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INTERVIEW / REVIEW
PROFESSOR TERRY EAGLETON: THE EVENT OF
LITERATURE
Review of Terry Eagleton’s lectures and seminars, at Lancaster University, 2013.
Nour Dakkak, Lancaster University
Captivating and manipulative are the words to describe the two remarkable open seminars for MA students
and faculty members delivered by Terry Eagleton, the distinguished Professor of English Literature
at Lancaster University. The seminars included interesting discussions of literary figures and cultural theory; a
great way to begin Lent Term at Lancaster.
The first seminar was dedicated to Oscar Wilde and his doubleness. Eagleton led a journey of discovery through
the life and works of Wilde with a glimpse of the duality in his identity and approach to life. His doubleness,
Eagleton clarifies, is derived from the fact that he was a member of the Anglo-Irish community in England, who
were an insecure class of people who have never revealed their real identity to others. Such internal duality,
Eagleton claims, is a major producer of great art. He explains this concept more deeply with the effect of
modernism in mind, and its association with other Irish writers like Samuel Beckett and James Joyce.
The doubleness in Oscar Wilde does not only lie in his name and his origins, but also in his gender, his works,
and his class. As an Irish modernist artist, Eagleton demonstrates, Wilde, like other Irish artists, used his
instability and duality for his advantage, to produce great art. The discussion then progresses to understand
art and life in Wilde's point of view and the importance of originality to him. He believes that art, and
everything else should be seen as a subject matter by itself. Wilde insists that everything in life should be done
for its own sake. For instance, he does not see sexuality as means of reproduction. However, he seeks it for
delight and self-fulfilment. Utility is a term Wilde does not believe in. Things in life should be appreciated for
their own sake.
The other lecture, Sacrifice and Subversion, paves the way for Terry Eagleton's coming book, Politics of Sacrifice,
in which he explains the meaning of forgiveness in theological and cultural context by referring to sacrifice,
death, love, feelings, eventually exploring it in the light of Henry James's novel, The Wings of the Dove. The
lecture starts by defining sacrifice and differentiating between both its archaic meaning and the way the
modern world views it as a kind of deprivation. Eagleton claims that the highest sacrifice that can be given is
the one that involves giving up the body, and that entails being a martyr. In order to be martyr, for Eagleton, life
must be so precious. He draws a distinction between martyrs and those whose life does not really matter and
explains how the act of giving up their body would be considered a suicide. The discussion turns afterwards
into more philosophical terms which emphasize the connections between love, death, and giving. Eagleton
draws a parallel between love and death seeing that both expressions involve giving. The body in both cases is
given away, but in death, it also means 'yielding the source of giving.' Many philosophers, Eagleton claims, do
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