Modernism: A Literature in Crisis
Eagleton on why modernism happened when it did, and what its writers were actually reacting against.
Terry Eagleton treats modernism less as a style than as a response to a crisis in politics, in belief, and in the assumption that language can represent the world at all. The book is short and ranges well beyond literature into philosophy and the visual arts. Eagleton has been arguing about this material for fifty years, and the pleasure lies in watching a critic who knows the period thoroughly say what he actually thinks.
Recommended by 1 Person
Tyler Cowen
Terry Eagleton, Modernism: A Literature in Crisis. The book is short, its quality unevenly distributed, and the subtitle misleading (plenty of it is not about literature). It remains the case that Eagleton is one of the people who knows enough that he is almost always worth reading.
Source · October 2025
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