#terry eagleton

[strokeofserenity]

Terry Eagleton, “How to Read Literature”

[academic-vampire]

"If we are inspired only by literature that reflects our own interests, all reading becomes a form of narcissism."

-Terry Eagleton, literary critic/theorist (22 February 1943)

[victusinveritas]

Terry Eagleton: “A socialist is just someone who is unable to get over his or her astonishment that most people who have lived and died have spent lives of wretched, fruitless, unremitting toil.”

[yorgunherakles]

- " söylemen gerekeni değil hissettiğini söyle " -

shakespeare - kral lear

[rinconliterario]

Los juicios de valor son notoriamente variables, por eso se deduce de la definición de literatura como forma de escribir altamente apreciada que no es una entidad estable. Los tiempos cambian, los valores no proclaman el anuncio de un diario, como si todavía creyéramos que hay que matar a las criaturas enfermizas o exhibir en público a los enfermos mentales.

"Introducción a la teoría literaria" Terry Eagleton, 1983.

[anaisninpdf]

Part of what we mean by a ‘literary’ work is one in which what is said is to be taken in terms of how it is said. It is the kind of writing in which the content is inseparable from the language in which it is presented. Language is constitutive of the reality or experience, rather than simply a vehicle for it.

Terry Eagleton, How to Read Literature

[bluepurpleviolatte]

"Morality has precious little to do with feeling in any case. The fact that you feel a surge of nausea at the sight of someone with half their head shot away is neither here nor there as long as you try to help them. Conversely, feeling intense compassion for someone who has just fallen down a manhole, while nipping down a side-street to avoid having to haul him out, will not win you many humanitarian prizes."

-Terry Eagleton, How to Read Literature

[romilly-jay]

Plot Versus Narrative (Eagleton Again)

Turning back to look for wisdom from Terry Eagleton, partly because I'm conscious that I'm getting close to needing to take this book back to the library. (God bless you, free book emporium that willingly lends me access to all human wisdom and ingenuity in three-week bites.) Also because I am pinging (technical term) between other people's brilliant narrative confections and worrying about the salvageability [or otherwise] of my own.

Speaking of the brilliance of others - here's a very good YouTube analysis of a very, very good tv series. Over recent weeks, we've consumed quite a few different attempts to process Andor. This was one of the best we found. Possibly the best. Certainly - original.

Focus was on deconstructing the blocks of the storytelling in Andor and I was v disappointed, at time of watching, to discover that it was instalment-one-and-only (so far). VM hoping that next time I swing past, the next parts will be there. *Great* on mirroring of story-arcs and pay-offs: points out how one plot point, the anticipated inciting incident, fuels two arcs for the rebels during S1 and intros a theme around risk vs ethics (this returns twice in Andor S2 and at the start of Rogue One - only how the stakes have shifted for CA by then).

Not on topic* but this brings me to my current prized possession:

*if the topic is "modes of narrative // entirely on topic, if Andor...

So -

Back to Terry Eagleton -

I've speed-read my way through chapters on // characters // narrative and // interpretation // and I *think* the main point I've taken away (~possibly because I've already been thinking about it and so it's self-reinforcing in that regard~) is that the modernist* idea of plot is just that - an idea - and that there are other ways to structure a literary work [*i.e. designed around the idea of Things Making Progress, having direction, proceeding From somewhere To somewhere else].

But pulling in for a moment to the kind of literary work - loosely defined - that *does* have a clear plot, he then surprised me by pointing out that plot is not a synonym for narrative. Pretty sure I've been interpreting these concepts as if they're effectively the same.

Eagleton points out that plot is the action logic part of the narrative - that other narrative elements include scene-setting, character development, reflection, even a choice as basic as including dialogue.

Appreciate that he understands that examples help. Here's his:

Think of the novels of Agatha Christie. Christie's crime thrillers are almost all plot. Other features of narrative... are ruthlessly stripped away to leave little but the bare bones of the action. The books differ in this respect from ... e.g. Dorothy L. Sayers, P. D. James, Ruth Rendell, Ian Rankin... authors who embed their plot in a much richer narrative context. (p.115).

I wonder if I might group Michael Connelly with AC? He's complimented by Lee Child as being a superb natural storyteller (and not a supernatural storyteller as I initially misread it) and my instinct is that what Child is nodding at is MC's astonishing ability to string together a combination of incidents (Eagleton's take on Aristotle's take on plot from the Poetics) so that we constantly ask - what next?

This is *not a diss*. Agatha Christie was - prolific. Incredibly successful. A very gifted spinner of tales. Not very interested in wasting time on - anything else, really. Deliberately pacey, consciously lean. Stylistic choices that she absolutely owned.

Final loop back round to Eagleton bcz he has something IMO really interesting to say about the way that we can go awry in our attempts to interpret a narrative. (Perhaps a warning to me as I continue to binge-consume YouTube's popup panoply of Andor analysts...)

Paranoics and conspiracy theorists are inclined to detect plots where there are none. They 'overread' stray details and random events, finding in / them the signs of some sinisterly concealed narrative. (p.115-116).

Indeed. Sounds like many corners of the interwebs today. And makes me wonder - is this nothing but downside for wannabe storytellers? Tempting to imagine we can cater to this desire then defuse it - but I wonder if that's akin to poking the large, sleeping bear. To be avoided.