On Evil

by Terry Eagleton

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An impassioned argument for the existence of evil from one of the most respected and influential critics of our day

In this witty, accessible study, the prominent Marxist thinker Terry Eagleton launches a surprising defense of the reality of evil, drawing on literary, theological, and psychoanalytic sources to suggest that evil, no mere medieval artifact, is a real phenomenon with palpable force in our contemporary world.

In a book that ranges from St. Augustine to alcoholism, Thomas Aquinas to Thomas Mann, Shakespeare to the Holocaust, Eagleton investigates the frightful plight of those doomed souls who apparently destroy for no reason. In the process, he poses a set of intriguing questions. Is evil really a kind of nothingness? Why should it appear so glamorous and seductive? Why does goodness seem so boring? Is it really possible for human beings to delight in destruction for no reason at all?

  • ISBN10 1299463827
  • ISBN13 9781299463820
  • Publish Date 1 January 2010
  • Publish Status Active
  • Out of Print 25 February 2015
  • Publish Country US
  • Imprint Yale University Press
  • Format eBook
  • Pages 187
  • Language English