Volume 30, Number 19 · December 8, 1983
A Guide to the Revolution
By Denis Donoghue
Literary Theory: An Introduction
by Terry Eagleton
University of Minnesota Press, 244 pp., $29.50; $9.95 (paper)
Like some other English Catholics, Terry Eagleton started writing in the ostensibly liberating days of the Second Vatican Council, when it was prematurely assumed that the Church was offering to transform itself. Eagleton, Brian Wicker, and a few Dominican priests rushed into print, mainly in the magazines Slant and New Blackfriars, with proposals for theological change. They were particularly drawn to the notion of making Catholicism not only Christian but Marxist. In this spirit, Eagleton wrote and edited such buoyant books as Directions: Pointers for the Post-Conciliar Church and The New Left Church, both published in 1968. This phase of his writing culminated in The Body as Language: Outline of a 'New Left' Theology (1970). I deduce from his later books that he has resolved the tension between Marxism and the Church in favor of Marxism. There is no evidence in his current work that he has retained any interest in Catholic theology, old or new.
Review, 3639 words
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