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lnewton's review against another edition
Eagleton opens this book with a few simple questions about criticism that he hopes to answer: 'What is the point of [criticism]? Who is it intended to reach, influence, impress? What functions are ascribed to such a critical act by society as a whole?'
The response to these questions are developed throughout his presentation of the importance of criticsm in the past. In the 18th century criticism was primarily written by and for the bourgeoisie, while in the 19th century criticism began to defend or oppose the status quo, and in the 20th century criticism was almost exclusively adopted by the liberal humanist tradition. I say 'almost' because deconstruction was a peculiar exception, as the non-radical elements were incorporated into institutions such as the Yale School, while the radical elements were ignored. In this sense deconstruction still has the potentiality to be radical if we adopt deconstruction wholesale.
In the process of outlining the history of criticism Eagleton uses Habermas' concept of the 'public sphere' which does expand and systemitize his critical outlook. In particular these 'public spheres' are useful for explaining the bourgeois bubbles of thought in the 18th century and the way in which capitalism has eroded the private sphere. There are limitations to this concept though, and that becomes particularly apparent when Eagleton is explaining the 19th century criticism as that era cannot be exclusively reduced to one or even many 'public spheres'.
Eagleton's answer to the opening questions is a simple "carry on!" or as he puts it:
'The role of the contemporary critic, then, is a traditional one. The point of the present essay is to recall criticism to its traditional role, not to invent some fashionable new function for it. For a new generation of critics in Western society, 'English Literature' is now an inhereted label for a field within which many diverse preoccupations congregate: semiotics, psychoanalysis, film studies, cultural theory, the representation of gender, popular writing, and of course the conventionally valued writings of the past. These pursuits have no obvious unity beyond a concern with the symbolic processes of social life, and the social production of forms of subjectivity. Critics who find such pursuits modish and distastefully new-fangled are, as a matter of cultural history, mistaken. They represent a contemporary version of the most venerable topics of criticism, before it was narrowed and impoverished to the so-called 'literary canon'. Moreover, it is possible to argue that such an enquiry might contribute in a modest way to our very survival. [...] Modern criticism was born of a struggle against the absolutist state; unless its future is now defined as a struggle against the bourgeois state, it might have no future at all.'
The response to these questions are developed throughout his presentation of the importance of criticsm in the past. In the 18th century criticism was primarily written by and for the bourgeoisie, while in the 19th century criticism began to defend or oppose the status quo, and in the 20th century criticism was almost exclusively adopted by the liberal humanist tradition. I say 'almost' because deconstruction was a peculiar exception, as the non-radical elements were incorporated into institutions such as the Yale School, while the radical elements were ignored. In this sense deconstruction still has the potentiality to be radical if we adopt deconstruction wholesale.
In the process of outlining the history of criticism Eagleton uses Habermas' concept of the 'public sphere' which does expand and systemitize his critical outlook. In particular these 'public spheres' are useful for explaining the bourgeois bubbles of thought in the 18th century and the way in which capitalism has eroded the private sphere. There are limitations to this concept though, and that becomes particularly apparent when Eagleton is explaining the 19th century criticism as that era cannot be exclusively reduced to one or even many 'public spheres'.
Eagleton's answer to the opening questions is a simple "carry on!" or as he puts it:
'The role of the contemporary critic, then, is a traditional one. The point of the present essay is to recall criticism to its traditional role, not to invent some fashionable new function for it. For a new generation of critics in Western society, 'English Literature' is now an inhereted label for a field within which many diverse preoccupations congregate: semiotics, psychoanalysis, film studies, cultural theory, the representation of gender, popular writing, and of course the conventionally valued writings of the past. These pursuits have no obvious unity beyond a concern with the symbolic processes of social life, and the social production of forms of subjectivity. Critics who find such pursuits modish and distastefully new-fangled are, as a matter of cultural history, mistaken. They represent a contemporary version of the most venerable topics of criticism, before it was narrowed and impoverished to the so-called 'literary canon'. Moreover, it is possible to argue that such an enquiry might contribute in a modest way to our very survival. [...] Modern criticism was born of a struggle against the absolutist state; unless its future is now defined as a struggle against the bourgeois state, it might have no future at all.'
dubiousdeeds's review against another edition
4.0
This isn't an easy read but a worthwile one. Eagleton survey's criticism's development from the 18th century to today, marking the ideological development of criticism along with the material development of the times. Although he doesn't mention Marx that often, his arguments are soaked in Marxism, something I do find delightful in cultural theory.
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