The function of criticism : from the Spectator to post-structuralism

摘要: This is a brief history and critique of the "critical institution" itself, from Addison Steele to Barthes Derrida. The book raises crucial questions about relations between language, literature politics. How it possible that modern criticism, which was born struggle against absolutist state, could be reduced its current status as part public branch literary industry? forms criticism generated in vibrant context 18th-century "public sphere" - clubs, journals, coffee houses, periodicals embraced free open discussion cultural, political economic degenerate into post-structuralist exercises carried out by academic specialists who revel their own practical impotence? Exercised these issues, Terry Eagleton Britain's foremost Marxist critic traces birth Englightenment England, subsequent mutations over time under pressures development capitalism, rise "counter-public" below, specialization intellectual division labour. In this survey last 200 years cultural spanning Joseph Addison, Richard Samuel Johnson Matthew Arnold, Leslie Stephen F.R. Leavis, places trends New Criticism, structuralism deconstruction social historical perspective. However, also makes case for contemporary rediscover original function reconnecting political, discourse practice, thereby play role radical transformations. author "Ideology" "Against Grain", "Walter Benjamin" "Criticism Ideology".