Leavis and Richards

[LitNetIsGreat]

I was just wondering if anybody has read and would recommend any criticism by F.R. Leavis and I.R. Richards? I know of their importance in early criticism but I want to know whether their writings are still applicable today or if they have paled in significance sharply in the light of more modern criticism and theory. I am thinking in particular of The Principles of Literary Criticism and Practical Criticism by Richards, or The Great Tradition and The Common Pursuit by Leavis. Also I am interested in Essays in Criticism by Matthew Arnold and Seven Types of Ambiguity by William Empson.

I will probably get around to reading these eventually anyway, being of importance in there own right, but I am wondering if to make this sooner rather than later. I do have university starting up again the week after next so time is pressing, but I could probably cope with one or two of the above depending upon their importance. Thanks.

[Virgil]

When i was in college I read Leavis and Richards both. Though it's hard for me to remember anything specific at this point, but i do hold them in high regard. The are essentially waht was called New Criticism (new for the 1930's through 50's) and was the paramount method of literary criticism up until the 1980's or so. These are rough dates and I'm going by memory, so I could be off. Actually New Criticism is for the most part how I believe literature should be criticized, not this Deconstruction and New Historicism crap that has come along. You can read more about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_criticism

[JBI]

I think for Richards, the most influential, and perhaps best work, would need to be "Practical Criticism". I have an old copy I got second hand, but I don't know how readily available it is.

[LitNetIsGreat]

All of them are available from Amazon at various prices, but I managed to find Practical Criticism in an online archive, probably most of them could be with a proper search. I think the fact that they are not in The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism suggests to me that there value is somewhat limited today, but worth the read nonetheless. I'll certainly read Practical Criticism online, which seems to be the one along with The Principles of Literary Criticism of most value.

[Virgil]

May I ask Neely why you are interested in Leavis and Richards? Are you being asked to read them in school? Are you doing some research that requires their thoughts?

JB has put in a good word for Richards. Let me put in a good word for Leavis. Leavis practically by himself resurrected DH Lawrence from obscurity and initiated what would be a body of Lawrence criticism that for a while was only rivaled by criticism on Joyce. (Of course I'm talking of literature in English here.) Leavis went on to put forth that Joyce and Lawrence were two sides of a modernist coin, Joyce evolving out of the classical tradition and Lawrence out of the Romantic tradition. Leavis was also incredibly influential in defining the modernist literary movement, putting TS Eliot at its heart. At least that's me going on my memory.

[LitNetIsGreat]

May I ask Neely why you are interested in Leavis and Richards? Are you being asked to read them in school? Are you doing some research that requires their thoughts?

Oh no reason really, not for university anyway, I just keep coming across them in reference but I have not read them directly myself. I realise that they were influential figures in "New Criticism" or in "Liberal Humanism" as it is sometimes termed and wanted to investigate further but was unsure of their relevance as applicable today. I think for the recommendations I will just read something by each of them, as I said I found Richards on an online archive anyway. Thanks for your help.

[Virgil]

Well, that's interesting. If you have access to a good research library, you should be able to find the works of many of these guys. Of course usually the only place to have access to a research library is at a university. I'm lucky in that New York City has a good reseaserch library as part of their public library system, but it's not conveniently near where I live. I haven't been there in years. They should put a lot of this online. There is no commercial value to the works of Richards and Leavis and other such critics older than 50 years. It would be great to explore their thoughts through the internet. I would imagine though it takes time and money for someone to scan it all in.

By the way, if you haven't done a search on Leavis here's wiki's entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._R._Leavis

[LitNetIsGreat]

Yes I have been reading about them all thanks. I do have access to the University's libraries which is quite an advantage, though I tend not to take anything out of them due to the short loan system, I read them there or take notes. I can get some books for longer period because I am a part-time student (for the past five years) but not many. Anyway I have found the Practical Criticism as archived here if you are interested (let me know if the link is against copyright or anything, I'm sure it's not though):

http://www.archive.org/stream/practicalcritici030142mbp

Thanks again.

[vagantes]

It might be better if the two critics were considered apart from each other which might help to arrive at a better understanding.

However, let me begin by saying that both men were interested in teaching people how to read. Their main idea was to concentrate on the text without being side-tracked by considerations about the author's personality.

Richards proposed a quasi-scientific approach that analysed the texts in an unemotional as way as possible. His book Practical Criticism consists of a large number of evaluative exercises performed by various readers which were then commented on by Richards in ways which illustrated the disorganisation of their critical procedures. This became a way of teaching English Literature at undergraduate level. Most English Universities in the fifties and sixties would routinely provide students with short pieces of poetry or prose on which to comment in class with no clues as to origin.

Leavis (who I knew and who taught me in the sixties) valued Literature as a means of providing moral and cultural perspectives which he saw as the business of education. Like Ruskin he wanted to know whether or not the experience of reading had done the reader good rather than had he or she enjoyed it. He and his followers made their name through a small magazine called Scrutiny which was a quarterly publication that flourished in the thirties and forties before coming to an end in the fifties. If you can get hold of some of the essays from this magazine they are well worth reading for their critical insights on the canon. He published a number of influential book which can easily be found and are well worth reading.

Both of these critics were revolutionaries who made literary criticism into something more rigorous than it had been.

The problem with both these approaches is that they try as they might the reader does interpose himself between the writer and the text and thus literature becomes once again a matter of subjective opinion. Leavis's approach was also considered elitist which was rather ironic in view of his historical position.

It should be remembered that the study of English Literature at University level only became a reality after the First World War and to a certain extent the subject was a replacement for what was once called a classical education It therefore became part of the "Modern Movement".

The importance of Matthew Arnold in terms of Literary criticism is that he was a precursor of this way of thinking as his essays treat Literature as a serious subject to be discussed and considered. I would recommend Culture and Anarchy as the place to begin before moving on to his other work. He is, of course, a first rate poet whose works should be read for themselves.

Reference Leavis: though he is considered a first class critic I always found that his wife's work to be far superior, especially on the Victorians. Again you can look up Q D Leavis and search out her work which is very rewarding.

[LitNetIsGreat]

Thanks for your thoughts and advice Vagantes, pretty impressive that you knew and was taught by Leavis too.

[vagantes]

Richards's methods have always intrigued me. However, in this age of google his experiments are rather difficult to reproduce as it is reasonably simple to identify particular pieces for analysis which does tend to undermine the honesty of the valuation process.

Some of you might care to write responses to a particular piece of writing which was recently in the public eye.

I am referring to the inauguration poem "Praise Song for the Day" by Elizabeth Alexander which was heard by a worldwide audience and can be easily accessed as text.

One influential newspaper critic in the UK commented as follows:

He began by saying he was puzzled why Kay Ryan (the official laureate) had been overlooked and wondered whether it was because Alexander was a professor in the department of African American studies at Yale.

This accusation of political correctness is of course bad critical practice as it ignores the text.

The critique then disparaged Alexander further by saying that she intoned the poem and then continued by saying that it was dull, flat and ordinary ending in shallow philosophical speculation.

My response to the the first hearing of the poem on television was that it was fit for purpose and that its ordinariness struck the right note in these times of revulsion at excess.

On reading the poem, however, I wondered why about its structure and whether or not it was meant to have links with Plain Song which would invest the poem with religious significance.

I would be interested in readers' responses to this public piece following the spirit of I A Richards.

[LitNetIsGreat]

That would be an interesting idea, however I think that poem has already been discussed in another thread (poetry section) maybe you could use a short unknown extract at random for the same purpose, people won’t cheat?

I have been reading the Practical Criticism it is quite interesting hearing completely contrasting views on the same unseen poem, I would have thought the same would still apply if done today.

[JBI]

Richards's methods have always intrigued me. However, in this age of google his experiments are rather difficult to reproduce as it is reasonably simple to identify particular pieces for analysis which does tend to undermine the honesty of the valuation process.

Some of you might care to write responses to a particular piece of writing which was recently in the public eye.

I am referring to the inauguration poem "Praise Song for the Day" by Elizabeth Alexander which was heard by a worldwide audience and can be easily accessed as text.

One influential newspaper critic in the UK commented as follows:

He began by saying he was puzzled why Kay Ryan (the official laureate) had been overlooked and wondered whether it was because Alexander was a professor in the department of African American studies at Yale.

This accusation of political correctness is of course bad critical practice as it ignores the text.

The critique then disparaged Alexander further by saying that she intoned the poem and then continued by saying that it was dull, flat and ordinary ending in shallow philosophical speculation.

My response to the the first hearing of the poem on television was that it was fit for purpose and that its ordinariness struck the right note in these times of revulsion at excess.

On reading the poem, however, I wondered why about its structure and whether or not it was meant to have links with Plain Song which would invest the poem with religious significance.

I would be interested in readers' responses to this public piece following the spirit of I A Richards.

I'm yet to read or hear a positive review from anyone in Canada I have talked to. So far, three of my 6 professors have taken a few minutes to mock the poem, and remark on Obama's weak choice of poet - even fans of Alexander's other work. The newspapers printed her off as a dull flop, and even questioned why there should be an inaugural poet, and went as far as to suggest such a thing defeats the purpose of poetry (which I agree).

I think the responses would have been far harsher had it not been that moment, over another. In truth, the only reason it may receive a lukewarm acceptance is because it had to "appeal to the ordinary, and be general", when most critics agree, it was dull, meaningless, unbelievably juvenile, and read without any emotion whatsoever, defeating the purpose of the poem.


Overall, I think Leavis and Richards are quite dated - I wouldn't recommend Practical criticism to anyone who is interested in improving their writing skills, as it takes too much space for pointless (or pointless now anyway) discussion of psychology. Leavis is another matter, and I'll say this - I really cannot accept his method of reading towards finding morals. I find that the silliest form of reading - reading towards finding "meaning" or morality, to create a fundamental morality within the person is perhaps the silliest way to see reading. It leads to the championing of great books, but takes away from their greatness by reducing them to a moral lesson. His work on Eliot seems important enough, in terms of the history of Eliot criticism, but really, his Eliot work, despite its quote that generally makes it to the back of volumes of Eliot's poetry, is rather basic, and dated - there are greater studies, on both specific poems of his, and the complete works.

I think though, that if one is trying to gather a history of criticism as a whole, neither of these guys will be left out. On the other hand, if someone is trying to get a sense of criticism and theory as a study, and means of writing criticism and theory, these guys are quite dated, and work more as historical than as useful figures. Yes, Richards did help create a vocabulary, which we are indebted to, but he also is essentially taken for granted today: close reading has become a practice, and I'm not so sure we really need to go to its roots to understand it - there are far more useful books in teaching how to close-read, and in fact, Richards may hamper as much as it would perhaps help, given the way the book is written.

[vagantes]

The point of an inaugural poem is that it is a public work to celebrate a public event. As such it depends(almost) upon the impact it makes when it is heard. What it is interesting is that reader response is both vast and immediate without preconceived bias. The critic in the UK and others are misreading the poem, by loading the piece with their own prejudices which was precisely Richards's point.

That is why both Richards and Leavis are important figures beyond their place in the history of criticism. They were trying to teach readers how to respond to a piece of literature and to say why they responded by reference to the text.

Close reading is a merely a technique which came out of this method.

It would be remarkably blinkered not to read Leavis and Richards if only because of the sheer enjoyment that you can get from their writings as they go about their work of debunking some of the mystique about Literature.

And as Horace said the purpose of writing is both to delight and instruct.