A Study Of Terry Eagleton's Cultural Theory “after Theory”

As one of the most celebrated Marxist literary and cultural theorists in Britain,Terry Eagleton has made a significant contribution to Marxist literary theory in the 20 th century.Accordingly,the study of Eagleton at home and abroad mainly highlights on cultural politics in the past years.However,at the turn of 21 st century,Eagleton's cultural theory experienced great changes,especially in the fields of theology and metaphysics.Why did the Marxist fighter talk about God and Satan? At one time,his academic reputation was questioned.In the 21 st century,Eagleton shows not only the theological and metaphysical turn,but also the literary and somatic turn.Eagleton's various theoretical changes are not achieved overnight.In 1960 s he began his intellectual career as an amateur theologian of the Catholic Left,participated in the issuing and editing of the Catholic avant-garde journal Slant,and explored the boundary between the church and the clergy in explaining and solving practical problems.The political debate on the left reached a climax in the mid-1970 s and then fell into a low tide with the failure of the left politics.At the beginning of the 21 st century,in the face of the global narrative of capitalism and the rise of terrorism,Eagleton boldly explored the theory after theory and called for a return to the theory itself to better cope with the increasingly severe situation of radical politics.On the one hand,he criticized the lack of political sense of cultural theory,on the other hand,he actively put forward remedies in theology,philosophy,literature,somatic materialism,etc.To some extent,these measures are the continuation and expansion of cultural and political topics in the 1970 s,which also reflect the general response mode of Eagleton,as a literary and cultural theorist,when facing the cultural and political crisis in different historical periods.In the phase of theory after theory,Eagleton's cultural theory always grasps the pulse of the development and change of the capitalist world.In view of the fact that capitalism has changed its face,it takes historical materialism and dialectical materialism as the criteria to reflect and question interdisciplinarily,attempts to reorganize rationality,feeling and experience,and restores the material reality of the subject to confront the excessive materialization and aestheticization.The connotation of Eagleton's turn or return is the unremitting pursuit and yearning for the ideal of human liberation.From this point of view,Eagleton's cultural theory,based on radical political ideal,adhering to materialistic dialectics and materialistic historical outlook,with culture as an option to realize the political goal,is an integral part of Marxist political practice.At present,the study on Eagleton does not fully explain the political motivation of his cultural theory,and not fully explore how Eagleton inherits and develops Catholic Left politics.These limitations make the critical comments on Eagleton's cultural theory lack of integrity and systematicness,which is not conducive to grasping its spiritual essence.In order to further explore the relationship between culture and politics in Eagleton's cultural theory,and to interpret the role of theology,philosophy,literature and culture in promoting socialist political revolution,this dissertation makes an overall interpretation of Eagleton's cultural theory “after theory”.By drawing the threads of Eagleton's critical activities,such as critiques on culture,theological and literary reconceptualization,reflections on literary philosophy,and proposal of somatic materialism,etc.,it traces the sources,evolution,absorption and references of Eagleton's theory,analyzes his contribution to the contemporary Marxist cultural theory in the context of capitalist globalization,and evaluating its significance and limitations.In his theory after theory,Eagleton started to criticize the reality of capitalist society,defend the correctness of Marxism and explore the trend of cultural theory from the criticism and remedies of postmodern cultural theory,the arrogance of culture to the intervention of theology and philosophy.Through the borrowing of theological discourse,Eagleton continued and expanded the theological thinking of the Catholic Left in the 1960 s,rediscovered and utilized radical theological concepts such as God and Jesus,terror and evil,tragedy and love,shaped the modern value of theology for radical politics,and spread revolutionary prophecy through the “common” liberation ideal between theology and Marxism to strengthen unity and consensus.In the face of the crisis of literary criticism,Eagleton inquires into the essence of literature from the perspective of literary philosophy,adheres to the rhetorical tradition of literary criticism,calls for both “politics of content” and “politics of form”,and highlights “politics of form” to strengthen the political sense of the cultural left.Eagleton attaches great importance to the responsibility of contemporary literary critics,whose identity and sense of responsibility make him always take the popularization of theory as his mission,and the interpretation and response to crisis constitute the main content of his cultural theory.Eagleton repeatedly discusses the crisis of culture,and takes “culture as social unconscious” as the starting point,traces back to the tradition of materialist thinking and puts forward somatic materialism,and points out the significance and function of somatic materialism in theory “after theory” to the establishment of the discursive space of socialist culture and the effectiveness of body as a language to political criticism.This dissertation introspects Eagleton's cultural theory “after theory”,analyzes Eagleton's cultural theory structurally from the aspects of dialectics,strategy and discourse,describes the symptoms of Eagleton's cultural theory,and points out that Eagleton,as a leading radical leftist cultural theorist,through his exploration and application of cultural,theological and literary discourses,advances the innovative development of contemporary Marxist cultural theory.