Books by Terry Eagleton

A brilliant introduction to the philosophical concept of materialism and its relevance to contemporary science and culture In this eye-opening, intellectually stimulating appreciation of a fascinating school of philosophy, Terry Eagleton makes a powerful argument that materialism is at the center of today's important scientific and cultural as well as philosophical debates. The author reveals entirely fresh ways of considering the values and beliefs of three very different materialists-Marx, Nietzsche, and Wittgenstein-drawing striking comparisons between their philosophies while reflecting on a wide array of topics, from ideology and history to language, ethics, and the aesthetic. Cogently demonstrating how it is our bodies and corporeal activity that make thought and consciousness possible, Eagleton's book is a valuable exposition on philosophic thought that strikes to the heart of how we think about ourselves and live in the world.

'History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce' Karl MarxA brilliant account of Marx and his view of utopia and socialism.

A new account of tragedy and its fundamental position in Western culture

What makes a work of literature good or bad? How freely can the reader interpret it? Could a nursery rhyme like Baa Baa Black Sheep be full of concealed loathing, resentment, and aggression? In this accessible, delightfully entertaining book, Terry Eagleton addresses these intriguing questions and a host of others. How to Read Literature is the book of choice for students new to the study of literature and for all other readers interested in deepening their understanding and enriching their reading experience.In a series of brilliant analyses, Eagleton shows how to read with due attention to tone, rhythm, texture, syntax, allusion, ambiguity, and other formal aspects of literary works. He also examines broader questions of character, plot, narrative, the creative imagination, the meaning of fictionality, and the tension between what works of literature say and what they show. Unfailingly authoritative and cheerfully opinionated, the author provides useful commentaries on classicism, Romanticism, modernism, and postmodernism along with spellbinding insights into a huge range of authors, from Shakespeare and J. K. Rowling to Jane Austen and Samuel Beckett.

This is a collection of Terry Eagleton's best criticisms and book reviews. His skill in this field is notable: never content merely to assess the ideas of a writer, Eagleton, in his inimitable style, always paints a vivid theorectical fresco as the background to his engagement with the texts.

How to live in a supposedly faithless world threatened by religious fundamentalism? Terry Eagleton, formidable thinker and renowned cultural critic, investigates in this thought-provoking book the contradictions, difficulties, and significance of the modern search for a replacement for God. Engaging with a phenomenally wide range of ideas, issues, and thinkers from the Enlightenment to today, Eagleton discusses the state of religion before and after 9/11, the ironies surrounding Western capitalism’s part in spawning not only secularism but also fundamentalism, and the unsatisfactory surrogates for the Almighty invented in the post-Enlightenment era.   The author reflects on the unique capacities of religion, the possibilities of culture and art as modern paths to salvation, the so-called war on terror’s impact on atheism, and a host of other topics of concern to those who envision a future in which just and compassionate communities thrive. Lucid, stylish, and entertaining in his usual manner, Eagleton presents a brilliant survey of modern thought that also serves as a timely, urgently needed intervention into our perilous political present.

These essays (and a ballad) have their origins in Terry Eagleton’s continuing engagement with the possibilities of a literary criticism that is both materialist and open to diverse currents of thought in the human sciences.Eagleton’s combative intelligence here explores the encounter between Marxism and contemporary European and American literary theory. Included are a survey of the Althusserian contribution to literary analysis; thoughts on the fraught relations between Marxism and poststructuralism; and a brilliant evocation of the affinities and tensions between Wittgenstein, Derrida and Bakhtin.Intellectual figures in this wide-ranging topography include Jacques Derrida; the radical critic Fredric Jameson; the apostle of deconstruction, Paul de Man; the liberal humanist John Bayley; Bertoit Brecht; William Empson and Pierre Machersy. The volume also includes Eagleton’s brilliant reading of Conrad’s The Secret Agent.Against the Grain is an excellent introduction to the range of Terry Eagleton’s thought and his considerable body of work. It is also a useful primer for all readers interested in the vitality of literary theory today.

In 1916, in a remote cottage on the west coast of Ireland, an unlikely collection of fugitives gathers. Ludwig Wittgenstein has run away from Cambridge and English insularity. His traveling companion, Nikolai Bakhtin (brother of the Marxist aesthetician), has been through the gamut of revolutionary sects and is now devoting himself to gluttony. Into their retreat stumble James Connolly, now on the run from the British government, and Leopold Bloom, fleeing Ulysses and his broken marriage. Being men of ideas, they begin to talk. And then, being men of principles, they begin to argue ...

Terry Eagletons witty and polemical Reason, Faith, and Revolution is bound to cause a stir among scientists, theologians, people of faith and people of no faith, as well as general readers eager to understand the God Debate. On the one hand, Eagleton demolishes what he calls the superstitious view of God held by most atheists and agnostics and offers in its place a revolutionary account of the Christian Gospel. On the other hand, he launches a stinging assault on the betrayal of this revolution by institutional Christianity.There is little joy here, then, either for the anti-God brigadeRichard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens in particularnor for many conventional believers. Instead, Eagleton offers his own vibrant account of religion and politics in a book that ranges from the Holy Spirit to the recent history of the Middle East, from Thomas Aquinas to the Twin Towers.

Terry Eagleton's witty and acerbic attacks on contemporary culture and society are read and enjoyed by many, and his studies of literature are regarded as classics of contemporary criticism. Here, Eagleton seeks to develop a sophisticated relationship between Marxism and literary criticism.

The golden age of cultural theory (the product of a decade and a half, from 1965 to 1980) is long past. We are living now in its aftermath, in an age which, having grown rich in the insights of thinkers like Althusser, Barthes and Derrida, has also moved beyond them. What kind of new, fresh thinking does this new era demand? Eagleton concludes that cultural theory must start thinking ambitiously again - not so that it can hand the West its legitimation, but so that it can seek to make sense of the grand narratives in which it is now embroiled.

This work explores the interrelation of Irish political history and Irish literature. It discusses a host of unusual topics, from Shaw and science and Irish attitudes, to nature and the question of language, and a full-scale investigation of the Celtic revival.

`...a valuable book for anyone wanting to move beyond critical pieties to an understanding of the relation between the Brontes' work and their society.

This study is divided into three parts: the classical tradition; Althusser and after; and modern debates. It includes chapters on class consciousness, ideology and utopia, and the epistemology of sociology, looking at the work of Georg Lukas, Karl Mannheim and Lucien Goldman respectively.