Living as Little as Possible 
Terry Eagleton
Since the Modernist revolution, writing has been seen as an intensely private activity, a view which might have come as something of a surprise to Chaucer or Pope. For liberals such as Henry James and David Lodge, it represents a venture into individual consciousness of unique worth – so valuable, in fact, that in this new novel Lodge suspects it may be the summum bonum. ‘Consciousness’ – the very term has an inescapably reifying ring to it – is the transcendent truth of the modern liberal age. The novelist is its high priest, and the novel is its scripture. The image of the solitary author brooding over his or her fine perceptions is now the conventional view of literary authorship, however absurdly ahistorical it may be.
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From the LRB letters page: [ 21 October 2004 ] Alan Gabbey.
Terry Eagleton is John Edward Taylor Professor of English Literature at Manchester. His books include Literary Theory, After Theory and, most recently, The Meaning of Life.
Other articles by this contributor:
Newsreel History · Modern Times, Modern Places by Peter Conrad
Lunging, Flailing, Mispunching · Terry Eagleton lambasts Richard Dawkins
Unhoused · anonymity
Mothering · The Blackwater Lightship by Colm Tóibín
In the Gaudy Supermarket · Gayatri Spivak
A Spot of Firm Government · Claude Rawson
The Estate Agent · Terry Eagleton spears Stanley Fish
Pork Chops and Pineapples · The Realism of Erich Auerbach
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