Transition Work

Interview with Terry Eagleton
According to Terry Eagleton the role of the literacy theory when analysing texts is a guide to all the major theoretical schools of thought of the twentieth century, from Russian Formalism, through Structuralism and Post-structuralism, to Psychoanalytic Theory and Feminism, Marxism and Post-colonialism. I asked him to explain what he saw as the role of theory.
‘Theory asks some pretty fundamental questions. Not just do you like this bit in Jane Austen, but what is involved in people saying that they do. What standards are they using? Theory asks questions of that kind – not just what does the poem mean, but what is a poem or what is a novel. Those are very exciting questions to ask. Theory tries to dig a bit deeper than the usual sort of literary or critical question.Basically, I suppose, when you get down to it, it means encouraging people to reflect on what they’re doing, simple as that. It’s a kind of self-attentiveness. That’s always useful. It’s not a luxury that only the ‘best’ sort of students should be afforded.’


Eagleton believes a good English student is someone that sees  deeper theoretical questions and noticing that they are opening up new horizons – a territory that was unknown – and who would then face a certain moment of decision whether they were going to launch themselves into this rather dark, unmapped terrain, or draw back and stay with what they safely knew. The good students were the ones who took the leap, ones who were prepared to follow a journey without any sure sense of the destination.’


Article from the British Library
Keats is often seen as a purely sensual poet, isolated from the social and political concerns of his day.
Keats’ admirers praised him for thinking ‘on his pulses’ this meant Keats style  was  heavily loaded with sensualities, more gorgeous in its effects, more voluptuously alive to actualities than any poet who had come before him. They had good reason to do so. The language of all his poems, and in particular the great odes and narrative poems of his final (1820) volume, have a delicious velvety weight: they ‘load every rift with ore’, to use one of his own phrases.  Keats importance of sensuality in his writing is so important. It is not merely a form of delighted and delightful engagement with things-in-themselves, but a way of thinking. His ‘life of sensation’ is also a ‘life of thoughts’. 


Keats died 23rd February 1821 


Keats first biography appeared in 1848 written by Richard Monckton Milnes things had changed for Keats. Keats was where he had wanted to be – and where, on his deathbed, he had despaired of being: ‘among the English poets’. His canonical position has become increasingly secure with time.


Keats originally trained in Guy's Hospital  before given up to pursue poetry over his medical career. Almost exactly as Keats qualified, he gave up medicine. Once again, it was a change of course which allowed him to stay true to himself. Actually, to find himself. He took with him into poetry the fundamental principles that his education as a whole had rooted in him.


The two social upheavals that triggered the Romantic Movement that Keats was part of was the The French Revolution and the acceleration of the Industrial Revolution that led to unprecedented changes in the cultural and political structures of European society. Keats writing through this period reflect these changes in his work.

Shakespearean tragedy- It’s not difficult to see how Shakespeare’s tragedies of love – Othello  were written from an imaginative standpoint ahead of their time. The heart-breaking conflict between what human beings need to be, deserve to be and could be, and what the time and place they live in condemn them to become, could scarcely be clearer than it is in these plays. Shakespeare makes it equally plain that there’s nothing to stop human beings putting an end to such tragedies by changing the world that produced them and changing themselves in the process. His creation of characters who can’t come to terms with their world reveals the capacity of human beings to be radically different from the way their world expects them to be. So, although these particular characters end up defeated by the intolerable predicament in which they are trapped, the predicament itself is shown by them to be the product of a society whose authority can be resisted and contested. The way things had to be for them, as they prove at the cost of their lives, is not the way they should be, and not the way they have to go on being. Shakespeare’s tragic protagonists, the fictional universes they inhabit, and the tragic fates that await them are amazingly diverse. But every one of his tragic protagonists is doomed by having been cast in the wrong role in the wrong place in the wrong time. Every one of them becomes a stranger in a world where they had once felt at home, and a stranger to the person that they used to be or thought they were. And in the process, every one of them reveals the potential they possess to be another kind of person in another kind of world, which they will tragically never live to see.

‘Simon Bubb argues that Iago’s lack of humanity is what Shakespeare is most interested in sharing.’ To what extent do you agree?
I agree with this statement by Simon Bubb as Shakespeare puts huge significance on Iago's thoughts and concentrates on these thoughts thoroughly. Othello thoughts are not as accessible as Iago's which shows Shakespeare interest on Iago's lack of humanity throughout the play. Arguable one of the primary sensations that Shakespeare evokes throughout the play is fear. Shakespeare achieves this through presenting Iago's lack of humanity and sharing it with the audience, their reception of Iago causes them to fear Iago. Shakespeare delves into Iago's lack of humanity through Iago's various asides and soliloquies which gives the audience an insight into is corrupt, psychopathic state of mind where he is unable or unwilling to feel empathy or remorse. Soliloquies and asides are very strong dramatical techniques that shakespeare uses to ensure the audience feel fear and pity otherwise known as pathos. Shakespeare was fascinated by the question of what happens when the feeling of empathy and remorse are combined with a ferocious desire to harm others and an utterly brilliant mind. This shows how Shakespeare is most interested in sharing Iago's lack of humanity through presenting Iago to have those qualities. The fact that shakespeare gives Iago more time with the audience compared to Othello shows the audience the play writers dramatic techniques and explores its purpose. Iago shares his villainy with us and draws us into the darkness to the point where we become apart of it and some people in the audience become complicit in his devilry. However we are powerless to stop Iago's lack of humanity consuming us and all characters that come in contact with Iago due to Shakespeare's use of excessive dramatic irony. Iago's lack of humanity is also shown through his narcissistic personality. Iago contrasts his plans through being an opportunistic character and whose enjoys to comment on his own malevolent plans as he forms them. By Shakespeare doing this he explores and examines the nature of Iago's villainy and tackles centrally the lack of Iago's humanity.