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This momentous study of Benjamin’s critical practice marks a sea change in Eagleton’s thought. Its goal is not merely to contemplate Benjamin’s approach to language, history, and art but to chart a dynamic new course for contemporary socialist criticism. To do this, Eagleton brushes Benjamin’s Trauerspiel against seventeenth-century British literature, tests his concept of the ‘aura’ against Freud and Lacan, and undertakes his most sustained engagement with Derrida and the political crossroads of deconstruction.
This momentous study of Benjamin’s critical practice marks a sea change in Eagleton’s thought. Its goal is not merely to contemplate Benjamin’s approach to language, history, and art but to chart a dynamic new course for contemporary socialist criticism. To do this, Eagleton brushes Benjamin’s Trauerspiel against seventeenth-century British literature, tests his concept of the ‘aura’ against Freud and Lacan, and undertakes his most sustained engagement with Derrida and the political crossroads of deconstruction.