Terry Eagleton
Professor Terry Eagleton, Chair within the Department of English and Creative Writing at Lancaster University, began his academic life as a Victorianist, and is still interested in the history and literature of the nineteenth century, as well as in 20th-century literature.
His specialities are literary and cultural theory and the English-language literature and culture of Ireland, on which he has recently completed a trilogy of works. He is also becoming rather more broadly involved in comparative literature, and a recent book on tragedy considers the literature of various European cultures. Since around 2006 he has become a vocal critic of what has been called the New Atheism and has published a number of titles based on his lectures on religion and theology including Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate (2009) and Culture and the Death of God (2014).
"Death of criticism?"
Comment
In his one-hour lecture (including the final questions from the audience) at Berkley, professor Terry Eagleton talks about the relevance of criticism these days with a speech full of wittiness, irony and jokes, which makes it, sometimes, hard to follow his line of thought. In fact, his opening word are a joke in which he compares Henry Kissinger with evil.
The first thing he does is actually question the role of literary critics like himself and the fact that they are even paid for their work. And again, he does so in an incredibly ironic and witty way in which he even includes Madonna. He then, revise scientific jobs and how they do work on things that really exist. He describes creative imagination as the way in which critics can justify that they work on something which does not even exists. He also claims that being a critic is an easier way of living things that you would probably not be able to live in real life, since it is more affordable.
He questions the fact that our society prefers unreal over real. That leads him into the morality question. He also deals with imagination and the most controversial and debated issue of all times when it comes to art in general and literature in particular: Should art and more specifically literature have a purpose, or is it just art for the sake of art? The utility of literature has been controversial for as long as literature exists.
He turns to the question of criticism and its 2 functions Language Culture. He also talks about rhetoric as the language of advertisers. He then goes on to list a series of the 20th century critics and their theories about criticism in which political criticism was implied as necessary for literary criticism. He claims, however that literary criticism these days has surrendered, in a way, to those who think that it should not address the political side. He also distinguishes between academics who study deeply one subject versus intellectuals who cross disciplines. As he explains the role of intellectuals through history, he also explains the notion of culture over time.
He defines the current idea of culture as that for which people is ready to kill and die. So culture which had been part of the solution, is now part of the problem. Thus, according to Eagleton, literary critics are the latest form of intellectuals. He claims that postmodern culturalism is an empty concept since everything would be considered culture. He argues that the real problems the world faces today, poverty, hunger and so on, are the same problems humanity faced at the turn of the first millennium, and culture is not among them.
Summing up, as I see with a speech which, for me, resembles at times a stream of consciousness, since it follows so many lines of thought, so many witty ironic examples which go from high issues like racism, God, The U.S.A. imperialism, capitalism, exploitation or Nazism to minor hilarious anecdotes like “some aspects of the vagina system of the flea” which are studied by academics, Terry Eagleton manages to, at least, question the role of literary critics and ultimately of culture today.
In his one-hour lecture (including the final questions from the audience) at Berkley, professor Terry Eagleton talks about the relevance of criticism these days with a speech full of wittiness, irony and jokes, which makes it, sometimes, hard to follow his line of thought. In fact, his opening word are a joke in which he compares Henry Kissinger with evil.
The first thing he does is actually question the role of literary critics like himself and the fact that they are even paid for their work. And again, he does so in an incredibly ironic and witty way in which he even includes Madonna. He then, revise scientific jobs and how they do work on things that really exist. He describes creative imagination as the way in which critics can justify that they work on something which does not even exists. He also claims that being a critic is an easier way of living things that you would probably not be able to live in real life, since it is more affordable.
He questions the fact that our society prefers unreal over real. That leads him into the morality question. He also deals with imagination and the most controversial and debated issue of all times when it comes to art in general and literature in particular: Should art and more specifically literature have a purpose, or is it just art for the sake of art? The utility of literature has been controversial for as long as literature exists.
He turns to the question of criticism and its 2 functions Language Culture. He also talks about rhetoric as the language of advertisers. He then goes on to list a series of the 20th century critics and their theories about criticism in which political criticism was implied as necessary for literary criticism. He claims, however that literary criticism these days has surrendered, in a way, to those who think that it should not address the political side. He also distinguishes between academics who study deeply one subject versus intellectuals who cross disciplines. As he explains the role of intellectuals through history, he also explains the notion of culture over time.
He defines the current idea of culture as that for which people is ready to kill and die. So culture which had been part of the solution, is now part of the problem. Thus, according to Eagleton, literary critics are the latest form of intellectuals. He claims that postmodern culturalism is an empty concept since everything would be considered culture. He argues that the real problems the world faces today, poverty, hunger and so on, are the same problems humanity faced at the turn of the first millennium, and culture is not among them.
Summing up, as I see with a speech which, for me, resembles at times a stream of consciousness, since it follows so many lines of thought, so many witty ironic examples which go from high issues like racism, God, The U.S.A. imperialism, capitalism, exploitation or Nazism to minor hilarious anecdotes like “some aspects of the vagina system of the flea” which are studied by academics, Terry Eagleton manages to, at least, question the role of literary critics and ultimately of culture today.
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