EAGLETON | lit-crit

Terry Eagleton (born Feb. 22, 1943 in Salford, Manchester, England)

Introducing Terry Eagleton by Yale Books

Tristram Shandy film trailer by Movie Trailers

Viktor Shklovsky made reference to this story written by Laurence Sterne. Shklovsky considered it 'the most typical novel in world literature'.

Notes on What is Literature?

Literature is imaginative writing or is it? This would suggest that literature is only fictional works, but clearly there are many works that are considered literature that are NOT fictional, such as well-known sermons, letters, essays, etc. Comic books are fictional, very imaginative, but "not generally regarded as literature, and certainly not Literature" (Eagleton 2).
Eagleton discussed viewing literature through Russian Formalism as Roman Jakobson would and who thought of it as 'organized violence committed on ordinary speech'.
Russian Formalists noted were:
- Viktor Shklovsky
- Roman Jakobson
- Osip Brik
- Yury Tynyanov
- Boris Eichenbaum
- Boris Tomashevsky
- Mikhail Bakhtin (odd, not listed in Eagleton's essay, at least not that I remember).
Russian Formalism (began in 1915 and lasted in Russia till 1920s when Stalinism silenced them in their country). With a scientific spirit it examined the text itself. Russian Formalism "concerned (sic) itself with how literary texts actually worked: literature was not pseudo-religion or psychology or sociology but a particular organization of language." The text was like a machine, "made of words, not of objects or feelings." The text was not an expression of the author's mind (Eagleton 3). Formalism was the study of literary form. They considered plot, character, etc. as a device used as a narrative technique. Antagonists would call them Bolsheviks.
Devices (estranging or defamiliarizing effect):
- Sound
- imagery
- rhythm
- syntax
- metre
- rhyme
- narrative techniques
Made the everyday world seem strange or unfamiliar - estranged. By using this approach, one would become more aware and engaged in the text.
A story uses impeding or retarding devices to hold the reader’s attention.
Literature is a 'special' kind of language in contrast to the 'ordinary' language.
Eagleton then points out that it is hard to say what language is "normal" since there are so many varied languages around the world and throughout time. He states that Russian Formalists were too aware of this fact. They determined that if it did not affect the reader as estranged then for them it would not be literary. For them it would not be poetic. "...'literariness' was a function of the differential relations between one sort of discourse and another; it was not eternally given property" (5). Formalists were not out to define literary but rather literariness.
Eagleton discusses the problems with Formalism by referencing advertisements that can be strange. He then states that "Literature, then, we might say, is 'non-pragmatic' discourse" (7).
"A piece of writing may start off life as a history or philosophy and then come to be ranked as literature; or it may start off as literature and then come to be valued for its archaeological significance. Some texts are born literary, some achieve literariness, and some have literariness thrust upon them."
Ways in which people relate themselves to writing.
Literary function - ways of relating ourselves to language.
Chimera - an organism whose body contains different cell populations derived from different zygotes of the same or different species, occurring spontaneously or produced artificially
Literature is what is considered valuable - whatever that might be, because it is so varied.
The canon should be viewed as a construct. Fashioned by particular people for particular reasons at a certain time.
He concludes this introduction with literature is a personal choice. Something is called literature based upon someone's ideology. "...value-judgements themselves have a close relation to social ideologies" (14).

Dr. Springer's Notes

Literature study existed prior to the 18th century, but they would have to read in Greek or Latin.
Romanticism places emphasis on personal individual experience. Internal moods, descriptions of nature. It changed the way we looked at literature.
The metaphysics were not interested in new and novel.

Matthew Arnold: (24 December 1822 – 15 April 1888) was an English poet and cultural critic. He has been characterized as a sage writer, a type of writer who chastises and instructs the reader on contemporary social issues (Wikipedia). Culture and Anarchy was a series of periodical essays written by him. Rise of mass culture was happening during his time. Matthew Arnold’s Culture and Anarchy, wherein he defined culture as the study of perfection, as doing away with classes is where he said, “to make the best that has been thought and known in the world current everywhere . . .”

Trade schools and mechanics institutes began in large part because of Arnold. He wanted people to learn of their culture. They were the equivalent to VoTechs of today. This is where vernacular English literature began. (Note from Cheryl - well my notes say this, but on watching this video it shows the vernacular language became more prominent so everyone would understand religion and not have to rely on the clergy - mainly the Catholics. Maybe he meant it became more widespread that all people learned to read???) The Rise of the Vernacular and the Decline of Latin
Doctrine of separate spheres: Men have the role to earn money; Women stayed home to take care of children.
1900ish moving pictures were being made. Two cultures - high society that would see symphonies and low culture that would read dime store novels and see movies.
During WWI literature became a source of national pride. Literature rode on the back of war side. War time promoted nationalism. This helped nations share national beliefs.
Leavisites were followers of Arnold and high culture. They were critical of movies. Their aim was to preserve, not transform. Implications led them to be seen as isolated in ivory tower not addressing messy life. The Leavisites were the first to begin a list of books to read that we now call a canon.
Romantics responsible for split between heart and head in poetry. T.S. Eliot was against their ideas. He considered them dry.

Rise of English

In 18th century England, literature was whole bodies of valuable writing in society not just creative or imaginative writing (Eagleton, 15).
Values in 16th/17th century came from upper class, who were only ones that read literature.
Metaphysical poets wrote poems with intellectual ideas. They required education and analysis.
England became a police state to handle the disturbed working middle class that were now feeling repressed in this industrial age. Art was considered unprofitable ornamentation. The Romantic poet offered an imaginative escape. Poetry of the time had deep social, political and philosophical implications (17). The poets and writers were not paid well and therefore not always able to write for a living.
"Literature is an ideology. It has the most intimate relations to questions of social power" (20).
Arnold wanted to 'Hellenize" or cultivate the philistine middle class". He promoted state established schools to help the middle class receive the best culture of their nation (21). "If the masses are not thrown a few novels, they may react by throwing up a few barricades" (21).
English pioneers: F.D. Maurice (29 August 1805 – 1 April 1872), Charles Kingsley (12 June 1819 –

23 January 1875)

ARNOLD, JAMES AND LEAVIS WERE THE MAJOR CRITICAL EXPONENTS OF SHOWING MORALITY. Because of these three literature is moral ideology for the modern age. The modern world seemed chaotic. Literature had a moral relevance. The study of literature makes us a better person.

Henry James (15 April 1843 – 28 February 1916)

F.R. Leavis (14 July 1895 – 14 April 1978) He was a medical orderly at the front during WWI. He as well as his academic colleagues came from provincial petty bourgeoisie. He, Queenie Dorothy Roth, soon to become his wife, and I.A. Richards had varied backgrounds that were not rooted in English studies. Q.D. Roth had a background in psychology and cultural anthropology. I.A. Richards had a background in mental and moral sciences. F. R. Leavis had a background in history. They helped to promote English studies as being the only thing to study. He started a critical journal in 1932 called Scrutiny. The effects of the publication live on in English Studies students even today. They believed in rigorous critical analysis paying close attention to the 'words on he page' (27). At Cambridge, English was the place to be. Scrutiny examined many works and authors. Leavis saw the need to address social and political questions. "Scrutiny was a moral and cultural crusade" (29). Key Scrutiny literary terms: rich, complex, mature, discriminating, and morally serious. The goal was to help society 'survive' the trashy modern times. Leavis toyed with the idea of promoting economic communism. Leavis like Arnold felt education was the best means to help society. Of course they could not change mass society as only few were in the higher universities and they could not change the interest in the industrial revolution since it promised profit. Not everyone had to be part of their elitist crowd and read Scrutiny to be morally good. And not all those that were well educated proved to be morally good. Even though the group came from working middle class families and were "animus against the effete aristocracy" (31), they too

Q.D. Roth wanted out to move up into higher society themselves. Their' s was an organic society. "Literature was in a sense an organic society all of its own: it was important because it was nothing less than a whole social ideology" (32).

Queenie Dorothy Roth Leavis (7 December 1906 – 17 March 1981)

Women were joining English academia.
Sir Walter Raleigh was the first 'literary' Oxford professor.
After the war was over "Literature would be at once solace and reaffirmation, a familiar ground on which Englishmen could regroup both to explore, and to find some alternative to, the nightmare of history" (26).
meta means after and alongside
metaphysics poets: made poetry using ____________

jingoism: the feelings and beliefs of people who think that their country is always right and who are in favor of aggressive acts against other countries (Webster).
T.S. Eliot (26 September 1888 – 4 January 1965) T. S. Eliot was born in St. Louis, MO. He moved to London in 1915, disheartened with America which too was rolling into an industrial age. He was against Romanticism that thought only with their heart and was more independent and emotional. Eliot was drawn to tradition and felt that literature encompassed it. He was against middle- class liberalism, Romanticism, Protestantism, and economic individualism. (34). He wanted to create a sensory language that would have a 'direct connection with the nerves' (35).

"Leavis's name is closely associated with 'practical criticism' and 'close reading' "(37) Isolate from cultural and historical context.
Leavis's 'close reading' - treating the literary work as an object in itself - was laying a foundation for the American New criticism.
I. A. Richards (26 February 1893 – 7 September 1979) A Cambridge critic carried on the work of Matthew Arnold.

"Poetry, Richards remarks with stunning off-handedness, ' is capable of saving us; it is a perfectly possible means

of overcoming chaos'" (39). He, like Arnold, felt literature was a means to advance society for the better. What

and why are not as important as how.

American New Criticism flourished from 1930 to 50s. Those considered a part of this category are:

Eliot, Richards, Leavis, William Empson, with American critics - John Crow Ransom, W.K, Wimsatt, Cleanth Brooks, Allen Tate, Monroe Beardsley and R.P. Blackmur. John Crow Ransom gave the New Criticism its name. It came about in America's South. It stopped short of full-blooded formalism (41). The author's intentions in writing, are not relevant (41).

Eagleton says "we ourselves are post structuralists" (16).

Rise of English - Dr. Springer's Notes

English is not fixed.
Canon - synonym for tradition. A set of works that there is a scholarly agreement that they are strong literary works for future generations. There is not one set in stone as it is often thought.
Eliot believed the canon should revolve with the times.
Leavis and Eliot believed in practical versus theoretical criticism. Practical critique associated with close reading isolation from historical, cultural and context.
New critics believed you should study the "words on a page." They were not as hostile toward the Romantics as Eliot was. New critics were a very narrow branch of a formalist. With the close reading one could transform literature into its own piece. They wanted to differentiate literature from other humanities like history, etc. They were around from 1930 to 1950s and were considered disciples of Leavis. New Critics were from the south. They were hostile to extreme developments to modernism. They were more interested in prose than poetry. (Hmmm, is that true - I thought they considered poetry their new religion? Cheryl)
Autotelic: having a purpose in and not apart from itself (Webster). Theory of literature that the meaning of the work is completely contained within the work (Springer).

Resources:

Video: What Is Literature - Part 1 - animated characters

Video: What Is Literature - Part 2 - animated characters

Video: New Criticism