Literary Theory - Terry Eagleton: Summary and Analysis

GENDER STUDIES – ACADEMIC YEAR 2019-2021 Literary Theory An Introduction 2nd Ed. Terry Eagleton Summary Supervisor: Professor. Hamid Masfour Supervisee: Imad Ait Oufkir Module: Feminist Literary Criticism Academic Year 2019-2021 GENDER STUDIES – ACADEMIC YEAR 2019-2021 Introduction One of the things that critics and literary theorists have always been attempting to carefully approach is, the definition of literature. The latter has been a problematic for literary critics and writers of literature alike, to designate as a definition since time immemorial. However, in this paper I shall note an interesting approach to the definition of literature with Terry Eagleton. In the introduction of Literary Theory ‘What is Literature’, he raises the discrepancy in designating literature as a broad term, carried with the problem of each definition and why it is not as valid as it claims to be. In ‘Phenomenology, Hermeneutics, Reception Theory’, Eagleton will further discuss the latter and their approach to meaning in general, and the definition of literature likewise. In ‘Structuralism and Semiotics’ Eagleton takes on a linguistic approach to elaborate on how structuralist methods approach a certain text. We will also see ‘Poststructuralism’ and its view of meaning, text and objectivity, as he will shift to ‘Psychoanalysis’ and its own approaches to meaning-making and analysis of literary text. Finally, with ‘Political Criticism’, Eagleton will reiterate his elaboration on his own take on the definition of literature and value-judgement as opposed to what we think to be our subjective conscience. What is Literature? The definition of literature has always been such a hot-button issue in literary criticism. The more literary critical schools emerge, the more literature’s definition becomes intricate and hard to deal with. As the title of the introduction suggests ‘What is Literature?’ Eagleton intentionally asks, what is even literature at this point? Is it one universal definition that we all agree on? Or is it this variety of definitions that celebrate literary production as a whole? GENDER STUDIES – ACADEMIC YEAR 2019-2021 Eagleton provides the first definition, that of fictive view of literature. This definition assumes that literature is everything that is based on fiction and imagination, and is not necessarily based on true events. However, with this definition imagination is not only part of literature but also its kernel which makes- Eagleton argues -other writings that are not fictional, such as Hobbes’s Leviathan (Eagleton, 1) excluded from this definition of literature for that the latter is part of literature although it argued for social contractarianism. He contends that, this does not only exclude other genres, but also views itself as the center of literature, and while there are realist and modernist works that are not fictional, this contradicts the definition of the existing literature. Eagleton goes on next to bring another example of the definition of literature by Russian Formalists as a second illustration of his critique. Their definition is directed to the linguistic aspect of literature since it focuses more on structure and language. Russian formalism prioritizes structure, language, and form as of paramount significance than the content. Thus, making language ‘automatized’ (Eagleton, 3). Terry Eagleton argues that, a text to be considered literature or not, is the least job of language alone to glean or decide. In other words, it’s not just language that defines what is literature or not, but a whole spectrum of different elements. He sees this formalist definition as limited and inadequate since it relies upon the assumption that structure, form or language are the ultimate determinant of literature. Russian formalists also deem literature to be an arbitrary assortment of devices. And these devices are functioning in the process of ‘estranging’ or ‘defamiliarizing’ ordinary language. Eagleton does not entirely agree with such claims, owing to their stigmatization of literature for being strange while it actually reflects reality, although in less tangible ways but in ways that are relatable. He also castigates the fact that formalists do not evaluate and define literature, per se, but GENDER STUDIES – ACADEMIC YEAR 2019-2021 ‘literariness’ based on certain use of language and structure rather than the content which is not much of an appeal to them. Terry Eagleton then, shifts attention to another definition which is that of the nonpragmatic. This definition sees literature as non-pragmatic, since it has no authentic effect or an end to be achieved in real life, and that it is not necessarily driven by political purposes, unlike ‘biology textbooks’ for instance. However, this definition is also flawed for Eagleton since, ‘Orwell’ for example is considered literature (Eagleton, 7) whilst most of his critically-acclaimed works are blatant demonstration of political adherence. He also criticizes the idea of seeing literature as a form of ‘fine writing’. Eagleton argues, what might be fine writing in certain geographical location, is probably the exact opposite in other locations. Thus, the moment location is removed, the moment these notions cease to have meaning, although subjective. He goes on to chastise this ‘finesse’ as something subjective and rather suggests a relegation of writings that are ‘not fine’. In the end of the chapter, he draws a concluding commentary on the problematic of designating literature in such objective manner. And finally, how we come to define literature based on value-judgments. For Eagleton, literature is not a stable term and is being defined in different, but subjective manners. For him, this is a sort of a dilemma. Because once we unfetter the definition literature to subjectivity, it becomes worn-out and everyone would jump to claim everything they do as literature. However, for him, this is better-though it’s a last resort- than just fixity and decidability in providing meaning as it is nothing but mere hypocrisy. He concludes by addressing this claim to value-judgments which are based on social and political ideologies of one’s own milieu. GENDER STUDIES – ACADEMIC YEAR 2019-2021 Phenomenology, Hermeneutics, Reception theory In order for us to understand a certain theory, an adducible mentioning of its historical climate in which it emerged is a must. As in the case with Phenomenology, it is very consequential to allude to the historical backdrop of its emergence with Husserl. In his attempt to revive certainty, which was disdained unto and from European minds at times of cataclysms, since they saw technological development as brining nothing but destruction, as a failure and as a starting point of their disbelief in science as their previous source of certainty, Husserl develops phenomenology in an attempt to resuscitate the sense of certainty in a directionless European society. Based on this, the definition of phenomenology for him lies on the postulation that reality is comprised of phenomena, and its meaning lies on the understanding of human consciousness of it and nothing further. In other words, meaning/essence of things is that of intuitiveness and ‘sensory experience’, the first understanding of it without the intervention of anything independent from the human consciousness. In this, he means that our understanding is ‘outward’. The meaning goes to be cast upon phenomena and not the opposite. Here, he dispels Rene Descartes’ method of doubt, Cogito, ergo sum. The latter assumes that knowledge comes from the inside. Descartes thereupon contends that our essence, and meaning as humans, lies in the rational understanding of the fact that we are thinking. Hence, we think inward and knowledge comes from the inside. He introduces the term ‘bracketing’ to define the act in which we understand the essence of phenomena once we ‘bracket’ it and focus only on that thing we have (Eagleton, 48). Terry Eagleton would also introduce ‘Geneva School’ of phenomenological criticism. Geneva, explains Eagleton, uses more or less ‘bracketing’ similar to the way GENDER STUDIES – ACADEMIC YEAR 2019-2021 approached by other phenomenologists. In their attempt to approach a literary text, they ‘bracket’ external elements attached to the text, so that they can fathom the essence of the text and not because of a certain intervention that would distort or filter-define it. (e.g. the author’s background). This means that, we come to grips with the author’s intention, or the meaning he wants us to understand exactly as it is from the text itself. Such external elements outside the text is a step towards a rupture of authorial essence. However, at this point Eagleton’s authorial intrusion in the book comes into play, (and since he has historical materialist views, he is expected to disagree with the theory in hand. What he dispels at this point, is this claim of detaching context from its text, and the claim of finding essence in studying text in isolation from other external elements such as its background. From him, the historicity of the text should not be taken at face value since it explains so much about one’s intention per se.) Eagleton also argues that we are not sure of things to exist independently. In similar trajectory, we find Heidegger to be one of the proponents of phenomenology in its view that history is not bound to detect the essence of a certain text. He attempts can be viewed as both a criticism and an expansion of phenomenological inquiry. Heidegger argues in his ‘Being and time’, that the Dasein (the non-dualistic human being, engaged in the world) or the subject in simplistic terms, cannot be detached from its historical narrative. Eagleton interpolates Hans-Georg Gadamer’s views on phenomenological approaches to the text. Gadamer wishes to advance that, the meaning of a certain text relies highly- not on the author- but on the historical advancement of the text. Meaning that recipients of the text and the way they glean the meaning out of it, differs from time to another. Thus, he contends, we are less of tabula rasa, and more of recipients with prior- knowledge in queue to be integrated in the text in hand. Hence, the author is no more than a dead producer of knowledge, and GENDER STUDIES – ACADEMIC YEAR 2019-2021 therefore is a purveyor of interpretable texts. (This is what Ronald Barthes would come to call the Death of the Author as a title to one of his renowned essays.) This leads us to the part where Terry Eagleton discusses Reception Theory. In the light of this theory, he will demonstrate how phenomenologists developed their own views towards the reader or the recipient as the most paramount element in hermeneutics. The reader thereupon, is of paramount importance for Gadamer, and is the one who prompts the meaning-making process, in absence of the author who ceases to have a claim on the meaning of the text. In similar course, Polish philosopher and phenomenologist Roman Ingarden would also consider the reader as the central of this process of meaning-making only if they actualize the text’s schemata (Eagleton, 67). Eagleton here, brings the example of Ronald Barthes with death of the author as a following point of the aforementioned theories. To conclude this chapter, terry Eagleton brings up an example which is more or less identical to his point of view. Stanley Fish states that we- as readers and producers of knowledge- are bound by certain ideology that composes discourses we pretend to possess. Therefore, we are not free to write and read with our own volition, but by the conditions of unconscious consumption of ideologies around us. Structuralism and Semiotics Eagleton sets out this chapter by bringing up the figure of Frye and his book ‘Anatomy of Criticism’ as a central work of his analysis. Frye states that what criticism lacked, is its ‘unscientific’ attempt to approach literature, since everyone’s valuejudgement will come up to be subjective. He further argues that literature is not just a compilation of random works throughout history but rather all of these works have a GENDER STUDIES – ACADEMIC YEAR 2019-2021 certain system and structure. He goes on to dissect narrative structures. Which he contends to be reduced to four narrative categories. Comic, romantic, tragic and ironic, which he saw to be a reflection of mythos of spring, summer, autumn and winter. Thus, he argues every mythos, has its own expectation of what it will produce in certain work of literature. He then goes on to demonstrate three points of the structuralist method. First, structuralism does not assign value to whether a certain text is a prototype of good literature or not, but rather studies the structure of the text. Second, it does not assign value to the content if its replaceable, then what matters most is the structure since it can be the irreplaceable or adapt with every other content (characters, plot...) Third, he synthesizes: Structure, therefore, can be the content of the text. Here Eagleton evokes de Saussure, as one crucial figure in structuralism. de Saussure advances his view of linguistic criticism to happen after the ‘linguistic turn’. For him, to study language we should study it in different ways than the usual. That is to say, we should not study it diachronically but synchronically. What he means by this is that we should not study language as compared to history of signs or language, as of (let’s say etymology of words), but we should study its function in its time and climate. Langue and Parole, are two central terms to de Saussure’s theory of both structuralism and its critical approach. Langue is the structure of language, whilst parole is its utterance. He then moves to some of the basic linguistic studies of his theory. He postulates that a sign is comprised of two elements, the signified and the signifier. The signified as the concept, and the signifier as the sound-image related to it. Departing from Saussurian theory, Eagleton brings up Jakobson’s postulation of six elements of an act of communication. For an act of communication to take place, these elements are seen to be crucial for Jakobson. He goes, the context, addresser, addressee, GENDER STUDIES – ACADEMIC YEAR 2019-2021 contact, common or shared code, and a message. He contends that the meaning of a certain message can differ according to the emphasis and where it is held. The most important place in which emphasis is put, is when it is put on the message itself. Hence, Jakobson- unlike de Saussure- delves into the point of emphasis in which the fixity of meaning shifts and not just due to cultural contextualization of signs. Here Eagleton takes us to the field of semiotics with C.S Pierce, that has to do with the study of sign systems. Pierce provides three basic kinds of signs. (Iconic sign, indexical sign, symbolic sign) Iconic, is when the sign occurs as a resemblance or imitation of what it stands for. (its signified object). Indexical, is the mode in which the signifier does not necessarily resemble its signified, however this relationship might be learned. Symbolic sign, is when the relationship between the signified and the signifier, is understood in a social context and is purely conventional (e.g. Myths). Additionally, Eagleton brings Levi-Strauss’s structural and anthropological theory of language, myth, and mythemes. Levi-Strauss sees myth as a form of language. What he means by that is, since language is approached by a structuralist method, myth is more or less goes in similar fashion. Strauss argues that by analyzing language and myth, we find out that they can be dissected into constituent units, which in the case of myth he names ‘Mythemes’ (Eagleton, 90). He posits that, we understand myth because we put it in a larger system of structure, whereby it all makes sense in our mind, since the latter functions by scientific structural method. Here Eagleton interpolates some of his criticism, and the flaws of structuralism. The first point that he chastises in structuralism is that it neglected the individual altogether. He argues that structuralism broke free from conventional literary criticism, GENDER STUDIES – ACADEMIC YEAR 2019-2021 in different ways but also entrapped in certain other ways. However, they have this obsession of language as the center of their preoccupation, which is radical in its implications. Eagleton goes back to their focus on deep structure, as he states that, they forgot about (labor, sexuality, or political power), questions this as, don’t these have a certain bearing in the deep structure? Thus, structuralism becomes a reductionist theory that reduces varieties of phenomena to certain ‘larger’ scale, expecting it to be the ultimate study of its function. In this what structuralism does, is neglecting phenomena outside of the text, although they do have a bearing in language and literary texts. Eagleton furthers his criticism on structuralism, particularly about literature as being a form of a social practice. He says that, structuralists refuse to go there, for the reason that they will surrender to the myth of the ‘origin’ that lies in the deep structure they postulated. In this chapter thereupon, Eagleton posits that what structuralism hoped to achieve vis-à- vis the reading of the text, is that a reader should follow certain elements in the quest of understanding the deeper structures of the text. However, while this serves as a way to understand the text, he argues that this is more of a detriment and an attempt to confine the reader, by claiming objective understanding which lies in deeper structures. Poststructuralism Terry Eagleton in this chapter will highly focus on Derrida’s Of Grammatology and the concept of Deconstruction it developed, as well as its critique to structuralism. Before we delve into this, we have seen with de Saussure earlier in structuralism, that meaning is fetched once we come to study signs in relation to other signs, in addition to its linguistic/cultural context. Meaning that it should be studied in synch with time, in order GENDER STUDIES – ACADEMIC YEAR 2019-2021 for us to glean the fixed meaning it has. However, for Jacques Derrida (and perhaps Eagleton, too, since he departs from talking about Derrida to enter his own views) meaning is never fixed and is destabilized. What structuralists claim of fixity of meaning when in relation to signs with signs synchronically, is what post-structuralists see as to unstable and for meaning to be an endless cycle of signification. Central to his Deconstruction, ‘Différance’ for Derrida describes the ‘deferral and difference of meaning’. Thus, meaning is never achieved in signs themselves but in relation to other signs in which they differ from. Hence, meaning is always postponed and is never fixed since it is stuck in an endless cycle of signification. The moment we study language or signs next to each other, and realize that we know a sign because it is not another sign, and that the process of signification does not lie on a fixity of signs in themselves, then we might reach a certain understanding of them. Perhaps the most tangible difference between structuralists and poststructuralists is not in signs carriage of meaning, but in the binary thinking of western thought since a long time. This revolutionary shift that poststructuralism brought about in literary criticism, and almost adopted in other fields, dispels structuralist way of thinking since it only relies on dichotomies. This was the way western philosophy viewed the world since time immemorial. For the reason that it had benefited them so, while it relegates others. That is why Deconstruction and its distrust of binaries was a sort of revolution against the rigid thought that lies in a two-fold relationship claiming the stability of meaning. This disbelief in binary oppositions, creates a room for difference and incommensurable possibilities. (Eagleton, 115). Terry Eagleton moves to the next concept developed by Derrida, ‘Aporia’. Aporia means ‘impassable path’. For Derrida, he describes the term as in relation to the text, as the moment where meaning is the most doubtful and is contradictory. Or when the text GENDER STUDIES – ACADEMIC YEAR 2019-2021 has contradicted itself that it becomes as stated above an ‘impassable path’. In this passage, Eagleton documents the political importance of poststructuralism, for the reason that dispels rigid political discourses. Unlike structuralism, which claims that signs realize their own meaning within themselves, although in certain linguistic context, but this is a certain way of positing that there is an objective truth. The latter is what poststructuralism intends to critique since meaning or truth is never achieved in its fixed and rigid framing as did the structuralists. But it is always deferral, postponed and is stuck in a chain of signification. Eagleton briefly mentions the importance of modernist writers and modernism. What poststructuralists favored in modernist writing, is its acknowledgment of the ‘Aporia’. Modernist writers did not shy away from admitting signs and meaning in their writings to be contradictory with itself. However, in his closure Eagleton reiterates his critique of modernism and postmodernism since they propelled or at the least promoted the overtaking of capitalism, by this focusing on themselves as distanced from the social. He concludes that, feminism or social feminism differs from radical feminism (and since he is a Marxist, he disrupts the intentions and separatism of radical feminism). Towards the end, he draws a conclusion of feminism to adopt deconstruction and its attempt of breaking away from binary thinking. Psychoanalysis Terry Eagleton started his chapter by breaking down essential constituents of Psychoanalysis, and their relationship with different phenomena. Furthermore, his commentary comes into play from time to time, in order to, both restate and refute, some of the misconceptions about what Freud was trying to convey. Nevertheless, the GENDER STUDIES – ACADEMIC YEAR 2019-2021 loopholes of Freud’s theory, and the fact that Terry Eagleton interpolates a sort of New Historicist approach to debunk some of these fragments, are not immune from his (Terry Eagleton’s) criticism. The rest of the chapter has ample room left for Psychoanalysis as part of literary criticism, and its relationship with Literature. Eagleton briefly discusses Pleasure Principle, Sublimation and erotogenic zones. Freud contends that when a baby is being breastfed, he comes to grips with finding pleasure in a biologically essential activity. The baby develops a sense of understanding of body organs, as not merely organs but more of ‘erotogenic zones.’ The reason why Freud calls sexuality as ‘perversion’ is owing to this stage, in which he departs from seeing his, let’s say mother’s breast or his mouth, as body organs but as erotogenic zones. In this, new erotogenic zones introduce themselves. As mentioned before in the chapter, Freud’s first ever stage of sexuality is that of the ‘Oral stage’. Mainly when the infant is involved in contact with the breast he’s milking. And that’s the first object of libido. The second stage, is that of the ‘Anal Stage’. Here, the anus becomes part of erotogenic zones, and gratification is derived from withholding feces. Upon the stage of breastfeeding, Freud develops ‘Oedipal Complex’, a relationship that arises from the bodily intimacy between the infant and his mother. The boy’s fear of the father’s threat of castration, makes him renounce the early intimate desire he has for his mother. The boy, thus, resorts to his father who is the symbol of authority, patriarchy and manhood. Once the boy enters the verge of man-in-the-making, he then adopts social images that are deemed masculine. This inferiority complex of the girl, when she sees herself as castrated amplifies to a state of envy for the penis. This Oedipus Complex, as posited by Freud, is not a mere stage but a phase of diversion from pleasure principle to reality principle; in other words, this the stage where the shift from natural to cultural occurs. Dreams, for Freud, are everything that we wished to fulfill unconsciously but are not realized in real life; to the point before GENDER STUDIES – ACADEMIC YEAR 2019-2021 the dream. The ego, as a mediator between the id and the superego, does the job of censoring and obscuring images, either by condensation or displacement. Just like language, Lacan sees the unconscious to be structured too. The ego in its duty to block certain desires from the unconscious to the conscious, and this war with these desires might result in Neurosis. On the other hand, we can find psychosis, in which these desires manage to overthrow the ego, resulting in a rupture between the conscious and unconscious, reality and delusion. Eagleton succinctly chronicles some of the criticism directed to Freud, including the assumption that he is oversexual, his theories are all built on heteronormative claims, and also counter-transference which he did with Dora, a young patient of his (Eagleton, 140). Eagleton shifts the course of the chapter to Jacques Lacan and his own version of psychoanalysis. Lacan’s attempt of redeeming Psychoanalysis, and his importance to literary theorists. Jacques Lacan attempted to renovate Freudianism, in a way that explains the human subject and the questions pertaining it, the inextricable relationship with language and society. Lacan’s psychoanalysis is more of a language-oriented one. He rewrites psychoanalysis in terms of structuralist and post-structuralist framework. In the light of Freud’s points of the infant’s development, Lacan gives the stage where the infant does not differ between the self and the external world, as the ‘Imaginary’. Before that, there is the ‘symbiotic’ in which the child is both attached and dependent on his mother’s body. In the ‘Mirror-stage’ as developed by Lacan, is the child’s first stride towards burgeoning his ego. This image of the self in the mirror, is the beginning of building a sense of self-center. And this stage, as proposed by Lacan, is narcissistic since it is when the ego is developed. The ‘Dyadic’ relationship of the child and his mother, the Oedipal process, shifts to a ‘Triadic’ one eventually, to comprise both parents. Here the GENDER STUDIES – ACADEMIC YEAR 2019-2021 father comes into play, standing against the child’s penchant for incest. Lacan labels this shift, ‘The Law’. Similar to de Saussurian theory of signs, this mirror-stage is a part of the child’s integration and realization of meaning. The signifier here, is when the child is standing in front of the mirror, trying to fetch a certain meaning, the latter which is that reflected into the mirror. In similar fashion to Freud’s ‘Reality principle’ Lacan names this change the ‘symbolic order’ in which the child departs from the ‘imaginary’ which has to do with his libidinal relationship with the mother, to symbolic order which is his new relationship with the father as a representative of extra-familial, society and language. The child here enters to the language, as a result of the Oedipus complex, which Lacan interpolated in the symbolic order, thus, the child loses any sort of access to the real, since language is unable to embody a stable meaning. Here the child is stuck in this symbolism of language ‘which is always beyond the reach of the significance’. In other words, the child entered the ‘empty’ world of language (Eagleton, 145). A fictive world full of metaphors and figures of speech, not being able to retrieve the self we left in the imaginary. Terry Eagleton then moves into how is psychoanalysis as a mode of reading a certain literary text. He divides psychoanalytical literary criticism into four kinds. Psychoanalytical literary criticism can be broadly divided into four kinds, depending on what it takes as its object of attention. It can attend to the author of the work; to the work's contents; to informal construction; or to the reader. Most psychoanalytical criticism has been of the first two kinds, which are in fact the most limited and problematical. (Eagleton, 155). Mostly used, are the psychoanalysis of the author, and the work’s content. What Eagleton finds interesting at this point, is Freud’s ‘Secondary Revision’ in its relation to literature. Since this secondary revision is an attempt to ‘record its chaotic elements into GENDER STUDIES – ACADEMIC YEAR 2019-2021 a more coherent fable’ or narrative. This secondary revision for Eagleton is more or less like literary works. Since they both seek to exhume harmony and coherence from chaotic subjects. He goes on to compare it to literary theories examined in this book, since they all attempt to fill gaps and contradiction. Literary theorists alike, are the bearers of such revision, since they seek to find ambiguities to revise and correct, and to make all of it discernable for the reader. (Structuralists for example, they use secondary revision. If we take for instance, their attempt to revise literary texts, primarily looking for deep structures is a form of secondary revision) There is also what is called by ‘Hermeneutic of suspicion’. The latter does not only attempt to understand the text, but also to divulge what is taken for granted in the text, and this process of uncovering the leftovers of the text is what leads us to the ‘latent content’ which revisits and reveals the process of the text-making. Finally, he moves on to Harold Bloom’s theory of the ‘Anxiety of Influence’. Bloom’s theory contends that ‘poets’ or writers in general, are in constant anxiety of their precursors. They accordingly try to rewrite and mostly, outdo the wirings of those great poets/writers of their times. Political Criticism Perhaps this is the only chapter in the book in which Eagleton devotes his view of value-judgment and the definition of literature. When he says political here, he certainly means the political impetus that shapes one’s subjectivity. Since literary theory is hesitantly unable to fight against or adhere to ideologies of late capitalism, Eagleton sees Liberal humanism as in a contradictory relationship with capitalism (Eagleton, 174). This contradiction is found in a sham support of higher education humanities departments to capitalism. Eagleton argues that, capitalism tied itself to the first to let it down while it goes down to the abyss. Here, Liberal humanism GENDER STUDIES – ACADEMIC YEAR 2019-2021 proves its impotent and ineffectual emergence. He concludes that some of the critical theories, are driven by ideological and political purposes and in the case of liberal humanism, the modern capitalist state. In the light of this, ‘literary theorists, critics and teachers’ as Eagleton argues, are no more a beacon of pure criticism that has no proclivity other than for the sake of constructive criticism, but rather are driven to adhere to certain discourses and defend them from other ones. Here Eagleton, draws a line of criticism towards the cannon. He castigates those literary critics who assume, let’s say their theories, to have definite and decidable meanings. This kind of assumption creates a form of literary cannon since it is backed up by ‘elitist’ or ‘chosen’ to be part of the cannon. Shakespeare for instance, is not considered good literature because of his prowess, but rather because he was ‘chosen’ by the institutions to be so. Eagleton follows his criticism on critical discourse, since it does not criticize for the sake of a constructive criticism, but rather serves as a tool of ‘policing’ language and literary works, and categorize or more ‘excludes’ non-literary works. Terry Eagleton’s view of literature comes into play at this part. He refers to what Foucault called ‘discursive practices’ which he sees very practical and important than what is named ‘literature’ in the historical sense of it. Again, Terry Eagleton here comes back to the claim of liberal humanism about the significance of good literature as being timeless and transformative. He does not see it weak that liberal humanism claimed the transformability of good literature, but because they took for granted the social context and assumed that text can be studied in isolation. (Note that even though Liberal humanists claimed that this transformative power of literature to be in isolation with its social context, they- ironically- adhered to Capitalism in their form of literary criticism.) Eagleton posits a smart analogy in his approach to what is ‘political’ and ‘non- political’. He compares this to the prime minister and the monarch, and the latter is who pretends GENDER STUDIES – ACADEMIC YEAR 2019-2021 not to reach certain ends, while he does (Eagleton, 182). Similar to non- political literary theories, they pretend not to reach certain political ends, but in fact, they do. He brings two examples of critical literary theories, that are, in fact, not in a position to reach a certain end. The feminist and the socialist. A feminist or a socialist would do so, maybe that they have certain political purpose, but also because they want to bring about positive change. Eagleton in the last paragraphs of the chapter chronicles some of the areas that are worth being considered of paramount study and not just as insignificant political movements. Feminism, Cultural industry, and the working-class writing are some of these areas that are not given much importance in literary criticism and literature in general. This institutionalization of the cannon is what eliminates such literary critical areas at the expense of certain ‘chosen’ works, critics and theorists. And this is what Terry Eagleton has been trying to criticize from the beginning of the chapter. GENDER STUDIES – ACADEMIC YEAR 2019-2021 Cited Works • Eagleton, Terry. Literary Theory: An Introduction by Terry Eagleton. Blackwell Publishers Ltd., 1 Jan. 1996.