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Quote by Terry Eagleton

“Literary texts do not exist on bookshelves: they are processes of signification materialized only in the practice of reading. For literature to happen, the reader is quite as vital as the author.”

Quote by Terry Eagleton

Author

Terry Eagleton is a renowned British literary critic, known for his research on Marxist literary theory. His work spans a wide range of literary and theoretical topics, influencing cultural studies and political commentary as well. more

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“Reading is not a straightforward linear movement, a merely cumulative affair: our initial speculations generate a frame of reference within which to interpret what comes next, but what comes next may retrospectively transform our original understanding, highlighting some features of it and backgrounding others.”

May Reading Next Understanding Movement Originals Affair Features Speculation Initials Straightforward Linear Cumulative Frame Of Reference Highlighting

Book:Literary Theory: An Introduction

Source: Literary Theory: An Introduction

“What was needed was a literary theory which, while preserving the formalist bent of New Criticism, its dogged attention to literature as aesthetic object rather than social practice, would make something a good deal more systematic and 'scientific' out of all this. The answer arrived in 1957, in the shape of the Canadian Northrop Fryes mighty 'totalization' of all literary genres, Anatomy of Criticism .”

Literature Social Answers Deals Attention Practice Objects Theory Needed Shapes Criticism Genre Aesthetic Bent Systematic Anatomy Literary Theory Literary Genre

Book:Literary Theory: An Introduction

Source: Literary Theory: An Introduction

“Reading a text is more like tracing this process of constant flickering than it is like counting the beads on a necklace.”

Reading Process Constant Counting Beads Necklaces Tracing

Book:Literary Theory: An Introduction

Source: Literary Theory: An Introduction

“Writing seems to rob me of my being: it is a second hand mode of communication, a pallid, mechanical transcript of speech, and so always at one remove from my consciousness.”

Writing Hands Seems Consciousness Communication Speech Remove Second Hand

Book:Literary Theory: An Introduction

Source: Literary Theory: An Introduction

“It is difficult to think of an origin without wanting to go back beyond it.”

Thinking Difficult

Author:Terry Eagleton

“It is language which speaks in literature, in all its swarming 'polysemic' plurality, not the author himself.”

Literature Speak Language

Book:Literary Theory: An Introduction

Source: Literary Theory: An Introduction

“We live in a society which on the one hand pressurizes us into the pursuit of instant gratification, and the other hand imposes on whole sectors of the population and endless deferment of fulfillment.”

Whole Hands Population Pursuit Endless Fulfillment Instant Gratification Instant Gratification

Book:Literary Theory: An Introduction

Source: Literary Theory: An Introduction

“Any attempt to define literary theory in terms of a distinctive method is doomed to failure.”

Term Theory Method Doomed Distinctive Literary Theory

Book:Literary Theory: An Introduction

Source: Literary Theory: An Introduction

“The truth is that liberal humanism is at once largely ineffectual, and the best ideology of the 'human' that present bourgeois society can muster.”

Humans Truth Is Humanism Ideology Bourgeois Muster

Book:Literary Theory: An Introduction

Source: Literary Theory: An Introduction

“Understanding is always in some sense retrospective, which is what Hegel meant by remarking that the owl of Minerva flies only at night.”

Night Understanding Owl Hegel Retrospective Minerva

Book:Literary Theory: An Introduction

Source: Literary Theory: An Introduction