The classic study of one of the most influential thinkers of the twentieth century, by the great of socialist critic

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.

"Eagleton's text, saturated with Benjamin's language and yet constantly prising away from it, is wholly absorbing, like an account of a difficult love-affair, or a novel of exchanged identities." - Poetics Today

"Eagleton is second to none among cultural critics writing in the English language today." - Guardian