This book is labeled an Introduction but is more polemical and opinionated than most books of that genre. Eagleton’s discussion of the various isms describes the “felt difficulties” each was intended to solve and points out what each contributed, then turns to the limitations and failures of each. When I leafed ahead and found that the final chapter was entitled Conclusion: Political Criticism, I suspected that each had been tried and found wanting to make way for the author’s own brand of Christian Marxism, but I was in for a surprise; the point of that title was to emphasize that every brand of literary theory was political, though in most cases this is unacknowledged.
Nevertheless, Eagleton does have an approach to recommend: a return to rhetoric, which examines any communication (not just literature in the narrow sense) to ask what it aims to do and what means it employs to accomplish that. Rhetoric (or, for those who don’t want to sound traditionalist, discourse theory) would correspondingly ask itself why it is interested in examining a given work. One could then use the method and theory best suited.
This ties in with Eagleton’s provocative contention that literature is not a distinct, bounded object of knowledge with a fixed canon. One can imagine, he writes, a world in which Shakespeare is no longer enjoyed. If literature is an illusion, then literary theory is as well. Eagleton admits, “This book is less an introduction than an obituary.”
When Eagleton published the first edition of this book in 1983, theory was a hot topic. The interested reader was confronted by a bewildering array of approaches. Eagleton’s handy overview was and remains a helpful resource for disentangling Formalism, the New Criticism (the prevailing orthodoxy when I studied), Structuralism, Poststructuralism, and the rest. When he prepared a second edition, he added a lengthy Afterword to cover Postmodernism and other developments. Yet the heyday of literary theory had passed, as Eagleton tells it. “Theory, it seemed, having deconstructed just about everything else, had now finally succeeded in deconstructing itself.”
This is not to say that Eagleton sees no point in the study of literature or, to consider it more broadly, culture. He remains convinced that it can help identify common values while we strive to create the material conditions that might allow these values to flourish. ( )

An incredibly readable summary of most of the major literary schools with a distinct Marxist bent. ( )

Although it isn’t quite “easy reading”, Literary Theory condenses major philosophical-literary movements into somewhat accessible summaries and histories. Eagleton handles straightforward theories like reception theory and psychoanalysis well, but the more enigmatic areas of semiotics and post-structuralism are best left uncondensed.
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Okay so as An Historian, I don’t think I need to be convinced hugely of the major interventions here about identifying these literary theory movements as being historically grounded and appearing at specific times with specific politics—and that they are in fact deeply imbued with politics. But I do think that Eagleton does so clearly and convincingly. It was also very useful to have these movements described to me, a person who is not at all familiar with most of them except maybe post-structuralism very loosely. The psychoanalysis chapter in particular I think takes Freud seriously in a way that almost no one seems to (for better or for worse.)

The one flaw I would really highlight is that Eagleton references the Russian Formalists a LOT and I don’t think ever explains Formalism? (I really only noticed this because he DOES spend an entire chapter doing so in How to Read a Poem, and I realized that I finally understood what he was talking about.) And again, maybe that’s something that you have a better understanding of if you’re like a student of Literature and not just an idiot off the street like me.

The conclusion of the book really was what made me stand up and applaud, even if, of course, the afterword to the edition I read explains why perhaps some of the things he called for in that conclusion didn’t play out as he had maybe wanted or hoped. But I found the book on the whole to be really valuable if not as immediately delightful as his other works that I’ve read. ( )

Literary Theory is closely aligned with Political Theory. This is what I have taken away from this book and also understood from other theory books that I have read. The mindset of the day, the views on women, labor, ethnic groups, God, etc. all played a part in how literature was viewed and dissected and analysed throughout the years.

It was an entertaining ride, to say the least. I learned early on that Terry Eagleton is not a capitalist. He goes through the various theories from the 19th century on and critiques each of them harshly. He's not as harsh on deconstuctionism and Derrida as he is on some of the other theorists. For a non-fiction book, this was certainly fast paced and very interesting.

I did not expect it to be as politically charged as it was. I enjoyed it immensely. I may have ended the book thinking "Is it all pointless or what?" but I still gave the book 4 stars because I had a hard time putting it down. I'm not well versed in literary theories myself to even begin to formulate a personal opinion on this subject, but I liked this book. I admit I agreed with a lot of what Eagleton had to say about our society. ( )

This book seems to serve three functions. First, it's a reasonable introduction to twentieth century literary theory, not including new historicism. Eagleton doesn't seem to have bothered to read much of the new criticism or the poetry associated with it (for instance, he says The Waste Land "intimates that fertility cults hold the clue to the salvation of the West"), and reads a bit too much English class structure into American life. But he's quite good on reception theory, structuralism and post-structuralism (although he's far too kind to Derrida, and far, far too kind to Kristeva).
Second, it's an exercise in 'Marxism' of the most idiotic kind, which believes that anyone who holds an ideal (e.g., a harmonious society) and reads literature is just "submitting to the political status quo." For someone so keen on bringing politics into things, it's odd that Eagleton spends so little time thinking about the ways that reading literature as an image of harmony and so on might best be considered expressions of *yearning for* rather than *belief in* a harmonious society.
Third, it's a shining example of what literary writing really should be like: polemical, cut and thrust, no nonsense attacks on one hand; rigid statements of faith and belief on the other. You'll know what Mr Eagleton stood for in the '80s once you've read about three pages of this. We're taught today not to say anything that anyone might disagree with- not only is that no fun, it's no way to advance any discussion. This book is seriously, seriously flawed, but I'd much rather re-read it than the essays collected in Cambridge's 'History of Literary Criticism' any day.
Finally, I wonder how Terry feels about his constant attacks on religion in this book. Some might say he was just trying to fit into the radical, epater '80s, no? ( )

With great insight and a dynamic approach, Eagleton traces the progression of literary theory by grounding it firmly in the history of its intellectual development and the interplay and contrasts between different schools of thought. His ultimate conclusion that theory move beyond the literary to the cultural, though more commonplace today, is still shocking to some intellectuals and critics. Though this book is now a couple decades old, it provides a well-rounded understanding of the foundations and development of literary theory in the twentieth century. It does not address, for example, queer theory, but it gives the reader a basis from where they could read a piece of criticism that utilizes queer theory and easily understand its methods.

I read this book while a junior at University and wish I would have read it sooner. I now feel like I can approach works by thinkers such as Barthes, Bakhtin, or Lacan without hesitation. This should be read by all English majors, and sooner rather than later. Theory gives us the tools to talk about and analyze texts in order to fully investigate their cultural implications, and this book is a vital tool in beginning to understand what theory is. ( )

Just as you don't have to be a Marxist to appreciate how insightful Marxist economists can be... in the same way, Terry Eagleton manages to cut through centuries of assumptions in literary criticism to reveal some startling home truths about the role books play in society. Don't be a smarmy Martin Amis type and ignore what this guy has to say. ( )

This book provides an excellent overview of 20th century literary theory. It's fairly short and quite readable. What I really liked about it was Eagleton's manner of properly acknowledging the importance of certain figures and theoretical movements for about five to seven pages, then devoting a somewhat lesser amount of time to pointing out their shortcomings. I'd get excited with each new chapter, because I'd see words--Structuralism, Hermeneutics, Reception Theory--that I was somewhat familiar with. I knew that I'd learn how they fit in to the history of literary criticism and how they reflected changing positions with respect to the text, the author, the reader, literature, genre, politics, passion, psychology and ideology. Just when I was convinced that they were pretty solid tools for reading books, I'd come to the part where Eagleton respectfully demonstrated their often serious flaws. In doing so he doesn't really strip of them of their importance, but rather help you understand why they're not "magic bullets" or "the one right way to read a book."

The book begins by asking what literature is. By the end of the first chapter, every definition proposed by Eagleton has been refuted. Defining what is and isn't literature is highly problematic. After that, there is a chapter devoted to the rise of English departments and the birth of modern criticism in the early part of the 20th century, a chapter devoted to the way that the author, the text, thought the reader and the world all relate to each other in phenomenological and hermeneutic schools of criticism that draw from the work of philosophers like Husserl and Heidegger. Then there's a chapter on structuralism, a chapter on post-structuralism, a chapter on psychoanalysis (Freud, Lacan, et cetera) and a final chapter where Eagleton presents his conclusion. In a few words, he recognizes that a great majority of the literary theories discussed in his book are inextricably linked to the power structure of modern society, and that all criticism can be seen in this way to be political. He proposes a focus on discourse and a return to the study of rhetoric under the title of "discourse theory." I'm not sure if that does his position much justice, but I felt inclined to agree with him on the idea that students of literature should see their studies as a sort of apprenticeship whereby they gain entrance to a discourse that encompasses all of the movements this book presents and analyzed.

It's a start. I feel like I have a better idea of what literary theory is. I can (somewhat) understand what people are talking about when they talk about a structuralist reading of such-and-such a book, or about the "death of the author" and the "birth of the reader," or stuff like that. Now I would like to begin reading theoretical texts that particularly appeal to me. I'm going to start with Michel Foucault's The Order of Things and a book of Essaies critiques by Roland Barthes. I read both of their names a lot, and I'd like to begin working through some of their critical works so that I can see how they read books. I'd also appreciate any suggestions as to other good "Introduction to Literary Theory" type of books. ( )

A quarter of a century on from its original publication, Literary Theory: An Introduction still conjures the subversion, excitement and exoticism that characterized theory through the 1960s and 70s, when it posed an unprecedented challenge to the literary establishment. Eagleton has added a new preface to this anniversary edition to address more recent developments in literary studies, including what he describes as “the growth of a kind of anti–theory”, and the idea that literary theory has been institutionalized. Insightful and enlightening, Literary Theory: An Introduction remains the essential guide to the field.

10 yrs after getting an MA in English Literature, I finally read this book. I wish I had read it at least 15 years ago. Eagleton does a fantastic job to make theory understandable and interesting. I recommend to anyone interested in Lit Crit, this is the first book to read. ( )

My guide book to the world of critical theories when i was 20! I read it at least dozens, if not hundreds of times, and surprisingly it was an exciting read. ( )

If you only read one book about literary theory...well, who would blame you? Still, the educated layperson who wants to bump their understanding of contemporary literary criticism up to a respectable cocktail party level probably can't do much better than Eagleton's slim, thoroughly accessible introduction to the subject. Literary Theory traces the history of literature as an academic discipline from English Romanticism, through Saussure and semiotics, all the way to the fashionable heavy-hitters of postmodernism. Neither an acolyte nor a debunker, Eagleton gives each theory a clear explanation and a fair shake in crisp, jargon-free prose. He is up front about his own ideological slants (feminist, Marxist), and although the last of these can at times make him sound quaintly Cold War, at no point does he drop into didacticism. This is a book that truly lives up to its subtitle. ( )

essential reading for anyone into english lit crit ( )

This classic work is designed to cover all of the major movements in literary studies in this century. Noted for its clear, engaging style and unpretentious treatment, Literary Theory has become the introduction of choice for anyone interested in learning about the world of contemporary literary thought. The second edition contains a major new survey chapter that addresses developments in cultural theory since the book's original publication in 1983, including feminist theory, postmodernism, and poststructuralism.

must have purchased at Powells due to author - heavily underlined - not mine

http://home.earthlink.net/~karen20000/LiteraryTheory.htm ( )