Eagleton was born in Salford on 22 February 1943 to Francis Paul Eagleton and his wife, Rosaleen (née Riley) Eagleton. He grew up in a working-class Catholic family of Irish descent in Salford, with roots in

Eagleton began his literary studies with the 19th and 20th centuries, then conformed to the stringent academic Marxism of the 1970s. He then published

William Deresiewicz wrote of After Theory, Eagleton's book, as follows... :
[I]s it that hard to explain what Eagleton's up to? The prolificness,

• The New Left Church [as Terence Eagleton] (1966)
• Shakespeare and Society: Critical Studies in Shakespearean Drama (1967)
• Exiles and Émigrés: Studies in Modern Literature (1970)

Eagleton was educated at De La Salle College, a Roman Catholic grammar school in Pendleton, Salford. In 1961, he went to read English at Trinity College, Cambridge, whence he graduated with first-class honours. He later described his undergraduate experience

In late 2007, a critique of Martin Amis included in the introduction to a 2007 edition of Eagleton's book Ideology was widely reprinted in the

Eagleton has been married twice. His first marriage was to Rosemary Galpin, a nurse; his second marriage was to American academic Willa Murphy. They have since divorced. Eagleton has five children: Dominic Eagleton, Daniel Eagleton, the journalist Oliver Eagleton,