Criticism and Ideology: A Study in Marxist Literary Theory

by Terry Eagleton, Terry Ragleton

Terry Eagleton is one of the most important—and most radical—theorists writing today. His witty and acerbic attacks on contemporary culture and society are read and enjoyed by many, and his studies of literature are regarded as classics of contemporary criticism.

Ranging across the key works of Raymond Williams, Lenin, Trostsky, Brecht, Adorno, Benjamin, Lukacs and Sartre, he develops a nuanced critique of traditional literary criticism while producing a compelling theoretical account of ideology.

Eagleton uses this perspective to offer fascinating analyses of canonical writers, including George Eliot, Charles Dickens, Joseph Conrad, Henry James, T.S. Eliot, W.B. Yeats, James Joyce and D.H. Lawrence.

Genres: Literary Criticism, Theory, Nonfiction, Criticism, Philosophy, Literary Fiction, Cultural

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1976

About the author

Widely regarded as England's most influential living literary critic & theorist, Dr. Terry 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.

Reviews

[Mathilde · Rating 5 out of 5]

"literature is always somewhere else: that which, being literate, we have not read or cannot read." feels like i did things in reverse reading this so soon after free indirect

[Alan Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

I came to this book after having the circuitry of my brain rearranged by Fredric Jameson's mind altering expositions of dialectial criticism in both "Marxism and Form" and "The Political Unconscious." I was hoping that Terry Eagleton's text would be a schrewd and scalpel precise break down of a Marxist literary theoretical model of ideological critique, and a worthy companion piece to the Jameson texts. Sadly, I finished this book pretty disappointed.

Here's the deal -- this was written in '76 and Eagleton's normally sparkling prose is as dry as a hundred year-old turd. Not only that the critical model he explicates is light on the dialectic. He also mentions Freud only in passing, when later models take Freud way more into account. And his conception of how the text is an ideologial symptom of larger contradictions and the imagined solution to those problems is not compelingly described. I think in general the text suffers from being a pre-Political Unconscious text.

By his own admission, in the new introduction, this work is filled wth "tortuous formulations," and it felt torturous reading chapters 2 and 3 which is where the theory lies. Not much of it made any impression. Jameson wrote in "Marxism and Form" that dialectical criticism should make you feel the elevator just dropped out from beneith our feet feet; this book just made me dispeptic. Chapter 1 spent the great deal of time talking about the history of criticism in England, as well as why Raymond Williams is certainly not the guy, which was sort of interesting, all that William's stuff, but wasn't really what I was looking for. Then Chapter 4 talked about the ideological (re)orientations of a gaggle full of British writers from the Victorian and Modern period, which had its moments certainly, but it wasn't very exciting either. The final chapter talked about "value" since this was an important issue back in the 70s. After Jameson's valorization of Ernst Bloch's unveiling of the Utopian content of all narrative, this chapter has become moot.

Eagleton is a smart bastard. I typically find his work very enlightening, readable, and sharp -- just not this one, is all. It's smart but dull and not very juicy compared to more Lacanian inspired stuff. Eagleton in his intro states that this book was "of its time," in that it settled scores and dealt with issues that were important back in the mid seventies. That being said, it has more historical interest now than anything else.

[Ivan Labayne · Rating 4 out of 5]

"transvaluating received assumptions, rather than merely reproducing them," "the ideological function of the 'value-question' is to dissolve the materialist analysis of literary texts into abstract moralism, or into the existential moment of individual consumption"

[Differengenera · Rating 3 out of 5]

reminds me why i never finished an althusser, too much faffing

[El Zuco · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty dry in parts and the section on English literary history and Raymond Williams was illuminating but I thought a bit too localised for an otherwise broader evaluation of various concepts involved in Marxist literary/materialist criticism (though it does make sense that he would focus on the history of British Marxist criticism and national literary production); overall I had to give it a few stars because there are some great theoretical (but often excessively technical and jargon-ridden) insights having to do with the relationships history-ideology-text & the role/relationship of ideology in/to literary production as well as some interesting considerations of aesthetic value. Allegedly his writing style gets better as he gets older, so I'll have to check out some more theoretical later work.

I got an old used copy of the book which features a photo of the young latter-70's Eagleton with some killer sideburns!

[Tom L · Rating 5 out of 5]

a very early eagleton book. only a glimmer of the light and easy style he would later become known for. reads essentially as an attempt to revamp the work of raymond williams by re-reading the touchstones of his cultural criticism through an althusserian lens. some early references in the book to freud's interpretation of dreams anticipate certain parts of jameson's the political unconscious, which this book predates. its althusserian heuristic seems a bit dated now, but it is still rewarding. the last chapter on aesthetic value lays out the problem this category poses for marxism in ways that are still hard to answer today.

[Umut Erdoğan (Kareler ve Sayfalar) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Okuması kesinlikle çok zevkli bir kitap; Marksist edebibyat eleştirisi, İngiliz edebiyatı konusunda uzman olan Terry Eagleton'ın fikirleri, değerlendirmeleri ve doğal olarak ağırlıklı şekilde İngiliz edebiyatının materyalist eleştirisi ilginizi çekiyorsa, kitabı atlamayın derim. Yazının tamamı ise her zamanki gibi blog'da.

[Marilena · Rating 1 out of 5]

It's not only that Eagleton has a very difficult to understand style of presenting his ideas, style that made me read pages even three times...but...my conclusion is that I and Marxist theories are incompatible. I would see things toooo differently.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Helps to boil down lit. crit. to the essentials.

[sologdin · Rating 2 out of 5]

early Terry E, expressly althusserian, complete with schematics and whatnot.

[A L]

Really insightful, read like early and late Eagleton smashed together.