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. ( )