The Event of Literature
Terry Eagleton
A renowned literary theorist reconsiders previous stances and offers his latest thinking on the nature of literature and literary study
In this characteristically concise, witty, and lucid book, Terry Eagleton turns his attention to the questions we should ask about literature, but rarely do. What is literature? Can we even speak of "literature" at all? What do different literary theories tell us about what texts mean and do? In throwing new light on these and other questions he has raised in previous best-sellers, Eagleton offers a new theory of what we mean by literature. He also shows what ... Read more
In a highly unusual combination of critical theory and analytic philosophy, the author sees all literary work, from novels to poems, as a strategy to contain a reality that seeks to thwart that containment, and in doing so throws up new problems that the work tries to resolve. The "event" of literature, Eagleton argues, consists in this continual transformative encounter, unique and endlessly repeatable. Freewheeling through centuries of critical ideas, he sheds light on the place of literature in our culture, and in doing so reaffirms the value and validity of literary thought today.
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About Terry Eagleton
Reviews for The Event of Literature
London Review of Books
“In this book Eagleton offers a shrewd historical synthesis of the interaction between literature and the common culture.”—Iain Finlayson, The Times
Iain Finlayson
The ... Read more