Terry Eagleton, The Rise of English

Terry Eagleton's account of the rise of English is fascinating. Yet by beginning his narrative account in the eighteenth century, he leads the reader to unwarranted conclusions. While he is correct in suggesting that the novel Romantic notion of literature as 'imaginative writing' is false, and its twentieth century status as a sort of secular religion is bogus, he somehow ignores something important. By admitting he is arguing as "a post-Romantic" (as 'we' all are), he has inadvertently undermined his claim to deconstruct ALL of 'literature' as an empty set. Literature, let alone English literature, did not begin in the eighteenth century. Even the Romantics regarded their enterprise as a breach with the tradition. It is ironic then that Eagleton actually points to the need to re-establish literary criticism on the basis of a pre-Romantic understanding, of the traditional sort that even the traditionalists often overlook.