The Significance of Theory

By Terry Eagleton

1990

First Published

4.18

Average Rating

128

Number of Pages

3H54M

Audio Length

Terry Eagleton's work has had a powerful influence in debates about the politics of literature and culture. His writings have had a marked impact too on how these subjects are taught and studied. Always maintaining a clear sense of political goal, his work has ranged widely in subject and in method. This book reflects the breadth of his interests. It offers a view of his career to date, raising a number of central issues in literature, culture and politics. It includes a discussion of the nature and function of literary theory today and in a major new essay on Adorno, offers a glimpse of Eagleton's current work on the contradictory status of art in modern society and the relations between the aesthetic and the political. "The Significance of Theory" reflects too the author's versatility of style and approach. It will appeal at once to more general readers and to specialists in literary theory.

Avg Rating

4.18

Number of Ratings

5 STARS

44%

4 STARS

32%

3 STARS

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2 STARS

1 STARS

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Author

Terry Eagleton

Author · 45 books

Widely regarded as England's most influential living literary critic & theorist, Dr Eagleton currently serves as Distinguished Prof. of English Literature at the Univ. of Lancaster & as Visiting Prof. at the Nat'l Univ. of Ireland, Galway. He was Thomas Warton Prof. of English Literature at the Univ. of Oxford ('92-01) & John Edward Taylor Prof. of English Literature at the Univ. of Manchester 'til '08. He returned to The Univ. of Notre Dame in the Fall '09 semester as Distinguished Visitor in the English Dep't. 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 & gave a Gifford Lecture in 3/10, titled The God Debate.