伊格尔顿是一个自觉的“西方马克思主义者”。他在为《文学原理引论》的中译本所写的序言中,谈到了他从事美学与文学批评的“马克思主义”背景。他说,马克思主义从20世纪60年代以来之所以能在西方社会复兴,就是因为新一代马克思主义者对经典马克思主义作了新的阐释。文章就其在《文学理论引论》一书中有关“什么是文学”的阐述来谈谈作者文学原理的政治倾向。 Eagleton is a conscious “Western Marxist ”. In the preface he wrote for the Chinese version of “Introduction to Literary Theory,” he talked about his “Marxist” background of aesthetics and literary criticism. He said that Marxism has been able to revive Western society since the 1960s because the new generation of Marxists made a new interpretation of classical Marxism. The article talks about the political tendency of the author’s literary theory in his “Introduction to Literary Theories” book about “what is literature?”