Profile of Terry Eagleton on Famous Like Me

Terry Eagleton (born in Salford, England, on February 22, 1943) is a British literary critic and philosopher.

Eagleton gained a doctoral degree at the age of 21 from Trinity College, Cambridge. Having spent some years at Oxford at Wadham College, Linacre College and St. Catherine's College, he is currently Professor of Cultural Theory and John Rylands Fellow at the University of Manchester.

Eagleton was the student of the Marxist literary critic Raymond Williams. He began his career studying the literature of the 19th and 20th centuries. Then he progressed to Marxist literary theory in the vein of Williams. Most recently Eagleton has integrated cultural studies with more traditional literary theory. He was, during the 1960s, involved in the left-wing Catholic group Slant and authored a number of theological articles as well as a book Towards a New Left Theology. His most recent publications have suggested a renewed interest in theological themes. Another significant theoretical influence on Eagleton is psychoanalysis and he has been an important advocate of the work of Slavoj Zizek in the United Kingdom.

Literary Theory: An Introduction, probably his best-known work, traces history of the contemporary study of text, from the Romantics of the 19th century to the postmodernists of the last few decades. Whilst Eagleton's thought remains firmly rooted in the Marxist tradition, he is not averse to critiquing deconstruction and other fashionable modes of thought. As his memoir The Gatekeeper demonstrates, Eagleton's Marxism is far from being a solely theoretical interest. He was active in Marxist organisations (notably Alan Thornett's Workers Socialist League) whilst in Oxford. He continues to provide commentary on political events in publications such as the New Statesman, Red Pepper and The Guardian.

Eagleton's most recent work, After Theory, indicts current cultural and literary theory, and what Eagleton sees as the bastardization of both. However, he does not conclude that the interdisciplinary study of literature and culture is theoretically without merit; in fact, Eagleton argues that such a merging is effective at addressing a wide range of significant topics.

Publications

• The Body as Language : outline of a new left theology (1970)
• Marxism and Literary Criticism (1976)
• Literary Theory: An Introduction (1983/1996)
• Saint Oscar (a play about Oscar Wilde)
• Ideology: An Introduction (1991)
• The Illusions of Postmodernism (1996)
• The Gatekeeper: A Memoir (2001)
• Sweet Violence (2003)
• After Theory (2004)
• The English Novel: An Introduction (2004)

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