The Living Principle: 'English' As a Discipline of Thought

Rating:
Summary: First-rate intelligence in literary criticism
Review: F. R. Leavis said of T. S. Eliot that he was that rare thing: a first-rate intelligence in literary criticism. The compliment is truer of Leavis himself. But first-rate intelligence in literary criticism being a rare thing, it isn't always recognised as such. Now that literary criticism itself is an increasingly rare thing, superseded by the second-hand clichés of "Theory", misrepresentations of and hostility to Leavis's work have, since his death in 1978, become routine.

Leavis could certainly be clear, even forceful, in his judgements; but the notion that he regarded his views as unarguably true conflicts with both his "theory" and his practice: he knew that intellectual and cultural life was a collaborative enterprise which involved "the creative play of differences" and even "strong disagreements". He set out to present his own judgements clearly - and, crucially, to support them with argument and analysis - so that informed critical debate was enabled. It was a more intellectually honest procedure than the kind of sweeping assertions that often pass for criticism of his work from people who show little sign of having actually read him.

The claim that Leavis refused to defend his critical standards is refuted by ample evidence in his writings, and no-one familiar with his life and work could suppose that he was "never courageous enough" to do so. He was more interested in discussing the specifics of actual works of literature than in "literary theory"; nevertheless he often sought to clarify in more abstract terms what he took the business of criticism to be. That slippery term "ideological" is sometimes used as a club with which to beat him, as if he either didn't know or tried to conceal the values and assumptions implicit in his work; but it's easy to see what kind of values informed his criticism. The real difficulty his opponents have is in accepting that those values might be as worthy of serious consideration as their own ideological preconceptions.

'The Living Principle' is one of Leavis's best books but, as a late work, is maybe not one for first-time readers of Leavis to begin with (they should try Revaluation, The Great Tradition and The Common Pursuit). However, the essays on "Judgement and Analysis" in Chapter 2 ought to be essential reading for any student of literature as a demonstration of what the "close reading" of literary texts can achieve. The discursive opening chapter explores Leavis's view of the nature and importance of literary criticism, revealing some of the informing principles of his own critical practice. It's not an easy discourse - he's not an easy writer - but it repays careful reading and reflection. Particularly important is his central argument that creative literature is important as a form of thought, with the challenging corollary that it is different from and superior to philosophy as a form of "thought about life".

The two subsequent chapters reinforce this argument by analysing the particulars of actual literary texts. "Judgement and Analysis", referred to above, is an admirable demonstration of the kind of attentive reading he wanted to encourage in students. The value judgements of the texts under consideration are not offered as "unarguably true", but they are persuasively made precisely because his analyses give the reader a clear idea of why and how he arrives at those judgements. It's not that he expected his readers to accept all of his judgements (he always insisted that a judgement is of its nature personal) but that he wanted them to benefit from the critical process. And this process was never for Leavis a mere technical exercise. He disliked being associated with "Practical Criticism", believing that practical criticism should be "criticism in practice": the discussions of the texts in this book are primarily concerned with the degree of "reality and sincerity" with which the author's writing presents human experience and emotions.

The last chapter is a long and closely argued study of Eliot's 'Four Quartets'. Leavis pays tribute to the originality of the poetry and to Eliot's status as a "major" poet; but argues that the work is radically flawed because it implicitly denies human creativity. It's beyond the scope of this review to describe how he establishes that judgement. But it's characteristic of his quality as a critic that, even when dealing with a text he admired as a major 20th Century work, he brings to it fundamental criticisms based on profound ethical as well as literary criteria. It is something which, as a first rate intelligence in literary criticism, he had the capacity as well as the courage to do.

Rating:
Summary: Historically interesting
Review: To paraphrase A. S. Byatt, Leavis shows us the terrible, magnificent importance and urgency of English literature and simultaneously deprives us of any confidence in our own capacity to contribute to, or change it. This book is a classic example of his style. While Leavis's lack of equivocation is still thrilling, so totalising are his views that we are often left wondering if we even deserve to be thinking about the same issues. The problem with Leavis is not simply that he took a false position with regard to the relationship between culture and literature. The problem is that he, like Matthew Arnold before him, failed to acknowledge the ideological basis for his vision. Despite having aesthetic values which were clearly ideologically-informed, they both treated these values as if they were non-ideological. They saw their aesthetic choices as facts, necessarily ideology-free and non-negotiable. Arnold can be forgiven for such a view, living in the nineteenth century. For Leavis it was a luxury. For us, it is indefensible.

Throughout his life, Leavis steadfastly refused to defend his critical standards because he did not see them as choices which needed defending. Yet a defence of the Leavisite criteria - something which will make this book more meaningful to contemporary readers - can actually be mounted, and John Casey provides one in 'The Language of Criticism' (1966). This defence does not suggest Leavis's views are as unarguably true as he imagined them to be. Rather, it articulates the implied theory of art which underlies them, and thereby opens them up for serious debate: something which Leavis himself was never courageous enough to do.