Literary Theory: An Introduction by Terry Eagleton attempts to define literature and literary theory by keeping rise of English as focal point. He maps the growth of literary theory starting before the Romantic movement and concluding with the post-structuralism of 20th century. To understand the development of literary theory and criticism, Eagleton's Literary Theory: An Introduction is highly recommended as he explains well that literature is never separate from public sphere and in order to understand a period, it is important to read literature belonging to that period and vice-versa.
His attempt to define literature in his work becomes successful when the readers' moment of epiphany comes. There is actually no one definition of literature as it is shaped by people, their opinion and social ideologies and constructs, most of all. Eagleton does that by taking several definitions offered by several discourses; he then questions those definitions and finally dismantles each.
The pursuit of defining literature is a difficult one and this is quite evident in the beginning itself as Eagleton expresses his difficulty in choosing a starting point from where he can begin. He proves how literature can never be parted from the power structures that are dominant in the society. He does this by scrutinizing the history of literature starting right from romanticism to post-structuralism.
Romantics defined literature in their own way. They considered it a product of writers' imagination, something voluntary and creative. But then if factual work is literature, this definition cannot stand. Moreover, a work of art and the artist are never secluded from the society so that gap between poet's vision and the society is merely an illusion.
Next, Eagleton moves to the definition provided by Russian Formalism. Formalism considers language, structure and form of a text more important than the content. The definition of literature Formalists provide seems quite limited to Eagleton as it focuses merely on certain aspects of literature and not the whole of it. He believes that merely the form, the language cannot decide whether a text will be considered as literature or not. What Formalists consider the soul of a text are merely devices used by the writer for Eagleton. He cites example of Gerard Manley Hopkins's poetry in which both the structure of the word and its meaning are shown significant. Realizing how complex language is, Eagleton states that language is also manipulated according to readers' need and demand.
Moving on, Eagleton focuses on the reception of text. He brings out the importance of writer's perspectives, background and the context of the text but the ultimate authority lies with the reader. Readers may not read a text the way its writer wants and therefore all the literary theories and standard definitions of literature are of no use. They can probably show the path on which readers can choose to walk but not the whole way. While post-structuralists do accentuate 'Deconstruction' and the fact that there is no transcendental meaning, Eagleton reasserts that literary theory is always political and that even their theory is not without concealed biases. With this the circle come to a close when Eagleton finally concludes that literature is too idiosyncratic to define.
