Terry Eagleton

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Biography

Professor Terry Eagleton, Chair within the Department of English and Creative Writing at Lancaster University, began his academic life as a Victorianist, and is still interested in the history and literature of the nineteenth century, as well as in 20th-century literature. His specialities are literary and cultural theory and the English-language literature and culture of Ireland, on which he has recently completed a trilogy of works. He is also becoming rather more broadly involved in comparative literature, and a recent book on tragedy considers the literature of various European cultures.

Prior to his move to Lancaster in 2008, he was John Edward Taylor Professor of English Literature at the University of Manchester from 2001, and before that Thomas Warton Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford (1992-2001). 

His books of literary criticism include Literary Theory: An Introduction (1983) and After Theory (2003). He is also the author of the novel Saints and Scholars (1987) and The Gatekeeper: A Memoir (2001). His latest books are How To Read A Poem (2006); The Meaning of Life (2007); and Trouble with Strangers: A Study of Ethics (2008).

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Genres (in alphabetical order)

Autobiography, Criticism, Essays, Literary criticism, Non-fiction

Bibliography

The New Left Church   Sheed & Ward, 1966

Shakespeare and Society: Critical Studies in Shakespearean Drama   Chatto & Windus, 1967

Directions: Pointers for the Post-Conciliar Church   Sheed & Ward, 1968

From Culture to Revolution: The Slant Symposium, 1967   Sheed & Ward, 1968

Exiles and Emigres: Studies in Modern Literature   Chatto & Windus, 1970

The Body as Language: Outline of a 'New Left' Theology   Sheed & Ward, 1970

Myths of Power: A Marxist Study of the Brontes   (revised 1988)   Macmillan, 1975

Criticism and Ideology: A Study in Marxist Literary Theory   New Left Books, 1976

Marxism and Literary Criticism   Methuen, 1976

Walter Benjamin, or Towards a Revolutionary Criticism   Verso, 1981

The Rape of Clarissa: Writing, Sexuality and Class Struggle in Samuel Richardson   Blackwell, 1982

Literary Theory: An Introduction   (revised 1996)   Blackwell, 1983

The Function of Criticism: From 'The Spectator' to Post-structuralism   Verso, 1984

Against the Grain: Essays 1975-1985   Verso, 1986

Geoffrey Chaucer   (with Stephen Knight)   Blackwell, 1986

The End of English   Memorial University of Newfoundland (Canada), 1986

William Shakespeare   Blackwell, 1986

Hard Times/Charles Dickens   (editor)   Methuen, 1987

Saints and Scholars   Verso, 1987

Raymond Williams: Critical Perspectives   Polity Press, 1989

The Significance of Theory   Blackwell, 1989

Nationalism, Colonialism, and Literature   (with Edward W. Said and Frederic Jameson (these essays were originally published as pamphlets by Field Day Theatre Company, Derry, 1988))   University of Minnesota Press (USA), 1990

The Ideology of the Aesthetic   Blackwell, 1990

Ideology: An Introduction   Verso, 1991

The Crisis of Contemporary Culture   Clarendon Press, 1993

Wittgenstein: The Terry Eagleton Script/the Derek Jarman Film   (with Derek Jarman and Ken Butler)   BFI, 1993

Ideology   Longman, 1994

Heathcliff and the Great Hunger: Studies in Irish Culture   Verso, 1995

Marxist Literary Theory: A Reader   (editor with Drew Milne)   Blackwell, 1996

The Illusions of Postmodernism   Blackwell, 1996

Marx and Freedom   Phoenix, 1997

Saint Oscar and Other Plays   Blackwell, 1997

Crazy John and the Bishop and Other Essays on Irish Culture   Cork University Press in association with Field Day Theatre Company, 1998

Scholars and Rebels in Nineteenth-Century Ireland   Cork University Press in association with Field Day Theatre Company, 1999

The Truth about the Irish   New Island, 1999

The Idea of Culture   Verso, 2000

Crossing Boundaries: Thinking through Literature   (contributor)   Sheffield Academic Press, 2001

The Gatekeeper: A Memoir   Penguin, 2001

After Theory   Allen Lane, 2003

Figures of Dissent: Critical Essays on Fish, Spivak, Zizek and Others   Verso, 2003

Sweet Violence: A Study of the Tragic   Blackwell, 2003

Holy Terror   Oxford University Press, 2005

How To Read A Poem   Blackwell, 2006

The Meaning of Life   Oxford University Press, 2007

Trouble with Strangers: A Study of Ethics   Blackwell, 2008

Read about books by Terry Eagleton at encompassculture.com - the British Council's book database and global online book club

Buy books by Terry Eagleton at Amazon.co.uk

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Critical Perspective

The continued relevance of Professor Terry Eagleton’s writing is outlined by Stephen Regan in The Eagleton Reader (1998): ‘To call Terry Eagleton the most gifted Marxist thinker of his generation is only a slender acknowledgement of his critical and creative achievements.  There is simply no other cultural critic writing today who can match his popularity or his prolific output. His work has made an impact on the teaching of literary and cultural studies throughout Europe, and in almost every part of the world including China, Japan, India, Russia, Australia, Canada and the United States.’ In The Gatekeeper: A Memoir (2001), Eagleton discusses his large output of work with humour and self-effacement. He tells of how he enjoys writing and explains that some fellow academics see this as being as much of a problem as ‘having too much money or being ravishingly handsome’. He is also one of the few in his profession to go on to be a bestseller and his Literary Theory: An Introduction (1983) has now sold almost a million copies.    

In the preface to Literary Theory, he explains that he has tried to ‘popularize, rather than vulgarize, the subject’ of literary theory and this goes some way to clarifying how this book has had such widespread appeal. He demonstrates an element of scepticism of the theories he covers, such as structuralism, poststructuralism and psychoanalysis, but also challenges the literary scholars that have been hostile without recognising that this angst is tied to their ideological positions: ‘Hostility to theory usually means an opposition to other people’s theories and an oblivion of one’s own. One purpose of this book is to lift that repression and allow us to remember.’ As he points out, the claim to being an objective reader is misguided to say the least and this is made apparent when he argues that value-judgements ‘have a close relation to social ideologies’ and this connection is embedded in all of our reading practices (including Eagleton’s).

He also gives an overview of English literature studies and spells out how the pleasure in reading is often diluted in the bid to have this confirmed as a serious discipline: ‘As we saw earlier in this book, the fact that reading literature is generally an enjoyable pursuit posed a serious problem for those who first established it as an academic “discipline”: it was necessary to make the whole affair rather more intimidating and dispiriting, if “English” was to earn its keep as a reputable cousin of Classics. Meanwhile, in the world outside, people carried on devouring romances, thrillers and historical novels without the faintest idea that the halls of academia were beset by these anxieties.’ He not only makes difficult concepts more accessible, but also demonstrates that it is possible to keep a sense of humour despite a lifetime working for the institutions that he has been critical of politically.     

This critical position is evident in The Gatekeeper and a review by Adam Mars-Jones for The Observer argues that Eagleton barely gives himself away in this work but does deliver a critique of Oxbridge, which is where he studied and taught for over 30 years: ‘Eagleton makes little attempt to recreate his own emotions, at 10 or any other age. He refuses to inhabit his past self, using it instead as a flesh peg on which to hang passages of analysis. It is the institution that stands revealed, not the person who passed through it’ (6 January 2002). Eagleton makes several allusions to his working-class childhood in Salford and the difficult transition to university, but he avoids giving away more than the barest of personal information. The memoir begins with a description of his duties as an altar boy and gatekeeper at a convent and introduces the Catholic Church as the first of many influential institutions that he has ‘passed through’.
 
He has never entirely relinquished his faith and his review of The God Delusion (2006) by Richard Dawkins for The London Review of Books puts the case for the Christian defence (19 October 2006). He refers to Dawkins as ‘theologically illiterate’ and argues that this work is bigoted against religion: ‘There are always topics on which otherwise scrupulous minds will cave in with scarcely a struggle to the grossest prejudice. For a lot of academic psychologists, it is Jacques Lacan; for Oxbridge philosophers it is Heidegger; for former citizens of the Soviet bloc it is the writings of Marx; for militant rationalists it is religion.’ As a critic and reviewer, Eagleton appears to welcome the chance of debate here and elsewhere and depending on one’s perspective he may be seen to enjoy freedom of expression and/or the opportunity to court controversy.

Of his many other works, After Theory (2003) is significant in that it appears to allow the more traditional literary critics, who had felt threatened by the rise of literary theory, to breathe a huge sigh of relief. The argument is more complex, though, as Eagleton argues: ‘There can be no going back to an age when it was enough to pronounce Keats delectable or Milton a doughty spirit.’ He adds that the tenets associated with the high theorists lives on, although the main players such as Jacques Derrida, Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault are now dead: ‘If theory means a reasonably systematic reflection on our guiding assumptions, it remains as indispensable as ever.’

When looking back over Eagleton’s work, it is possible to see that his methodology, which is influenced by Marxist thinking, increasingly questions the political disengagement that he sees as intrinsic to postmodernism. This is apparent in After Theory when he points out the narcissism that he believes has come to dominate literary and cultural studies: ‘Socialism has lost out to sado-masochism. Among students of culture, the body is an immensely fashionable topic, but it is usually the erotic body, not the famished one.’ He has also turned to fiction, having written Saint Oscar and Other Plays (1997) and the script for the Derek Jarman film, Wittgenstein (1993), but in the main has been concerned with literary criticisms. Myths of Power: A Marxist Study of the Brontës (1975); Marxism and Literary Criticism (1976); and Ideology: An Introduction (1991) are some of his other notable texts.

Julie Ellam, 2008

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Contact information

Publisher (General enquiries) Blackwell Publishing 9600 Garsington Road Oxford  OX4 2DQ England Tel: +44 (0)1865 776868 Fax: +44 (0)1865 714591 http://www.blackwellpublishing.com
Also published by Oxford University Press Great Clarendon Street Oxford  OX2 6DP England Tel: +44 (0)1865 556767 Fax: +44 (0)1865 556646 http://www.oup.co.uk

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