The Event of Literature by Terry Eagleton, a comprehensive review
Terry Eagleton’s The Event of Literature (2012) has constantly remained a significant intervention in contemporary literary theory, offering both a synthesis of existing debates and a provocative re-examination of literature’s ontological status. Eagleton, long established as one of the most incisive and accessible Marxist critics, here turns his attention to the fundamental question that has haunted literary studies since its institutionalisation: what, precisely, constitutes literature? The book emerges at a moment when the discipline has been fragmented by poststructuralist scepticism, cultural studies’ expansion, and the so-called “death of theory,” and Eagleton’s project is nothing less than a revitalisation of theoretical discourse—one that neither retreats into naive essentialism nor capitulates to the relativistic view that literature is merely what we arbitrarily designate as such. His argument is nuanced, at times deliberately elusive, but always grounded in a deep engagement with both the philosophical tradition and the practical realities of literary interpretation.
Eagleton begins by dismantling the most common definitions of literature—formalist, moralist, and sociological—demonstrating their inadequacies with characteristic wit and rigour. The Formalist claim that literature is distinguished by its linguistic self-consciousness or defamiliarising techniques is, he argues, insufficient, since many non-literary texts employ similar devices, while much acclaimed literature (one thinks of Orwell’s essays or Swift’s polemics) often prioritises communicative clarity over stylistic play. The moralist definition, which holds that literature ennobles or humanises, falters in the face of works that are morally ambiguous or even reprehensible (de Sade’s novels, for instance, or Pound’s fascist-inflected Cantos). Meanwhile, the sociological approach, which treats literature as a historically contingent category, risks reducing it to a mere function of ideology or power, neglecting the peculiar force that literary works exert across time and cultures. Eagleton’s critique of these positions is not merely negative; it clears the ground for his dialectical resolution, which seeks to preserve literature’s specificity without lapsing into transhistorical dogma.
Central to Eagleton’s argument is his rehabilitation of the concept of “strategy,” borrowed from Wittgenstein and Althusser. Literature, he proposes, is best understood not as a fixed essence but as a set of overlapping strategies—rhetorical, formal, and imaginative—that produce distinctive effects. These strategies are not arbitrary; they emerge from and respond to historical conditions, yet they also generate a surplus of meaning that cannot be wholly reduced to their context. In this light, a text becomes literary not because it possesses certain intrinsic properties, but because it invites and sustains a particular mode of attention, one that thrives on ambiguity, polysemy, and a certain resistance to paraphrase. Eagleton’s formulation here is subtle: he avoids the Scylla of essentialism (the belief that literature has an unchanging core) and the Charybdis of nominalism (the view that it is merely a label we apply at will). Instead, he offers a dynamic model in which literature is both made and discovered, both constructed by readers and constrained by the text’s materiality.
One of the book’s most compelling sections is its engagement with the question of fiction, a topic that has long troubled philosophers of literature. Eagleton deftly navigates between the mimetic tradition (which sees fiction as a representation of reality) and the postmodern emphasis on its self-referentiality, arguing instead for a more dialectical understanding. Fiction, for Eagleton, is not simply a mirror or a closed system of signs, but a mode of world-making that both reflects and transforms the real. Drawing on Aristotle’s Poetics, he suggests that literary fiction is distinguished by its capacity to organise experience into coherent, meaningful patterns—patterns that are neither purely illusory nor straightforwardly mimetic, but which reveal something about the world precisely through their artifice. This argument has profound implications for the ethical and political dimensions of literature, a theme Eagleton has explored throughout his career. If fiction is not mere escapism but a way of reimagining the real, then literature becomes a site where ideological norms can be both exposed and contested.
In a passage that exemplifies the book’s loftiest theoretical flights, Eagleton reflects on literature’s relationship to truth, a relationship he characterises as one of “non-correspondence.” Unlike scientific or historical discourse, which aims at a direct correspondence between word and world, literature, he argues, produces truth precisely through its indirections—its metaphors, its ironies, its gaps and silences. This is not to say that literature traffics in falsehood, but rather that its truths are of a different order: they are experiential, phenomenological, and often provisional. To demand that literature conform to empirical or logical standards is to misunderstand its unique epistemology. Here, Eagleton’s prose rises to a rare pitch of eloquence as he contemplates the paradoxes of literary truth: “The poem knows something, but what it knows is not reducible to statement; the novel grasps a truth, but one that evaporates under the glare of paraphrase.” This is literary theory at its most exhilarating, marrying conceptual precision with a poet’s sensitivity to language’s unruly vitality.
Yet The Event of Literature is not without its tensions and omissions. Eagleton’s insistence on literature’s strategic nature, while persuasive, occasionally skirts the question of evaluation: if literariness is a function of how we read, then what distinguishes great literature from the merely competent? His Marxist commitments, though less overt here than in earlier works, sometimes sit uneasily with his more phenomenological leanings. One might also wish for a fuller engagement with digital literature and other contemporary forms that challenge traditional notions of textuality. These absences, however, do not detract from the book’s overall achievement; rather, they testify to the richness of the questions it raises.
Ultimately, The Event of Literature is a testament to Eagleton’s enduring ability to reinvigorate theoretical debates without succumbing to jargon or obscurity. His prose, as always, is a model of clarity and vigour, capable of moving seamlessly from rigorous analysis to wry humour. The book does not offer easy answers—indeed, it is wary of them—but it succeeds brilliantly in reframing the terms of the debate, reminding us that literature’s power lies precisely in its resistance to definitive categorisation. For scholars and general readers alike, it is an indispensable contribution to the ongoing conversation about what literature is and why it matters. In an age of shrinking humanities budgets and instrumentalised education, Eagleton’s defence of literature’s irreducible complexity feels not just timely, but urgent.
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Review by Deepak for The Last Critic
