How to Read Literature
About the book
Author: Terry Eagleton
Publisher: Yale University Press
More info:
The StoryGraph | Goodreads
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My Review
I’m a non-English-major on a quest to learn more about literary theory so I can become a deeper reader and better reviewer. This was my first foray, but unfortunately it wasn’t a winner for me.
Terry Eagleton is clearly very smart AND he also cracks a lot of jokes. Some still land in 2025 and made me laugh, some fall flat and made me roll my eyes, but I can appreciate the attempt at levity and accessibility. Unfortunately, it’s also paired with a very academic tone that I found difficult to concentrate on, and so I ended up skimming most of this book.
In terms of structure, I also feel like Eagleton tipped too far as he tried to make this book not read like a textbook. It’s loosely structured into five or six very long chapters and doesn’t anchor around any clear critical lenses or instructions for analysis; he just talks for a long time about a certain reading-related topic. And I think he had interesting things to say and (often) good examples, but I feel like I just needed more structure for this to feel like information I could put into practice in real life.
Alas, on to the next!