Study On The Thought Of Terry Eagleton’s Cultural Criticism

Eagleton sees culture as a whole way of life, and believes that the core of culture is ideology, and cultural criticism is analysis and inquiry of culture and the ideology behind cultural text, in order to promote understanding the nature of culture and this as a way to seek the human revolutionary process and human liberation and freedom.This article attempts to make a comprehensive and systematic research to Terry Eagleton’s theories of cultural criticism by analyzing and judging his thoughts of cultural critique.His thought of cultural criticism was deeply impressed by the traditional British empiricism, the classic Marxist theory and Western Marxist in Germany and France as a representative, and followed by the formation of the idea of a distinctive British feature, and progressively developing mature in the British neo-Marxist ideological pedigree.Using language analyze "Culture" is the starting point of Eagleton’s academic development, and he is not only to keep the "cultural and social" research methods to which the British "Birmingham School" has consistently adhered in the analysis, and more important, he insists on combining the basic views and positions of Marxism, and sees Marxism as a methodology guidance, to broaden the field and vision of cultural studies.Unlike traditional Marxism, in the process of cultural studies, Eagleton starts from the perspective of "cultural criticism", and sees the criticism of ideology as the core, and is going for the field of literary and artistic text production, and processes activities of theory system construction after criticizing the postmodern theory, and runs through the thinking of holism, and enriched and developed the Marxist theory.Eagleton calls for performances of cultural political attributes in the critical process, and respects criticism of a "rhetoric", and advocates a multidimensional cultural stance, in order to shape a "new socialist subject" as the ultimate goal, to seek the real driving force for the social development, and entrusting Eagleton’s political ideals of socialism, but also becoming its highest mission of cultural critique research, and here he reached the agreement with the ultimate mission of Marxist thought.The first chapter In introduction, it is briefly introduces Eagleton’s life and their academic journey, and analyzes the research paradigms, the core concepts and research significances, and on the basis of analysis and summary for Eagleton’s thought conditions at home and abroad as detailed as possible it is in order to find out the deficiencies in the field, and the problems to be solved and may produce innovations, to further explore, supplement, break through and improve their thinking through a literature arrangement literature of such a "scrutinize" style, thus gradually clear their own research methods and research purposes.The second chapter explores the ideological origins of Eagleton’s cultural critical philosophy, and it is adhering to the tradition of British empiricism, and widely learns classical Marxism, Western Marxism and the ideology of the European continental philosophy, gradually enriches the theory in the course of practice. British Marxist ideology profoundly inspired Eagleton, and became the theoretical basis of philosophy of his cultural criticism, and also his lifelong adhere to the main theories. In their academic career, he firmly defended and developed Marxism, and highlighted the theoretical tendencies of the British Culture School. He saw the rise of ordinary people, the possibility of political resistance, so he called on the movements of realistic social politics, and this is a social practice way of cultural critique philosophical thought.The third chapter analyzes the Eagleton’s theory of ideology, firstly backtracking Eagleton combing Marx’s ideology thinking, and formed their own ideological views in the arrangement; secondly it describes the ideological context and dimension, and believes that Eagleton’s theory of ideology is constructed in the context of historical materialism, and is developed in the dimension of epistemology and sociology; Thirdly it examines the ideological elements and its structure, summed up the Eagleton’s ideological contents; Finally, through the analysis of the function of ideology critique, it explains its function and particularity.The fourth chapter expounds Eagleton’s literary texts theory and text ideology theory, which is the specific application of the theory of ideology in the field of literature and art, and analyzes Eagleton’s ideology analysis of literary texts mainly from the three aspects of the production of text production theory, the theory of literary criticism and literary ideology. The text production theory describes the relationship between literary production and social mode of production, and reveals the complex process of interaction between the various elements in the text production; theory of literary criticism mainly discusses the political influence of textual criticism, rhetorical effect, reveals the ideological connotations of textual criticism; text ideological production reveals the relationship between the text ideology of the production process as well as text ideology and other ideologies.The fifth chapter focuses on analysis of the main objective of Eagleton’s cultural critical thought, and also is the ultimate mission of Marxist philosophy:the liberation of the people. It mainly discusses Eagleton’s cultural critical theory demands, theoretical way to choose as well as theoretical target, respectively, from the meaning of life, the materialist aesthetic, and the construction of subject-"new man of socialist".The sixth chapter is the objective theoretical summary of Eagleton’s cultural critical thought, and analyzes Eagleton’s cultural analysis critical thought both from the theoretical value and inadequacies, and be a more comprehensive evaluation. Theoretical value mainly which is from ideological theories, cultural studies contents, thinking methods and political practices expounded the significance of cultural critical theory; Inadequacies is discussed from the construct of contents of cultural critical theory, use of method, as well as critical attitude.Epilogue is holistic description of Eagleton’s cultural critical thought and brief discussion of its significance with the current social problems.