The Event of Literature

by Terry Eagleton

In this characteristically concise, witty, and lucid book, Terry Eagleton turns his attention to the questions we should ask about literature, but rarely do. What is literature? Can we even speak of "literature" at all? What do different literary theories tell us about what texts mean and do? In throwing new light on these and other questions he has raised in previous best-sellers, Eagleton offers a new theory of what we mean by literature. He also shows what it is that a great many different literary theories have in common. In a highly unusual combination of critical theory and analytic philosophy, the author sees all literary work, from novels to poems, as a strategy to contain a reality that seeks to thwart that containment, and in doing so throws up new problems that the work tries to resolve. The "event" of literature, Eagleton argues, consists in this continual transformative encounter, unique and endlessly repeatable. Freewheeling through centuries of critical ideas, he sheds light on the place of literature in our culture, and in doing so reaffirms the value and validity of literary thought today.

Genres: Nonfiction, Philosophy, Literary Criticism, Theory, Literature, Criticism, Ebooks

265 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Widely regarded as England's most influential living literary critic & theorist, Dr. Terry Eagleton currently serves as Distinguished Professor of English Literature at the University of Lancaster and as Visiting Professor at the National University of Ireland, Galway. He was Thomas Warton Prof. of English Literature at the University of Oxford ('92-01) & John Edward Taylor Professor of English Literature at the University of Manchester 'til '08. He returned to the University of Notre Dame in the Autumn '09 semester as Distinguished Visitor in the English Department.

He's written over 40 books, including Literary Theory: An Introduction ('83); The Ideology of the Aesthetic ('90) & The Illusions of Postmodernism ('96).
He delivered Yale's '08 Terry Lectures and gave a Gifford Lecture in 3/10, titled The God Debate.

Reviews

[Nicky · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am not a literary theorist. I had to be coaxed and poked into admitting a methodology at all, during my MA (I'm a new historicist, we think) and I stared in blank horror when I was given theory to read -- not least because it so often reveals horrific bias and -isms on the part of the writer, like when I read Derek Brewer's work.

Terry Eagleton is readable, and even made me laugh. The philosophy of literature, which is one of the things he touches on, is very interesting (and the fact that I took the first year of a philosophy degree alongside my first year of literature helps, too), but it mostly just reminded me that I'm 'meant' to read Foucault and Freud and Lacan and goodness knows who else, and while I acknowledge the work they did and the work people do using their theories and so on, it's really not something that appeals to me.

I feel like a bad English Lit student, until I remember that my university must've let me graduate with First Class Honours for a reason, and since I didn't touch literary theory with so much as a barge pole, it must be okay that I don't.

But I probably will read Foucault.

[William · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a methodical course through the theories of language that underlie our ideas about what literature is and means. it's about 80-90 percent lit review, and on the crucial idea of defining 'the event,' Eagleton merely defers to his contemporary Alaine Badiou. Still, Eagleton's service to the history of ideas is usually always valuable, even if the reasons for the journey might not become immediately clear. The notion of strategy within the dynamics of reading and writing - and within view of Badiou's horizon of literature as political event - is a well-placed contribution, but instead of exploring Badiou's thought in terms of strategies for reading, the book only sets the stage for the encounter by rummaging through the already well-documented 20th C. problems of meaning. Along these lines, however, the book performs a synthesis on the opposition between phenomenological and analytical approaches to language, treating both quite thoroughly and providing the reader with a well-considered perspective.

[Ann Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took me awhile to get through this text. Eagleton is so well-read and alludes to/name-checks so many theorists, works of literature, and etc. that I had to keep stopping and catching up on the material I have missed in literary theory. And, if I say so myself, I am not exactly a novice in this area. So--it's a difficult book despite the blurbs that commend him for his 'readability.'

Yes--he is funny (acerbic, more like..)--and immensely intelligent, and full of fascinating contrariety that burbles out of even the least exploration of his poking about the fringes and the basis of what "we" cal "literature." He challenges pretty much everything that people with Western-culture higher-ed degrees think of as literature (and our rationale for why we consider these texts literature).

So if you are up for the challenge, consider delving into Eagleton. But it will necessarily be a delve. Otherwise? You'll tire easily and be overwhelmed.

Much food for thought, as the saying goes. I'll be mulling over his concepts and his controversies for some time.

[Tracy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eagleton’s quick and bright and funny, kind of a less serious Rorty (there’s something untouchable about the gravitas of that guy's humor and wit which I still haven’t seen in any other writing). Got lost often reading this book, which is sort of a snappy survey of literary criticism's history. Wish I could start from scratch and take Literature courses again. Alas.

On essences: "Since the word 'love' is not normally admissible in literary-theoretical discussion, however, and is plainly indecorous in such a context, I shall pass over these suggestions as abruptly as I broached them. In any case, the point is not much use when it comes to considering the essence of unlovable phenomena like slugs or screwdrivers."

“There are, then, many different ways in which the world ‘literature’ is used, which is not to say that it can be used in just any old way. A ham sandwich is not literature even for the most generously pluralistic of postmodernists.”

[Grammarian · Rating 5 out of 5]

I finally reached page 252, the last page of the index that follows the chapter notes. Spoiler notice: the last word of the text is 'paranoia.' Only megalomaniacs imagine that they were put on earth to fulfil some mighty purpose. (p.203)

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

very very good, I loved this book

[Gary D. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Balanced presentation of positions he does not support.

[Giuliana Gramani · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eu devia ser muito mais inteligente quando fazia faculdade... Teria o mercado de trabalho me emburrecido? Fica aí o questionamento.

[David Sogge · Rating 4 out of 5]

Deep-dish theory is this book’s main fare, but lighter side dishes make it digestible, at least for someone like me, unschooled in literary studies. To grasp the author's answers to the question ‘What is Literature?’ posed in the titles of the first two chapters, no special conceptual apparatus or vocabulary are required. Eagleton begins with the following down-to-earth proposition:

When people at the moment call a piece of writing literary, they generally have one of five things in mind, or some combination of them. They mean by ‘literary’ a work which is fictional, or which yields significant insight into human experience as opposed to reporting empirical truths, or which uses language in a peculiarly heightened, figurative or self-conscious way, or which is not practical in the sense that shopping lists are, or which is highly valued as a piece of writing.

He does riffs on these, taking both writers and readers into account. For example,

Literature is a quality of attention. It is the way we find ourselves already biased and attuned when we pick up a book. We submit some texts to especially close scrutiny because we take the word of others that they will turn out to deserve it.

(I get that last point, but I wonder how many of us would take the word of those giving books five star reviews here on Goodreads that all those stars are merited...)

Eagleton emphasizes the moral dimensions of literature. He acclaims the art in statements like this:

Literary works represent a kind of praxis of knowledge-in-action and are similar in this way to the ancient conception of virtue. They are forms of moral knowledge…

The development of literature over time is not a major theme, but Eagleton does take note of historical shifts, such as literature’s emergence

for the first time in the late eighteenth century as a form of resistance to an increasingly prosaic, utilitarian social order… Literature and the arts become forms of displaced religion, protected enclaves within which values now seen as socially dysfunctional can take shelter.

In the twentieth century, critics have come to assess the value of literary works in terms of their powers to re-visit old assumptions and to see things anew:

What is precious about literary art is the way it renders our taken-for-granted values freshly visible, thereby opening them to criticism and revision.

Later chapters took me into deeper water of literary theories, such as of Speech Acts and “the larger class of verbal acts known as performatives”. Eagleton illustrates such concepts to some extent (typically using British fiction for his examples), but leaves some of them hanging as abstractions, as in the case of ‘propositional logic’ and ‘dialogical logic’.

Fortunately Eagleton offers witty asides to lighten us up. He parodies Ernest Hemingway’s hairy-chested prose, for example, and takes a dig at another hallowed figure and his devotees in this observation:

A good many of Vladimir Nabokov’s novels are politically partisan, but critics rarely complain of the fact because it is a partisanship most of them share. … The word ‘doctrinaire’ applies only to other people’s beliefs. It is the left that is ‘committed’ not the liberals or conservatives..

There’s much more I enjoyed, but also puzzled over in this book, which merits more informed attention than I was able to give it.

[Armagan (any pronouns) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eagleton bu kitabında, edebiyatta olay öğesini değil, bir olay olarak edebiyatı ele alıyor. "Edebiyat nedir?" (daha doğrusu "Ne edebiyattır?"), "Gerçek ve kurgu arasındaki ilişki nedir?" gibi konuları gündeme getiriyor ve geniş bir çeşitlilik içinde, farklı düşünürlerden cevaplar veriyor. Tanrısallık ve dünyevilik ilişkisi, tarih ve yaşanılan gerçeklik gibi konularda düşünen, örneklemi edebiyat olan bir felsefe kitabı olduğunu söyleyebilirim. "Edebiyat değerli midir?", "...kutsal mıdır?", "...ahlaklı mıdır?" vs. konuları özellikle ilgi çekiciydi. Örneğin, 16. yüz yılda bir demir işçisinin günlüğünün bugün bir edebi eser olarak okunabilirliği üzerinden ilerleyerek, "eski" oluşun edebi oluşla ilişkisini kurması hoştu. Çok fazla referans var, hepsini akılda tutmak mümkün değil, dolayısıyla bu kitaptan bana ne kalacak pek bilmiyorum. Okuma süreci keyifliydi. Okumaya her tekrar başladığımda, sıkılırım sanıp sıkılmadığımı fark ettim. Aynı zamanda Pamuk ve Michael Jackson gibi personalardan örnekler veren bir güncelliği de var. Yine de bir teori kitabı. Özellikle de Türkçe okunduğunda - dilin her on-on beş senede bir kendini güncellediği düşünülünce- belli bir matlığı oluyor. Örneğin, bugün "fiction" kelimesi için gündelik dilde yaygın olarak kullanılan sözcük "kurgu" ve kitapta, "fiction"ı "kurmaca" şeklinde okuduğumuzda, araya belli bir mesafe giriyor. Okumak için sanki edebiyat öğrencisi ya da teorisyeni/pratisyeni olmak gerekiyormuş gibi bir hava oluşuyor. "Ara bölge"ler konusunda (örneğin, "bir şey hem gerçek hem kurmaca olabilir" tespiti ve verdiği örnekler) başarılı, edebiyata bir ikonoklast gibi yaklaşıyor. düşünceye ve bilgiye değer veren ve canlı bir şeyler okumak isteyen pek çok kişiye hitap eder diye düşünüyorum.

[Book busy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eagleton has a style of criticism which is approachable, broad, humorous and above all enjoyable to read. In the chapter of this I read for an essay I enjoyed how he gave a critical overview to then contextualise his own views in a way that felt very manageable and comprehensive. I look forward to revisiting this text when I can at some point. (13/12/2025)

[David Lorao · Rating 3 out of 5]

Una amena lectura sobre la importancia de la literatura, la crítica literaria y el debate sobre esta industria que se ha convertido en otra sociedad del espectáculo.

[Danny Brooker · Rating 2 out of 5]

I want to love eagleton, but the only people who can understand him are people who have read as much as he has

[Mninha · Rating 2 out of 5]

Demasiado abstracto, demasiado deslavazado, demasiado caótico. Supongo que quiere abarcar demasiado en poco espacio y al final lo único que le queda al lector es alguna cita interesante (con frecuencia, de los autores que Eagleton menciona, pocas veces de él mismo) y ganas de leer alguno de los libros de los que se hablan en esta obra.

Aparte de que no hay una articulación coherente de todas las ramas de la teoría literaria que aborda, me he quedado con la sensación de que no sé qué piensa Eagleton de casi ninguno de los temas de los que trata.

[Sofía Padilla · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sharp and witty, he makes coherent points on the incoherences of many approaches to literature as well as wonderfully tracing a parallel between the body, the unconscious and works of art. Not many people in the literary field stop to think why we believe the things we do so I think it is interesting to give a bit more space to philosophy of literature in favour of more operational methods and definitions.

[Anne]

So excited to have stumbled across this at Powell's. Yet another reason I love physical bookstores.

[Daniel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some of Eagleton's work is valuable, but this book was a waste of my time for the most part.

[Ivan Labayne · Rating 4 out of 5]

sa bandng huli, ilang parallels between psychoanalysis at political criticism, medyo ayos.

[Christopher McQuain · Rating 3 out of 5]

***1/2