One of the downsides of the book itself is its use of extremely dense language and some esoteric terms. I found my mind, quite a few times, wandering from the text unto other subjects. It's probably easier to focus, rigorously, on a chapter a day or so in order to retain full comprehension of the content. Despite its density, and sometimes unbearable tangents, the book is extremely unpretentious (which is awesome, because a lot of the literary criticism I've read, I felt, was condescending).
The introduction, entitled What is Literarture?, was my favorite part of the book. It pertains directly to what we discussed during our first day of class: the issue of what exactly constitutes literature. Eagleton acknowledges the definition's elusiveness and discusses its subjective and objective qualities, concluding with a rather irresolute explanation. But that's okay, it seems literature's definition is constantly changing due to ever-fluctuating social contexts and I don't think anyone will ever be able to provide us with a concrete definition.
I remember reading Eagleton in a theory class years ago. I will certainly give this source a look, especially the first chapter that you mention. It's interesting that you wonder how or when someone might be able to "provide us with a concrete definition" of what literature is. In many ways, all of us, you, me, every literary scholar, has an open invite to define this question for themselves and others. That's exciting. Thanks for the recommendation Michael.
ReplyDeletePete, is there any specific works you would recommend regarding history of criticism, theory, literary movements, etc. that are relatively easy to comprehend, unlike some of the verbose texts like Wayne Booth or Bloom? Even though I enjoyed Eagleton's piece I still feel like I would have gotten more from it if it was conveyed in, perhaps, more concise writing.
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