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Cairo University Faculty of Arts English Department

Terry Eagleton: ' Towards a Science of the Text'

Professor: Mohammed Yehia Student : Heidi Yousry Mohamed Mohamed Course Year : Criticism : Preliminary Year

Division : literature

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Heidi Yousry Professor Mohammed Yehia Criticism 23rd May 2009

'Terry Eagleton: ' Towards a Science of the Text

Marxism has become one of the most important theories applied to literature since the beginning of the twentieth century. Marxism as a literary theory has developed throughout years. A tendency towards a contemporary perspective to Marxism is significant nowadays. One of the main reasons for this increased interest in Marxism has been the influence of the thought of the French Marxist philosopher, Louis Althusser. He rejects the so called "vulgar" Marxist view that art in general and literature in particular are wholly based on socio-economic relations. He argues that both art and literature may be based on socio-economic basis on one hand, but on the other hand there are other complex network of factors that contribute to them and determine their nature. Althusser's thought inspired other critics who believe in the political-economic nature of Marxism and at the same time are

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upset by the restrictions that early Marxism imposed on Marxist literary criticism.

Terry Eagleton is one of those critics who are deeply influenced by Althusserian Marxism. He is one of the leading figures in English Marxist literary criticism. His work achieved prominence as an Althusserian approach to literature with Criticism and ideology (19 76). 'Towards a Science of the Text', from Criticism and Ideology exemplifies this Althusserian phase. Eagleton's thesis here is that the study of literature, from a Marxist perspective, leads to a scientific knowledge of how a particular stage of historical development 'thinks' its relation to history albeit necessarily from a peculiar vantage point within that historical stage. The text does not imitate the Real (which is inaccessible in and of itself): it reflects, rather, the significations or constructions imposed in determinable ways by a particular historical epoch upon the Real. In a nutshell, Eagleton thinks that texts do not reflect reality or the true account of history, it rather reflects a particular view of history that is intentional, and this view is introduced through the socio-economic and may be political forces in society at this moment in history.

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Eagleton argues that the text is a certain production of ideology not an expression of it, for which the analogy of a dramatic production is in some ways appropriate. Likewise, the dramatic production of a text is not an expression of it, rather, transforms it into a new entity. Thus the relation between text and production is a relation of labour: the theatrical instruments transform the raw materials of the text into a specific product which cannot be "extrapolated" or inferred from the text itself. And then Eagleton gives a schematized account of his idea as follows: History/ideology dramatic text dramatic production History ideology literary text

The previous scheme highlights the relation between the literary text, ideology/history, and the dramatic production. The relation shows that the dramatic text is a production not a reflection of a certain history or ideology. And it also shows that the dramatic production produces an independent account of the literary text.

The text thus reveals the internal relations between the text itself and its world and reveals that the text actually acts in favour of the powers that control the world of the text at that moment of history. Such relations led Eagleton to raise several

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questions, the first of which concerns the relation of the text to 'real' history. "In what sense do elements of the historically 'real' enter the text?"(Newton, 247). To answer such a question, Eagleton introduces his view of the concept of ideology. He sees that Ideology signifies a "false consciousness" which blocks true historical perception, because there is no one ideology for a whole society or an ideology for a whole age. But there is an ideology for a certain class, which does not express the whole society's ideology. Similarly there is no such general ideology of a certain age. Thus, Eagleton sees that ideology is "an inherently complex formation which, by interesting individuals into history in a variety of ways, allows of multiple kinds and degrees of access to that history"(248). So if we assumed that a literary text or figure reflects or represents the ideology of a certain age, certainly we are led into a false consciousness of this age because, in such a way we fail, in fact, to grasp the truth that some ideologies, and level of ideology, are more false than others.

History, then, enters the text as an ideology, as a presence determined and distorted by forces that control society but at the same time have no real advent in the text. If we said that history which is in the text is false or more accurately has no visible

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presence so, does real history have not presence inside the text? Actually real history is present in the text but in disguised form, so that the task of the critic is then to "wrench the mask from its face"(248). Eagleton thinks that history is there in the text but in the form of a "double absence". The text's object is not the real, but rather certain significations which are the product of power relations in society and of the attempts to hide the true account of history or give a certain ideology of a certain class, or power.

Ideology, then, becomes a dominant structure inside the text, determining the form of reality it wants to show. In other word, Ideology which is defined by Eagleton, determines the "pseudo-reality". So in the text itself ideology seems to determine the historically real rather than vice versa. Whereas the inversion of the real historical process seems to be the dominant idea, the process actually is determined by history itself, we can say, thus that history is the ultimate signifier of literature. But does that mean that history is free to act and determine the ideology of the age through the text and takes it a playground or a free zone? If we said so, we are returning to the starting point of our assumptions. Eagleton draws our attention to the assumption that, we know that such freedom is illusory that the text is governed; but it is not

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illusory merely in the sense of being "a false perception" of our own. The text's illusion of freedom is part of its very nature an effect of its peculiarly "overdetermined"(248) relation to historical reality.

Eagleton believes that history operates inside the text according to "ideological determination" which privileges ideology as the dominant structure determining its "pseudo reality or history". For example, in his novels, Dickens deploys certain modes of signification (realism) which entail a greater foregrounding of the pseudo real; but we should not be led by this to make direct comparisons between the imaginary London of his novel and the real London. The imaginary London of Bleak House exists as a product of representational process which signifies, not "Victorian England" as such, but certain of Victorian England's ways of signifying itself. So what is now in question is not the relation between the text and some signified, but the relation between textual significations (which is both form and content) and the more pervasive significations we call Ideology (249). In a nutshell, Eagleton wants to highlight both the textuality (form and content) and intertextuality (history and the dominant ideology) of the text.

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Finally, the relation between the three interconnected concepts is illustrated by Eagleton as follows:

Signifier Text Signified IDEOLOGY Signifier HISTORY signification Signified

Ideology pre-exists the text; but the ideology of the text defines, operates, and constitutes that ideology.

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Bibliography
Primary Source Newton, K. M. edt., Twentieth- Century Literary Theory. London: MacMillan, 1989.