English writer, academic and educator
Terry Eagleton
|
---|
Eagleton in 2008
|
Born
| Terence Francis Eagleton
(
1943-02-22
)
22 February 1943
(age 81)
|
---|
Spouses
| -
Rosemary Galpin
(
m.
1966;
div.
1976)
-
Willa Murphy
(
m.
1997)
|
---|
Children
| 5
|
---|
|
|
Alma mater
| |
---|
Academic advisors
| Raymond Williams
|
---|
Influences
| |
---|
|
Discipline
| |
---|
Sub-discipline
| Literary theory
|
---|
School or tradition
| |
---|
Institutions
| |
---|
Doctoral students
| |
---|
Notable students
| Frank Albers
[
nl
]
|
---|
Notable works
| - Literary Theory
(1983)
- The Ideology of the Aesthetic
(1990)
- The Illusions of Postmodernism
(1996)
|
---|
Notable ideas
| Good/Bad
utopianism
[3]
|
---|
|
Terence Francis Eagleton
FBA
[4]
(born 22 February 1943) is an English
literary theorist
,
critic
, and
public intellectual
.
[5]
[6]
[7]
[8]
He is currently Distinguished Professor of English Literature at
Lancaster University
.
Eagleton has published over forty books, but remains best known for
Literary Theory: An Introduction
(1983), which has sold over 750,000 copies.
[9]
The work elucidated the emerging
literary theory
of the period, as well as arguing that all literary theory is necessarily political. He has also been a prominent critic of
postmodernism
, publishing works such as
The Illusions of Postmodernism
(1996) and
After Theory
(2003). He argues that, influenced by postmodernism, cultural theory has wrongly devalued
objectivity
and
ethics
. His thinking is influenced by
Marxism
and
Christianity
.
Formerly the
Thomas Warton
Professor of English Literature at the
University of Oxford
(1992?2001) and
John Edward Taylor Professor of Cultural Theory
at the
University of Manchester
(2001?2008), Eagleton has held visiting appointments at universities around the world including Cornell, Duke, Iowa, Melbourne, Trinity College Dublin, and Yale.
[10]
Eagleton delivered
Yale University
's 2008
Terry Lectures
and the
University of Edinburgh
's 2010
Gifford Lecture
entitled
The God Debate
.
[11]
He gave the 2010
Richard Price
Memorial Lecture at
Newington Green Unitarian Church
, speaking on "The New Atheism and the War on Terror".
[12]
In 2009, he published a book which accompanied his lectures on religion, entitled
Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate
.
Early life
[
edit
]
Eagleton was born in
Salford
,
Greater Manchester
, England on 22 February 1943
[4]
to Francis Paul Eagleton and his wife, Rosaleen (nee Riley) Eagleton.
[13]
He grew up in a working-class Catholic family of Irish descent in
Salford
, with roots in
County Galway
. His mother's side of the family had strong
Irish republican
sympathies. He served as an
altar boy
at a local
Carmelite
convent where he was responsible for escorting novice nuns taking their vows, a role referred to in the title of his memoir
The Gatekeeper
(2002).
[14]
Education and academia
[
edit
]
Eagleton was educated at
De La Salle College
, a Roman Catholic grammar school in
Pendleton
,
Salford
.
[1]
In 1961, he went to read English at
Trinity College, Cambridge
, whence he graduated with first-class honours.
[2]
He later described his undergraduate experience as a "waste of time".
[1]
In 1964, he moved to
Jesus College, Cambridge
, where as a junior research fellow and doctoral student, he became the youngest fellow at the college since the 18th century.
[10]
He was supervised by
Raymond Williams
.
[2]
It was during this period that his socialist convictions began to take hold, and he edited a radical Catholic leftist periodical called
Slant
.
[2]
In 1969, he moved to the
University of Oxford
where he became a fellow and tutor of
Wadham College
(1969?1989),
Linacre College
(1989?1993) and
St Catherine's College
, becoming Thomas Warton Professor of English in 1992. At Wadham, Eagleton ran a well-known seminar on Marxist literary theory which, in the 1980s, metamorphosed into the radical pressure group
Oxford English Limited
and its journal
News from Nowhere: Journal of the Oxford English Faculty Opposition
, to which he contributed several pieces.
[
citation needed
]
In 2001, Eagleton left Oxford to become the
John Edward Taylor
Professor of English at the
University of Manchester
.
[15]
Career
[
edit
]
Eagleton began his literary studies with the 19th and 20th centuries, then conformed to the stringent academic Marxism of the 1970s. He then published an attack on his mentor Williams's relation to the Marxist tradition in the pages of the
New Left Review
, in the mode of the French critic
Louis Althusser
. In the 1960s, he became involved with the left-wing Catholic group
Slant
, authoring a number of theological articles (including
A Marxist Interpretation of
Benediction
), as well as a book
Towards a New Left Theology
. A major turning point was his
Criticism & Ideology
(1976) in which Eagleton discusses various theorists and critics from
F. R. Leavis
and (his tutor) Raymond Williams to
Pierre Macherey
. This earliest response to Theory is critical and substantive with Eagleton supplying a dense web of categories for "a materialist criticism" which situates the author as well as the text in the general mode of production, the
literary
mode of production and particular ideologies. In chapter 4 he gives a thorough overview of one theme in the English context ? "organicist concepts of society" or "community" ? as worked by petty-bourgeois Victorian writers, from
George Eliot
to
D. H. Lawrence
, and how this determines textual form in each instance.
Literary Theory
and
After Theory
[
edit
]
In
Literary Theory: An Introduction
(1983, revised 1996), Eagleton surveys the history of theoretical approaches to literature, from its beginnings with Matthew Arnold, through formalism, psychoanalysis, and structuralism, to post-structuralism. In the process, he demonstrates what is the thesis of the book: that theory is necessarily political. Theory is always presented as if it is unstained by point of view and is neutral, but in fact it is impossible to avoid having a political perspective. Peter Barry has said of the book that it "greatly contributed to the 'consolidation' of literary theory and helped to establish it firmly on the undergraduate curriculum".
[16]
Eagleton's approach to literary criticism is one firmly rooted in the Marxist tradition, though he has also incorporated techniques and ideas from more recent modes of thought as
structuralism
,
Lacanian analysis
and
deconstruction
. As his memoir
The Gatekeeper
recounts, Eagleton's Marxism has never been solely an academic pursuit. He was active in the
International Socialists
(along with
Christopher Hitchens
) and then the
Workers' Socialist League
whilst in Oxford. He has been a regular contributor to the
London Review of Books
.
[17]
After Theory
(2003) was written two decades later, after the end of the great period of High Theory ? the cultural theory of Foucault, the postmodernists, Derrida, et al. Looking back, Eagleton evaluates its achievements and failures, and proposes new directions needing to be pursued. He considers that among the great achievements of Theory were the expansion of objects of study (to include gender, sexuality, popular culture, post-colonialism, etc.), and the wide-ranging self-reflective criticism of traditional assumptions. But in Eagleton's estimation there were also many serious mistakes, for instance: the assault on the normative and the insistence on the relativity of truth leaves us powerless to criticize oppression; the rejection of objectivity and (excessively) of all forms of essentialism bespeak an unrecognized idealism, or at least a blindness to our human materiality, ultimately born of an unconscious fear of death; and cultural studies has wrongly avoided consideration of ethics, which for Eagleton is inextricably tied to a proper politics. It is virtue and politics and how they may be realized, among other things, that Eagleton offers as new avenues needing to be explored by cultural studies.
After Theory
fleshes out this political aspect, tied to ethics, growing out of the fact that humans exist in neediness and dependency on others, their freedom bounded by the common fact of death.
Dawkins, Hitchens and the New Atheism
[
edit
]
Eagleton has become a vocal critic of what has been called the
New Atheism
. In October 2006, he published a review of
Richard Dawkins
's
The God Delusion
in the
London Review of Books
. Eagleton begins by questioning Dawkins's methodology and understanding: "Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the
Book of British Birds
, and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology." Eagleton further writes, "Nor does [Dawkins] understand that because God is
transcendent
of us (which is another way of saying that he did not have to bring us about), he is free of any neurotic need for us and wants simply to be allowed to love us."
[18]
He concludes by suggesting Dawkins has not been attacking organised faith so much as a sort of rhetorical
straw man
:
[19]
Apart from the occasional perfunctory gesture to 'sophisticated' religious believers, Dawkins tends to see religion and fundamentalist religion as one and the same. This is not only grotesquely false; it is also a device to outflank any more reflective kind of faith by implying that it belongs to the coterie and not to the mass. The huge numbers of believers who hold something like the theology I outlined above can thus be conveniently lumped with rednecks who murder abortionists and malign homosexuals.
Terry and Gifford Lectures
[
edit
]
In April 2008 Eagleton delivered
Yale University
's
Terry Lectures
, with the title
Faith and Fundamentalism: Is belief in Richard Dawkins necessary for salvation?
, constituting a continuation of the critique he had begun in
The London Review of Books
. Introducing his first lecture with an admission of ignorance of both theology and science, Eagleton goes on to affirm: "All I can claim in this respect, alas, is that I think I may know just about enough theology to be able to spot when someone like Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens ? a couplet I shall henceforth reduce for convenience to the solitary signifier
Ditchkins
? is talking out of the back of his neck."
[20]
[21]
An expanded version of these lectures was published in 2009 as
Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate
.
[22]
Eagleton sees
football
as a new
opium of the people
distracting ordinary people from more serious, important social concerns. Eagleton is pessimistic as to whether this distraction can be ended:
For the most part football these days is the opium of the people, not to speak of their
crack cocaine
. Its icon is the impeccably
Tory
, slavishly conformist
Beckham
.
The Reds
are no longer the
Bolsheviks
. Nobody serious about political change can shirk the fact that the game has to be abolished. And any political outfit that tried it on would have about as much chance of power as the chief executive of
BP
has in taking over from
Oprah Winfrey
.
[23]
Criticism of Martin and Kingsley Amis
[
edit
]
In late 2007, a critique of
Martin Amis
included in the introduction to a 2007 edition of Eagleton's book
Ideology
was widely reprinted in the British press. In it, Eagleton took issue with Amis' widely quoted writings on "
Islamism
", directing particular attention to one specific passage from an interview with
Ginny Dougary
published in
The Times
on 9 September 2006.
What can we do to raise the price of them doing this? There's a definite urge ? don't you have it? ? to say, 'The Muslim community will have to suffer until it gets its house in order.' What sort of suffering? Not letting them travel. Deportation ? further down the road. Curtailing of freedoms. Strip-searching people who look like they're from the Middle East or from Pakistan ... Discriminatory stuff, until it hurts the whole community and they start getting tough with their children ... It's a huge dereliction on their part.
[24]
Eagleton criticised Amis and expressed surprise as to its source, stating: "[these are] not the ramblings of a
British National Party
thug ... but the reflections of Martin Amis, leading luminary of the English metropolitan literary world." He drew a connection between Amis and his father (the novelist
Kingsley Amis
). Eagleton went on to write that Martin Amis had learned more from his father ? whom Eagleton described as a reactionary "racist, anti-Semitic boor, a drink-sodden, self-hating reviler of women, gays and liberals" ? than merely "how to turn a shapely phrase." Eagleton added there was "something rather stomach-churning at the sight of those such as Amis and his political allies, champions of a civilisation that for centuries has wreaked untold carnage throughout the world, shrieking for illegal measures when they find themselves for the first time on the sticky end of the same treatment."
[25]
The essay became a
cause celebre
in British literary circles.
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown
, a commentator for
The Independent
, wrote an article
[26]
about the affair, to which Amis responded via open letter, calling Eagleton "an ideological relict ... unable to get out of bed in the morning without the dual guidance of God and Karl Marx."
[27]
Amis said the views Eagleton attributed to him as his considered opinion was in fact his spoken description of a tempting urge, in relation to the need to "raise the price" of terrorist actions. Eagleton's personal comments on
Kingsley Amis
prompted a further response from Kingsley's widow, the novelist
Elizabeth Jane Howard
. Howard wrote to
The Daily Telegraph
, noting that for a supposed "anti-semitic homophobe", it was peculiar that the only guests at the Howard?Amis nuptials were either Jewish or gay.
[28]
As Howard explained, "Kingsley was never a racist, nor an anti-Semitic boor. Our four great friends who witnessed our wedding were three Jews and one homosexual."
[29]
Colin Howard, Howard's homosexual brother, called Eagleton "a little squirt", adding that Sir Kingsley, far from being homophobic, had extended an affectionate friendship to him and helped him come to terms with his sexuality.
[28]
Eagleton defended his comments about Martin and Kingsley Amis in
The Guardian
, claiming the main bone of contention ? the substance of Amis' remarks and views ? had been lost amid the media furore.
[25]
Critical reactions
[
edit
]
William Deresiewicz
wrote of
After Theory
, Eagleton's book, as follows... :
[I]s it that hard to explain what Eagleton's up to? The prolificness, the self-plagiarism, the snappy, highly consumable prose and, of course, the sales figures: Eagleton wishes for capitalism's demise, but as long as it's here, he plans to do as well as he can out of it. Someone who owns three homes shouldn't be preaching self-sacrifice, and someone whose careerism at Oxbridge was legendary shouldn't be telling interviewers of his longstanding regret at having turned down a job at the
Open University
.
[30]
The novelist and critic
David Lodge
, writing in the May 2004
New York Review of Books
on
Theory
and
After Theory
, concluded:
Some of Theory's achievements are genuine and permanent additions to knowledge, or intellectual self-knowledge. Eagleton is quite right to assert that we can never go back to a state of pre-Theory innocence about the transparency of language or the ideological neutrality of interpretation ... But like all fashions it was bound to have a limited life of novelty and vitality, and we are now living through its decadence without any clear indication of what will supersede it. Theory has, in short, become boringly predictable to many people who were once enthusiastic about it, and that
After Theory
is most interesting when its focus is furthest from its nominal subject is perhaps evidence that Terry Eagleton is now bored by it too.
[31]
Jonathan Bate
stressed the importance of Eagleton's Roman Catholic background in "Saint Terence", a 1991 review-essay in the
London Review of Books
prior to the overt religious turn in Eagleton's later works.
[32]
Personal life
[
edit
]
Eagleton has been married twice. His first marriage was to Rosemary Galpin, a nurse; his second marriage was to American academic Willa Murphy. They have since divorced.
[33]
Eagleton has five children: Dominic Eagleton, Daniel Eagleton, the journalist Oliver Eagleton,
[34]
Alice Eagleton and Owen Eagleton. His daughter-in-law is theatre director Andrea Ferran.
[35]
Publications
[
edit
]
- The New Left Church
[as Terence Eagleton] (1966)
- Shakespeare and Society: Critical Studies in Shakespearean Drama
(1967)
- Exiles and Emigres: Studies in Modern Literature
(1970)
- The Body as Language: Outline of a New Left Theology
(1970)
- Myths of Power: A Marxist Study of the Brontes
(1975)
- Criticism & Ideology
(1976)
- Marxism and Literary Criticism
(1976)
- Walter Benjamin, or Towards a Revolutionary Criticism
(1981)
- The Rape of Clarissa: Writing, Sexuality, and Class Struggle in Samuel Richardson
(1982)
- Literary Theory: An Introduction
(1983)
- The Function of Criticism
(1984)
- Saints and Scholars
(1987; a novel)
- Raymond Williams: Critical Perspectives
(1989; editor)
- Saint Oscar
(1989; a play about
Oscar Wilde
)
- The Significance of Theory
(1989)
- The Ideology of the Aesthetic
(1990)
- Nationalism, Colonialism, and Literature
(1990)
- Ideology: An Introduction
(1991?2007)
- Wittgenstein: The Terry Eagleton Script, The Derek Jarman Film
(1993)
- Literary Theory
(1996)
- The Illusions of Postmodernism
(1996)
- Heathcliff and the Great Hunger
(1996)
- Marx
(1997)
- Crazy John and the Bishop and Other Essays on Irish Culture
(1998)
- The Idea of Culture
(2000)
- The Truth about the Irish
(2001)
- The Gatekeeper: A Memoir
(2002)
- Sweet Violence: The Idea of the Tragic
(2002)
- After Theory
(2003)
- Figures of Dissent: Reviewing Fish, Spivak, Zizek and Others
(2003)
- The English Novel: An Introduction
(2005)
- Holy Terror
(2005)
- The Meaning of Life
(2007)
- How to Read a Poem
(2007)
- Trouble with Strangers: A Study of Ethics
(2008)
- Literary Theory
, Anniversary Edition (2008)
- Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate
(2009)
- The Task of the Critic: Terry Eagleton in Dialogue
with Matthew Beaumont (2009)
- On Evil
(2010)
- Why Marx Was Right
(2011)
- The Event of Literature
(2012)
- Across the Pond: An Englishman's View of America
(2013)
- How to Read Literature
(2013)
- Culture and the Death of God
(2014)
- Hope without Optimism
(2015)
- Culture
(2016)
- Materialism
(2017)
- Radical Sacrifice
(2018)
- Humour
(2019)
- Tragedy
(2020)
- Critical Revolutionaries: Five Critics Who Changed the Way We Read
(2022), Yale UP
- Eagleton, Terry
(15 May 2022).
"Ludwig Wittgenstein's war on philosophy"
.
UnHerd
. Retrieved
23 May
2022
.
Reviews
[
edit
]
- Womak, Peter (1982),
Benjamin
, Eagleton and
Goldmann
, which includes a review of
Walter Benjamin, or Towards a Revolutionary Criticism
, in Murray, Glen (ed.),
Cencrastus
No. 8, Spring 1982, pp. 47 & 48,
ISSN
0264-0856
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
James Smith (2013).
Terry Eagleton
. Wiley.
ISBN
978-0-7456-5795-0
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
James Smith (2013).
Terry Eagleton
. John Wiley & Sons.
ISBN
978-0-7456-5795-0
.
- ^
Terry Eagleton (1991).
Ideology: An Introduction
, p. 131.
- ^
a
b
"Prof Terry Eagleton profile,
Debrett's People of Today
, FBA Profile"
. Archived from
the original
on 24 July 2013.
- ^
Vallely, Paul (13 October 2007).
"Terry Eagleton: Class warrior"
.
The Independent
.
...the man who succeeded F R Leavis as Britain's most influential academic critic.
- ^
John Sitter, Chairman of the English Department at the
University of Notre Dame
and Editor of
The Cambridge Companion to Eighteenth Century Poetry
, has describes Eagleton as "someone widely regarded as the most influential contemporary literary critic and theorist in the English-speaking world"
"Terry Eagleton Returns to ND as Distinguished Visitor in English Department // News and Stories // About Arts and Letters // College of Arts and Letters // University of Notre Dame"
. Archived from
the original
on 31 August 2009
. Retrieved
23 June
2009
.
- ^
"Eagleton himself has also replaced Leavis as the best known and most influential academic critic in Britain." Duke Maskell,
[
who?
]
as cited by Nicholas Wroe
[1]
.
- ^
"Terry Eagleton is arguably the most influential contemporary British literary critic and theorist." James Smith.
[
who?
]
Cited in the Introduction to
Terry Eagleton: A Critical Introduction (Key Contemporary Thinkers)
Polity Press, 2008.
- ^
"A theoretical blow for democracy"
. 31 May 2001
. Retrieved
29 June
2016
.
- ^
a
b
University, Lancaster.
"Terry Eagleton - English & Creative Writing - Lancaster University - Lancaster University"
. Retrieved
29 June
2016
.
- ^
"Professor Terry Eagleton"
.
College of Humanities & Social Science
.
University of Edinburgh
. Archived from
the original
on 21 July 2011.
- ^
"Terry Eagleton to speak at Newington Green"
. Hackney Citizen. 29 August 2010
. Retrieved
30 December
2011
.
- ^
"EAGLETON, Prof. Terence Francis" at
Who's Who 2012
, A & C Black, 2012; online edn, Oxford University Press, December 2011; online edn November 2011; accessed 23 September 2012
.
- ^
Andrews, Kernan (18 December 2008).
"Terry Eagleton ? taking on the capitalists and atheists in Galway"
.
Galway Advertiser
.
- ^
Smith, James; Smith, James Benjamin (8 July 2008).
Terry Eagleton
. Polity. p. 8.
ISBN
978-0-7456-3609-2
.
The final break with Oxbridge came in 2001, with a move to the University of Manchester as the John Edward Taylor Professor of English Literature, with Eagleton now dividing time between living in England and Ireland.
- ^
Barry, Peter.
Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory
. Manchester University Press, 2009, p. 273.
- ^
LRB archive
. But only six contributions from 2014 to 2017.
- ^
Eagleton, Terry (19 October 2006).
"Lunging, Flailing, Mispunching"
.
London Review of Books
.
28
(20)
. Retrieved
26 November
2006
.
- ^
Eagleton, Terry (19 October 2006).
"Lunging, Flailing, Mispunching"
.
London Review of Books
.
28
(20)
. Retrieved
1 September
2013
.
- ^
Terry Eagleton (lecturer) (1 April 2008).
Christianity Fair and Foul
(Podcast).
Yale University
. Event occurs at 6:23. Archived from
the original
(rm)
on 6 August 2009
. Retrieved
4 August
2009
.
- ^
Eagleton, Terry (April 2008).
"Faith and Fundamentalism: Is Belief in Richard Dawkins Necessary for Salvation?"
.
Dwight H. Terry Lectureship
.
Yale University
. Archived from
the original
on 6 August 2009.
- ^
Eagleton, Terry (2009).
Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate
. New Haven/London: Yale University Press.
ISBN
978-0-300-15179-4
.
- ^
Eagleton, Terry (15 June 2010).
"Football: a dear friend to capitalism - Terry Eagleton"
.
TheGuardian.com
. Retrieved
29 June
2016
.
- ^
"The voice of experience"
. Retrieved
10 November
2018
.
- ^
a
b
Eagleton, Terry (10 October 2007).
"Rebuking obnoxious views is not just a personality kink"
.
The Guardian
. London
. Retrieved
1 July
2008
.
- ^
Alibhai-Brown, Yasmin (8 October 2007).
"It's time for civilised and honest engagement"
.
The Independent
. Archived from
the original
on 9 October 2013
. Retrieved
1 September
2013
.
- ^
Brown, Jonathan (12 October 2007).
"Amis launches scathing response to accusations of Islamophobia"
.
The Independent
. Retrieved
1 July
2008
.
- ^
a
b
Cockcroft, Lucy (10 October 2007).
"Family defends 'racist' Sir Kingsley Amis"
.
The Daily Telegraph
. Retrieved
1 July
2008
.
- ^
"Family defends 'racist' Sir Kingsley Amis"
.
www.telegraph.co.uk
. 10 October 2007.
- ^
Deresiewicz, William (29 January 2004).
"The Business of Theory"
.
The Nation
. Retrieved
29 October
2015
.
- ^
Lodge, David (27 May 2004).
"Goodbye to All That"
(fee required)
.
The New York Review of Books
. Retrieved
1 July
2008
.
- ^
Bate, Jonathan.
"Saint Terence"
.
London Review of Books
. Retrieved
28 August
2020
.
- ^
Adams, Tim (16 December 2007).
"The interview: Terry Eagleton"
.
the Guardian
. Retrieved
18 August
2021
.
- ^
Smith, Robbie (5 August 2021).
"Londoner's Diary: Brought to book... Starmer in a brace of new biographies"
.
www.standard.co.uk
. Retrieved
18 August
2021
.
- ^
Wroe, Nicholas (2 February 2002).
"The Guardian Profile: Terry Eagleton"
.
the Guardian
. Retrieved
18 August
2021
.
Further reading
[
edit
]
External links
[
edit
]
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