Terry Eagleton and the Crisis of Theory

In this paper, I will argue, first, that the view of the current, crisis-ridden situation of theory, as presented by Terry Eagleton in his book After Theory, is, in essence, realistic if slightly overstated. Secondly, that this situation is by no means accidental and that, to a certain extent, the world of theory reflects the socio-political environment in the midst of which the theorist works. And, thirdly, that this situation is destined to perpetuate as long as the field of theory remains excessively professional, aloof, and unengaged.

Terry Eagleton views the current world of theory and criticism as vague, conflicting, and, in a sense, crisis-ridden. Various theorists have come up with various interpretations of the cultural and social problems we are facing to the point that objective truth has become at a stake. Such a situation has led to a political paralysis and rendered the modern intellectual ineffective, wordy, and virtually irrelevant. Far from being a sign of richness and diversity, the proliferation of theories has made it increasingly harder to speak of objective truth. Whereas the aim of theory is to demystify reality, and pave the road to effect a social change, theories have given us more doubt and perplexity than we have ever had, and subsequently made any plan for social change unfeasible. The same factors that brought this situation into being cannot be trusted to lead it to an exit. Nonetheless, Eagleton makes it clear that it is not his intention to suggest that all the history of literary criticism has been just a huge mistake. Far from it, he affirms that it is impossible to go back to an age where criticism is reduced to like-dislike standards, and that theory today “remains as indispensable as ever” (Eagleton 2). Yet that seems to be all but self-evident. Theorists continue today to load the libraries’ shelves with still more theories, and literary scholarship has never taken a break.

One of the central questions Eagleton discusses is that of the now prevailing tendency to discredit norms in the world of theory and criticism. The set of norms suggested by various critics have always been challenged by other norms and by other critics to the point that it seems that the very idea of norms has been under fire. Different approaches of criticism have been discredited on different bases, most notably racial, sexual, ethnic, and lack of norms. Such racial, sexual, and ethnic charges have been brought forth by many non-European and minority-group writers such as Chinua Achebe, Barbara Christian, and Edward Said, among others.

Chinua Achebe accuses the white literary cannon of failing to notice the downright racism illustrated in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. By doing so, Achebe attacks one of the negative norms of European criticism, namely racism against African culture. “Joseph Conrad was a thoroughgoing racist. That this simple truth is glossed over in criticisms of his work is due to the fact that white racism against Africa is such a normal way of thinking that its manifestations go completely unremarked” (Achebe 1789). This
is a truly significant statement in that it allows us to question the foundation based on which one individual is capable of spotting such an ‘unremarked’ phenomenon so readily and so effortlessly, while other individuals are not. If Achebe’s case against Conrad and his critics is valid, then it is so only due to the fact that the individual’s way of thinking is restricted by his material (social, cultural) background; and European critics are no exception, nor is Achebe himself. Thus, in his book Marxism and Literary Criticism, Terry Eagleton remarks that, “It is not difficult to see how Conrad’s personal standing, as an ‘aristocratic, Polish exile deeply committed to English conservatism, intensified for him the crisis of English bourgeois ideology,” (Eagleton Marxism and Literary Criticism 8). But, according to Achebe, the reason why those critics are unable to detect Conrad’s racism is that racism is too obvious for them to detect, because, to them, racism is a norm. Achebe is able to detect it at first glance because he himself is African. Yet in a racially unjust system, racism is just as much of a norm to its practitioners as to its victims. It is not normality what makes racism undetectable by Conrad’s critics; it is rather lack of concern on their part. It is on somebody else’s back that the lashes fall, anyway.

In “The Race of Theory” Barbara Christian brings a host of charges against critics. First, there is the charge of the commodification of theory, which has resulted in a ‘race for theory.’ “Theory has become a commodity which helps determine whether we are hired or promoted in academic institutions—worse, whether we are heard at all” (Christian 2257), which charge is confirmed by Vincent Leitch, in his book Living with
Theory, where he declares that “The theory market plays a role in this account. . . The job market for theory expanded very dramatically from the early 1980s to the early 1990s, with many academic jobs going to theorists (labeled as such)” (Leitch 125). All of the above points to the more inclusive charge of the incapability of culture theory—allegedly the most inclusive and most open of literary theories so far—of being disinterested. But how could it be otherwise when the majority of critics and theorists work within the academic field as professionals and get paid by the same system they intend to change?

Another charge is that “Critics are no longer concerned with literature, but with other critics’ texts, for the critic yearning for attention has displaced the writer and has conceived of himself as the center” (Christian 2257). Yet one can object to this on the ground that the lack of supportive examples here makes this point hard to evaluate. Nevertheless, Christian might have had in mind certain critics (Terry Eagleton, for instance) when she made her statement. Parallel to that, Christian indicates that, “in the first part of this [twentieth] century, at least in England and America, the critic was usually also a writer of poetry, plays, or novels. But today, as a new generation of professionals develops, he or she is increasingly an academic” (Christian 2257). Here Christian could have cited Allen Tate, T. S. Elliot, Virginia Woolf, Ezra Pound, Archibald McLeish, Wyndham Lewis, W.E. Du Bois, etc. Nonetheless, this same remark could have been extended back to nineteenth-century (and even further back to eighteen-century) England, where Shelley, Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Mathew Arnold were also both poets and critics.

But, if Christian aims to disqualify today’s critics on the basis that they no longer have the first-hand knowledge of literature which yesterday’s critics had, then this charge may well fire back against Christian herself who is exclusively known as critic, with no known creative works to her credit. Nevertheless, as we have seen above, this charge can be substantiated by sufficient examples, and would legitimately point out a certain moment in the historical development of literary theory, where it has become increasingly doubtful whether critics should be allowed to analyze and pass judgment on such creative literary works which they themselves cannot produce.

The list of charges Christian brings against twentieth-century critics is quite wide-ranging. “The race for theory, with its linguistic jargon, its emphasis on quoting its prophets, its tendency towards ‘Biblical’ exegesis, its refusal even to mention specific works of creative writers, far less contemporary ones, its preoccupations with mechanical analysis of language, graph, algebraic equations, its gross generalizations about culture, has silenced many of us to the extent that some of us feel we can no longer discuss our own literature, while others have developed intense writing blocks and are puzzled by the incomprehensibility of the language set adrift in the literary circles” (Christian 2258). And so, according to Christian, this ‘incomprehensibility’ of critical jargon has resulted in excluding a sizable segment of people willing to take part in literary scholarship, yet unable to do so because they do not understand such a highly professional jargon used by critics, with the ultimate result that literary criticism has turned into a monopoly for the few, from which the majority is deprived. “I see the language it creates as one which
mystifies rather than clarifies our condition, making it possible for a few people who know that particular language to control the critical scene” (Christian 2260). What is worth noting in particular here is that Christian expresses her suspicion that such ‘incomprehensibility’ of critical jargon might well be intended to exclude peoples of color and other minority groups. “That language surfaced, interestingly enough, just when the literature of peoples of color, of black women, of Latin Americans, of Africans began to move to ‘the center’” (Christian 2260). This may well be taken to mean that white critics (critics from European origins, mainly males) are conspiring against emerging colored (especially female) critics.

Now while one can present a considerable instances of the incomprehensibility of critical language, (one may recall the examples given by George Orwell in his “Politics and the English Language,” for instance), one can think of no feasible method to verify the purposefulness on the part of critics. It is worthwhile, however, to consider the possibility that this incomprehensibility of language might well be an indication of political inertia, or a sign of unwillingness to destabilize the system of which one is part. Thus George Orwell remarks that “Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble. If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration” (Orwell 954-5). By extension, ambiguity of thought may well be counted as an anticipatory step toward political inaction. One would have every reason not to do anything when one does not
know what to do. But the problem of incomprehensibility, as evidenced by the Orwell quote, goes back to a much earlier period than the time-frame within which Christian has made her argument. Christian may have simply meant to say that incomprehensibility has of late intensified incomparably and intolerably—a statement which one should not have much trouble to validate.

Similarly, Edward Said adds another aspect to the problem of intellectual bias. To Edward Said, the western world has viewed the Orient as its contrast. This is demonstrated, on the one hand, in the exotic picture the west has formed of the Orient, such as that found in the works of Chateaubriand and Nerval, and, on the other hand, in the superior tone with which westerners speak of the Orient. The main stream of the scholarly studies of the Orient in the western world has been conducted from the point of view of the imperialist West, and thus, in a sense, the Orient has been invented by the West. “The Orient was almost a European invention, and had been since antiquity a place of romance, exotic beings, haunting memories and landscapes, remarkable experiences” (Said 1991). Evidently, Edward Said understands the relationship between the East and the West in light of power relations. “The Orient is not only adjacent to Europe; it is also the place of Europe’s greatest and richest and oldest colonies, the source of its civilizations and languages” (Said 1991). In this way, Orientalism serves the European imperialist mindset to accomplish various ends: on the one hand, to define oneself as the master, while the Orient poses as the Other. On the other hand, to have the liberty to restructure the Orient according to one’s interest. Said affirms that “Orientalism can be discussed and analyzed as the corporate institution for dealing with the Orient—dealing with it by making statements about it, authorizing views of it, describing it, by teaching it, settling it, ruling over it: in short, Orientalism as a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient” (Said 1992). From This definition one cannot but conclude that Orientalism is a sort of pseudo fields of study, created, manipulated, and monopolized by the imperialistic West in order to maintain its superiority over, and continue to control, the East.

As defined by Said, Orientalism could not have issued from a disinterested desire to study the Orient. Quite the contrary, Orientalism is inherently biased and egocentric. Furthermore, Orientalism, as such, is meaningless outside the collective mind that has invented it. Thus Said notes that “that Orientalism makes sense at all depends more on the West than on the Orient” (Said 2007). Not only that the Orient itself is a stranger to Orientalism, but also, the main end of Orientalism seems to be to misrepresent the Orient, as a part of a whole scheme to maintain control over it. As a result, Orientalism must be very useful to the West, harmful to the Orient. Thus Said declares, “I myself believe that Orientalism is more particularly valuable as a sign of European-Atlantic power over the Orient . . . Orientalism, therefore, is not an airy European fantasy about the Orient, but a created body of theory and practice in which, for many generations, there has been a considerable material investment” (Said 1995). In short, Orientalism serves as an intellectual tool to reinforce the European hegemony over the Orient.

Though Said seems to take a different route from that of Barbara Christian, he, like her, ends up by indicting the Western main-stream culture for being ethnically biased with respect to the peoples of the Orient, especially of the Middle East. In his post-colonial approach to literary theory, Said draws a contrasting picture between the West and the East and attacks Orientalism as a constellation of false assumptions made by Western scholars to reconstruct the Orient from an imperialist point of view—a view that takes for granted and emphasizes Western hegemony over the East. “It is hegemony, or rather the result of cultural hegemony at work, that gives Orientalism . . . durability and strength” (Said 1995). At the same time, Said cautions that the claim to objectivity in cultural studies may well be a mask behind which hides the desire to depoliticize the
Orient. “The adjective ‘political’ is used as a label to discredit any work for daring to violate the protocol of pretended suprapolitical objectivity” (Said 1998). Said here touches on a sensitive point in understanding theory and criticism, that is, in a politically conflicting world, politics and literature are inevitably interrelated, which point rarely presents itself explicitly in a creative work, and, therefore, needs to be inferred by circumstantial evidence, to borrow a term from legal jargon.

In her own way, Barbara Christian is able to reach the same conclusion. “I am studying an entire body of literature that has been denigrated for centuries by such terms as political. For an entire century Afro-American writers, from Charles Chestnutt in the nineteenth century through Richard Wright in the 1930s, Imamu Baraka in the 1960s, Alice Walker in the 1970s, have protested the literary hierarchy of dominance which
declares when literature is literature, when literature is great, depending on what it thinks is to its advantage” (Christian 2259). Hence literary merit is far from warranting the survival of literary works, to say nothing of its being recognized as worthy of critical study. Moreover, literary merit can be acknowledged only in proportion to its conformation to the prevailing literary canon, which sets the standards of how a good literary work should look like. Now, assuming that the writer is economically secure and that he can reasonably cultivate his talent and provide for his intellectual development, he would still have to take his chances through all sorts of socio-political restrictions with which he is besieged.

Said’s concern about the political neutralizing of cultural studies under the pretext of objectivity seems to echo Stuart Hall’s apprehension of the uncertain position in which culture theory has found itself. The unrestrained openness of cultural theory threatens to make it an amorphous project marked by vagueness, illusiveness, and doubt. Unless somehow regulated, this openness would eventually lead to the absence of political standpoint. This is why Hall, who is by far one of the most ardent representatives of cultural studies, in his address to the Conference of Culture Studies, in 1990, under the title “Culture Studies and Its Theoretical Legacies,” declares that, “Although cultural studies as a project is open-ended, it can’t be simply pluralist in that way. Yes, it refuses to be a master discourse or a meta-discourse of any kind... But there is something at stake in culture studies . . . Here one registers the tension between the refusal to close the field, to police it and, at the same time, a determination to stake out some positions within it
and argue for them” (Hall 1899). Hence, the void to which culture studies apparently leads is anticipated and feared by the theory’s most enthusiastic advocates.

Though Hall, as a member of the New Left, “regarded Marxism as a problem, as trouble, as danger, not as a solution” (Hall 1900), yet he expresses what is in essence the eleventh of Marx’s theses on Feuerbach, in which Marx maintains that “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it” (Engels 84). In the same line, Hall requires that the intellectual should not be satisfied by theory as such, but, he or she should rather go beyond theory to actively take part in politics. “I’m extremely anxious that you should not decode what I’m saying as an anti-theoretical discourse. It is not anti-theory, but it does have something to do with the conditions and problems of developing intellectual and theoretical work as a political practice” (Hall 1903-4). This concern that theory should not be an end in itself, and that the intellectual should have a role in politics, has been so far raised by too many theorists to be overlooked. And this same concern is what lurks at the heart of Terry Eagleton’s argument about theory in general, and culture studies in particular.

Hence it is quite understandable why he should start his book by declaring that “The golden age of cultural theory is long past” (Eagleton 1), although it seems that it is ‘high theory’ rather than theory per se whose ‘aftermath’ he pronounces (Eagleton 2). Theory as such, i.e., as “a reasonably systematic reflection on our guiding assumptions . . . remains as indispensable as ever” (Eagleton 2). Yet Eagleton does not hide his anger at that which takes the front seat in the intellectual’s mind nowadays, and how the trivial
and the vital, in his view, exchange positions.”On the wilder shore of academia, an interest in French philosophy has given way to a fascination in French kissing. In some cultural circles, the politics of masturbation exert far more fascination than the politics of the Middle East” (Eagleton 2). This statement may well be taken to mean that, in the intellectual circle nowadays, there is too much of Freudism and too little of Marxism. Thus “Socialism has lost out to sado-masochism. Among students of culture, the body is an immensely fashionable topic, but it is usually the erotic body, not the famished one. There is a keen interest in coupling bodies but not in labouring ones” (Eagleton 2). It is also reasonable to conclude that Eagleton here looks with apparent resentment to the intellectual’s excessive occupation with the individual at the expense of the social.

Yet this by no means indicates that Eagleton undervalues the role of modern critical theory, not the least that of cultural theory, in bringing to the fore sexuality, with fervor and urgency, as a vital, yet long-neglected, human concern that demands immediate attention. “One of the towering achievements of cultural theory has been to establish gender and sexuality as legitimate objects of study, as well as matters of insistence political importance” (Eagleton 3). What concerns Eagleton is that this occupation with sexuality has been taken too far and thus implemented as an instrument to detract attention from the more inclusive, and therefore more serious, issue—the issue of social justice at large. “We have come to acknowledge that human existence is at least as much about fantasy and desire as it is about truth and reason. It is just that culture theory is behaving rather like a celibate middle-aged professor who has stumbled absent-mindedly
upon sex and is making up for lost time” (Eagleton 4). Eagleton suggests that this over-blown obsession with sexuality is not only the antithesis of, but also the other side of, Puritanism; it is rather Puritanism unmasked. “The hedonist who embraces pleasure as the ultimate reality is often just the puritan in full-throated rebellion. Both of them are usually obsessed with sex” (Eagleton 5). Eagleton, who senses that our attention has been unduly drawn toward the individual, would rather have us attend to the social as well because “finding out how life can become more pleasant for more people is a serious business” (Eagleton 5). Besides, if pleasure is so important for the individual, it is at least just as important for society. Yet, contrary to the task of achieving pleasure for the individual, to “make life more pleasurable” for the people as a whole invites a revolution, because it implies nothing less than changing the deep-seated structure of the social system. As such the obsession with sexual freedom, in spite of its essential important, is understood here as a bribe paid by the existing political system to subvert the potential revolution and thus perpetuate the status quo.

Nonetheless, Eagleton credits culture theory for having illuminated such previously dimmed areas as post-colonial and gender studies (Eagleton 6), though he criticizes post-colonial theory for having “shifted the focus from class and nation to ethnicity” and subsequently “from politics to culture” (Eagleton 12), which shift renders it post-revolutionary. “Since ethnicity is largely a cultural affair, this shift of focus was also one from politics to culture. In some ways, this reflected real changes in the world. But it also helped to depoliticize the question of post-colonialism, and inflate the role of culture within it, in ways which chimed with the new post-revolutionary climate in the West itself” (Eagleton 12.) On the same ground, and by extension, the theoretical contention against racial injustice, as represented by Barbara Christian above, should look, in Eagleton’s view, no less post-revolutionary than the post-colonial one.

Likewise, Eagleton reproaches postmodernism for having done away with norms. Though “Norms are oppressive” in that “they mold uniquely different individuals to the same shape” (Eagleton 14), they, nonetheless, are inescapable even for those who stand against all forms of leveling, like Foucault and Derrida. Yet Eagleton notes that language itself is normative. “To say ‘leaf’ implies that two incomparably different bits of vegetable matter are one and the same. To say ‘here’ homogenizes al sorts of richly diverse places” (Eagleton 14). And so, norms are not always restrictive. “It is normative . . . that ambulances speeding to a traffic accident should not be impeded just for the hell of it. . . Only an intellectual who has overdosed on abstraction could be dim enough to imagine that whatever bends a norm is politically radical” (Eagleton 15). Ironically, however, Eagleton states that, for some cultural theorists, the instability of identity has become “the last word in radicalism.” On the one hand, this instability of identity renders any possibility of revolution meaningless, since there is nothing to revolt against. On the other hand, this lack of identity would not hurt capitalism, which “really doesn’t care who it exploits” (Eagleton 19). In fact, this means that capitalism, itself suffering from no lack of identity, would be all the more at liberty in exploiting its victims, while culture theory stands irresolute in the corner, and preaches uncertainty and instability of identity.

Furthermore, Eagleton argues that, for the most part, culture theory has come into existence as a result of “an extraordinarily creative dialogue with Marxism” (Eagleton 35), which statement seems to be in accord with Stuart Hall’s aforementioned address to the Conference of Culture Studies, in which he states, “I entered cultural studies from the New Left, and the New Left always regarded Marxism as a problem, as trouble, as danger, not as a solution . . .What I mean by that is certainly not that I wasn’t profoundly influenced by the questions that Marxism as a theoretical project put on the agenda. . . These important, central questions are what one meant by working within shouting distance of Marxism, working on Marxism, working against Marxism, working with it, working to try to develop Marxism” (Hall 1900-01). In addition to Hall, Terry Eagleton seems to hint at other thinkers and theorists who had started out claiming or actually attempting to radicalize Marxism, such as Jacque Derrida, for instance, and ended up by leaving it out altogether. Eagleton remarks that “The question was whether you could loosen the theory up without it falling apart” (Eagleton 37). And this is why he laments that “What started out in the 1960s and 1970s as a critique of Marxism had ended up in the 80s and 90s as a rejection of the very idea of global politics” (Eagleton 50). Thus Eagleton indicts postmodernists and cultural-study theorists for having set out to achieve social and cultural change only to end up dropping the political banner in the middle of the road leaving only a political void behind.

Such a politically inactive standpoint to which the latest development of culture theory has led can by no means be tolerated by such a staunch Marxist intellectual as Terry Eagleton. Because it has been long since Marx criticized the philosophers for being contented by merely explaining the world in various ways; he could not think of explaining the world except as a necessary step toward changing it. Theory, then, is not an end in itself, but a means to bring about change. And this notion is part and parcel of the whole Marxist theory of historical materialism, which, in turn, is an endemic part of the Marxist philosophy (dialectical materialism). It has been long since Marx decided that “life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life” (Marx & Engels, “From The German Ideology” 768). In its deepest foundation, this Marxist view is derived from the belief that life itself is a product of a long evolution inanimate nature had undergone. As such, life (and therefore human life and human consciousness) represents only one historical moment in the eternal development of nature. This implies that, at a certain stage of its development, nature has become conscious of itself through its human manifestation.

The consciousness of an individual is conditioned by the material (and more narrowly and more directly the socio-economical) surroundings in which he or she lives. And so, Marx and Engels state that “The production of ideas, of conceptions, of consciousness, is at first directly interwoven with the material activity and the material intercourse of men, the language of real life. Conceiving, thinking, the mental intercourse of men, appear at this stage as the direct efflux of their material behaviour. . . Consciousness can never be anything else than conscious existence, and the existence of men is their actual life-process” (Marx & Engels 768). Contrary to the Hegelian view, Marx and Engels here
affirm that consciousness, as such, cannot stand alone independent from life. Therefore, the consciousness of the individual, no matter how unique it may be, is in the final account, limited by the overall material (and more directly socio-economical) conditions in the midst of which he or she happens to be.

Yet, for the most part, this Marxist view has been interpreted to mean that economy determines everything else, which is a natural result of the emphasis Marx and Engels have placed on the economic factor, especially during the year of the theory’s formation, where its originators found their first responsibility to be to emphasize the materialist ground of their theory, in order to face the then dominant idealist philosophy of Hegel, with the result that Marxism has come to be understood only in terms of materialism with the dialectic forgotten, which dialectic Marx and Engels have inherited from Hegel. This is why Engels lately condemns such a simplistic view of Marxism in his letter to Joseph Bloch, where he declares,

Marx and I are ourselves partly to blame for the fact that the younger people sometimes lay more stress on the economic side than is due to it. We had to emphasize that main principle vis-à-vis our adversaries, who denied it, and we had not always the time, the place or the opportunity to allow the other elements involved in the interaction to come into their rights. But when it was a case of presenting a section of history, that is, of a practical application, it was a different matter and there no error was possible. Unfortunately, however, it happens only too often that people think they have fully understood a new theory and can apply
it without more ado from the moment they have mastered its main principles, and even those not always correctly. And I cannot exempt many of the more recent ‘Marxists’ from this reproach, for the most amazing rubbish [which] has been produced in this quarter, too (Engels “from Letter to Joseph Bloch” 788).

Applied to art, Marx’s view implies that art is governed by the same regulations that shape all other products of human consciousness such as morality, religion, metaphysics, etc., which “no longer retain the semblance of independence. They have no history, no development; but men developing their material production and their material intercourse, alter, along with this their real existence, their thinking and the products of their thinking” (Marx & Engels 768). Apparently, Marx and Engels here are not concerned with how the various products of human consciousness differ from each other in the way they undergo the said conditioning process imposed on them by their material production. Their aim is to determine the nature of the relationship between human consciousness, as such, that is, homogenously, and the material production of human life. The various manifestations of human consciousness are out of the discussion.

In Grundrisse, in a fragmentary treatment of Greek art, Marx indicates that certain forms of art are produced in certain historical settings. “It is even recognized that certain forms of art, e.g. the epic, can no longer be produced in their world epoch-making, classical stature as soon as the production of art, as such, begins; that is, that certain significant forms within the realm of the arts are possible only at an undeveloped stage of
artistic development” (Marx 773). Marx decides that it is not difficult to understand that “Greek arts and epic are bound up with certain social development. The difficulty is that they still afford us artistic pleasure and that in a certain respect they count as a norm and an unattainable mode” (Marx 774). What Marx fails to identify here is this remarkable characteristic that distinguishes art from other forms of human consciousness, such as religion, for instance. Contrary to the Greek religious system, which now only provides us with a subject study, and which now entirely belong in its historical settings, the Greek art still influences and moves us.

However, Terry Eagleton reminds us that “Frederick Engels remarks in Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy (1888) that art is far richer and more ‘opaque’ than political and economic theory because it is less purely ideological” (Eagleton Marxism and Literary Criticism 11). Besides, Eagleton cites Lenin who has noted that “What needs to be added is Marx and Engels’s ‘principle of contradiction’: that the political views of an author may run counter to what his work objectively reveals” (Eagleton, Marxism and Literary Criticism 53). This said, it should not be surprising that “Marx’s own favourite authors were Aeschylus, Shakespeare and Goethe, none of them exactly revolutionary” (Eagleton Marxism and Literary Criticism 42).

But, in Grundrisse, Marx has declared that there is no contradiction in that the same Greek arts, which belong in the past and which are no longer reproducible in the present, “still afford us with artistic pleasure,” and he likens the charm and the irreproducibility of the Greek arts to the charm and irreproducibility of childhood. “A man cannot become a
child again . . . Why should not the historic childhood of humanity, its most beautiful unfolding, as a stage never to return, exercise an eternal charm?” (Marx 774). This statement falls short of explaining why this is applicable to art in particular and not to all forms of human consciousness in general. Hence Terry Eagleton notes that Marx’s explanation of why Greek art still appeals to us “has been universally lambasted by unsympathetic commentators as lamely inept” (Eagleton Marxism and Literary Criticism 10). Eagleton decides that it is ‘unmaterialist’ of Marx to resort to childhood in order to explain why Greek art still affords us with artistic pleasure. “So our liking for Greek art is a nostalgic lapse back into childhood – a piece of unmaterialist sentimentalism which hostile critics have gladly pounced on” (Eagleton Marxism and Literary Criticism 11). Yet, to do justice to Marx, one needs to note that, as its title indicates, Grundrisse (meaning Outlines), is labeled as a ‘rough draft’ and was not intended to be published as such. Its real importance lies in that it affords us an access to the formation (and not the ultimate production) of Marx’s thought at the time.

Although Marxist criticism is, by definition, historical, Eagleton argues that its originality “lies not in its historical approach to literature, but in its revolutionary understanding of history itself” (Eagleton, Marxism and Literary Criticism 3). That Eagleton emphasizes the revolutionary nature of Marxist criticism is of utmost importance for a full understanding of his standpoint. Eagleton’s deepest concern is that critics, including those claiming to radicalize Marxism, have proved oblivious or neglectful to this essential element of Marxism—its revolutionary nature. Thus he labels
post-colonial critics as ‘post-revolutionary’ because they have replaced class consciousness with cultural consciousness. Eagleton laments that cultural theorists have detracted attention from social justice to the issues of sexuality, gender, race, and ethnicity, even though in principle, he acknowledges the importance of those issues. He condemns the uncertainty and lack of norms which resulted in a political inertia among theorists. In all that, as demonstrated in the various examples he has quoted, he may well have produced a fairly realistic picture of the current status of the theoretical circle. But, from a Marxist point of view, for the picture to be complete, those theorists Eagleton criticizes must have been more or less conditioned by their socio-political circumstances, and therefore, are only partially to blame.


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