Eagleton agrees that Literature can not be given a meaning.

From Literary Theory pg. 9, Terry Eagleton states:

    " Anything can be literature... Any belief that the study of literature is the study of a stable, well-defined entity, as entomology is the study of insects, can be abandoned as chimera."

This paragraph caught my attention immediately, simply because prior to reading the selection, I personally regarded literature as consisting of a set standard that required enhanced vocabulary and technique. In addition, my high school English Literature teacher taught me that literature absolutely required literary devices and was created to consist of higher value and meaning. 

Thankfully, Eagleton opposes that by saying, "Anything can be literature, and anything which is regarded as unalterable and unquestionably literature." I agree with Eagleton, because I believe that the literature is undefinable and is comparable to art. Isn't it like saying a young child's poem has as much potential as Shakespeare's poems, just as Jackson Pollock's contemporary abstract art is to Michelangelo's Renaissance masterpieces? Of course, we can't allow ourselves become so too liniant as to losing the value of the word "literature", but still, this scenario undeniably makes sense to me. No one has ever told an artist that only certain formations will validate his/her work's artistic value, so why do that to writers?