This momentous study of Benjamin s critical practice marks a sea change in Eagleton s thought. Its goal is not merely to contemplate Benjamin s approach to language, history, and art but to chart a dynamic new course for contemporary socialist criticism. To do this, Eagleton brushes Benjamin s Trauerspiel against seventeenth-century British literature, tests his concept of the aura against Freud and Lacan, and undertakes his most sustained engagement with Derrida and the political crossroads of deconstruction.
