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Books

The Ideology of the Aesthetic by Terry Eagleton

A review by Geoff Wade.

This book – while not for the faint-hearted – is certainly accessible to anyone willing to put in some effort (well rewarded effort), be they ‘academics’ or not. The work explores and explicates the contiguity and confluence of ideology, ethics and art. It is an immensely interesting, informative, controversial, and even at times amusing, piece of work. Terry Eagleton has an almost unique knack of being able to convey clearly to his readers some very complex concepts and theoretical structures; this is as true here, as in his previous output on literary theory, and related subjects.

No doubt The Ideology will attract some hostile criticism from established, traditionally ‘English’ philosophers, who are generally suspicious, to say the least, of suggestions that texts can only be properly understood in the context of their historical circumstances, the ‘conditions of their production’ as it were, for this is how Eagleton reads the philosophical writings with which he deals.

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