TERRY EAGLETON:
Ampliamente considerado como el crítico literario y teórico más influyente de Inglaterra, el Dr. Eagleton fue Distinguido Prof. de Literatura Inglesa en la Univ. de Lancaster y como Prof. Visitante en la Universidad de Nat'l de Irlanda, Galway.
Una introducción a la teoría literaria (1983), seguramente su obra más conocida, traza la historia de los estudios literarios contemporáneos, desde el romanticismo del siglo XIX al posmodernismo de las últimas décadas.
Eagleton fue un docente que siempre puso el dedo sobre la llaga en su contexto. Su obra permite conocer los intringulis de la actividad literaria inglesa en su tiempo.
https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Eagleton
En Después de la teoría (2003) pone en tela de juicio a la teoría cultural y literaria actual y destaca lo que llama la “bastardización” de ambas. La conclusión, no obstante, no resta méritos al estudio interdisciplinar de la literatura y la cultura; es más, Eagleton afirma que se trata de una fusión que permite estudiar de forma eficaz una amplia variedad de temas. Su acusación se centra en el rechazo de las categorías absolutas por parte de los teóricos y la posmodernidad.
Ampliamente considerado como el crítico literario y teórico vivo más influyente de Inglaterra, el Dr. Eagleton fue Distinguido Prof. de Literatura Inglesa en la Univ. de Lancaster y como Prof. Visitante en la Universidad de Nat'l de Irlanda, Galway.
Fue Thomas Warton Prof. de Literatura Inglesa en la Univ. de Oxford ('92-01) y John Edward Taylor Prof. de Literatura Inglesa en la Univ. de Manchester 'hasta '2008.
Ha escrito más de 40 libros, incluyendo Teoría literaria: Una introducción ('83); La ideología de la estética ('90) y Las ilusiones del postmodernismo ('96).
Sostuvo que durante el último medio siglo, los pensadores posmodernistas han estado tratando de desacreditar la verdad, la identidad y la realidad. La identidad es una camisa de fuerza, y la verdad es solo la opinión de algún académico de mediana edad. En cuanto a la realidad, se ha vuelto tan obsoleta como vestirse para la cena. Para Eagleton la objetividad es un mito en el servicio
Terry was born on September 3, 1958, and passed away on Thursday, June 30, 2016.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Eagleton
Review of Terry Eagleton's "What is Literature?"
Literature Review, 2012
A Z AMINE ZIDOUH (AUTHOR)
Excerpt
Review of “What is Literature? by Terry Eagleton.”
The question of “What is Literature?” has been raised so many times, by so many scholars and researchers, yet it still remains open to discussion; since no answer seems to encompass everything that we tend to call “literature”. In that regard, Terry Eagleton‟s introduction, is one of the most known to have tried to define “Literature”.
The first definition that comes to mind when one tends to think about literature according to Eagleton‟s, is the question of fact vs. fiction. Some tend to believe that literature is “imaginative” writing; putting therefore literature in opposition to factual and/or historical writing. Yet this distinction has some flaws, and one of the best examples is the one provided by Terry Eagleton when he says that “Superman comics” are fiction but not regarded as literature. We can therefore understand that the claim that literature refers to “imaginative writing” isn‟t going to take us that far.
If literature does not and cannot refer only to what is “imaginative” or “fictional” writing. Maybe it refers to a certain “peculiar” use of language. Literature therefore can be seen as a deviation from everyday language, or as described by Roman Jacobson as an “organized violence committed on ordinary speech”. This view according to Eagleton is the formalistic view of literature. In sum, its focus was‟t on content but on the form.
The formalists only regarded literature as a „particular organization of language‟. Formalism according to Eagleton was only „the application of linguistics to the study of literature‟. The content was therefore secondary, not to say unnecessary, to the formalists. This view of literature is criticized by literary theorist Terry Eagleton.
He argues that to claim that literature is a „special kind of language‟ presupposes the existence of a „normal‟ or „ordinary‟ language; while, according to Eagleton, the view that there is such thing as a „normal‟ language „shared equally among all members of society is an illusion‟.
In sum, the formalistic view of literature, or as it is claimed by Eagleton of „literariness‟, was in relation to the „differential‟ relations between one sort of discourse and another; which is in itself not an inherent property. Another problem with this view is that it sees the way in which something is said/written as being more important than what is actually discussed.
That is if we decide to treat literature “non-pragmatically”, we can forget about any objective definition of literature, because as advocated by Eagleton, in claiming that, we are also leaving the definition of literature to „how somebody decides to read‟ it, not to the inherent „nature of what is written‟.
Eagleton continues in his discussion and adds that any piece of writing can be read „non- pragmatically‟, as any text can be read „poetically‟. Therefore, literature cannot be judged as being simply a discourse that must be read “non-pragmatically”.
Indeed, value judgments surely have a lot to do with how we tend to see something like literature or not. This leads Eagleton to claim that there is absolutely no objective definition of „literature‟.
That there is no such writing that is immutably literary. We can only understand that since literature has a lot to do with value judgments, and since values refer to „whatever is valued by certain people in specific situations, according to particular criteria and in the light of given purposes‟, we can clearly understand the very crucial point suggested by Eagleton when he says that “all literary works… are „rewritten‟ if only unconsciously by the societies which read them; indeed there is no reading of work which is not also a „re-writing‟”.
This is indeed a very significant point made by Eagleton, we can understand that no piece of „literature‟ can be unfolded to a group of people without being changed, and this is exactly why „literature‟ remains an „unstable affair‟.
We‟have seen how different trials of defining literature lead to each other, only to get us as far as seeing literature as an „unstable affair‟ that can never be scrutinized in an objective manner. Yet the claim that what we tend to see as „literature‟ has a lot to do with value-judgments, is a very interesting one, for we can understand that „ideology‟ has a lot to do with what we tend to view as „literature‟.
Put more crudely, one can say that the social groups in power want us to consider a certain piece of writings as „literature‟ and others as not. This can only push us to think that by reading what a certain society considers „literature‟ we may understand a lot, about this given society.
We also understand that for „literature‟ to be under so many invisible schemes, then it may only have a very crucial impact on the reproduction of social inequalities and power relations, this is why „literature‟ has come to be the slave of the social groups in power, for whom there are always social goods at stake.
Amine Zidouh
https://www.grin.com/document/192313
Book Description
IDEOLOGY
This collection of readings on the concept of ideology is brought together by the critic, Terry Eagleton. His introduction traces the historical evolution of ideology and examines in a more theoretical style the various meanings of the word and their significance. The readings begin with the first English translations of some of the writing of the French founder of the concept in the eighteenth century. They then move from the enlightenment to Hegel and Marxism, with particular emphasis on Marx and Engels themselves. They also look at other eighteenth-century traditions of thought such as Nietzche and Freud.
All the readings are theoretical rather than examples of `ideology at work' and will be of interest to undergraduate students of cultural, political, and historical studies concerned with ideology, as well as students of English literature.
The best guide available to this complex concept is newly updated.
Ideology has never before been so much in evidence as a fact and so little understood as a concept as it is today. In this now-classic work, originally written for both newcomers to the topic and for those already familiar with the debate, Terry Eagleton unravels the many different definitions of ideology and explores the concept's torturous history from the Enlightenment to postmodernism.
The book provides lucid accounts of the thought of key Marxist thinkers, as well as of Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Freud, and the various post-structuralists. Now updated in the light of current theoretical debates, this essential text by one of our most important contemporary critics clarifies a notoriously confusing subject.
Ideology is core reading for students and teachers of literature and politics.
This study is divided into three parts: the classical tradition; Althusser and after; and modern debates. It includes chapters on class consciousness, ideology, and utopia, and the epistemology of sociology, looking at the work of Georg Lukas, Karl Mannheim, and Lucien Goldman respectively.
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