The Meaning of Life: A Very Short Introduction

Author: Eagleton, Terry (John Edward Taylor Professor of English at the University of Manchester)

Literary studies: from c 1900 -

Published on 24 April 2008 by OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS in the United Kingdom as part of 'the Very Short Introductions' series.

Paperback | 128 pages, 12 black and white halftones
175 x 113 x 8 | 120g

'Philosophers have an infuriating habit of analysing questions rather than answering them', writes Terry Eagleton, who, in these pages, asks the most important question any of us ever ask, and attempts to answer it.

So what is the meaning of life? In this witty, spirited, and stimulating inquiry, Eagleton shows how centuries of thinkers - from Shakespeare and Schopenhauer to Marx, Sartre and Beckett - have tackled the question. Refusing to settle for the bland and boring, Eagleton reveals with a mixture of humour and intellectual rigour how the question has become particularly problematic in modern times. Instead of addressing it head-on, we take refuge from the feelings of 'meaninglessness' in our livesby filling them with a multitude of different things: from football and sex, to New Age religions and fundamentalism. 'Many of the readers of this book are likely to be as sceptical of the phrase 'the meaning of life' as they are of Santa Claus', he writes. But Eagleton contends that in a world where we need to find common meanings, it is important that we set about answering the question of all questions; and, in conclusion, he suggests his own answer.

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