Status
Disponível
Collection
Publication
Editorial Complutense (2007)
Description
This short but profound study sets the idea and ideology of 'terror' in a richly historical, metaphysical, theological, and literary context. Terry Eagleton traces a genealogy from ancient rites and rituals, as notably articulated in classical drama, through medieval theology and the eighteenth-century sublime, to the Freudian unconscious. - ;Holy Terror is a profound and timely investigation of the idea of terror, drawing upon political, philosophical, literary, and theological sources to trace a genealogy from the ancient world to the modern day. Rather than add to the mounting pile of polit
User reviews
LibraryThing member Michael_Godfrey
Breathtaking in audacity, Eagleton here incarnates his segue from marxist literary critic to radical Christian social theorist. The book is a tour de force somewhat in the way the Tour de France, is a tour de force: it takes away the energy of the participant - reader and no doubt writer alike - by
If there is a central thesis it is that terrorism is symptom of a deep human thanatic (not fanatic, and my word, not his) volition, that we are trapped in a narcissistic cycle in which the "I" becomes all - except that the only ultimate action the "I" can achieve is self-obliteration- ironically the one action divinity cannot achieve. D.H.Lawrence's Gerald Crich and Samuel Richardson's Clarissa become ultimate expressions of this God-devoid hopelessness; Islamic (for example) terrorism only one contemporary manifestation of a timeless malaise.
Like Zizek's, Eagleton's prose scampers. Perhaps this isn't a Tour de France, or if it is it feels as though steroids have won the day. There are some sweeping magnificent moments: "Ronald Reagan was much praised for making his compatriots feel good about themselves. This was merely one of his lesser crimes" (104). It's a safe barb for an audience unlikely to be wholly sympathetic to Reagan! There are definitive asides of more questionable merit, though. Was Augustine the 'first thinker to use the word "heart" to denote the seat of the emotions'? Biblical usage approaches that point, even if the bowels are more to be preferred. But Eagleton these days knows his theology, not least Pauline theology (34-35), so perhaps it is this reader who should defer - or perhaps his point is more subtle and slipped through to the keeper of my intellect!
Holy Terror is fiendishly hard to put down. The sheer force of narrative energy is persuasive: D.H. Lawrence could never have accused Eagleton of anaemia! If nothing else this book reminds the reader of the sheer hopelessness of a world ruled by the unholy trinity of Dionysius, Thanatos and Eros. There are hints, in the contrast between suicide and martydom, that there may be a more constructive trinitarian guide.
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its sheer explosive energy and sustained frenetic rhetoric. Eagleton here almost sounds as if he is mimicking Zizek's caustic style: if so he does so well. If there is a central thesis it is that terrorism is symptom of a deep human thanatic (not fanatic, and my word, not his) volition, that we are trapped in a narcissistic cycle in which the "I" becomes all - except that the only ultimate action the "I" can achieve is self-obliteration- ironically the one action divinity cannot achieve. D.H.Lawrence's Gerald Crich and Samuel Richardson's Clarissa become ultimate expressions of this God-devoid hopelessness; Islamic (for example) terrorism only one contemporary manifestation of a timeless malaise.
Like Zizek's, Eagleton's prose scampers. Perhaps this isn't a Tour de France, or if it is it feels as though steroids have won the day. There are some sweeping magnificent moments: "Ronald Reagan was much praised for making his compatriots feel good about themselves. This was merely one of his lesser crimes" (104). It's a safe barb for an audience unlikely to be wholly sympathetic to Reagan! There are definitive asides of more questionable merit, though. Was Augustine the 'first thinker to use the word "heart" to denote the seat of the emotions'? Biblical usage approaches that point, even if the bowels are more to be preferred. But Eagleton these days knows his theology, not least Pauline theology (34-35), so perhaps it is this reader who should defer - or perhaps his point is more subtle and slipped through to the keeper of my intellect!
Holy Terror is fiendishly hard to put down. The sheer force of narrative energy is persuasive: D.H. Lawrence could never have accused Eagleton of anaemia! If nothing else this book reminds the reader of the sheer hopelessness of a world ruled by the unholy trinity of Dionysius, Thanatos and Eros. There are hints, in the contrast between suicide and martydom, that there may be a more constructive trinitarian guide.
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Language
Original language
Spanish