문학(문화)이론과 윤리: 테리 이글턴을 중심으로

Abstract

This essay tries to explore the category of ethics in literary and cultural theory focusing on Terry Eagleton. Eagleton has constructed the theory of ethics more drastically since the publication of After Theory. His project is to combine the materialism of everyday life with Christianity for which he appropriates the Lacanian tripartite of the Imaginary, the Symbolic, and the Real. To opt for the everyday life is based upon his belief that the redemption should be practiced on the material level and his selection of Christianity is to extend the height of ethics to the utmost, since, if not, there will be no absolute way of resolution. To avoid the suspicion of moralism, he bestows the level of politics on his ethics and warns the violence of religious fundamentalism. This ethical and theological turn of his has long been prepared since his first book titled The New Left Church. Considering the academic market since late 1960s which denies any kind of meta-narrative and emphasizes the multiplicity of meaning, Eagleton’s ethical attempt not only seems to be a kind of intellectual adventure, but also has the significance of breaking through a new way of theory. His ethics has some lacks despite the achievements. To combine materialism and Christianity, there should be a more detailed, material, and institutional medium to connect these two too oppositional poles, but it is hard to find it in his ethics. One more thing to be completed in his ethics is to provide the theory with devices of interpreting literary and cultural texts.