintaining—the Western Enlightenment-cum-liberal capitalist system that birthed and cherished it, the modern outgrowths have shown scant more awareness. It is not that theory's practitioners explicitly support the western liberal political memes embedded within the text, but rather that their systemic noodling renders them oblivious to their existence at the various levels of what they are examining, including that the vast quantity of material omitted from the designation of literature harbors much that would prove most beneficial, to individual and, more importantly, society as a whole, to being dissected, discoursed about, and brought into the public exchange of ideas. Literary theory needs perforce to rid itself of this literary constraint, that its theory can come out of the academic cloisters and reveal more of the ways in which so-called democratic citizens are distracted, disaffected, disparaged, distraught and disposable. As Eagleton determines it, all writing is political at its core and in its message, however subtly and unconsciously emplaced: so rather than penning or escaping into the lulling comforts of an imagined world, where existing exploitations and inequities are strained via story, why not resist and redirect those energies towards the actual political, that real and enduring change might be effected for living beings?
The author notes that a majority of readers do so for the pleasure the activity brings—while various defensive and escapist mechanisms may be an important part of the process, it is, in the end, the enjoyment sparked within by the magic of the word that has driven the consumption of books, especially in fiction. Keeping that in mind—and how the masses have thusly ever defied accommodation with the demands and expectations pressed upon them by Marxist intellectuals—I found Eagleton persuasive as regards his primary target, the academic environ where those well-placed to initiate and carry the debate have become isolated, drawn into often tedious and dry discussion between themselves about minutiae that serves of little import apart from its own exercise. His personal ideological ends aside, he has provided herein an erudite serving of food for thought.
I was bemused throughout by how much I could both distance myself from each theoretical system, by means of disagreement, while yet returning over and again to analyzing how aptly they measured the contents of literature relative to the historical flux in operation across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Indeed, the minute drilling down of the Post-Structural world, wherein there are no certainties and everything becomes relevant to a complex series of linkages and interpretations appears to me both symptomatic and causative of the frenzied, matricial information overload which has been burgeoning across the globe at breakneck speed. We have been sundered from our communalized society and made to stand as lone individuals: and now we find that all of the meanings that are so central to our self-determination are but another ephemeral element of our constituted beings. The only certainty we possess is that of a constantly evaporating certainty. In this nucleated rationalism that pierces all veils of the irrational mind—mental constructs, spiritual salves, subjective meaning—seeking ever more devolution no matter the bailiwick, I'm reminded of of dead cultures, where the intellect, no longer guided by the strong arm of meta-culture, runs amok amidst its environs.
It's a beguiling progression in a field once mocked by teachers of the classics and philology, mirroring the material world in its historical pathbreaking, which turns around a combination of explosive population and techno-industrial growth, broad cultural leveling, and spiritual-metaphysical implosion. From the Romantic attachment to an individual interpretation of the nebulously populated field of literature, wherein meaning was self-derived and -inhering, taken from a text fully in the possession of its author and timeless in its insistence upon deriving personally situated pleasures, things change drastically by the time we arrive in the seventies with post-structuralism in full operation, gleefully prying apart blocks of words in order to harvest the bounty of enchained potential meaning recrudescent between flickering signifier and untethered referent and scattering all claims of absolute knowledge to the four winds of metaphorical delusion. The elusive quality of truth, meaning, and other verities within the symbolically-riddled essence of human language is presented in all of its compelling modern journey; and the tendencies of the various critical epistemologies—Romanticism, Formalism, New Criticism, Hermeneutics, Reception Theory, Structuralism and Post-Structuralism, along with Psychoanalytical contributions—to ahistorical, ideological, and/or activist blinders is set against their driving forces at play within a world suffering waxing and waning degrees of optimism, pessimism, radicalism, and disillusionment.
Eagleton's goal is to show how selective, and ultimately ineffectual, critical theory is: with what constitutes Literature proving itself historically tendentious, the field either wallows in subjective tastes that defy analysis or engages in a cycle of division, inspection, and assignation of signifiers at the expense of what is being signified. While the early schools of critical theory were blind to the ideological memes and structure immanent within literary works, both expressive of—and dedicated towards maintaining—the Western Enlightenment-cum-liberal capitalist system that birthed and cherished it, the modern outgrowths have shown scant more awareness. It is not that theory's practitioners explicitly support the western liberal political memes embedded within the text, but rather that their systemic noodling renders them oblivious to their existence at the various levels of what they are examining, including that the vast quantity of material omitted from the designation of literature harbors much that would prove most beneficial, to individual and, more importantly, society as a whole, to being dissected, discoursed about, and brought into the public exchange of ideas. Literary theory needs perforce to rid itself of this literary constraint, that its theory can come out of the academic cloisters and reveal more of the ways in which so-called democratic citizens are distracted, disaffected, disparaged, distraught and disposable. As Eagleton determines it, all writing is political at its core and in its message, however subtly and unconsciously emplaced: so rather than penning or escaping into the lulling comforts of an imagined world, where existing exploitations and inequities are strained via story, why not resist and redirect those energies towards the actual political, that real and enduring change might be effected for living beings?
The author notes that a majority of readers do so for the pleasure the activity brings—while various defensive and escapist mechanisms may be an important part of the process, it is, in the end, the enjoyment sparked within by the magic of the word that has driven the consumption of books, especially in fiction. Keeping that in mind—and how the masses have thusly ever defied accommodation with the demands and expectations pressed upon them by Marxist intellectuals—I found Eagleton persuasive as regards his primary target, the academic environ where those well-placed to initiate and carry the debate have become isolated, drawn into often tedious and dry discussion between themselves about minutiae that serves of little import apart from its own exercise. His personal ideological ends aside, he has provided herein an erudite serving of food for thought.
I was bemused throughout by how much I could both distance myself from each theoretical system, by means of disagreement, while yet returning over and again to analyzing how aptly they measured the contents of literature relative to the historical flux in operation across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Indeed, the minute drilling down of the Post-Structural world, wherein there are no certainties and everything becomes relevant to a complex series of linkages and interpretations appears to me both symptomatic and causative of the frenzied, matricial information overload which has been burgeoning across the globe at breakneck speed. We have been sundered from our communalized society and made to stand as lone individuals: and now we find that all of the meanings that are so central to our self-determination are but another ephemeral element of our constituted beings. The only certainty we possess is that of a constantly evaporating certainty. In this nucleated rationalism that pierces all veils of the irrational mind—mental constructs, spiritual salves, subjective meaning—seeking ever more devolution no matter the bailiwick, I'm reminded of of dead cultures, where the intellect, no longer guided by the strong arm of meta-culture, runs amok amidst its environs.
December 19, 2013
If you are one of those near-sighted, pedantic, theory-addicted lit-geeks (like myself, thank you) and you tire of trying to 'splain to folks the various -isms that spin out of the ivory tower and splat into the public square (who woulda thought that the word "deconstruct" would one day make regular appearances in Entertainment Weakly(sic)? "Not I" says this "I.") then this is THE book to pass out as a nice quick primer to strangers at the airport or, better yet, the one or two people who will still talk to you about books.
The coolest thing about this survey/overview is that as Eagleton goes through each of the lit-crit "movements" or "schools" he also makes a persuasive case for them. This makes the book engaging almost like a novel can be in that there is some drama as he leads the reader into one school, makes the reader think "Hmm, I like these ideas and would like to subscribe to the newsletter" before he then pulls at a few threads and then demonstrates what critics of that approach actually did, showing up its flaws and questionable assumptions and stuff, before Eagleton goes on to show what was reassembled from that mess into a new trend of thought which he gives the whole pitch for, before doing that again.
Yes, I know what you are thinking; your exact thoughts right now are "But wait, isn't he reifying the idea of intellectual 'evolution' by imposing a progress-narrative myth over disparate communities of cultural discourse as if they are elements within a linear strand of causally-connected events?"
Well duh.
And as one of the esteemed UK Gucci Marxists he should know better, right? But ya gotta start somewhere and for a book so brief he does an amazing job at pressing compact profiles onto the page with a minimum of distortion and enough impact to shut up people you know who say stupid shit like "Deconstruction is about how nothing means anything, right?" Now, I know some folx may balk at the idea of reading a "marxist," and that is a completely understandable and quite-to-be-expected reaction forcapitalist bast people who daily struggle with seeing the world through a false consciousness (titter) but I don't think it colors his sketches in any meaningful way and certainly shouldn't impede understanding of his summaries of all these different critical approaches.
Now what approaches/schools/movements/factions/discourse-communities are these? Well let's see what we got here... you gotcher basic history of "English" as a proper subject for study in the first damn place and how shockingly tardy was its acceptance as a serious thang, then ya gotcher pre-New Criticism unpleasantness, 'course then ya gotcher actual New Criticism unpleasantness, then ya gotcher phenomenology guys and that whole debate about the in-your-head "in here" vs that whole "out there" deal and where the hell you put "intent" with all that, then ya gotcher sciency formalists, what with their semiotix and structuralism which you're really gonna wanna take a look at if ya like your categories and diagrams. Then ya gotcher deal where the previous machine turned on itself and got all AI on its own ass with the post-structuralists, then you can take a break on the couch with your psychoanalytic session. When you wake up and you realize you're almost done and you wonder "what about rhetoric?" he goes all rhet alright by blending that through feminism(s) and other political criticism(z).
And yes it's mostly a nice surface-scratching tour but if anyone wants to dig deeper his bibliography is phat.
The coolest thing about this survey/overview is that as Eagleton goes through each of the lit-crit "movements" or "schools" he also makes a persuasive case for them. This makes the book engaging almost like a novel can be in that there is some drama as he leads the reader into one school, makes the reader think "Hmm, I like these ideas and would like to subscribe to the newsletter" before he then pulls at a few threads and then demonstrates what critics of that approach actually did, showing up its flaws and questionable assumptions and stuff, before Eagleton goes on to show what was reassembled from that mess into a new trend of thought which he gives the whole pitch for, before doing that again.
Yes, I know what you are thinking; your exact thoughts right now are "But wait, isn't he reifying the idea of intellectual 'evolution' by imposing a progress-narrative myth over disparate communities of cultural discourse as if they are elements within a linear strand of causally-connected events?"
Well duh.
And as one of the esteemed UK Gucci Marxists he should know better, right? But ya gotta start somewhere and for a book so brief he does an amazing job at pressing compact profiles onto the page with a minimum of distortion and enough impact to shut up people you know who say stupid shit like "Deconstruction is about how nothing means anything, right?" Now, I know some folx may balk at the idea of reading a "marxist," and that is a completely understandable and quite-to-be-expected reaction for
Now what approaches/schools/movements/factions/discourse-communities are these? Well let's see what we got here... you gotcher basic history of "English" as a proper subject for study in the first damn place and how shockingly tardy was its acceptance as a serious thang, then ya gotcher pre-New Criticism unpleasantness, 'course then ya gotcher actual New Criticism unpleasantness, then ya gotcher phenomenology guys and that whole debate about the in-your-head "in here" vs that whole "out there" deal and where the hell you put "intent" with all that, then ya gotcher sciency formalists, what with their semiotix and structuralism which you're really gonna wanna take a look at if ya like your categories and diagrams. Then ya gotcher deal where the previous machine turned on itself and got all AI on its own ass with the post-structuralists, then you can take a break on the couch with your psychoanalytic session. When you wake up and you realize you're almost done and you wonder "what about rhetoric?" he goes all rhet alright by blending that through feminism(s) and other political criticism(z).
And yes it's mostly a nice surface-scratching tour but if anyone wants to dig deeper his bibliography is phat.
February 6, 2010
An introduction to literary theory?
Perhaps. Or perhaps this is more of an essay on theory from a Marxist slant.
Terry Eagleton's prefatory statement: "Hostility to theory usually means an opposition to other people's theories and an oblivion of one's own" seems ironic in a book, though innocuously entitled Literary Theory: An Introduction, that works instead to decimate most literary theory in the 60 years prior to the book's publication. Eagleton does spare Marxism (his own ideology) and feminism (not a politically tactful maneuver for a man).
Eagleton's incisive wit in part accounts for what blinds a reader to his deceptive menace. It is very hard not to laugh, for instance, when he encapsulates a notion of T. S. Eliot's by stating that "Somewhere in the seventeenth century, though Eliot is unsure of the precise date, a 'dissociation of sensibility' set in: thinking was no longer like smelling."
Eagleton's rhetoric is less funny when he loosely, without offering hard evidence, connects Heidegger's theories with the Third Reich, or - in a book where he himself is writing literary theory - moralistically denounces the theories of Roland Barthes by commenting, "There is something a little disturbing about this avant-garde hedonism in a world where others lack not only books but food."
Whatever Eagleton's polemic is, it is not, to my mind, a neutral introduction to literary theory. While Eagleton does provide some excellent synopses of critical theory, knowing he has an agenda is essential.
Perhaps. Or perhaps this is more of an essay on theory from a Marxist slant.
Terry Eagleton's prefatory statement: "Hostility to theory usually means an opposition to other people's theories and an oblivion of one's own" seems ironic in a book, though innocuously entitled Literary Theory: An Introduction, that works instead to decimate most literary theory in the 60 years prior to the book's publication. Eagleton does spare Marxism (his own ideology) and feminism (not a politically tactful maneuver for a man).
Eagleton's incisive wit in part accounts for what blinds a reader to his deceptive menace. It is very hard not to laugh, for instance, when he encapsulates a notion of T. S. Eliot's by stating that "Somewhere in the seventeenth century, though Eliot is unsure of the precise date, a 'dissociation of sensibility' set in: thinking was no longer like smelling."
Eagleton's rhetoric is less funny when he loosely, without offering hard evidence, connects Heidegger's theories with the Third Reich, or - in a book where he himself is writing literary theory - moralistically denounces the theories of Roland Barthes by commenting, "There is something a little disturbing about this avant-garde hedonism in a world where others lack not only books but food."
Whatever Eagleton's polemic is, it is not, to my mind, a neutral introduction to literary theory. While Eagleton does provide some excellent synopses of critical theory, knowing he has an agenda is essential.
August 26, 2012
A very important work for me personally. What Eagleton accomplishes here is remarkable.
The body of the work is an introduction to literary criticism that goes, more or less, school-by-school according to when they came into being and grew to be popular. Eagleton is a master both at explaining the theories in terms of their formal structures and historicizing. This book contains some of the shortest yet most detailed introductions I know to the most difficult of thinkers: Derrida, Freud, Lacan, Kristeva, Heidegger, Husserl, Gadamer, and others. The ones on Freud, Derrida, and Lacan are particularly strong. And, as I said, Eagleton's engagement with these thinkers never loses sight of the historical and sociological: he sees the literary criticism, and the literature, of a historical moment as being bound in essential ways with contemporary social and political problems.
But it is not the body of the work that I love most; I was influenced most profoundly by the "Introduction," subtitled "What Is Literature?," and the "Conclusion," subtitled "Political Criticism." These two chapters are nothing short of stunning.
In the first, "Introduction: What Is Literature?," which sets a dynamic stage for everything else in the book, Eagleton argues that we must realize that, literally, what counts as literature at a given moment is determined by outside -- that is, social and political -- forces. In other words, he lays out the theory, explained above, according to which he interprets the history of literary criticism. And he takes things to their logical conclusions: there is no thing-in-itself, the essence of which we could know, he says, designated by the term "literature." When we study literature, we cannot hope to find anything about "the fixed being of things." Comparing "literature" to the word "weed" - what plants do we pick when we say we are "picking 'weeds'"? - he says that both terms can at most only "tell us about the role of a text or a thistle in a social context, its relations with and differences from its surroundings, the ways it behaves, the purposes it may be put to and the human practices clustered around it." It's powerful stuff.
"Conclusion: Political Criticism," is probably the text that convinced me of the truth of that old phrase -- or is it a speculative proposition? -- "everything is political." We might say that this is Eagleton's much longer version of Marx's Eleventh Thesis on Feuerbach. I will try to trace some of it.
First, Eagleton situates contemporary literary criticism historically. He says:
"As I write [the book was first published in 1983:], it is estimated that the world contains over 60,000 nuclear warheads.... The approximate cost of these weapons is 500 billion dollars a year, or 1.3 billion dollars per day. Five per cent of this sum - 25 billion dollars - could drastically, fundamentally alleviate the problems of the poverty-stricken Third World."
Yet he does not leave it there. He returns to the topic of literary criticism, convicting it of a certain insignificance in the face of these affairs. He continues:
"Anyone who believed that literary theory was more important than such matters would no doubt be considered somewhat eccentric, but perhaps only a little less eccentric than those who consider than the two topics might be somehow related."
Eagleton then makes a compelling argument that literary theorists must debate politics if they are even to do literary theory properly today. His point is not that literary theory needs to become political, though -- not exactly. "There is, in fact, no need to drag politics into literary theory," he says; "as with South African sport, it has been there from the beginning." Rather, he says, concluding one of the book's major "subplots," the manner in which the tradition in literary theory has ignored politics politics, setting it in a separate domain with one meta-narrative or another, is in itself political. He then goes on to make that more concrete, insisting that what he calls the "liberal humanist" position -- a position, and a common one, characterized by tothe wishy washy belief that literature "teaches 'values'" or "makes you a 'better person'" in some abstract way -- is not enough. Literature and literary theory have futures only insomuch as they seek to engage with the political, carefully defined by Eagleton as "no more than the way we organize our social life together, and the power-relations which this involves."
This piece effected a decisive change in my thought; I was forced to realize that I could not escape from politics to theory; if theory itself terminated in politics, then I had to turn to politics in my own way, too.
Most highly recommended.
The body of the work is an introduction to literary criticism that goes, more or less, school-by-school according to when they came into being and grew to be popular. Eagleton is a master both at explaining the theories in terms of their formal structures and historicizing. This book contains some of the shortest yet most detailed introductions I know to the most difficult of thinkers: Derrida, Freud, Lacan, Kristeva, Heidegger, Husserl, Gadamer, and others. The ones on Freud, Derrida, and Lacan are particularly strong. And, as I said, Eagleton's engagement with these thinkers never loses sight of the historical and sociological: he sees the literary criticism, and the literature, of a historical moment as being bound in essential ways with contemporary social and political problems.
But it is not the body of the work that I love most; I was influenced most profoundly by the "Introduction," subtitled "What Is Literature?," and the "Conclusion," subtitled "Political Criticism." These two chapters are nothing short of stunning.
In the first, "Introduction: What Is Literature?," which sets a dynamic stage for everything else in the book, Eagleton argues that we must realize that, literally, what counts as literature at a given moment is determined by outside -- that is, social and political -- forces. In other words, he lays out the theory, explained above, according to which he interprets the history of literary criticism. And he takes things to their logical conclusions: there is no thing-in-itself, the essence of which we could know, he says, designated by the term "literature." When we study literature, we cannot hope to find anything about "the fixed being of things." Comparing "literature" to the word "weed" - what plants do we pick when we say we are "picking 'weeds'"? - he says that both terms can at most only "tell us about the role of a text or a thistle in a social context, its relations with and differences from its surroundings, the ways it behaves, the purposes it may be put to and the human practices clustered around it." It's powerful stuff.
"Conclusion: Political Criticism," is probably the text that convinced me of the truth of that old phrase -- or is it a speculative proposition? -- "everything is political." We might say that this is Eagleton's much longer version of Marx's Eleventh Thesis on Feuerbach. I will try to trace some of it.
First, Eagleton situates contemporary literary criticism historically. He says:
"As I write [the book was first published in 1983:], it is estimated that the world contains over 60,000 nuclear warheads.... The approximate cost of these weapons is 500 billion dollars a year, or 1.3 billion dollars per day. Five per cent of this sum - 25 billion dollars - could drastically, fundamentally alleviate the problems of the poverty-stricken Third World."
Yet he does not leave it there. He returns to the topic of literary criticism, convicting it of a certain insignificance in the face of these affairs. He continues:
"Anyone who believed that literary theory was more important than such matters would no doubt be considered somewhat eccentric, but perhaps only a little less eccentric than those who consider than the two topics might be somehow related."
Eagleton then makes a compelling argument that literary theorists must debate politics if they are even to do literary theory properly today. His point is not that literary theory needs to become political, though -- not exactly. "There is, in fact, no need to drag politics into literary theory," he says; "as with South African sport, it has been there from the beginning." Rather, he says, concluding one of the book's major "subplots," the manner in which the tradition in literary theory has ignored politics politics, setting it in a separate domain with one meta-narrative or another, is in itself political. He then goes on to make that more concrete, insisting that what he calls the "liberal humanist" position -- a position, and a common one, characterized by tothe wishy washy belief that literature "teaches 'values'" or "makes you a 'better person'" in some abstract way -- is not enough. Literature and literary theory have futures only insomuch as they seek to engage with the political, carefully defined by Eagleton as "no more than the way we organize our social life together, and the power-relations which this involves."
This piece effected a decisive change in my thought; I was forced to realize that I could not escape from politics to theory; if theory itself terminated in politics, then I had to turn to politics in my own way, too.
Most highly recommended.
October 15, 2016
Typically opinionated, acerbic and entertaining, Terry Eagleton has produced an unlikely airport read. This 200 page introduction to literary theory is now studied at Harvard Business School as an example of how an academic textbook can become a best-seller. An outcome at which the grumpy Marxist does not know whether to be "delighted or outraged".
The book sweeps briskly through a history of literary theories: phenomenology, hermeneutics, reception theory, structuralism, semiotics, poststructuralism, feminism, psycholanalysis and, of course, Marxism.
I studied English Literature in the 1990s. While Professor Eagleton was the exception, my other tutors were enthralled by poststructuralism, particularly deconstructionism. They taught me that meaning is non-existent and that truth, reality and certainty should be consigned to the dustbin. I didn't agree and was made to
feel stupid and unfashionable. The nihilism of deconstruction cast me, as Eagleton says in this book, "dizzyingly into a bottomless linguistic abyss."
Eagleton is scathing of this type of theory that "testifies to the impossibility of language ever doing more than talk about its own failure, like some bar-room bore." His thesis is that literature has meaning, and that meaning can be revealed through a variety of theoretical lenses. Each theory can help the reader to take a different view of the same book. Unfortunately, this book does not show us how to do so. You will have to go to Eagleton's other books ("How to Read Literature") for his brilliant Marxist and feminist analyses of literature.
Eagleton argues for the liberating power of theory: "One important reasons for the growth of literary theory since the 1960s was..the impact of new kinds of students entering higher education from supposedly "uncultivated" backgrounds. Theory was a way of emancipating literary works from the stranglehold of a "civilised sensibility"."
Theory can be understood by anyone, not just the elite. This book is an entertaining and clear-sighted guide for readers of all backgrounds. Whether you are beleaguered undergraduate studying English Literature,
or a book club reader wanting to spice up discussion of the latest best-seller, this book has something for everyone. If only Professor Eagleton had written it 30 years ago.
The book sweeps briskly through a history of literary theories: phenomenology, hermeneutics, reception theory, structuralism, semiotics, poststructuralism, feminism, psycholanalysis and, of course, Marxism.
I studied English Literature in the 1990s. While Professor Eagleton was the exception, my other tutors were enthralled by poststructuralism, particularly deconstructionism. They taught me that meaning is non-existent and that truth, reality and certainty should be consigned to the dustbin. I didn't agree and was made to
feel stupid and unfashionable. The nihilism of deconstruction cast me, as Eagleton says in this book, "dizzyingly into a bottomless linguistic abyss."
Eagleton is scathing of this type of theory that "testifies to the impossibility of language ever doing more than talk about its own failure, like some bar-room bore." His thesis is that literature has meaning, and that meaning can be revealed through a variety of theoretical lenses. Each theory can help the reader to take a different view of the same book. Unfortunately, this book does not show us how to do so. You will have to go to Eagleton's other books ("How to Read Literature") for his brilliant Marxist and feminist analyses of literature.
Eagleton argues for the liberating power of theory: "One important reasons for the growth of literary theory since the 1960s was..the impact of new kinds of students entering higher education from supposedly "uncultivated" backgrounds. Theory was a way of emancipating literary works from the stranglehold of a "civilised sensibility"."
Theory can be understood by anyone, not just the elite. This book is an entertaining and clear-sighted guide for readers of all backgrounds. Whether you are beleaguered undergraduate studying English Literature,
or a book club reader wanting to spice up discussion of the latest best-seller, this book has something for everyone. If only Professor Eagleton had written it 30 years ago.
October 23, 2015
I cannot be too upset with Terry Eagleton's Literary Theory: An Introduction since the book accurately reflects literary theory's preoccupation with almost everything except literature. This hostility continues to today. Because of some of the confusion in this book, some parts are not even right and other parts are not even wrong. To take an example, Eagleton criticizes phenomenology for presenting an inadequate strategy to deal with literary works. This criticism, addressed especially at Edmund Husserl, the founder and major proponent of phenomenology, would have come as a surprise to Husserl because Husserl never espoused a literary theory. Surely what he had to say about human beings would, if it is true, have some implications for literature, but in the remote and trivial sense that discoveries in psychology would help define the parameters by which a character might be judged plausible in a literary work. Eagleton meanders about so-called literary strategies throughout much of the book. For example, Eagleton writes on p. 154: "It is clear that the child in this state [i.e. its early infancy:] is not even prospectively a citizen who could be relied upon to do a hard day's work. It is anarchic, sadistic, aggressive, self-involved and remorselessly pleasure-seeking, under the sway of what Freud calls the pleasure principle; nor does it have any respect for differences of gender." Setting aside whether any of these empirical claims are true, a decent question to ask would be: What does this have to do with literature?
Eagleton admits, in his final chapter, that he is openly hostile to literature and would prefer, rather, a view toward cultural studies. This position, however, is just a decision to abandon the study of literature. His concern, and some other people's concerns who work in literature departments, is that 'literature' is too parochial. But all 'literature' is is an evaluative term for a loose assemblage of works, both poetry and prose, that people have deemed influential, brilliant, or essential to understanding particular civilizations or human nature in general. If Eagleton et al. disagrees with the works in particular that have been classified as literature, then he and others should contest some of the works. For the other works with which these professors do find value, what would be reasonable is to study these works in the myriad ways one could study them: for example, a literary critic could come to understand the biography of the person who wrote the work; learn about the historical content in which the work was written; discover the work's reception over the years; study the form and/or content of the work; reveal the social or political implications of the work for its own time, for our time, or for any time; and relay this information to academic circles and concerned general audiences, all with an eye on how the collected data help us understand literature, a particular civilization, and human nature. Why this mighty task is not sufficient for Eagleton, I do not understand. To want to expand the study is to do analysis in some other field, and so my advice to Eagleton et al. who have qualms with how 'parochial' literature seems, these professors could, if they are more interested in social, political, or economic theory anyway, return to school to teach sociology, political science, or economics.
Eagleton admits, in his final chapter, that he is openly hostile to literature and would prefer, rather, a view toward cultural studies. This position, however, is just a decision to abandon the study of literature. His concern, and some other people's concerns who work in literature departments, is that 'literature' is too parochial. But all 'literature' is is an evaluative term for a loose assemblage of works, both poetry and prose, that people have deemed influential, brilliant, or essential to understanding particular civilizations or human nature in general. If Eagleton et al. disagrees with the works in particular that have been classified as literature, then he and others should contest some of the works. For the other works with which these professors do find value, what would be reasonable is to study these works in the myriad ways one could study them: for example, a literary critic could come to understand the biography of the person who wrote the work; learn about the historical content in which the work was written; discover the work's reception over the years; study the form and/or content of the work; reveal the social or political implications of the work for its own time, for our time, or for any time; and relay this information to academic circles and concerned general audiences, all with an eye on how the collected data help us understand literature, a particular civilization, and human nature. Why this mighty task is not sufficient for Eagleton, I do not understand. To want to expand the study is to do analysis in some other field, and so my advice to Eagleton et al. who have qualms with how 'parochial' literature seems, these professors could, if they are more interested in social, political, or economic theory anyway, return to school to teach sociology, political science, or economics.
December 13, 2018
Strange the books one fails to read. I've written about this before (in connection with ): how the very fact that you are supposed to have read certain books makes you feel like you have already read them long before you read them, so you do not in fact ever read them. There is the oft-cited scene in the campus novel I can't remember the name of where the English Renaissance scholar confesses he's never read Hamlet. Luckily, I have read Hamlet—about 10 or 11 times, in fact—but I somehow escaped all of graduate school in literature without ever reading from cover to cover the once-inescapable, then-outdated, and now-classic 1983 primer on literary theory by Britain's most renowned Marxist critic.
No time like the present. So how is old Literary Theory? Like everything I've ever read or perused by Eagleton—save Criticism and Ideology, that execrable and impenetrable excursus into Althusserian pseudo-scientism—it is addictive, hilarious, and infuriating. The Catholic leftist Eagleton is the Chesterton of Marxism, and not only because their names scan similarly, but because he, like the author of Orthodoxy, disseminates his apologetics in a paradox-besotted style of wittily uncommon common sense. Some sample (non-consecutive) sentences:
Note the rhetorical tactics on display: the visual-verbal parallel of the posited antithesis books/food in the first quotation that is meant to puncture delectation in the former with guilty awareness of the necessity announced by the latter; the dry "rather like" that introduces the extreme simile reducing structuralism to absurdity; and the guttural alliteration of guerrilla/Guatemala that drives home such insurgents' moral and material superiority to mere sibilant perverts and aesthetes.
Eagleton wields this rhetorical arsenal to blow holes in the facade of any Romanticism or aestheticism, to roll back the entire multifarious attempt, from Shelley to Leavis to Derrida, to render the imagination, literature, or language as self-sufficient realms apart from material real-world struggle. Eagleton allows that almost all these attempts were made in protest against a reductive or exploitative world of capitalist rationality, but because they do not seek to transform this world here and now, they can only be irrationalist evasions or technocratic travesties—flowers on the chain of oppression or opiates in the place of remedies, to borrow some Marxian tropes. The book should really be subtitled not An Introduction but An Attack.
Like all polemics, Eagleton's gets a bit repetitive. He begins with an introduction that argues against the concept of "literature." This is a concept, he claims, with no intrinsic meaning; literature is just what a complex set of social practices designates as literature, usually because the texts so designated serve the ruling interests of society. With that demystification established, Eagleton begins his survey of literary theory.
"Literature" as we know it began in the Romantic era, when writers set poetry and art apart: they became devoted not to entertainment or moral instruction, their prior tasks, but realms of imaginative plentitude unbesmirched by the dark satanic mills of the industrial age. This aestheticism was eventually institutionalized in England and America when English displaced classics in the university curriculum as the discipline meant to humanize the educated populace, where "humanization" implies quiescence before the status quo in the name of national or cultural unity. At best, literature is compensation for what capitalism robs from us; at worst, it is the alibi of the ruling classes.
The chaos and destruction of the 20th century in Europe, meanwhile, led its thinkers on their own quest for certitude amid devastation. Hence the Cartesian need to prove that oneself and the world exist and are explicable to which phenomenology and structuralism testify. Unfortunately, these both lead in Eagleton's view to idealism, to a vision of the mind or the structures it apprehends rotating in some Platonic space above the heads of real people who exist in social conflict and comity.
Poststructuralism and psychoanalysis, with their insistence on the fissures in both psyche and speech, are improvements on structuralism and phenomenology because of their ability to disrupt the smooth functioning of an ideology that bids us submit to our pre-established social roles; but they are finally too fixated on recondite textual matters to really shake the powers that be.
Eagleton's strategy, then, is to explicate each theory more or less in its own terms before showing it to be a kind of belated Romantic pastoral, an imaginary solution to real problems, to use the Althusserean formulation he several times deploys. This is similar to the "immanent critique" championed by the Frankfurt School, wherein the critic shows a theory or philosophy to be unable to realize its own goals on its own terms, usually because it makes no provision for its universal and material realization. In other words, Marxism, the sole science of utopia's actualizing, is the one true theory because, if I may use Eagleton's own method of inversion, it is the one theory that can come true.
Eagleton thus ends his book not with a chapter on Marxism, which would, he says, imply that Marxism is just one theory among others. Rather, he ends with a call to reform the teaching of literature so that it serves, pluralistically, the ends of an equal society:
That settles that. "Better people" is in quotation marks, by the way, because Eagleton, after inveighing for 180 pages against an ill-defined or undefined straw-man he calls "liberal humanism" concedes that liberal humanism is in fact correct when its partisans say that we should read literature because it "makes us better people." The problem, though, is that we can only become better people in a better society, so the study of literature should be politically rather than morally improving, should improve the relations of production and not just the individual soul.
How to reform literary study toward that progressive end? By replacing it with cultural studies: down with literature, except where it may prove tactically emancipatory (for instance, Eagleton says that cultural studies should be taught to underprivileged children but also concedes that "it may also be valuable to use literature to foster in them a sense of linguistic potential denied to them by their social conditions"); and up with the whole world of human discourse, from textbooks to TV, from Machiavelli to Madonna, from sati to Star Trek (I alliterate in appreciation of the master), evaluated according to its political designs on the reader/viewer.
In another bout of Chestertonian inversion, Eagleton pronounces his theory not revolutionary but reactionary ("Like all the best radical positions, then, mine is a thoroughly traditionalist one") because it is only a return to the critical discipline that reigned in the western world from antiquity to the Augustan age and which was unjustly supplanted by Romantic aestheticism and its sequelae: the study of rhetoric.
Eagleton has appended forewords and afterwords to subsequent editions of this book; largely they rue the collapse of the political task he prophesied for cultural studies even as cultural studies itself triumphed in academe. Feminism, multiculturalism and postcolonialism, he complains, became too liberal, too focused on identity politics and not enough on class struggle. He does not notably allow this development to convince him that his theory itself, his call to abandon the very idea of the aesthetic, was wrong, though. Yet it was and remains wrong, and the fact that at least one version of it triumphed while everything else in the English department and in society at large got worse and worse should make its wrongness obvious.
The unequal distribution of the aesthetic should not be used as a warrant for its general abolition, as if to say that since the poor can't afford healthy food, no one else should be able to eat it. The left used to believe in lifting everyone up; since the failure of its '60s dreams, though, which Eagleton rightly identifies as the context for poststructuralist omni-skepticism, it has been so consumed with resentment and with apocalyptic visions that it has only wanted to drag everyone down to the same debased level and call that equality.
Nowhere is this leveling-down left more evident than in the progressive intelligentsia's hatred of the very concept of art, sometimes expressed as a blasé shrug ("Who am I to judge?") and sometimes as a militant threat ("Down with bourgeois aesthetics!"). My complaint is not that elements of popular or fringe culture are being studied in place of the classics, because some of that work is excellent and because many of the classics were themselves originally popular and fringe culture; still less is my complaint about the demotion of dead white men. Regular readers will recall that I have myself championed both Grant Morrison and Toni Morrison at great length.
But even if the most complex aesthetic objects, whatever their origins, will not make you more moral, their contemplation will make you more intelligent, your mind more subtle and multifarious. Therefore, the most complex objects are the appropriate objects of a liberal education, and not only for what they can tell us about ideology but for how they can teach us to hold any ideology in the utmost possible of humility and peace. Politics is no panacea: every modern ideology that has actually been implemented has slaughtered its way across the last two centuries, and Eagleton's bromides about "human emancipation" have served as an alibi for communist atrocities just as liberal humanist rhetoric was the fig leaf on imperialist oppression and certain high-theory concepts have fascist origins.
I believe in separating art from politics because if there is nothing outside of politics there will be no place from which to launch a protest when politics grows murderous. The belief that politics supervenes upon aesthetics and ethics leads only to bad art and bad behavior, both beatified as somehow progressive.
Eagleton can snidely smirk all he likes about "liberal humanism" and Matthew Arnold and all the rest of the ritually desecrated names of the theory era, but the fact is that the Romantics were right: in a brutal reductionist world, we need art to show us expansive thinking and beautiful living. It is the latter two values, not lessons in political activism or commercials for the pabulum of the corporate monopolies, that we should advocate in the schools. Ironically, a Marxism that denies the claims of the aesthetic serves no one's interests but those of the money-men.
No time like the present. So how is old Literary Theory? Like everything I've ever read or perused by Eagleton—save Criticism and Ideology, that execrable and impenetrable excursus into Althusserian pseudo-scientism—it is addictive, hilarious, and infuriating. The Catholic leftist Eagleton is the Chesterton of Marxism, and not only because their names scan similarly, but because he, like the author of Orthodoxy, disseminates his apologetics in a paradox-besotted style of wittily uncommon common sense. Some sample (non-consecutive) sentences:
There is something a little disturbing about [Barthes's] self-indulgent avant-garde hedonism in a world where others lack not only books but food.
[Structuralist criticism] is rather like killing a person in order to examine more conveniently the circulation of the blood.
But [traditional socialists] had overlooked the possibility that the erotic frissons of reading, or even work confined to those labelled criminally insane, were an adequate solution, and so had the guerrilla fighters of Guatemala.
Note the rhetorical tactics on display: the visual-verbal parallel of the posited antithesis books/food in the first quotation that is meant to puncture delectation in the former with guilty awareness of the necessity announced by the latter; the dry "rather like" that introduces the extreme simile reducing structuralism to absurdity; and the guttural alliteration of guerrilla/Guatemala that drives home such insurgents' moral and material superiority to mere sibilant perverts and aesthetes.
Eagleton wields this rhetorical arsenal to blow holes in the facade of any Romanticism or aestheticism, to roll back the entire multifarious attempt, from Shelley to Leavis to Derrida, to render the imagination, literature, or language as self-sufficient realms apart from material real-world struggle. Eagleton allows that almost all these attempts were made in protest against a reductive or exploitative world of capitalist rationality, but because they do not seek to transform this world here and now, they can only be irrationalist evasions or technocratic travesties—flowers on the chain of oppression or opiates in the place of remedies, to borrow some Marxian tropes. The book should really be subtitled not An Introduction but An Attack.
Like all polemics, Eagleton's gets a bit repetitive. He begins with an introduction that argues against the concept of "literature." This is a concept, he claims, with no intrinsic meaning; literature is just what a complex set of social practices designates as literature, usually because the texts so designated serve the ruling interests of society. With that demystification established, Eagleton begins his survey of literary theory.
"Literature" as we know it began in the Romantic era, when writers set poetry and art apart: they became devoted not to entertainment or moral instruction, their prior tasks, but realms of imaginative plentitude unbesmirched by the dark satanic mills of the industrial age. This aestheticism was eventually institutionalized in England and America when English displaced classics in the university curriculum as the discipline meant to humanize the educated populace, where "humanization" implies quiescence before the status quo in the name of national or cultural unity. At best, literature is compensation for what capitalism robs from us; at worst, it is the alibi of the ruling classes.
The chaos and destruction of the 20th century in Europe, meanwhile, led its thinkers on their own quest for certitude amid devastation. Hence the Cartesian need to prove that oneself and the world exist and are explicable to which phenomenology and structuralism testify. Unfortunately, these both lead in Eagleton's view to idealism, to a vision of the mind or the structures it apprehends rotating in some Platonic space above the heads of real people who exist in social conflict and comity.
Poststructuralism and psychoanalysis, with their insistence on the fissures in both psyche and speech, are improvements on structuralism and phenomenology because of their ability to disrupt the smooth functioning of an ideology that bids us submit to our pre-established social roles; but they are finally too fixated on recondite textual matters to really shake the powers that be.
Eagleton's strategy, then, is to explicate each theory more or less in its own terms before showing it to be a kind of belated Romantic pastoral, an imaginary solution to real problems, to use the Althusserean formulation he several times deploys. This is similar to the "immanent critique" championed by the Frankfurt School, wherein the critic shows a theory or philosophy to be unable to realize its own goals on its own terms, usually because it makes no provision for its universal and material realization. In other words, Marxism, the sole science of utopia's actualizing, is the one true theory because, if I may use Eagleton's own method of inversion, it is the one theory that can come true.
Eagleton thus ends his book not with a chapter on Marxism, which would, he says, imply that Marxism is just one theory among others. Rather, he ends with a call to reform the teaching of literature so that it serves, pluralistically, the ends of an equal society:
Any method or theory which will contribute to the strategic goal of human emancipation, the production of 'better people' through the socialist transformation of society, is acceptable.
That settles that. "Better people" is in quotation marks, by the way, because Eagleton, after inveighing for 180 pages against an ill-defined or undefined straw-man he calls "liberal humanism" concedes that liberal humanism is in fact correct when its partisans say that we should read literature because it "makes us better people." The problem, though, is that we can only become better people in a better society, so the study of literature should be politically rather than morally improving, should improve the relations of production and not just the individual soul.
How to reform literary study toward that progressive end? By replacing it with cultural studies: down with literature, except where it may prove tactically emancipatory (for instance, Eagleton says that cultural studies should be taught to underprivileged children but also concedes that "it may also be valuable to use literature to foster in them a sense of linguistic potential denied to them by their social conditions"); and up with the whole world of human discourse, from textbooks to TV, from Machiavelli to Madonna, from sati to Star Trek (I alliterate in appreciation of the master), evaluated according to its political designs on the reader/viewer.
In another bout of Chestertonian inversion, Eagleton pronounces his theory not revolutionary but reactionary ("Like all the best radical positions, then, mine is a thoroughly traditionalist one") because it is only a return to the critical discipline that reigned in the western world from antiquity to the Augustan age and which was unjustly supplanted by Romantic aestheticism and its sequelae: the study of rhetoric.
Eagleton has appended forewords and afterwords to subsequent editions of this book; largely they rue the collapse of the political task he prophesied for cultural studies even as cultural studies itself triumphed in academe. Feminism, multiculturalism and postcolonialism, he complains, became too liberal, too focused on identity politics and not enough on class struggle. He does not notably allow this development to convince him that his theory itself, his call to abandon the very idea of the aesthetic, was wrong, though. Yet it was and remains wrong, and the fact that at least one version of it triumphed while everything else in the English department and in society at large got worse and worse should make its wrongness obvious.
The unequal distribution of the aesthetic should not be used as a warrant for its general abolition, as if to say that since the poor can't afford healthy food, no one else should be able to eat it. The left used to believe in lifting everyone up; since the failure of its '60s dreams, though, which Eagleton rightly identifies as the context for poststructuralist omni-skepticism, it has been so consumed with resentment and with apocalyptic visions that it has only wanted to drag everyone down to the same debased level and call that equality.
Nowhere is this leveling-down left more evident than in the progressive intelligentsia's hatred of the very concept of art, sometimes expressed as a blasé shrug ("Who am I to judge?") and sometimes as a militant threat ("Down with bourgeois aesthetics!"). My complaint is not that elements of popular or fringe culture are being studied in place of the classics, because some of that work is excellent and because many of the classics were themselves originally popular and fringe culture; still less is my complaint about the demotion of dead white men. Regular readers will recall that I have myself championed both Grant Morrison and Toni Morrison at great length.
But even if the most complex aesthetic objects, whatever their origins, will not make you more moral, their contemplation will make you more intelligent, your mind more subtle and multifarious. Therefore, the most complex objects are the appropriate objects of a liberal education, and not only for what they can tell us about ideology but for how they can teach us to hold any ideology in the utmost possible of humility and peace. Politics is no panacea: every modern ideology that has actually been implemented has slaughtered its way across the last two centuries, and Eagleton's bromides about "human emancipation" have served as an alibi for communist atrocities just as liberal humanist rhetoric was the fig leaf on imperialist oppression and certain high-theory concepts have fascist origins.
I believe in separating art from politics because if there is nothing outside of politics there will be no place from which to launch a protest when politics grows murderous. The belief that politics supervenes upon aesthetics and ethics leads only to bad art and bad behavior, both beatified as somehow progressive.
Eagleton can snidely smirk all he likes about "liberal humanism" and Matthew Arnold and all the rest of the ritually desecrated names of the theory era, but the fact is that the Romantics were right: in a brutal reductionist world, we need art to show us expansive thinking and beautiful living. It is the latter two values, not lessons in political activism or commercials for the pabulum of the corporate monopolies, that we should advocate in the schools. Ironically, a Marxism that denies the claims of the aesthetic serves no one's interests but those of the money-men.
January 26, 2019
I love this book as a history of literary theory from the Romantic period onward (new criticism, reception theory, structuralism, post-structuralism). It has a VERY clear Marxist bent, but it works perfectly as a plain history if you're conscious of that and can make your own judgments. Particularly good on the Leavises and the dawn of "English" as a subject. Pretty academic, to give fair warning!
November 26, 2015
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November 1, 2024
Viciously polemical, scathingly interrogative, brilliantly political. Sharp. Economical and illuminating.
Eagleton's reading is unapologetically anti-fascist, anti-capitalist, anti-colonial, anti-liberal, anti-humanist (yet humane), anti-bourgeois, antì art which dellusionally seeks to escape from the world and denies its own innate ideology. In the negative spaces of his dissatisfaction, he seeks to construct a theory that embraces and questions all culture, that is liberatory for the individual, that is useful for the cultivation of solidarity, that is ruthlessly historical in its method and grounded in the material realities (and, indeed, needs) of society, that may be the killer of 'literature', but also its redeemer, for all people.
Terry Eagleton somewhat muddles literary theory and literary criticism, and sometimes ventures into specific historical strains of critics, which are unlikely to hold much relevance or interest nowadays � yet it does so to make a broad and powerful point about the fallability and arbitrary values of institutions, about politics and the history of criticism. Not least of all, it made reading about psychoanalysis bearable. The organisation of the text is quite a chronological, and this may be a bit a bit confusing at first, but it unfurls into a thorough and fascinating genealogy of influences, comparing parallels in-between diverse schools of thought. Such synthesis is Eagleton's greatest strength, and what winds up making Literary Theory: An Introduction a surprisingly effective and rich introductory guide to much of 20th century philosophy, economical and entertaining.
If you ask why we should follow this particular rule in the first place, I can only once more appeal to the authority of the literary institution and say: 'This is thr kind of thing we do.' To which you can always reply: 'Well, do something else.'
Eagleton's reading is unapologetically anti-fascist, anti-capitalist, anti-colonial, anti-liberal, anti-humanist (yet humane), anti-bourgeois, antì art which dellusionally seeks to escape from the world and denies its own innate ideology. In the negative spaces of his dissatisfaction, he seeks to construct a theory that embraces and questions all culture, that is liberatory for the individual, that is useful for the cultivation of solidarity, that is ruthlessly historical in its method and grounded in the material realities (and, indeed, needs) of society, that may be the killer of 'literature', but also its redeemer, for all people.
... Political argument is not an alternative to moral preoccupations: it is those preoccupations taken seriously in their full implications.
[...]
[W]e have now begun to discuss another way of conceiving what distinguishes one kind of discourse from another, which is neither ontological nor methodological but strategic. This means asking not what the object is or how we should approach it, but why we should try to engage it in the first place. [...] Any method or theory which will contribute to the strategic goal of himqn emancipation, the production of 'better people' through the socialist transformation of society, is acceptable.
[...]
In any academic study we select the objects and methods of procedure which we believe most important, and our assessment of their importance is governed by frames of interest deeply rooted in our practical forms of social life. Radical critics are no different in this respect: it is just that they have a set of social priorities with which most people at present tend to disagree. This is why they are commonly dismissed as 'ideological, because 'ideology is always a way of describing other people's interests rather than one's own.
[pp. 208-211, emphasis in bold (incl. in earlier quotation) mine ]
Terry Eagleton somewhat muddles literary theory and literary criticism, and sometimes ventures into specific historical strains of critics, which are unlikely to hold much relevance or interest nowadays � yet it does so to make a broad and powerful point about the fallability and arbitrary values of institutions, about politics and the history of criticism. Not least of all, it made reading about psychoanalysis bearable. The organisation of the text is quite a chronological, and this may be a bit a bit confusing at first, but it unfurls into a thorough and fascinating genealogy of influences, comparing parallels in-between diverse schools of thought. Such synthesis is Eagleton's greatest strength, and what winds up making Literary Theory: An Introduction a surprisingly effective and rich introductory guide to much of 20th century philosophy, economical and entertaining.
February 7, 2010
Eagleton’s book is a discussion of literary styles of the twentieth century and covers a variety of literary theories. He explores the topic of literature and offers a determination of how to judge what literature is and what does not fall into this genre. His thorough discussion of the twentieth literary theory includes theorists, models of theory and his opinion on the positive and negative aspects of each.
Lauded as a classic on literary theory, this book leaves the novice reader perplexed and grasping to sort out the author’s point of view. Is there true value in literary criticism or does he think that most of it should be disregarded? A beneficial discussion in the book approaches the question of literature and its definition. Inquirers often ask the academic or avid reader to define what literature truly is and is not. Eagleton’s in-depth introduction discusses this question but does not arrive at a definitive answer articulated in one or two sentences. This discussion does allow the reader to form some type of response when questioned.
As for the actual discussion of literary theory, Eagleton is thorough when setting the stage for a review of the different theories. He begins with a history that he entitles as the “the rise of English.� The subsequent chapters offer a baptism into the religion of literary theory administered by one not-entirely-convinced believer. There are moments in the text when the reader wonders if Eagleton believes in using literary theory or if should be abandoned.
His writing style is dense and he assumes that his reader has foundational knowledge about literary theory. At times, it appears that Eagleton writes to “hear himself talk.� One review listed on the back cover says that both members of the academy and civilians will appreciate Eagleton’s treatment of the subject. Only those civilians who aspire to become members of the academy will be motivated to push through to the end of the book!
Lauded as a classic on literary theory, this book leaves the novice reader perplexed and grasping to sort out the author’s point of view. Is there true value in literary criticism or does he think that most of it should be disregarded? A beneficial discussion in the book approaches the question of literature and its definition. Inquirers often ask the academic or avid reader to define what literature truly is and is not. Eagleton’s in-depth introduction discusses this question but does not arrive at a definitive answer articulated in one or two sentences. This discussion does allow the reader to form some type of response when questioned.
As for the actual discussion of literary theory, Eagleton is thorough when setting the stage for a review of the different theories. He begins with a history that he entitles as the “the rise of English.� The subsequent chapters offer a baptism into the religion of literary theory administered by one not-entirely-convinced believer. There are moments in the text when the reader wonders if Eagleton believes in using literary theory or if should be abandoned.
His writing style is dense and he assumes that his reader has foundational knowledge about literary theory. At times, it appears that Eagleton writes to “hear himself talk.� One review listed on the back cover says that both members of the academy and civilians will appreciate Eagleton’s treatment of the subject. Only those civilians who aspire to become members of the academy will be motivated to push through to the end of the book!
October 25, 2024
Introduces most of the main literary theoretic currents alive up to the time of Watergate and then demolishes them on basis of their covert/incoherent/bad political commitments. Some, like Empson or Bakhtin, are basically spared. Does not really introduce Marxist or feminist literary analysis. All with an eye toward dismantling literature as an academic field in favor of cultural studies/rhetoric/discourse studies.
Loved learning about the Scrutineers. Sometimes he summarizes actual philosophical arguments in a way that is unbearably, distractingly glib. Lands heavy hits on Angloid empiricism but never really defines “rationalism� or “neo-Stalinism� or “authoritarianism� which terms he uses a lot. Also in afterword says that by 1989 all Western Marxists had been calling for the end of the USSR for 70 years. Which was news.
Loved learning about the Scrutineers. Sometimes he summarizes actual philosophical arguments in a way that is unbearably, distractingly glib. Lands heavy hits on Angloid empiricism but never really defines “rationalism� or “neo-Stalinism� or “authoritarianism� which terms he uses a lot. Also in afterword says that by 1989 all Western Marxists had been calling for the end of the USSR for 70 years. Which was news.
September 2, 2018
"من نیستم در جایی که فکر میکنم، و فکر میکنم در جایی که نیستم" #لاکان
کتابی مفید و البته تخصصی در زمینه ادبیات و نظریه های متاخر ادبی که برخلاف اسمش چندان پیش درآمد و مقدمه وار نیست یا لااقل برای مخاطب عام اصلا اینطور نیست.
نویسنده با نگاهی جامع و منتقدانه سعی کرده است نظریه های مهم چند سده اخیر را مرور و موشکافی کند و پیوست منسجمی از دلایل ضعف و کمرنگ شدن هر کدام ارایه نماید.و در نهایت نظر خود را به عنوان یک منتقد و ن��ریه پرداز برجسته این حوزه اینگونه مطرح می کند که تمامی نظریات مربوط به حوزه ادبیات اولا ریشه در بخشی دیگر چون فلسفه،جامعه شناسی،روانشناسی،اقتصاد و ...دارند و ثانیا همه ی آنها دیدگاه های سیاسی دوران خود را بازتاب می کنند و ادبیات و نظریات باب روزش عمدتا تقویت کننده قدرت سیاسی حاکم و ترویج کننده ملزومات تئوریک آن در محافل آکادمیک و فکری هستند.
کتابی مفید و البته تخصصی در زمینه ادبیات و نظریه های متاخر ادبی که برخلاف اسمش چندان پیش درآمد و مقدمه وار نیست یا لااقل برای مخاطب عام اصلا اینطور نیست.
نویسنده با نگاهی جامع و منتقدانه سعی کرده است نظریه های مهم چند سده اخیر را مرور و موشکافی کند و پیوست منسجمی از دلایل ضعف و کمرنگ شدن هر کدام ارایه نماید.و در نهایت نظر خود را به عنوان یک منتقد و ن��ریه پرداز برجسته این حوزه اینگونه مطرح می کند که تمامی نظریات مربوط به حوزه ادبیات اولا ریشه در بخشی دیگر چون فلسفه،جامعه شناسی،روانشناسی،اقتصاد و ...دارند و ثانیا همه ی آنها دیدگاه های سیاسی دوران خود را بازتاب می کنند و ادبیات و نظریات باب روزش عمدتا تقویت کننده قدرت سیاسی حاکم و ترویج کننده ملزومات تئوریک آن در محافل آکادمیک و فکری هستند.
August 24, 2010
This book seems to serve three functions. First, it's a reasonable introduction to twentieth century literary theory, not including new historicism. Eagleton doesn't seem to have bothered to read much of the new criticism or the poetry associated with it (for instance, he says The Waste Land "intimates that fertility cults hold the clue to the salvation of the West"), and reads a bit too much English class structure into American life. But he's quite good on reception theory, structuralism and post-structuralism (although he's far too kind to Derrida, and far, far too kind to Kristeva).
Second, it's an exercise in 'Marxism' of the most idiotic kind, which believes that anyone who holds an ideal (e.g., a harmonious society) and reads literature is just "submitting to the political status quo." For someone so keen on bringing politics into things, it's odd that Eagleton spends so little time thinking about the ways that reading literature as an image of harmony and so on might best be considered expressions of *yearning for* rather than *belief in* a harmonious society.
Third, it's a shining example of what literary writing really should be like: polemical, cut and thrust, no nonsense attacks on one hand; rigid statements of faith and belief on the other. You'll know what Mr Eagleton stood for in the '80s once you've read about three pages of this. We're taught today not to say anything that anyone might disagree with- not only is that no fun, it's no way to advance any discussion. This book is seriously, seriously flawed, but I'd much rather re-read it than the essays collected in Cambridge's 'History of Literary Criticism' any day.
Finally, I wonder how Terry feels about his constant attacks on religion in this book. Some might say he was just trying to fit into the radical, epater '80s, no?
Second, it's an exercise in 'Marxism' of the most idiotic kind, which believes that anyone who holds an ideal (e.g., a harmonious society) and reads literature is just "submitting to the political status quo." For someone so keen on bringing politics into things, it's odd that Eagleton spends so little time thinking about the ways that reading literature as an image of harmony and so on might best be considered expressions of *yearning for* rather than *belief in* a harmonious society.
Third, it's a shining example of what literary writing really should be like: polemical, cut and thrust, no nonsense attacks on one hand; rigid statements of faith and belief on the other. You'll know what Mr Eagleton stood for in the '80s once you've read about three pages of this. We're taught today not to say anything that anyone might disagree with- not only is that no fun, it's no way to advance any discussion. This book is seriously, seriously flawed, but I'd much rather re-read it than the essays collected in Cambridge's 'History of Literary Criticism' any day.
Finally, I wonder how Terry feels about his constant attacks on religion in this book. Some might say he was just trying to fit into the radical, epater '80s, no?
November 21, 2014
I wrote more smiley faces in the margins than I expected to.
It wasn’t until Ch. 2 that I finally realized exactly how Eagleton’s Marxism plays into his allergic reaction to literature as an objective category. He hates the idea of the academy telling the rest of the world what constitutes literature. It’s just another example of the powerful controlling the powerless, and he can’t stand it.
Poststructuralism (Ch. 4) is a historical term, because it’s describing a theory that came after structuralism. Poststructuralism could also be called A-structuralism, because it’s against the very idea of structure. I have a hard time taking poststructuralists seriously, because to me they seem like someone sitting on a tree limb, sawing away. In their disdain for the previous elite (WASPs, DWEMs, etc.), they have merely replaced the old elite with themselves. They see reality more clearly (although, reality doesn’t really exist). They claim not to value values (or say that the value is only relative), and yet they clearly value poststructuralism over structuralism. They claim that there is no meaning, and yet they travel the world giving lectures on what poststructuralism means.
Lots of information in the Afterward about postmodernity/postmodernism and metanarrative.
It wasn’t until Ch. 2 that I finally realized exactly how Eagleton’s Marxism plays into his allergic reaction to literature as an objective category. He hates the idea of the academy telling the rest of the world what constitutes literature. It’s just another example of the powerful controlling the powerless, and he can’t stand it.
Poststructuralism (Ch. 4) is a historical term, because it’s describing a theory that came after structuralism. Poststructuralism could also be called A-structuralism, because it’s against the very idea of structure. I have a hard time taking poststructuralists seriously, because to me they seem like someone sitting on a tree limb, sawing away. In their disdain for the previous elite (WASPs, DWEMs, etc.), they have merely replaced the old elite with themselves. They see reality more clearly (although, reality doesn’t really exist). They claim not to value values (or say that the value is only relative), and yet they clearly value poststructuralism over structuralism. They claim that there is no meaning, and yet they travel the world giving lectures on what poststructuralism means.
Lots of information in the Afterward about postmodernity/postmodernism and metanarrative.
August 31, 2016
has this become the standard undergraduate introductory literary theory text yet? strident in its pro-marxist polemic, and very comical in the summation of opposing ideas (i.e., all of them herein), eagleton certainly makes for a lively presentation.
August 3, 2011
Don't every read this unless you enjoy suffering.
May 24, 2019
Terry Eagleton bu kitabında edebiyat kuramının kaba bir özetini geçiyor. Fenomenoloji, yorumbilgisi, alımlama kuramı, yapısalcılık ve göstergebilim, postyapısalcılık ve son olarak da psikanaliz anlatılıyor. Bu benim böyle bir kitaptan tam da beklediğim sıralama.
Sıralama, konular güzel de Eagleton için aynısı söylenebilir mi? Zor. Kitap bazı yerlerde gereksiz yere zorlaşıyor, çok daha basit bir anlatım mümkün. Çeviriden kaynaklanıyor olabilir mi diye orijinaline baktığımda onun da aynı şekilde olduğunu gördüm, bu yüzden Eagleton'a yazıyorum bunu. Daha evvel Eagleton okuduğumda da benzerini hissetmiştim.
Böyle bir kitabın en önemli niteliği, ki hani kapağında da kocaman "giriş" yazıyorsa, açıklayıcı olması. Yer yer iyi yazılmış olduğunu düşündüğüm bölümler olsa da, genel olarak kaba buldum. Çok daha bariz, çok daha incelikli yazılabilirmiş. Kitabı okurken defalarca bahsi geçen konunun lehine de aleyhine de yorulabilecek yorumlara denk gelip tekrar tekrar okuduğum oldu, ki bunlar bilerek oyunlu kurulmuş cümleler değil, belli bir tekrardan sonra "şunu demek istemiş" diyerek anlaşılacak cümleler.
Bir diğer mesele de edebiyat kuramlarının siyasi eleştirisi meselesi. Zaten peşin peşin söylüyor Eagleton, siyasi eleştiri yapmamaya çalışmayacağım, açık açık yapacağım diye. Getirdiği eleştirilerin çok büyük kısmı beni ikna etmedi, bilakis anlamsız geldi. Büyük oranda zaten ortada olan şeyi alaycı ve aşağılayıcı bir üslupla tekrar ederek, "E işte zaten görüyorsunuz bunların ne kadar saçma olduğunu!" deme yoluna gitmiş. Zaten bu boyuttaki bir kitapta teorik olarak da mümkün değil, yeri geliyor 3 sayfa anlattığı kuramın iki cümlede üstünü çiziyor. Bu kitabın 250 sayfa olmaması gerekirdi diyeceğim, ama Eagleton'ın üslubuyla 500 sayfalık bir kitabı okumayı düşünmek bile tüylerimi diken diken ediyor.
Yani özetle, elinizin altında bulunsun, bir deneyin okumayı, sabrınız ve vaktiniz varsa, yahut Husserl, Heidegger gibi isimlerle de biraz vakit geçirdiyseniz devam edersiniz. Daha evvel böyle kitaplar okumadıysanız ve konulara çok yabancıysanız ben tavsiye etmiyorum açıkçası. Zekiye Antakyalıoğlu'nun kitabını çok daha güzel bir üslupla yazılmış, onu önerebilirim.
Son olarak eğer kitapta geçen düşünürlerle ilgili kısaca bilgi edinmek isterseniz, Zeynep Direk'in İtü Radyosu için yaptığı Felsefe Vakti programının ses kayıtlarını Youtube'da bulabilirsiniz.
Sıralama, konular güzel de Eagleton için aynısı söylenebilir mi? Zor. Kitap bazı yerlerde gereksiz yere zorlaşıyor, çok daha basit bir anlatım mümkün. Çeviriden kaynaklanıyor olabilir mi diye orijinaline baktığımda onun da aynı şekilde olduğunu gördüm, bu yüzden Eagleton'a yazıyorum bunu. Daha evvel Eagleton okuduğumda da benzerini hissetmiştim.
Böyle bir kitabın en önemli niteliği, ki hani kapağında da kocaman "giriş" yazıyorsa, açıklayıcı olması. Yer yer iyi yazılmış olduğunu düşündüğüm bölümler olsa da, genel olarak kaba buldum. Çok daha bariz, çok daha incelikli yazılabilirmiş. Kitabı okurken defalarca bahsi geçen konunun lehine de aleyhine de yorulabilecek yorumlara denk gelip tekrar tekrar okuduğum oldu, ki bunlar bilerek oyunlu kurulmuş cümleler değil, belli bir tekrardan sonra "şunu demek istemiş" diyerek anlaşılacak cümleler.
Bir diğer mesele de edebiyat kuramlarının siyasi eleştirisi meselesi. Zaten peşin peşin söylüyor Eagleton, siyasi eleştiri yapmamaya çalışmayacağım, açık açık yapacağım diye. Getirdiği eleştirilerin çok büyük kısmı beni ikna etmedi, bilakis anlamsız geldi. Büyük oranda zaten ortada olan şeyi alaycı ve aşağılayıcı bir üslupla tekrar ederek, "E işte zaten görüyorsunuz bunların ne kadar saçma olduğunu!" deme yoluna gitmiş. Zaten bu boyuttaki bir kitapta teorik olarak da mümkün değil, yeri geliyor 3 sayfa anlattığı kuramın iki cümlede üstünü çiziyor. Bu kitabın 250 sayfa olmaması gerekirdi diyeceğim, ama Eagleton'ın üslubuyla 500 sayfalık bir kitabı okumayı düşünmek bile tüylerimi diken diken ediyor.
Yani özetle, elinizin altında bulunsun, bir deneyin okumayı, sabrınız ve vaktiniz varsa, yahut Husserl, Heidegger gibi isimlerle de biraz vakit geçirdiyseniz devam edersiniz. Daha evvel böyle kitaplar okumadıysanız ve konulara çok yabancıysanız ben tavsiye etmiyorum açıkçası. Zekiye Antakyalıoğlu'nun kitabını çok daha güzel bir üslupla yazılmış, onu önerebilirim.
Son olarak eğer kitapta geçen düşünürlerle ilgili kısaca bilgi edinmek isterseniz, Zeynep Direk'in İtü Radyosu için yaptığı Felsefe Vakti programının ses kayıtlarını Youtube'da bulabilirsiniz.
February 18, 2009
I picked up this book expecting to learn a little bit about each major school of literary theory, and I wasn't disappointed. The book is a much easier read than some of the authors it references, and (I hope) may be useful in understanding those authors.
Eagleton says he would prefer to call it the "Theory of Discourse" rather than "Literary Theory" -- it's really the theory of human speech, communication, discussion, and rhetoric, in all forms. As such, it includes thinkers who studied linguistics (Saussure), but also psychoanalysis as language (Lacan), discourse as a means of economic control (Marx), language as it pertains to sexual roles (Lacan, Kristeva), and so on. The selection still seems a bit arbitrary to me -- haven't there been interesting linguistic theories since Saussure? But I think this is a quirk of the field, not of the book.
Eagleton seems to present most authors fairly, as if he wants you to seriously consider that author's position. Then, amusingly enough, he will attempt to tear the author to shreds so he can go on to the next author. I didn't find his rants to be particularly profound or convincing. Thankfully he spends far more time illustrating each author's points than he spends beating them up.
Eagleton says he would prefer to call it the "Theory of Discourse" rather than "Literary Theory" -- it's really the theory of human speech, communication, discussion, and rhetoric, in all forms. As such, it includes thinkers who studied linguistics (Saussure), but also psychoanalysis as language (Lacan), discourse as a means of economic control (Marx), language as it pertains to sexual roles (Lacan, Kristeva), and so on. The selection still seems a bit arbitrary to me -- haven't there been interesting linguistic theories since Saussure? But I think this is a quirk of the field, not of the book.
Eagleton seems to present most authors fairly, as if he wants you to seriously consider that author's position. Then, amusingly enough, he will attempt to tear the author to shreds so he can go on to the next author. I didn't find his rants to be particularly profound or convincing. Thankfully he spends far more time illustrating each author's points than he spends beating them up.
June 25, 2013
Literary Theory is closely aligned with Political Theory. This is what I have taken away from this book and also understood from other theory books that I have read. The mindset of the day, the views on women, labor, ethnic groups, God, etc. all played a part in how literature was viewed and dissected and analysed throughout the years.
It was an entertaining ride, to say the least. I learned early on that Terry Eagleton is not a capitalist. He goes through the various theories from the 19th century on and critiques each of them harshly. He's not as harsh on deconstuctionism and Derrida as he is on some of the other theorists. For a non-fiction book, this was certainly fast paced and very interesting.
I did not expect it to be as politically charged as it was. I enjoyed it immensely. I may have ended the book thinking "Is it all pointless or what?" but I still gave the book 4 stars because I had a hard time putting it down. I'm not well versed in literary theories myself to even begin to formulate a personal opinion on this subject, but I liked this book. I admit I agreed with a lot of what Eagleton had to say about our society.
It was an entertaining ride, to say the least. I learned early on that Terry Eagleton is not a capitalist. He goes through the various theories from the 19th century on and critiques each of them harshly. He's not as harsh on deconstuctionism and Derrida as he is on some of the other theorists. For a non-fiction book, this was certainly fast paced and very interesting.
I did not expect it to be as politically charged as it was. I enjoyed it immensely. I may have ended the book thinking "Is it all pointless or what?" but I still gave the book 4 stars because I had a hard time putting it down. I'm not well versed in literary theories myself to even begin to formulate a personal opinion on this subject, but I liked this book. I admit I agreed with a lot of what Eagleton had to say about our society.
June 5, 2021
110205: i 'know of' more than 'know' the various theories recounted here, much as a web of signifiers of any language. i have not necessarily read or have forgotten many of the core lit theory texts. i find this text very useful in summarizing all in one place, all from one voice, all with a skeptical but earnest attitude, these various schools. this book is a good review...
itself now an historical document (1983), and generally does place in era and history the schools of thought. i may believe mistaken or simplified, the characterization of certain approaches- particularly phenomenology- and pessimism in which he views in total critical project, in late period capitalism, in liberal humanism, but he is balanced, lucid, accessible. if you can read only one lit crit book this year read this one...
itself now an historical document (1983), and generally does place in era and history the schools of thought. i may believe mistaken or simplified, the characterization of certain approaches- particularly phenomenology- and pessimism in which he views in total critical project, in late period capitalism, in liberal humanism, but he is balanced, lucid, accessible. if you can read only one lit crit book this year read this one...
January 7, 2013
Apart from learning about doctrines like structuralism and post-structuralism, I also learned to view the "text" like I've never viewed it before. A text is not just words put on paper, it's the world of signs and signifiers(to employ the structuralist terminology) that we all inhabit. I guess it won't be outlandish to say that the whole world's a text and we're all trying to make sense of it, regardless of whether we realize it or not. The next time I read, listen or watch something, I'll be sure to pay a little bit more attention than I've done so far. Always pays to read between the lines, and I'm not just talking about words printed on paper.
February 2, 2017
Ένα εξαιρετικά καλογραμμένο βιβλίο,αλλά αρκετά δύσκολο στη μελέτη του αν δεν έχει κάποιος παρόμοια ακούσματα από πριν.Εννοώ ότι αποτελεί ένα εξαιρετικό εγχειρίδιο μελέτης για κάποιον που έχει αφιερώσει χρόνο σε παρακολούθηση σχετικών πανεπιστημιακών μαθημάτων.Είναι πολύ δύσκολο για κάποιον άσχετο με το αντικείμενο ή έστω μη σχετικό με την θεωρία της Λογοτεχνίας να κατανοήσει το ρόλο του βιβλίου.Προσωπικά μου γεννήθηκαν πάρα πολλές απορίες που ζητούν απαντήσεις. Η ερμηνεία του κειμένου προυποθέτει έναν σύμβουλο-οδηγό στο περιεχόμεν�� αυτού.
Είμαι θαυμάστρια του Ήγκλετον,ειδικά "της έννοιας της κουλτούρας",εδώ όμως με παίδεψε.
Είμαι θαυμάστρια του Ήγκλετον,ειδικά "της έννοιας της κουλτούρας",εδώ όμως με παίδεψε.
March 15, 2012
This author is incredibly pretentious. I think he assumes anyone reading his book is a literary scholar. Again, I only read it because I had to for class. I think I have a fairly extensive vocabulary, but I had to read this book with a dictionary open because there were so many obscure words in it. He did not do a good job of stating things so they were understandable. And since this is supposed to be "An Introduction" you'd think he'd try to be a little more reader friendly.
September 18, 2017
Wish I'd read this earlier in life
October 26, 2019
الأدب، هذا الشيء المراوغ، الذي يخلق اللذة الخالصة، والذي يعبّر عن كل ما فينا من سعادة، أو اضطراب، أو تعاسة، أو ما طاب لك من ذكر كلمات تصنف كمشاعر. الأدب، والقصص، والحكايات، ذلك النسيج المعقد، والذي من شأنه أن ينتشلنا من حالة ليقذفنا إلى حالة أخرى. كل هذا استدعى أن يُكتب في الأدب نظرية، وهنا، يكتب إيغلتون "مقدمة" أقرب ما تكون إلى أطروحة في نظرية الأدب، يستعرض نظرية ومن ثم يأتي دوره لينقدها ويفندها.
في مدخل هذا الكتاب، يحاول إيغلتون أن يعرف الأدب. ليرفض أن يتم تعريفه بأنه كتابة تخيلية، أي أنها كتابة مخالفة للحقيقة بالمعنى الحرفي. لذا، فهو يهدم الثابت والعام والمنتشر في تعريف الأدب.
ينتقل إيغلتون، لينبش أوراق التاريخ للمدارس النقدية أملًا في تعريف الأدب، فيبدأ باستعراض الشكلانية، وتطورها واندثارها. ليستعرض في كتابه هذا، المدارس والحركات النقدية الأدبية المعروفة. لكن استعراض إيغلتون لهذه الحركات كان تفاعليًا، ديناميكيًا، روائيًا. وبذلك، كان قادرًا على التعبير عن نظرية الأدب - والتي قد تشعرك بالملل نظرًا لأن هذا الموضوع يعتبر أكاديميًا وتخصصيًا بشكل كبير - بطريقة خفيفة.
الحركات النقدية هنا تم استعراضها بالتسلسل، فكأن إيغلتون يستعرض شريطًا سريعًا لتاريخ النقد الأدبي. فكيف نشأت الدراسات الإنجليزية، وكيف نشأت التمحيص، والنقد الجديد، وعلم الظاهرات والتأويل، ونظرية الاستقبال، وكيف تولد هذه الحركات والمدارس من رحم الحروب أو الكوارث أو أنها تكون ردات فعل على أنظمة سياسية واقتصادية واجتماعية. فمن هنا، نرى كيف أن الأدب مرتبط أشد الارتباط بالسلطة، لذا يعمد إيغلتون على ربطه بالإيديولوجيا.
يتابع إيغلتون حديثه عن البنيوية والسيميائية، وما بعد البنيوية. أما عن فصل التحليل النفسي، فأعتبرها مقدمة جيدة للراغبين في قراءة فرويد ولاكلان. الجميل في استعراض إيغلتون أنه تمكن من تحفيز براعم التذوق الدماغية، فقدّم للقارئ مادة تمكنه من الغوص أكثر (إن شاء) في مدارس فلسفية وأدبية عديدة، فمثلًا في الفصل الأخير قدم فرويد بطريقة سلسلة وكذلك هايدغر ولاكلان ورولان بارت وهيرش وهيسرل وغيرهم. من هنا، نرى بأن الكتاب دسم جدًا، يتطلب وقتًا كبيرًا، فهو بداية جيدة للعديد من المواضيع.
لا شك بأن إيغلتون تناول العديد من الثنائيات هنا، كما أن ثنائية اللغة والمعنى كانت حاضرة بقوة في طرح إيغلتون، زد على ذلك ثنائية الاستعارة والكناية، واستعرض أيضًا ثنائية الخطاب واللغة.
في المحصلة، يختتم إيغلتون كتابه بفصل النقد السياسي. فبعد استعراض النظريات الأدبية، يأتي إيغلتون ليفصح عن وجهة نظره من هذه النظرية الأدبية، فيعبر عن رأيه بأنها � أعني النظرية الأدبية � متصلة بشكل كبير بالنظام السياسي، وذلك لدور النظرية بتعزيز وإسناد افتراضات النظم السياسية.
هي رحلة تضيء ثنايا عقلك، رحلة كتبها إيغلتون وترجمها ثائر ديب بترجمة تحترم عقل القارئ، وتثري مصطلحاته العربية بكلمات دقيقة، ليتضح الجهد المبذول في ترجمة الكتاب، لذا، شكر ثائر ديب هنا وجب وجوبًا.
في فصله الأخير، يرفض إيغلتون هذه النظرية الأدبية - بعد كل هذا المجهود في استعراضها! � فيقول: "ويتعين علينا أن نستخلص، إذًا، أن هذا الكتاب ليس مدخلًا إلى النظرية الأدبية بقدر ما هو نعي لها، وأننا قد انتهينا إلى دفن الموضوع الذي سعينا إلى نبشه." فهل كانت محاولتنا لفهم النظرية الأدبية عبثًا؟ أم أن ارتباطها الوثيق بالنظام السياسي، جعلها دهليزية بشكل جلي؟
لا تقرأ هذا الكتاب إلا في الحالات التالية:
- أن تكون/ي مهتمًا/مهتمةً بالنقد الأدبي.
- أن تكون/ي مستعدًا مستعدةً لزوبعة عقلية عظيمة.
- فصل الشتاء ضروري لقراءة هذا الكتاب.
شكرًا تيري إيغلتون، شكرًا ثائر ديب.
في مدخل هذا الكتاب، يحاول إيغلتون أن يعرف الأدب. ليرفض أن يتم تعريفه بأنه كتابة تخيلية، أي أنها كتابة مخالفة للحقيقة بالمعنى الحرفي. لذا، فهو يهدم الثابت والعام والمنتشر في تعريف الأدب.
ينتقل إيغلتون، لينبش أوراق التاريخ للمدارس النقدية أملًا في تعريف الأدب، فيبدأ باستعراض الشكلانية، وتطورها واندثارها. ليستعرض في كتابه هذا، المدارس والحركات النقدية الأدبية المعروفة. لكن استعراض إيغلتون لهذه الحركات كان تفاعليًا، ديناميكيًا، روائيًا. وبذلك، كان قادرًا على التعبير عن نظرية الأدب - والتي قد تشعرك بالملل نظرًا لأن هذا الموضوع يعتبر أكاديميًا وتخصصيًا بشكل كبير - بطريقة خفيفة.
الحركات النقدية هنا تم استعراضها بالتسلسل، فكأن إيغلتون يستعرض شريطًا سريعًا لتاريخ النقد الأدبي. فكيف نشأت الدراسات الإنجليزية، وكيف نشأت التمحيص، والنقد الجديد، وعلم الظاهرات والتأويل، ونظرية الاستقبال، وكيف تولد هذه الحركات والمدارس من رحم الحروب أو الكوارث أو أنها تكون ردات فعل على أنظمة سياسية واقتصادية واجتماعية. فمن هنا، نرى كيف أن الأدب مرتبط أشد الارتباط بالسلطة، لذا يعمد إيغلتون على ربطه بالإيديولوجيا.
يتابع إيغلتون حديثه عن البنيوية والسيميائية، وما بعد البنيوية. أما عن فصل التحليل النفسي، فأعتبرها مقدمة جيدة للراغبين في قراءة فرويد ولاكلان. الجميل في استعراض إيغلتون أنه تمكن من تحفيز براعم التذوق الدماغية، فقدّم للقارئ مادة تمكنه من الغوص أكثر (إن شاء) في مدارس فلسفية وأدبية عديدة، فمثلًا في الفصل الأخير قدم فرويد بطريقة سلسلة وكذلك هايدغر ولاكلان ورولان بارت وهيرش وهيسرل وغيرهم. من هنا، نرى بأن الكتاب دسم جدًا، يتطلب وقتًا كبيرًا، فهو بداية جيدة للعديد من المواضيع.
لا شك بأن إيغلتون تناول العديد من الثنائيات هنا، كما أن ثنائية اللغة والمعنى كانت حاضرة بقوة في طرح إيغلتون، زد على ذلك ثنائية الاستعارة والكناية، واستعرض أيضًا ثنائية الخطاب واللغة.
في المحصلة، يختتم إيغلتون كتابه بفصل النقد السياسي. فبعد استعراض النظريات الأدبية، يأتي إيغلتون ليفصح عن وجهة نظره من هذه النظرية الأدبية، فيعبر عن رأيه بأنها � أعني النظرية الأدبية � متصلة بشكل كبير بالنظام السياسي، وذلك لدور النظرية بتعزيز وإسناد افتراضات النظم السياسية.
هي رحلة تضيء ثنايا عقلك، رحلة كتبها إيغلتون وترجمها ثائر ديب بترجمة تحترم عقل القارئ، وتثري مصطلحاته العربية بكلمات دقيقة، ليتضح الجهد المبذول في ترجمة الكتاب، لذا، شكر ثائر ديب هنا وجب وجوبًا.
في فصله الأخير، يرفض إيغلتون هذه النظرية الأدبية - بعد كل هذا المجهود في استعراضها! � فيقول: "ويتعين علينا أن نستخلص، إذًا، أن هذا الكتاب ليس مدخلًا إلى النظرية الأدبية بقدر ما هو نعي لها، وأننا قد انتهينا إلى دفن الموضوع الذي سعينا إلى نبشه." فهل كانت محاولتنا لفهم النظرية الأدبية عبثًا؟ أم أن ارتباطها الوثيق بالنظام السياسي، جعلها دهليزية بشكل جلي؟
لا تقرأ هذا الكتاب إلا في الحالات التالية:
- أن تكون/ي مهتمًا/مهتمةً بالنقد الأدبي.
- أن تكون/ي مستعدًا مستعدةً لزوبعة عقلية عظيمة.
- فصل الشتاء ضروري لقراءة هذا الكتاب.
شكرًا تيري إيغلتون، شكرًا ثائر ديب.
July 6, 2022
Eagleton’s writing is blinded by ideology and his seemingly unending bitterness and lack of faith in humanity makes for a deeply unpleasant read. Having said that, it is a comprehensive overview of the main theories in the history of literary criticism, from hermeneutics to post-structuralism. I found his interpretation of Harold Bloom's theory of the "anxiety of influence" as a psychoanalytic rewriting of history particularly interesting, with each writer living in the oppressive shadow of his literary 'father', as it were.
Eagleton makes the bold claim that it is likely we will encounter a future where Shakespeare bears no relevance to anyone. I beg to differ. Shakespeare's writing deals with universal truths which speak to all of humanity. Indeed, Shakespeare is so relevant to the human experience that Bloom describes him as the "first truly multicultural writer". As long as there is humanity, Shakespeare has relevance. On the other hand, Eagleton's writing does not refer to universalities and speaks to a minority of academics. It is largely inaccessible due to its technical jargon and his narrow ideological framework. One can easily imagine a future (and a much better one at that) where his writing has faded into irrelevance. Fortunately, Shakespeare's place in the literary canon seems safe for the meantime as even Mr Eagleton cannot help paraphrasing and quoting him throughout his book.
Eagleton's own argument is that after the decline of the influence of religion, literature became a tool of the bourgeoisie for installing middle-class liberal values in the working class to prevent popular uprising and an end to private property. He criticises current literary criticism for perpetuating the interests of the upper and middle classes by forming "a part of the ideological apparatus of the modern capitalist state". However, it seems as though the only change Eagleton wants to make to the supposed current system is replacing the capitalist state with a Marxist one centred around the interests of the 'workers' in order to liberate them from their oppressors.
This was an arduous read and the margins of my copy are filled with objections to Eagleton's arguments. Were it not for his obviously well-informed knowledge of literary theory and helpfully detailed overview of various arguments, this would have been intolerable.
Eagleton makes the bold claim that it is likely we will encounter a future where Shakespeare bears no relevance to anyone. I beg to differ. Shakespeare's writing deals with universal truths which speak to all of humanity. Indeed, Shakespeare is so relevant to the human experience that Bloom describes him as the "first truly multicultural writer". As long as there is humanity, Shakespeare has relevance. On the other hand, Eagleton's writing does not refer to universalities and speaks to a minority of academics. It is largely inaccessible due to its technical jargon and his narrow ideological framework. One can easily imagine a future (and a much better one at that) where his writing has faded into irrelevance. Fortunately, Shakespeare's place in the literary canon seems safe for the meantime as even Mr Eagleton cannot help paraphrasing and quoting him throughout his book.
Eagleton's own argument is that after the decline of the influence of religion, literature became a tool of the bourgeoisie for installing middle-class liberal values in the working class to prevent popular uprising and an end to private property. He criticises current literary criticism for perpetuating the interests of the upper and middle classes by forming "a part of the ideological apparatus of the modern capitalist state". However, it seems as though the only change Eagleton wants to make to the supposed current system is replacing the capitalist state with a Marxist one centred around the interests of the 'workers' in order to liberate them from their oppressors.
This was an arduous read and the margins of my copy are filled with objections to Eagleton's arguments. Were it not for his obviously well-informed knowledge of literary theory and helpfully detailed overview of various arguments, this would have been intolerable.
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January 25, 2010I'm the wrong target audience here. After getting my English major and worming my way through the dense tangles of Deleuze, Heidegger, and Saussure, I'd like to think I emerged with some knowledge of theory, and the strengths and weaknesses of various theories. However, for the relative novice, this is an immensely valuable work. His surveys of each school of critical thought are by no means impartial, but they're always fair. And even though I have certain disagreements with Eagleton, I'm on his side against the potshots of positivists and laissez-faire enthusiasts and other such douche-tards.
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