Yale University Press (London 2017). Pbk. 137 pages. £10.99.
Terry Eagleton has emerged as one of the forefront commentators and writers of the English-speaking world. He has written more than fifty books on literary theory, politics, postmodernism and ideology. Most recently, he appears to have returned to a youthful interest in Christianity and a possible synthesis with Marxism.
This book is based on a series of lectures given at the University of Virginia during 2014. It explores the notion of hope – the Cinderella of the theological virtues – and unfolds in four chapters, corresponding to the talks. It starts with the superficial but related idea of optimism, moves on to the virtue of hope in itself, and then explores in detail the philosophy of Ernst Bloch. In a final section, 'Hope against Hope', there is the proposal that 'hope is what survives the general ruin', offering an intriguing interpretation of King Lear and the thoughts of Søren Kierkegaard.
His starting point is the common confusion between hope and optimism, which is brought about, as Wittgenstein warned, by the imprecision of language. So there is a world of difference between the statements 'I hope the sun will shine tomorrow' and 'I hope that peace and justice will come in our time.' The first is a desire, an emotive feeling; but the second has an affinity with the biblical longing, an inward groan as St Paul describes it, associated with God's Holy Spirit. This may be much less precise than a longing for good weather, but it is more deeply felt, more important and is the manifestation of hope that Terry wants to explore.
His style of writing (I sometimes think) is akin to people's reaction to marmite. Either you like it or you really do not. For Terry turns the word 'hope' over, enlivens his text with jokes and uses his erudition to draw on a long list of authors from literature, philosophy and theology – including Aquinas, Walter Benjamin, Thomas Mann, Marx (naturally) and Ernst Bloch.
Bloch, a fellow Marxist, lived in Communist East Germany under the truculent eyes of the STASI and believed that there was something fundamental about hope, buried deep in human culture. But Terry is critical of his insistence that hope is only a desirable goal rather than the thing hoped for. It is as if, to paraphrase FDR, Bloch believes that the only thing to hope for is hope itself.
For Terry, Christianity is more practical, because the end-point of the Christian hope is justice for the needy and oppressed. His critique of Bloch (which takes up all of section 3) is that whereas Bloch thinks that hope is a focus on a vague aspect of the human spirit living on, Christian faith looks to a more concrete renewal – the kingdom of God. This may be a slow-burning reality initiated by Jesus, but it will come in time. He is thus dismissive of a naïve faith in humanity from liberals, and the conservative view that things are fundamentally 'fine'.
In one way the world does not offer a great deal of hope. Technology and the growth of knowledge have improved our lives but there are also many areas where they have had little effect on injustice and actually made things worse. Terry quotes Jürgen Moltmann – a theologian of hope – who considered that the Christian perspective on hope begins with the realisation that the world is, as it were, naturally unjust. A hint of Marx and Christianity once more: the world does not need to be explained, it needs to be changed, and for the better.
And so the argument begins to crystallise. The kind of hope that is explored is a state of mind, not a state of the world. Either we have hope within us or we do not; for it is a dimension of the soul and is not essentially dependent on some particular observation of the world, or estimate of the situation. Hope is not prognostication. It is an orientation of the human heart and transcends the world of immediate experience, to be anchored somewhere beyond its horizons.
As with some of Terry Eagleton's other books, the writing can sound like an extended review, reworked. And the style also reflects the texts' origins as a series of lectures – with its quirky examples and off-the-cuff witticisms. But then he is at heart a literary critic, and it is natural that he should pay close attention to what others have written. It is also a book to be read slowly; to pause, and digest the often complex ideas. But I enjoyed reading it – and I think that you will as well.
Michael Morton is the parish priest of St Winefride's Catholic Church, Sandbach, Cheshire.