Terry Eagleton

Description

This is an account of the foremost Marxist cultural theorist of our time. David Alderson provides detailed discussions of Eagleton's Marxism and his engagements with postmodernism, as well as an evaluation of his interventions in Irish studies. The complex relations between nature, culture and ideology, body, subjectivity and authority are shown to be at the heart of Eagleton's ethical and political concerns, and to inform his critical examinations of such literary works as "Wuthering Heights" and "The Merchant of Venice", and the figures of W.B. Yeats and Oscar Wilde.

DAVID ALDERSON is Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Manchester.

'This excellent book...ranges widely over the full range of Terry Eagleton's writings from the 1960s to the present...[offering] both a lucid, well-informed account of the ideas that inform [them] and an engaging, stimulating study of some of the major works of theory...The book includes a detailed introduction to Marxist critical theory, extensive discussion of current debates on postmodernism and postcolonial theory, and a provocative account of Irish historical revisionism. Eagleton's involvement in all of these controversial topics is presented with an admirably steady gaze and without any attempt to simplify or evade the complex issues at stake.' - Stephen Regan, Royal Holloway University of London