The phrase the meaning of life for many seems a quaint notion fit for satirical mauling by Monty Python or Douglas Adams. But in this spirited emVery Short Introductionem, famed critic Terry Eagleton takes a serious if often amusing look at the question and offers his own surprising answer. pEagleton first examines how centuries of thinkers and writers--from Marx and Schopenhauer to Shakespeare, Sartre, and Beckett--have responded to the ultimate question of meaning. He suggests, however, that it is only in modern times that the question has become problematic. But instead of tackling it head-on, many of us cope with the feelings of meaninglessness in our lives by filling them with everything from football to sex, Kabbala, Scientology, New Age softheadedness, or fundamentalism. On the other hand, Eagleton notes, many educated people believe that life is an evolutionary accident that has no intrinsic meaning. If our lives have meaning, it is something with which we manage to invest them