The French Review 58.4 (1985): 572-573.
EAGLETON, TERRY. Literary Theory: An Introduction. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983. Pp. viii + 244.
[Reprinted with the permission of The French Review]
This contribution to the cavalcade of glosses of contemporary literary criticism stands out as an ambitious attempt to ground a discussion of numerous critical positions in the philosophical and political contexts from which they emerged. Written in an accessible prose that avoids the usual lit-crit jargon, Eagleton's study is geared to the academic novice and seeks to demystify "those who fear that the subject is beyond their reach" (pp. vii-viii). Furthermore, Eagleton argues "a particular case," namely the value-laden nature of all critical endeavor, but in particular the claims by the "liberal humanistic" tradition to a value-free critical stance. Thus, in a truly admirable introductory chapter, entitled "What Is Literature?", Eagleton problematizes the very notion of the object of literary criticism, thereby developing the perspective that foregrounds the subsequent analysis: "What we have uncovered so far, then, is not only that literature does not exist in the sense that insects do, and that value-judgements by which it is constituted are historically valuable, but that the value-judgements themselves have a close relation to social ideologies" (p. 16).
This socio-critical perspective informs, yet occasionally constrains,
Eagleton's examination of the emergence of Anglo-American and
continental criticism. In the second chapter, "The Rise of
English," Eagleton demonstrates convincingly the often unwitting
connivance between State power and the spokesmen of the Anglo-American
lit-crit establishment. Then, in chapter 3, "Phenomenology,
Hermeneutics, Reception Theory," Eagleton focuses on continental
traditions particularly on how various European theorists attempt,
and generally fail, to consider the dual perspective of the literary
text’s relation to history and to the reader. In "Structuralism
and Semiotics," Eagleton's sociocritical approach provides
for an extremely balanced résumé of the structuralist
and semiotic theories of poetry and narration: Eagleton both considers
the advantages and shortcomings of the structuralist/semiotic
positions and suggests as alternatives to the
continental structuralists various ideologically correct groups
(for Eagleton) from the Eastern European block. Although Eagleton
then could have rendered his resume of deconstruction more useful
with parenthetical references to the specific Derridean works
summarized, the subsequent examination clearly, if rather densely,
reveals the vast ideological difference between certain French
deconstructionists and their Anglo-American confreres (specifically,
the Yale School). Eagleton asserts a bit wishfully that counter
to the American deconstructionists, "deconstruction is for
Derrida an ultimately political practice" (p. 148), this
despite Derrida's calculated avoidance of nearly any explicit
political stance during the 1970s. Finally, Eagleton extols one
new political presence, the women's movement, 'a dimension which
informed and interrogated every facet of personal, social and
political life" (p. 150). The real importance of this "dimension"
emerges in the following chapter, a synchronic consideration of
the influence of psychoanalysis on literary criticism.
The final chapter's title, "Political Criticism,"
encompasses the dual thrust of Eagleton's conclusion: first, that
literary theory, despite its claims to a methodological rigor
rising above modern ideologies, "reveals its often unconscious
complicity with them" (p. 196), and second, that a different
kind of study is needed, political in nature, which would examine
"the kinds of effects that discourses produce, and how they
produce them" (p.205). Eagleton echoes concerns raised in
his earlier works by offering an admittedly traditionalist position,
recalling literary criticism to the "ancient paths which
it has abandoned" (p. 206), namely rhetoric, redefined as
discourse theory, which supposedly shares, yet somehow surpasses,
the presuppositions and interests of the preceding critical traditions.
Eagleton therefore seems to suggest a path towards re-construction
in literary criticism and maintains that we should conceive of
our activity in strategic terms, as
"signifying practices to enrich, combat, modify or transform
the effects which others' practices produce" (p. 212), for
example, in the areas of children's, feminist, and pop-cultural
studies. While he does not consider these as alternatives to the
study of the literary greats, Eagleton concludes that these fields
are necessary in the face of the present crisis of definition
in literary studies, because they will allow writers/educators/
critics to participate in, rather than be victims of, the liberation
and inevitable reconstitution of that ineffable object called
"literature.'"
Charles J. Stivale
Wayne State University