Terry Eagleton
Terry Eagleton
Terence Francis "Terry" Eagleton FBA is a prominent British literary theorist, critic and public intellectual. He is currently Distinguished Professor of English Literature at Lancaster University...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionCritic
Date of Birth22 February 1943
art philosophy literature
The study of history and philosophy, accompanied by some acquaintance with art and literature, should be for lawyers and engineers as well as for those who study in arts faculties.
sick revolutionary modernism
Postmodernism is among other things a sick joke at the expense of revolutionary avant-gardism.
too-much belief
It is true that too much belief can be bad for your health.
life-is human-life humans
Nothing in human life is inherently private.
thinking feelings matter
Being brought up in a culture is a matter of learning appropriate forms of feeling as much as particular ways of thinking.
past used
The past can be used to renew the present, not just to bury it.
brave finest adventurous
Like the rest of us, Tom Paulin is a bundle of contradictions. At its finest, his work is brave, adventurous, original and wonderfully idiosyncratic.
people political everyday
From the viewpoint of political power, culture is absolutely vital. So vital, indeed, that power cannot operate without it. It is culture, in the sense of the everyday habits and beliefs of a people, which beds power down, makes it appear natural and inevitable, turns it into spontaneous reflex and response.
lying imagination earth
Cynicism and naivety lie cheek by jowl in the American imagination; if the United States is one of the most venal nations on Earth, it is also one of the most earnestly idealistic.
mean reflection self
We face a conflict between civilisation and culture, which used to be on the same side. Civilisation means rational reflection, material wellbeing, individual autonomy and ironic self-doubt; culture means a form of life that is customary, collective, passionate, spontaneous, unreflective and irrational.
Anyone can be tolerant of those who are tolerant.
night understanding owl
Understanding is always in some sense retrospective, which is what Hegel meant by remarking that the owl of Minerva flies only at night.
spring desire strive
All desire springs from a lack, which it strives continually to fill.
needs stuff too-much
If it is true that we need a degree of certainty to get by, it is also true that too much of the stuff can be lethal.