Most poetry in the modern age has retreated to the private sphere, turning its back on the political realm. – Terry Eagleton
The German philosopher Walter Benjamin had the curious notion that we could change the past. For most of us, the past is fixed while the future is open. – Terry Eagleton
Poetry is the most subtle of the literary arts, and students grow more ingenious by the year at avoiding it. If they can nip around Milton, duck under Blake and collapse gratefully into the arms of Jane Austen, a lot of them will. – Terry Eagleton
One side-effect of the so-called war on terror has been a crisis of liberalism. This is not only a question of alarmingly illiberal legislation, but a more general problem of how the liberal state deals with its anti-liberal enemies. – Terry Eagleton