A quarter of a century on from its original publication, Literary Theory: An Introduction still conjures the subversion, excitement and exoticism that characterized theory through the 1960s and 70s, when it posed an unprecedented challenge to the literary establishment. Eagleton has added a new preface to this anniversary edition to address more recent developments in literary studies, including what he describes as "the growth of a kind of anti-theory", and the idea that literary theory has been institutionalized. Insightful and enlightening, Literary Theory: An Introduction remains the essential guide to the field. *25th Anniversary Edition of Terry Eagleton's classic introduction to literary theory * First published in 1983, and revised in 1996 to include material on developments in feminist and cultural theory * Has served as an inspiration to generations of students and teachers * Continues to function as arguably the definitive undergraduate textbook on literary theory * Reissue includes a new foreword by Eagleton himself, reflecting on the impact and enduring success of the book, and on developments in literary theory since it was first published

我們都曾對人生的意義感到困惑。這個問題是否有答案？答案是否取決於我們？或者它不過是一個偽問題？在這部充滿睿智又能激發思考的作品中，作者展現了許多世紀以來的思想者，從莎士比亞叔本華到馬克思、薩特、貝克特，對人生意義問題的探索。作者知道，「本書的許多讀者很可能會像懷疑聖誕老人的存在一樣懷疑人生意義」，但同時又認為，在需要尋求共同意義的當今之世，我們有必要回答這個所有問題背後的問題。

The best guide available to this complex concept, newly updated.
Ideology has never before been so much in evidence as a fact and so little understood as a concept as it is today. In this now classic work, originally written for both newcomers to the topic and for those already familiar with the debate, Terry Eagleton unravels the many different definitions of ideology, and explores the concept's torturous history from the Enlightenment to postmodernism.
The book provides lucid accounts of the thought of key Marxist thinkers, as well as of Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Freud and the various post-structuralists. Now updated in the light of current theoretical debates, this essential text by one of our most important contemporary critics clarifies a notoriously confused subject.
Ideology is core reading for students and teachers of literature and politics.

In this brilliant critique, Terry Eagleton explores the origins and emergence of postmodernism, revealing its ambivalences and contradictions. Above all he speaks to a particular kind of student, or consumer, of popular "brands" of postmodern thought.

Introduces readers to the modes of literary and cultural study of the previous half century A Companion to Literary Theory is a collection of 36 original essays, all by noted scholars in their field, designed to introduce the modes and ideas of contemporary literary and cultural theory. Arranged by topic rather than chronology, in order to highlight the relationships between earlier and most recent theoretical developments, the book groups its chapters into seven convenient I. Literary Narrative and Poetry; II. The Task of Reading; III. Literary Locations and Cultural Studies; IV. The Politics of Literature; V. Identities; VI. Bodies and Their Minds; and VII. Scientific Inflections. Allotting proper space to all areas of theory most relevant today, this comprehensive volume features three dozen masterfully written chapters covering such subjects Anglo-American New Criticism; Chicago Formalism; Russian Formalism; Derrida and Deconstruction; Empathy/Affect Studies; Foucault and Poststructuralism; Marx and Marxist Literary Theory; Postcolonial Studies; Ethnic Studies; Gender Theory; Freudian Psychoanalytic Criticism; Cognitive Literary Theory; Evolutionary Literary Theory; Cybernetics and Posthumanism; and much more. The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Literary Theory will be welcomed by college and university students seeking an accessible and authoritative guide to the complex and often intimidating modes of literary and cultural study of the previous half century.

Marxist Literary Theory: A Reader is designed to give both students and lecturers a sense of the historical formation of a Marxist literary tradition. A unique compilation of principal texts in that tradition, it offers the reader new ways of reading Marxism, literature, theory, and the social possibilities of writing. The collection is introduced by both editors: Terry Eagleton, writing at the point of what he describes as the most grievous crisis in Marxism's fraught career, surveys the evolution of Marxist criticism, and addresses the profoundly problematic question of Marxism's future, especially as seen in the controversial light of postmodern theory. Drew Milne contributes a key essay on Reading Marxist Literary Theory, exploring in the process the complex relations between Marx's writings and Marxism. Represented in this reader are: Theodor W. Adorno, Louis Althusser, Aijaz Ahmad, Chida Amuta, Etienne Balibar and Pierre Macherey, Roland Barthes, Walter Benjamin, Ernest Bloch, Bertolt Brecht, Alex Callinicos, Christopher Caudwell, Terry Eagleton, Friedrich Engels, Lucien Goldmann, Fredric Jameson, V. I. Lenin, Georg Lukacs, Karl Marx, The Marxist-Feminist Collective, Jean-Paul Sartre, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Leon Trotsky, V. N. Volsinov, Galvano Della Volpe, Alick West, and Raymond Williams.

In this combative, controversial book, Terry Eagleton takes issue with the prejudice that Marxism is dead and done with. Taking ten of the most common objections to Marxism--that it leads to political tyranny, that it reduces everything to the economic, that it is a form of historical determinism, and so on--he demonstrates in each case what a woeful travesty of Marx's own thought these assumptions are. In a world in which capitalism has been shaken to its roots by some major crises, Why Marx Was Right is as urgent and timely as it is brave and candid. Written with Eagleton's familiar wit, humor, and clarity, it will attract an audience far beyond the confines of academia.

Before the First World War, traditional literary scholarship was isolated from society at large. In the years following, a younger generation of critics came to the fore. Their work represented a reaction to the impoverishment of language in a commercial, utilitarian society increasingly under the sway of film, advertising, and the popular press. For them, literary criticism was a way of diagnosing social ills and had a vital moral function to perform.
Terry Eagleton reflects on the lives and work of T. S. Eliot, I. A. Richards, William Empson, F. R. Leavis, and Raymond Williams, and explores a vital tradition of literary criticism that today is in danger of being neglected. These five critics rank among the most original and influential of modern times, and represent one of the most remarkable intellectual formations in twentieth-century Britain. This was a period of change, experimentation, and the heyday of literary modernism—the bravura of which spurred on developments in critical theory.

“This concise and lucid volume offers a satisfying survey of all the major theories, from structuralism in the 1960s to deconstruction today, that have made academic criticism both intriguing and off-putting to the outsider.” —New York Times Book Review
“Literary Theory has the kind of racy readability that one associates more often with English critics who have set their faces resolutely against theory. It’s not just a brilliant polemical essay; it’s also a remarkable feat of condensation, explication, and synthesis.” —Sunday Times (London)
“A concise guide to the most interesting and mystifying trends in the study of literature over the last fifty years.” —The Nation

This classic work covers all of the major movements in literary studies in this century. Noted for its clear, engaging style and unpretentious treatment, Literary Theory has become the introduction of choice for anyone interested in learning about the world of contemporary literary thought.

Lucid, entertaining and full of insight, How To Read A Poem is designed to banish the intimidation that too often attends the subject of poetry, and in doing so to bring it into the personal possession of the students and the general reader. Offers a detailed examination of poetic form and its relation to content. Takes a wide range of poems from the Renaissance to the present day and submits them to brilliantly illuminating closes analysis. Discusses the work of major poets, including John Milton, Alexander Pope, John Keats, Christina Rossetti, Emily Dickinson, W.B. Yeats, Robert Frost, W.H.Auden, Seamus Heaney, Derek Mahon, and many more. Includes a helpful glossary of poetic terms.

Terry Eagleton's work has had a powerful influence in debates about the politics of literature and culture. His writings have had a marked impact too on how these subjects are taught and studied. Always maintaining a clear sense of political goal, his work has ranged widely in subject and in method.
This book reflects the breadth of his interests. It offers a view of his career to date, raising a number of central issues in literature, culture and politics. It includes a discussion of the nature and function of literary theory today, and in a major new essay on Adorno, offers a glimpse of Eagleton's current work on the contradictory status of art in modern society and the relations between the aesthetic and the political.

An exploration of tragedy and its fundamental position in Western culture

In this compelling account, eminent literary critic Terry Eagleton explores the nuances of tragedy in Western culture—from literature and politics to philosophy and theater. Eagleton covers a vast array of thinkers and practitioners, including Nietzsche, Walter Benjamin, and Slavoj Žižek, as well as key figures in theater, from Sophocles and Aeschylus to Shakespeare and Ibsen.

Eagleton examines the political nature of tragedy, looking closely at its connection with periods of historical transition. The dramatic form originated not as a meditation on the human condition, but at moments of political engagement, when civilizations struggled with the conflicts that beset them. Tragedy, Eagleton demonstrates, is fundamental to human experience and culture.

A trenchant analysis of sacrifice as the foundation of the modern, as well as the ancient, social order.
The modern conception of sacrifice is at once cast as a victory of self-discipline over desire and condescended to as destructive and archaic abnegation. But even in the Old Testament, the dual natures of sacrifice, embodying both ritual slaughter and moral rectitude, were at odds. In this analysis, Terry Eagleton makes a compelling argument that the idea of sacrifice has long been misunderstood.
Pursuing the complex lineage of sacrifice in a lyrical discourse, Eagleton focuses on the Old and New Testaments, offering a virtuosic analysis of the crucifixion, while drawing together a host of philosophers, theologians, and texts—from Hegel, Nietzsche, and Derrida to the Aeneid and The Wings of the Dove. Brilliant meditations on death and eros, Shakespeare and St. Paul, irony and hybridity explore the meaning of sacrifice in modernity, casting off misperceptions of barbarity to reconnect the radical idea to politics and revolution.