The Significance of Theory

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.