Literary Theory After Populism

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Abstract

The article proposes three theses on the status of literary and critical theory after the populist incursions of the “long 2016.” First: that an already-ailing “theory” failed to distinguish itself from professional class anti-populism during the political upheavals of Trump, Brexit, Corbyn, Bernie Sanders, and others. Second: that there is within literary theory’s history a concealed tradition of “literary populism”; the normative belief that good or desirable writing has some surreptitious connection to the idioms of ordinary people. And third: that there are lessons to learn from the broadly forgotten episode of Terry Eagleton’s critique of Raymond Williams in the late 1970s – where the charge was that Williams himself was a populist.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)41-59
Number of pages19
JournalAnglica
Volume33
Issue number3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 24 Oct 2024

Keywords

  • literary theory
  • populism
  • elitism
  • Joseph North
  • Raymond Williams
  • Terry Eagleton
  • literary populism
  • Jeremy Corbyn
  • Bernie Sanders

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