Frank Raymond "F. R." Leavis (14 July 1895 – 14 April 1978) was an English

literary critic Literary criticism (or literary studies) is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of literature's goals and methods. ...

of the early-to-mid-twentieth century. He taught for much of his career at

Downing College, Cambridge Downing College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge and currently has around 650 students. Founded in 1800, it was the only college to be added to Cambridge University between 1596 and 1869, and is often described as the old ...

, and later at the

University of York The University of York (abbreviated as or ''York'' for post-nominals) is a collegiate research university, located in the city of York, England. Established in 1963, the university has expanded to more than thirty departments and centres, co ...

. Leavis ranked among the most prominent English-language critics in the 1950s and 1960s. J. B. Bamborough wrote of him in 1963: "it would be true to say that in the last thirty or more years hardly anyone seriously concerned with the study of English literature has not been influenced by him in some way." According to

Clive James Clive James (born Vivian Leopold James; 7 October 1939 – 24 November 2019) was an Australian critic, journalist, broadcaster, writer and lyricist who lived and worked in the United Kingdom from 1962 until his death in 2019.Trinity Street, gown blown out horizontal in his slipstream. He looked as if walking briskly was something he had practised in a wind-tunnel."

Early life and education

Leavis was born in

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

in 1895 to Harry Leavis (1862–1921) and Kate Sarah Moore (1874–1929). His father was a cultured man who ran a shop in Cambridge that sold pianos and other musical instruments, and his son was to retain a respect for him throughout his life. Leavis was educated at a fee-paying independent school (in English terms a minor public school),

The Perse School (He who does things for others does them for himself) , established = , closed = , type = Public schoolIndependent day school , religion = Nondenominational Christian , president = , head_label = Head , h ...

, whose headmaster was Dr W. H. D. Rouse. Rouse was a classicist and known for his "direct method", a practice which required teachers to carry on classroom conversations with their pupils in Latin and classical Greek. Though he had some fluency in foreign languages, Leavis felt that his native language was the only one on which he was able to speak with authority. His extensive reading in the classical languages is not therefore strongly evident in his work. Leavis had won a scholarship from the Perse School to

Emmanuel College, Cambridge Emmanuel College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was founded in 1584 by Sir Walter Mildmay, Chancellor of the Exchequer to Elizabeth I. The site on which the college sits was once a priory for Dominican m ...

, to study history. Britain declared war on Germany soon after he matriculated, when he was 19. Leavis left Cambridge after his first year as an undergraduate and joined the

Friends' Ambulance Unit The Friends' Ambulance Unit (FAU) was a volunteer ambulance service, founded by individual members of the British Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), in line with their Peace Testimony. The FAU operated from 1914–1919, 1939–1946 and 19 ...

(FAU) at

York York is a cathedral city with Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a ...

in 1915. After the introduction of

conscription Conscription (also called the draft in the United States) is the state-mandated enlistment of people in a national service, mainly a military service. Conscription dates back to Ancient history, antiquity and it continues in some countries to th ...

in 1916, when his brother Ralph also joined the FAU, he benefited from the blanket recognition of the members of the Friends' Ambulance Unit as

conscientious objectors A conscientious objector (often shortened to conchie) is an "individual who has claimed the right to refuse to perform military service" on the grounds of freedom of thought, conscience, or religion. The term has also been extended to objecti ...

. Leavis is quoted as saying: "But after the Bloody Somme there could be no question for anyone who knew what modern war was like of joining the army." He worked in France behind the

Western Front Western Front or West Front may refer to: Military frontiers * Western Front (World War I), a military frontier to the west of Germany *Western Front (World War II), a military frontier to the west of Germany *Western Front (Russian Empire), a maj ...

, carrying a copy of Milton's poems with him. His wartime experiences had a lasting effect on him, making him prone to insomnia. He maintained that exposure to

poison gas Many gases have toxic properties, which are often assessed using the LC50 (median lethal dose) measure. In the United States, many of these gases have been assigned an NFPA 704 health rating of 4 (may be fatal) or 3 (may cause serious or perma ...

retained in the clothes of soldiers who had been gassed damaged his physical health, but that his poor digestion was due to "...not gas at Ypres, but the things I didn't say". Leavis was slow to recover from the war, and he was later to refer to it as "the great hiatus". He said: "The war, to put it egotistically, was bad luck for us." On his return from the war in 1919, Leavis changed his field of study to English and became a pupil in the newly founded English School at Cambridge. Despite graduating with

first-class honours The British undergraduate degree classification system is a grading structure for undergraduate degrees or bachelor's degrees and integrated master's degrees in the United Kingdom. The system has been applied (sometimes with significant variati ...

, Leavis was not seen as a strong candidate for a research fellowship and instead embarked on a

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * '' Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. al ...

, then an unusual career move for an aspiring academic. In 1924, Leavis presented a thesis on ''The Relationship of Journalism to Literature'', which "studied the rise and earlier development of the press in England". This work contributed to his lifelong concern with the way in which the ethos of a periodical can both reflect and mould the cultural aspirations of a wider public.

Career

In 1927 Leavis was appointed as a probationary lecturer for the university, and, when his first substantial publications began to appear a few years later, their style was much influenced by the demands of teaching. In 1929 Leavis married one of his students, Queenie Roth, and this union resulted in a collaboration that yielded many critical works. 1932 was an ''

annus mirabilis ''Annus mirabilis'' (pl. ''anni mirabiles'') is a Latin phrase that means "marvelous year", "wonderful year", "miraculous year", or "amazing year". This term has been used to refer to several years during which events of major importance are re ...

'' for them, when Leavis published ''New Bearings in English Poetry'', his wife published ''Fiction and the Reading Public'', and the quarterly periodical '' Scrutiny'' was founded. A small publishing house, The Minority Press, was founded by Gordon Fraser, another of Leavis's students, in 1930, and served for several years as an additional outlet for the work of Leavis and some of his students. In 1931 Leavis was appointed director of studies in English at

Downing College Downing College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge and currently has around 650 students. Founded in 1800, it was the only college to be added to Cambridge University between 1596 and 1869, and is often described as the olde ...

, where he taught for the next 30 years. He soon founded ''Scrutiny'', the critical quarterly that he edited until 1953, using it as a vehicle for the new Cambridge criticism, upholding rigorous intellectual standards and attacking the dilettante elitism he believed to characterise the

Bloomsbury Group The Bloomsbury Group—or Bloomsbury Set—was a group of associated English writers, intellectuals, philosophers and artists in the first half of the 20th century, including Virginia Woolf, John Maynard Keynes, E. M. Forster and Lytton St ...

. ''Scrutiny'' provided a forum for (on occasion) identifying important contemporary work and (more commonly) reviewing the traditional canon by serious criteria. This criticism was informed by a teacher's concern to present the essential to students, taking into consideration time constraints and a limited range of experience. ''New Bearings in English Poetry'' was the first major volume of criticism Leavis was to publish, and it provides insight into his own critical positions. He has been frequently (but often erroneously) associated with the American school of New Critics, a group which advocated close reading and detailed textual analysis of poetry over, or even instead of, an interest in the mind and personality of the poet, sources, the history of ideas and political and social implications. Although there are undoubtedly similarities between Leavis's approach to criticism and that of the New Critics (most particularly in that both take the work of art itself as the primary focus of critical discussion), Leavis is ultimately distinguishable from them, since he never adopted (and was explicitly hostile to) a theory of the poem as a self-contained and self-sufficient aesthetic and formal artefact, isolated from the society, culture and tradition from which it emerged. ''New Bearings'', devoted principally to

Gerard Manley Hopkins Gerard Manley Hopkins (28 July 1844 – 8 June 1889) was an English poet and Jesuit priest, whose posthumous fame placed him among leading Victorian poets. His prosody – notably his concept of sprung rhythm – established him as an innova ...

William Butler Yeats William Butler Yeats (13 June 186528 January 1939) was an Irish poet, dramatist, writer and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival and became a pillar of the Irish liter ...

, T. S. Eliot, and

Ezra Pound Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an expatriate American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a Fascism, fascist collaborator in Italy during World War II. His works ...

, was an attempt to identify the essential new achievements in modern poetry. It also discussed at length and praised the work of Ronald Bottrall, whose importance was not to be confirmed by readers and critics. In 1933 Leavis published ''For Continuity'', which was a selection of ''Scrutiny'' essays. This publication, along with ''Culture and the Environment'' (a joint effort with Denys Thompson), stressed the importance of an informed and discriminating, highly trained intellectual elite whose existence within university English departments would help preserve the cultural continuity of English life and literature. In ''Education and the University'' (1943), Leavis argued that "there is a prior cultural achievement of language; language is not a detachable instrument of thought and communication. It is the historical embodiment of its community's assumptions and aspirations at levels which are so subliminal much of the time that language is their only index". Leavis is sometimes seen as having contributed to the

mythos Myth is a folklore genre consisting of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not objectively true, the identification of a narrati ...

of Merrie England with his notion of the "organic community", by which he seems to have meant a community with a deeply rooted and locally self-sufficient culture that he claimed to have existed in the villages of 17th and 18th century England and which was destroyed by the machine and mass culture introduced by the

industrial revolution The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...

. Historians of the era have suggested that the idea was based on a misreading of history and that such communities had never existed. No historians of

Early Modern Britain Early modern Britain is the history of the island of Great Britain roughly corresponding to the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. Major historical events in early modern British history include numerous wars, especially with France, along with the E ...

have supported the notion of the organic community. In 1948, Leavis focused his attention on fiction and made his general statement about the English novel in ''

The Great Tradition ''The Great Tradition'' is a book of literary criticism written by F R Leavis, published in 1948 by Chatto & Windus. Highlights of the book In his work, Leavis names Jane Austen, George Eliot, Henry James, and Joseph Conrad as the great English ...

'', where he traced this claimed tradition through

Jane Austen Jane Austen (; 16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) was an English novelist known primarily for her six major novels, which interpret, critique, and comment upon the British landed gentry at the end of the 18th century. Austen's plots of ...

George Eliot Mary Ann Evans (22 November 1819 – 22 December 1880; alternatively Mary Anne or Marian), known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist, poet, journalist, translator, and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. She wrot ...

Henry James Henry James ( – ) was an American-British author. He is regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary modernism, and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English language. He was the ...

, and

Joseph Conrad Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, ; 3 December 1857 – 3 August 1924) was a Polish-British novelist and short story writer. He is regarded as one of the greatest writers in the English language; though he did not spe ...

. Contentiously, Leavis, and his followers, excluded major authors such as

Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian er ...

Laurence Sterne Laurence Sterne (24 November 1713 – 18 March 1768), was an Anglo-Irish novelist and Anglican cleric who wrote the novels ''The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman'' and '' A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy'', publishe ...

and

Thomas Hardy Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry of William Wor ...

from his canon, characterising Dickens as a "mere entertainer", but eventually, following the revaluation of Dickens by

Edmund Wilson Edmund Wilson Jr. (May 8, 1895 – June 12, 1972) was an American writer and literary critic who explored Freudian and Marxist themes. He influenced many American authors, including F. Scott Fitzgerald, whose unfinished work he edited for publi ...

and

George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to totalit ...

, Leavis changed his position, publishing ''Dickens the Novelist'' in 1970. The Leavisites' downgrading of Hardy may have damaged Leavis's own authority. In 1950, in the introduction to ''Mill on Bentham and Coleridge'', a publication he edited, Leavis set out the historical importance of utilitarian thought. Leavis found Bentham to epitomize the scientific drift of culture and social thinking, which was in his view the enemy of the holistic, humane understanding he championed. ''The Common Pursuit'', another collection of his essays from ''Scrutiny'', was published in 1952. Outside his work on English poetry and the novel, this is Leavis's best-known and most influential work. A decade later Leavis was to earn much notoriety when he delivered his Richmond lecture, ''Two Cultures? The Significance of C. P. Snow'' at Downing College. Leavis vigorously attacked Snow's suggestion, from a 1959 lecture and book by

C. P. Snow Charles Percy Snow, Baron Snow, (15 October 1905 – 1 July 1980) was an English novelist and physical chemist who also served in several important positions in the British Civil Service and briefly in the UK government.''The Columbia Encyclope ...

(see ''

The Two Cultures "The Two Cultures" is the first part of an influential 1959 Rede Lecture by British scientist and novelist C. P. Snow which were published in book form as ''The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution'' the same year. Its thesis was that ...

''), that practitioners of the scientific and humanistic disciplines should have some significant understanding of each other, and that a lack of knowledge of 20th century physics was comparable to an ignorance of

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

. Leavis's ''ad hominem'' attacks on Snow's intelligence and abilities were widely decried in the British press by public figures such as

Lord Boothby Robert John Graham Boothby, Baron Boothby, (12 February 1900 – 16 July 1986), often known as Bob Boothby, was a British Conservative politician. Early life The only son of Sir Robert Tuite Boothby, KBE, of Edinburgh and a cousin of Rosalin ...

and

Lionel Trilling Lionel Mordecai Trilling (July 4, 1905 – November 5, 1975) was an American literary critic, short story writer, essayist, and teacher. He was one of the leading U.S. critics of the 20th century who analyzed the contemporary cultural, social, ...

. Leavis introduced the idea of the "third realm" as a name for the method of existence of literature; works which are not private like a dream or public in the sense of something that can be tripped over, but exist in human minds as a work of collaborative re-constitution. The notion of the "third realm" has not received much attention subsequently.

Character and reputation

As Leavis continued his career he became increasingly dogmatic, belligerent and paranoid, and

Martin Seymour-Smith Martin Roger Seymour-Smith (24 April 1928 – 1 July 1998) was a British poet, literary critic, and biographer. Biography Seymour-Smith was born in London and educated at Highgate School and St Edmund Hall, Oxford, where he was editor of '' Isi ...

found him (and his disciples) to be "fanatic and rancid in manner". Leavis's conduct led to a breach with T. S. Eliot, who wrote Leavis's uncompromising zeal in promoting his views of literature drew mockery from quarters of the literary world involved in imaginative writing. In a letter that

Edith Sitwell Dame Edith Louisa Sitwell (7 September 1887 – 9 December 1964) was a British poet and critic and the eldest of the three literary Sitwells. She reacted badly to her eccentric, unloving parents and lived much of her life with her governess ...

wrote to

Pamela Hansford Johnson Pamela Hansford Johnson, Baroness Snow, (29 May 1912 – 18 June 1981) was an English novelist, playwright, poet, literary and social critic. Life Hansford Johnson was born in London. Her mother, Amy Clotilda Howson, was a singer and actress, ...

in 1959 she described Leavis as "a tiresome, whining, pettyfogging little pipsqueak". Leavis (as "Simon Lacerous") and Scrutiny (as "Thumbscrew") were satirized by

Frederick Crews Frederick Campbell Crews (born 20 February 1933) is an American essayist and literary critic. Professor emeritus of English at the University of California, Berkeley, Crews is the author of numerous books, including ''The Tragedy of Manners: ...

in the chapter "Another Book to Cross off your List" of his lampoon of literary criticism theory '' The Pooh Perplex A Student Casebook''. In her novel '' Possession'',

A. S. Byatt Dame Antonia Susan Duffy ( Drabble; born 24 August 1936), known professionally by her former marriage name as A. S. Byatt ( ), is an English critic, novelist, poet and short story writer. Her books have been widely translated, into more than t ...

(who was herself taught by Leavis) wrote of one of her characters (Blackadder) "Leavis did to Blackadder what he did to serious students: he showed him the terrible, the magnificent importance and urgency of English literature and simultaneously deprived him of any confidence in his own capacity to contribute to or change it."

Tom Sharpe Thomas Ridley Sharpe (30 March 1928 – 6 June 2013) was an English satirical novelist, best known for his '' Wilt'' series, as well as ''Porterhouse Blue'' and ''Blott on the Landscape,'' all three of which were adapted for television. Life ...

, in his novel '' The Great Pursuit'', depicts a ludicrous series of events ending in the hero teaching Leavisite criticism as a religion in the American Bible Bel

In the mock epic heroic poem by

Stephen Fry Stephen John Fry (born 24 August 1957) is an English actor, broadcaster, comedian, director and writer. He first came to prominence in the 1980s as one half of the comic double act Fry and Laurie, alongside Hugh Laurie, with the two starring ...

described Leavis as a "sanctimonious prick of only parochial significance" and said that Leavis had an "intense suspicious propensity to explode in wrath and anathematize anyone who dared disagree with him". Fry notes: The literary critic

John Gross John Gross FRSL (12 March 1935 – 10 January 2011) was an eminent English man of letters. A leading intellectual, writer, anthologist, and critic, '' The Guardian'' (in a tribute titled "My Hero") and ''The Spectator'' were among several pu ...

accuses Leavis of "narrowness, spitefulness, dogmatism", "distortion, omission and strident overstatement" and says that "the overall effect of his teaching has plainly been calculated ... to produce many of the characteristics of a religious or ideological sect."

Criticism

Overview

Leavis's proponents said that he introduced a "seriousness" into English studies, and some English and American university departments were shaped by his example and ideas. He appeared to possess a clear idea of literary criticism, and he was well known for his decisive and often provocative, and idiosyncratic, judgements. He insisted that valuation was the principal concern of criticism, that it must ensure that English literature should be a living reality operating as an informing spirit in society, and that criticism should involve the shaping of contemporary sensibility. Leavis's criticism can be grouped into four chronological stages. The first is that of his early publications and essays, including ''New Bearings in English Poetry'' (1932) and ''Revaluation'' (1936). Here he was concerned primarily with re-examining poetry from the 17th to 20th centuries, and this was accomplished under the strong influence of T. S. Eliot. Also during this early period Leavis sketched out his views about university education. He then turned his attention to fiction and the novel, producing ''The Great Tradition'' (1948) and ''D. H. Lawrence, Novelist'' (1955). Following this period Leavis pursued an increasingly complex treatment of literary, educational and social issues. Though the hub of his work remained literature, his perspective for commentary was noticeably broadening, and this was most visible in ''Nor Shall my Sword'' (1972). Two of his last publications embodied the critical sentiments of his final years; ''The Living Principle: 'English' as a Discipline of Thought'' (1975), and ''Thought, Words and Creativity: Art and Thought in Lawrence'' (1976). Although these later works have been sometimes called "philosophy", it has been argued that there is no abstract or theoretical context to justify such a description. In discussing the nature of language and value, Leavis implicitly treats the sceptical questioning that philosophical reflection starts from as an irrelevance from his standpoint as a literary critic – a position set out in his early exchange with René Wellek (reprinted in ''The Common Pursuit'').

On poetry

Leavis is often viewed as having been a better critic of poetry than of the novel. In ''New Bearings in English Poetry'' Leavis attacked the Victorian poetical ideal, suggesting that 19th-century poetry sought the consciously "poetical" and showed a separation of thought and feeling and a divorce from the real world. The influence of T. S. Eliot is easily identifiable in his criticism of

Victorian poetry Victorian literature refers to English literature during the reign of Queen Victoria (1837–1901). The 19th century is considered by some to be the Golden Age of English Literature, especially for British novels. It was in the Victorian era tha ...

, and Leavis acknowledged this, saying in ''The Common Pursuit'' that, "It was Mr. Eliot who made us fully conscious of the weakness of that tradition" . In his later publication ''Revaluation'', the dependence on Eliot was still very much present, but Leavis demonstrated an individual critical sense operating in such a way as to place him among the distinguished modern critics. The early reception of T. S. Eliot and the reading of

Hopkins Hopkins is an English, Welsh and Irish patronymic surname. The English name means "son of Hob". ''Hob'' was a diminutive of ''Robert'', itself deriving from the Germanic warrior name ''Hrod-berht'', translated as "renowned-fame". The Robert spe ...

were considerably enhanced by Leavis's proclamation of their greatness. His criticism of Milton, on the other hand, had no great impact on Milton's popular esteem. Many of his finest analyses of poems were reprinted in the late work, ''The Living Principle''.

On the novel

As a critic of the English novel, Leavis's main tenet stated that great novelists show an intense moral interest in life, and that this moral interest determines the nature of their form in fiction. Authors within this "tradition" were all characterised by a serious or responsible attitude to the moral complexity of life and included

, and

D. H. Lawrence David Herbert Lawrence (11 September 1885 – 2 March 1930) was an English writer, novelist, poet and essayist. His works reflect on modernity, industrialization, sexuality, emotional health, vitality, spontaneity and instinct. His best-k ...

, but excluded

and

. In ''

'' Leavis attempted to set out his conception of the proper relation between form/composition and moral interest/art and life. This proved to be a contentious issue in the critical world, as Leavis refused to separate art from life, or the aesthetic or formal from the moral. He insisted that the great novelist's preoccupation with form was a matter of responsibility towards a rich moral interest, and that works of art with a limited formal concern would always be of lesser quality. Leavis, along with his wife, Q.D. Leavis, was later to revise his opinion of Dickens in their study, ''Dickens the Novelist'' (1970). He also praised the moral seriousness of American novelists such as

Nathaniel Hawthorne Nathaniel Hawthorne (July 4, 1804 – May 19, 1864) was an American novelist and short story writer. His works often focus on history, morality, and religion. He was born in 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts, from a family long associated with that t ...

Herman Melville Herman Melville ( born Melvill; August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891) was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance period. Among his best-known works are '' Moby-Dick'' (1851); '' Typee'' (1846), a ...

, and

Mark Twain Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has pr ...

On the BBC

Leavis was one of the earliest detractors of the BBC. He accused the corporation's coverage of English literature of lacking impartiality, and of vulgarising the literary taste of British society.Christopher Hilliard, ''English as a Vocation: The 'Scrutiny' Movement''. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2012 . (p. 96) In 1931, Leavis took issue with a BBC series of book discussions presented by

Harold Nicolson Sir Harold George Nicolson (21 November 1886 – 1 May 1968) was a British politician, diplomat, historian, biographer, diarist, novelist, lecturer, journalist, broadcaster, and gardener. His wife was the writer Vita Sackville-West. Early li ...

, claiming that Nicolson's programmes lacked the "sensitiveness of intelligence" which Leavis believed good literary criticism required. Throughout his career, Leavis constantly took issue with the BBC's motives and actions, even once jokingly referring to his "anti-BBC complex".

Later life and death

In 1964 Leavis resigned his fellowship at Downing and took up visiting professorships at the

University of Bristol , mottoeng = earningpromotes one's innate power (from Horace, ''Ode 4.4'') , established = 1595 – Merchant Venturers School1876 – University College, Bristol1909 – received royal charter , type ...

, the

University of Wales , latin_name = , image = , caption = Coat of Arms , motto = cy, Goreu Awen Gwirionedd , mottoeng = The Best Inspiration is Truth , established = , , type = Confederal, non-member ...

and the

. His final volumes of criticism were ''Nor Shall My Sword'' (1972), ''The Living Principle'' (1975) and ''Thought, Words and Creativity'' (1976). These later works are notable for their more discursive treatment of the issues he had debated with

René Wellek René Wellek (August 22, 1903 – November 10, 1995) was a Czech-American comparative literary critic. Like Erich Auerbach, Wellek was an eminent product of the Central European philological tradition and was known as a vastly erudite a ...

in the 1930s. Leavis died in 1978, at the age of 82,Ezard, John (18 April 1978)
"Obituary: Frank Raymond Leavis"
''The Guardian''. having been made a

Companion of Honour The Order of the Companions of Honour is an order of the Commonwealth realms. It was founded on 4 June 1917 by King George V as a reward for outstanding achievements. Founded on the same date as the Order of the British Empire, it is sometimes ...

in the previous

New Year Honours The New Year Honours is a part of the British honours system, with New Year's Day, 1 January, being marked by naming new members of orders of chivalry and recipients of other official honours. A number of other Commonwealth realms also mark this ...

. His wife, Queenie D. Leavis, died in 1981. He features as a main character, played by

Ian Holm Sir Ian Holm Cuthbert (12 September 1931 – 19 June 2020) was an English actor who was knighted in 1998 for his contributions to theatre and film. Beginning his career on the British stage as a standout member of the Royal Shakespeare Compan ...

, in the 1991 BBC TV feature
''The Last Romantics''
The story focuses on his relationship with his mentor, Sir

Arthur Quiller-Couch Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (; 21 November 186312 May 1944) was a British writer who published using the pseudonym Q. Although a prolific novelist, he is remembered mainly for the monumental publication '' The Oxford Book of English Verse ...

, and the students. More recently, in a revival of interest in his work, he has been the subject of a series of conferences at the University of York and at Downing College, Cambridge.

References

Works cited

* * * Day, Gary. ''Re-Reading Leavis: Culture and Literary Criticism'', Palgrave Macmillan (1996) * * * * * Mulhern, Francis. ''The Moment of Scrutiny'', London: New Left Books, 1979. * Ortolano, Guy
"F. R. Leavis, Science, and the Abiding Crisis of Modern Civilization"
''History of Science'', 43: 161–85 (2005). * Podhoretz, Norman. "F. R. Leavis: A Revaluation", ''The New Criterion'', Vol. 1, September 1982. * Robinson, Ian. "The English Prophets", The Brynmill Press Ltd (2001). * Singh, G. (1998). "The Achievement of F.R. Leavis," ''Modern Age'', Vol. 40, No. 4, pp. 397–405. * Storer, Richard. ''F. R Leavis'', Routledge (2010)

External links

Works by F. R. Leavis
at

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

another link

F. R. Leavis in America

The Leavis Society
{{DEFAULTSORT:Leavis, F. R. 1895 births 1978 deaths Academics of the University of Bristol Academics of the University of Wales Academics of the University of York Alumni of Emmanuel College, Cambridge English conscientious objectors English literary critics Fellows of Downing College, Cambridge New Criticism People associated with the Friends' Ambulance Unit People educated at The Perse School People from Cambridge