狂った!: Literary Theory: An Introduction (Terry Eagleton)

Literary Theory: An Introduction (Terry Eagleton)

Jun-Dai — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 13:30:00 -0700

Terry Eagleton, Literary Theory: An Introduction, 2nd ed. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996

Began: ? March/April, 2006. Finished: 27 June, 2006

This book was very poorly titled. It is not a comprehensive survey of literary theory. Nor is it an exploration of all of the theories it does cover. Instead, the book is essentially an argument for the overhaul or replacement of literary theory.

The book essentially goes through a list of major literary theories (giving short shrift to a number of them, as some Amazon reviewers have pointed out, most notably feminism and post-colonialism), presenting each with a description of where it comes from (i.e., why it happened), what its major positions are, how it relates to other theories, who its major players are, and what has happened to it. Then, Eagleton goes on to trash it, pointing out what he sees as its major flaws and inadequacies and what matters he feels that it willfully overlooks. The book begins by arguing that literature does not exist, and it concludes by arguing that literary theory does not exist (which is a relatively easy argument if one of your premises is that literature does not exist).

Eagleton’s perspectives seem pretty much in line with my own on most matters he relates, which is probably a result of my own position in history and my being the son of a Marxist scholar, so it’s hard to avoid reading the book as a guide to how I would probably feel about all of these movements in literary theory if I were smarter, more articulate, more well-read, etc., etc. Basically he uses a lot of familiar arguments to take apart positions that I didn’t even know existed.

In one sense the book has been particularly useful. I no longer feel the need to learn more about structuralism or New Criticism, since they seem mostly uninteresting and irrelevant. Previously, I always heard these terms and wondered what they were about. In fact, thanks to Eagleton, I’m mostly persuaded that literary theory as a whole is uninteresting and irrelevant, with exceptions for feminism, post-colonialism, and some parts of psychoanalysis, which are mostly interesting because they are parts of much larger, highly interesting topics.

Similarly, I agree with Eagleton that there’s nothing valuable in literary theory that can’t be applied to any other form of discourse. Which raises the question: what’s the point of a literature department, and why do they tend to exclude or marginalize science fiction, journalism, advertising copy, political speeches, and traffic signs, which are arguably more relevant than most of what they do teach? There’s a question that the book taught me to ask that I had never really thought about so clearly before reading it.

(more to come?)

"Literary Theory: An Introduction (Terry Eagleton)" by Jun-Dai

Wed, 05 Jul 2006 00:35:53 -0700

Actually, he didn’t call it “rhetorical criticism,” as far as I recall, he called it “theory of discourse.” He certainly didn’t advocate getting rid of theory (even if such a thing were possible), he simply advocated getting rid of literary theory. You, on the other hand, seemed in my mind to be conflating literary theory and everything-else-theory, which is what I was trying to sort out. I didn’t realize that reference to “high” theory was really a reference to what Eagleton was referring to as “literary theory.” I don’t know that Eagleton referred to “reader-response criticism” by name, but he specifically advocated studying the effects of text on its readers—i.e., studying discourse and its effects scientifically—as the starting point for any sort of discourse theory. Of course following this would require breaking down the barriers erected by the words “literature” and “literary.”

Camping post will follow.

"Literary Theory: An Introduction (Terry Eagleton)" by null

Tue, 04 Jul 2006 23:28:54 -0700

just to be clear: we don’t disagree on what he says, so much as we’re having a disagreement about word-choice: I think it has to do with the fact that I like the word “theory” even if I’m not crazy about (what you and Eagleton call) “literary theory.”

I’m sure Eagleton might say something like “We need to get rid of literary theory and go for rhetorical criticism.” My only issue with that statement is that “theory” isn’t a worse word to describe what he wants than “criticism” – in both cases we’d probably have to modify both with either “rhetorical” or “practical” (or possibly something like “affective”)

I tried to signal this in my earlier post by defining something called “theory” as being distinct from something called “capital-T Theory” or “High Theory” – or what you might call “literary theory.”

My only question about Eagleton (whose book I have a great deal of affection for) is why he calls for rhetoric and doesn’t seem to bother (iirc) all that much with reader-response theory, which would seem like a logical place for a revivication of rhetoric to begin. Or does he?

how was camping? I hope you post soon about that.

"Literary Theory: An Introduction (Terry Eagleton)" by Jun-Dai

Tue, 04 Jul 2006 16:51:12 -0700

You wrote: It’s a short hop, skip and jump from arguing that to arguing that literature is important because it teaches “composition” and how to write, and I am actually a little conflicted about that argument, but it’s been made before.

Indeed. I think Eagleton even references something along the lines of that argument at some point (in the conclusion?), before trashing it, probably on the basis that it presupposes, among other things, that there is better writing and worse writing.

"Literary Theory: An Introduction (Terry Eagleton)" by Jun-Dai

Tue, 04 Jul 2006 16:48:51 -0700

My point was never that Eagleton was arguing against theory in general; he was (to my memory, anyways) arguing against literary theory as its own category of theory, in part because it requires the existence of something called “literature,” the existence of which he argues against. I don’t agree that he champions feminist literary criticism, and he definitely doesn’t champion Marxist literary criticism, even if he often relies on a Marxist perspective in taking apart other theories.

As for rhetoric, it is not a literary theory; it is the study of discourse, within which literary theory is an unneeded ivory tower. Rhetoric, as Eagleton thinks of it anyways, would include political speeches, Superman comics, conversations, road signs, etc., whereas literary criticism somehow thinks of itself as being above those types of things, even if the edgier forms of literary theory toy with pop culture. More importantly, Eagleton sees rhetoric as having a different goal in that it studies the effect and effectiveness of discourse, which is the elephant in the room that literary theory never or rarely seems to come around to, perhaps because doing so would require considering the possibility that popular writing might be superior in some ways (more pleasurable, more convincing, etc.) than the literary canon.

Nor does Eagleton want to return to some pre-eighteenth-century approach to discourse. Instead, he seems to want to move away from the various dead ends we have approached, scavenge them for what we might find valuable amongst them, and then somehow bring together the more useful forms of literary theory (feminism, etc.), and build something new that doesn’t have the name literary theory.

I don’t take it at face value that Eagleton claims not to be advancing any theory of his own. Or rather, he’s not exactly advancing a theory so much as he’s advancing various ideas that he sees as the groundwork for a new form of theory, one that is not restricted to this illusory thing we call “literature.” While Eagleton is quick to point out that idealogy is something other people have but never something that we ourselves have, he only points out others’ ideologies and never discloses his own, even if some of it seems pretty obvious at certain points.

"Literary Theory: An Introduction (Terry Eagleton)" by null

Sat, 01 Jul 2006 10:00:48 -0700

I have a little problem with what you said, but only because I think there might be a possibility of misunderstanding. In sum, I think you’re right that Eagleton does say the following: a) “literary theory is an illusion” (178) b) “My intention… is not to counter the literary theories … with a literary theory of my own…” (ibid.).

My concern comes in two areas (to be clear, I don’t think you make these mistakes, but they are mistakes which could be made by someone who just read what you wrote): a) some one might mis-read “literary theory is an illusion” as a call to return to a non-critical, belle-lettristic engagement with text, which as Eagleton points out, is just an ideological stance which covers up its own nature as ideological stance (173). Like Keynes in economics, Eagleton believes that we all read according to some ideas: “Keynes once remarked that those economists who disliked theory, or claimed to get along better without it, were simply in the grip of an older theory. … Hostility to theory usually means an opposition to other people’s theories and an oblivion to one’s own” (ix-x).

so, Eagleton isn’t arguing against theory, but against the uses of capital-T Theory – the uses of which, as you pointed out, were to distract people from the horrible costs of our current political-economic system. And theory really only becomes capital-T Theory when it gets used as such. (This is the “high theory” that I mentioned earlier, which was a distinct historical event.)

b) similarly, one might mis-read “literary theory is an illusion” as saying that there’s no there there, and while Eagleton may well decry the uses of certain theories, and point out the shortcomings of others, the ones that he does champion – most notably “Socialist and feminist criticism” (184) – are 1) theories themselves and 2) built on the backs or in direct opposition to earlier theories, therefore making it somewhat necessary to at least have an introduction to those theories.

Which may well be the point of Eagleton’s book: to give you a rough map of the territory so that you can see where you ought to go (into socialist and feminist criticism) and where you’ve been (close reading, structuralism) so that you can return if necessary.

Also, I find it curious that you take Eagleton at face value when he says that he’s not here to advance any theory of his own, since he does champion both socialist/marxist and feminist criticism, as well as arguing for a rhetoric-based reading of culture. If rhetoric isn’t a literary theory, then what is? (I mean, he jokingly puts it in quotation marks when he calls it a “literary theory” but that joke obscures the truth – sure, when it first began, rhetoric didn’t have the institutional apparatus that today makes theory what it is; but at the same time, if we did start doing rhetoric/discourse, it would certainly be a theory.)

Have fun camping!

your friend, Null

"Literary Theory: An Introduction (Terry Eagleton)" by Jun-Dai

Sat, 01 Jul 2006 07:41:48 -0700

He may be a Marxist, but he specifically avoided advocating any sort of Marxist literary theory. And the bulk of his conclusion seemed pretty strongly against the notion of literary theory on the grounds that it (1) it didn’t exist, (2) it distracted people from talking about important things, and (3) people that used it to talk about important things overstated the importance of so-called literature.

Anyways, his largest problem with literary theory seemed to be that its very existence as a concept was an advocation for some concept of literature, which in turn was a means of maintaining existing power structures. In fact, it was symptomatic of his view against literary theory that he felt it necessary to point out that we wasn’t advocating the elimination of literature departments in universities across the world for the reason that if we eliminated them we probably wouldn’t have the opportunity to replace them with anything and that rather we should slowly reform them until we have nice departments of rhetoric/discourse… . I’d say more, but I’m off to go camping.

"Literary Theory: An Introduction (Terry Eagleton)" by null

Sat, 01 Jul 2006 00:56:10 -0700

I think I disagree with some of your readings of this book. While I agree that Eagleton says that literature doesn’t really exist before its reception as literature, I’m not sure I would describe his position as anti-literary theory (since he’s a committed marxist, and marxist literary theory is still theory). It’s probably more accurate to say that he’s against “high theory” but that’s only because “high theory” is solipsistic, and not engaged with political/economic life.

(“High theory” isn’t an ahistorical name; it really does refer to some things that happened after the riots of ‘68 up to some time in the 90s, or so. As a Marxist, Eagleton is definitely aware of the time-element of different schools of theory.)

I don’t mean to say you’re wrong; you’re definitely right that Eagleton is interested in showing the contradictions and problems with different theories (but I do think he does a pretty good job of summarizing them, though summaries are prone to mis-statement).

However, while I may agree with you on most parts, I (surprise!) do disagree with you on your conclusion that structuralism and new criticism are uninteresting, and you should skip them for feminism and post-colonial studies. As Eagleton points out, theoretical discourses tend to build on each other (i.e., Deconstruction is just Close Reading like New Critics used to practice, and Feminism and Post-Colonial studies tends to build on, and expose the lacks in, earlier theories including Marxist literary theory).

Also, you’re right that much of the focus on canonical works means that literature departments ignore the things that people actually read (don’t I know it!), but some people don’t think that’s a criticism of literature. rather than seeing Literature as an object of study, they may view it as a methodology, which can, as you said, be “applied to any other discourse.” This is the sort of reasoning that argues that literature is important because it teaches “critical thinking.” It’s a short hop, skip and jump from arguing that to arguing that literature is important because it teaches “composition” and how to write, and I am actually a little conflicted about that argument, but it’s been made before.

In sum, nice review, I’m glad you wrote more.

your friend and mine, null

"Literary Theory: An Introduction (Terry Eagleton)" by Jun-Dai

Fri, 30 Jun 2006 08:25:12 -0700

Well, my idea was to put some of my thoughts on these books up as I read them. It’s a bit late for me to do that with this one, and even worse: as I’ve lent my copy to Lorin for his vacation, I can’t even look through it as I think back on the book, in order to crystallize my recollection of it. But I’ll see what I can do despite that… This book has certainly had an effect on the way I think about language, literature, and literary theory.

"Literary Theory: An Introduction (Terry Eagleton)" by null

Thu, 29 Jun 2006 22:43:13 -0700

come now, JD, you must have something to say about these books. tell you what, I have to read Tristram Shandy sometime soon for school, but I’ll bump it up a little in my queue, so that we can talk about it together.

your friend, null