F. R. Leavis Essays

  • Analysis of F.r Leavis' "The Great Tradition"

    501 Words  | 2 Pages

    Within F.R Leavis' The Great Tradition, Leavis presents clear and consistent criticism. Although his points are definitely biased, and I don't agree with all the statements he makes, it is evident in this work that Leavis is indeed great at articulating and embodying the authors that he both envies and adores so much. Within The Great Tradition, Leavis is purposefully evaluative of certain writers. It is clear that he holds individuality, and the appreciation of life, high on his list of criteria

  • F. R Leavis 'Chapter 5, Found': Chapter Summary

    1288 Words  | 3 Pages

    This discussion will explore F.R. Leavis's description of Hard Times as a ‘moral fable' by closely looking at Book the Third, Chapter 5, ‘Found’. It will show an analysis of the characters used in the chapter and the part they play in the scene. It will look at the plot and structure, along with the style and language that had been used. There will an exploratory into other work of Dickens and a comparison to other authors in the era. In Chapter 5, Found, of Book third Mr. Bounderby is shocked

  • Culture Is Ordinary, by Raymond Williams

    1076 Words  | 3 Pages

    would be his culture. He starts his article with simply giving a definition according to his understanding by telling what is and is not culture, and continues with the reasons he doesn’t agree with some of Marxist ideas of culture, and that of F. R. Leavis’. While giving reasons for his disagreements, he gives solid examples from both people he knows and doesn’t know. Culture is something that is alive, moving. It is not something that some people have and some don’t. It is not only what is seen

  • Othello's Nature Analysis

    1401 Words  | 3 Pages

    question. We can also see this at the start of the play, Othello states ‘And I loved her that she did pity them’. Othello only claims to ‘love’ Desdemona because she pities his hardships inn war. That is not true, ever-lasting love. .Overall, Critic F.R Leavis states that it is not merely Iago’s devilish tricks which cause the tragedy in Othello, It was Othello himself was essentially faulty. This idea supports my hypothesis as Othello’s own lack of judgment causes his downfall in that he chooses to trust

  • Oliver Twist Character Analysis

    898 Words  | 2 Pages

    All around Oliver Twist, Dickens reprimands the Victorian stereotype of the poor as lawbreakers from conception. Oliver Twist is loaded with mixed up, accepted, and changed personalities. Oliver joins his last local scene by accepting yet an alternate character. Once the riddle of his true personality is uncovered, he rapidly trades it for an alternate, getting to be Brownlow's embraced child. After the entire whine and the overly complex tricks to disguise Oliver's personality, it is humorous that

  • New Criticism

    1255 Words  | 3 Pages

    programmatic coherence than from the practical appeal of a characteristic way of reading. The theoretical differences among the critics commonly described as New Critics( I. A. Richards, William Empson, F. R. Leavis, Kenneth Burke, John Crowe Ransom, Allen Tate, Yvor Winters, Cleanth Brooks, R. P. Blackmur, W. K. Wimsatt, Jr., René Wellek,) are sometimes so great as to leave little ground for agreement. As much as they abhorred the new "scientism" that passed for authority in the modern era

  • TS Eliot’s Portrait of a Lady and Dialogism

    1258 Words  | 3 Pages

    TS Eliot’s Portrait of a Lady and Dialogism There seems to be an air of paradox in bringing a theory on the novel as a genre and the most famous Anglo-American modernist poet as a whole. Mikhail Bakhtin’s seminal study of ‘Discourse in the Novel’, written in 1934-35, and finally appearing in English translation in 1981, offers us an account of the difference between ‘poetic discourse’ and ‘novelistic discourse’. The division is not strictly a difference in to the novel and the poetry as genres

  • Heart of Darkness: Psychoanalytic Criticism

    4505 Words  | 10 Pages

    Polly Vedder. Vol. 4. Detroit: Gale, 1992. 789-92. Hughs, Richard E. The Lively Image: Four Myths in Literature. Cambridge, MA: Winthrop Publishers, 1975. Karl, Frederick R. “A Reader’s Guide To Joseph Conrad.” World Literature Criticism. Ed. Polly Vedder. Vol. 4. Detroit: Gale, 1992. 785-9. Leavis, F. R. “From The Great Tradition.” A Practical Reader in Contemporary Literary Theory. London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1996. 246-7 Mudrick, Marvin. “The Originality of Conrad.” World

  • The Breakdown of Sympathy for Othello

    1976 Words  | 4 Pages

    way that Shakespeare establishes pity for Othello throughtout the play, even in his lowest moments as a character, and it is the lack of this in Tis Pity She’s A Whore that means the audience loses any sense of pathos by the end of the play. F. R. Leavis discusses the breakdown of sympathy for Othello, arguing that ‘Othello is too stupid to be regarded as a tragic hero’. Other critics also argue that Shakespeare ‘fully exploits the unique cultural opportunity to develop a more complex and sympathetic

  • Analyzing Iago's Power and Self-Destruction in Othello

    1428 Words  | 3 Pages

    singlehandedly manipulated its action. More importantly, the whole play is centered on his revenge and willingness to make other people's lives miserable. Without his existence, Othello and Desdemona might have secured there happily ever after. F. R. Leavis asserts that a lot of attention tends to be paid for him while he is subordinate and merely ancillary. I wholeheartedly disagree since this is the only play that Shakespeare wrote where a "supporting role" dominates so much of the stage. As a matter

  • Moby Dick and Don Quixote as Self-Conscious Novels

    3451 Words  | 7 Pages

    Moby Dick and Don Quixote as Self-Conscious Novels: The Issue of Language and Artifacts Writing against the grain of F. R. Leavis’s conception of English novel, expounded in his The Great Tradition, Robert Alter writes “the other great tradition,” as he suggests tongue-in-cheek in the preface to his Partial Magic. Leavis introduces the criterion of “seriousness” to the studies of English novel, keeping out of his story a whole line of novelists that do not meet the proposed expectations. Alter establishes

  • Althusser Critical Criticism

    2198 Words  | 5 Pages

    Chapter Five Contemporary Literary Theory and Culture The main aim of this study is to identify and evaluate Althusser’s thoughts on art, literature and criticism so as to determine his position as a literary critic in the context of Marxist literary theory and criticism. Apart from his socio-political and economic thoughts, Althusser, as we observe, possesses the significant attributes of a literary critic. The close analysis of this study opens up a number of possibilities for the new identification

  • Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Escape From an Oppressive Society

    6234 Words  | 13 Pages

    overcrowded and unsanitary slave ships. They were sold like cattle to the highest bidder, an inhumane and despicable act that America, land of the free and home of the brave, allowed to happen... ... middle of paper ... ...1997. 14-17. Leavis, F. R. "Viewpoints." Twentieth Century Interpretations of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall Inc., 1968. 109-11. Mailloux, Steven. "Reading Huckleberry Finn." New Essays on Huckleberry Finn. New York: Cambridge

  • A Comparison of Charles Dickens and Jane Austen

    2442 Words  | 5 Pages

    A Comparison of Charles Dickens and Jane Austen ADVANCED ENGLISH LANGUAGE ESSAY Of the many authors to emerge during the nineteenth-century, Charles Dickens and Jane Austen were among the few who would make a lasting impression on the literary world for generations. Hard Times, often referred to as Dickens’ ‘Industrial novel’ and Austen’s Pride and Prejudice have been much read and well-loved classics for many years. It is the purpose of this essay to compare and contrast the different

  • A Critical Note on New Historicism

    2753 Words  | 6 Pages

    Introduction: The records of literary criticism and theory are almost as old as literature itself. As known, literary criticism is a sort of mental exercise of evaluating, classifying, analyzing, interpreting, judging, and valuing the literary art. This indicates that criticism also includes creative skill to comprehend the literary artist’s work first, and then put forward one’s valid view. In this sense, it is really ‘meta-literature’. The world’s successful critics and theorists are only the renowned

  • Animal’s People by Indra Sinha

    2977 Words  | 6 Pages

    Language through Names and Naming in Animal’s People “For his sort we are not really people. We don’t have names” (Sinha 9). In the second chapter of Animal’s People, its protagonist Animal talks about eyes, eyes that fill the darkness, that appear whichever way he looks, and look for things to see. He says eyes come whenever he starts talking, they quietly watch and patiently wait, and then settle like flies on the pictures that are born from everything he says. “In this crowd of eyes I am trying

  • History of English Literature

    4592 Words  | 10 Pages

    History of English Literature I. INTRODUCTION English literature, literature written in English since c.1450 by the inhabitants of the British Isles; it was during the 15th cent. that the English language acquired much of its modern form. II. The Tudors and the Elizabethan Age The beginning of the Tudor dynasty coincided with the first dissemination of printed matter. William Caxton's press was established in 1476, only nine years before the beginning of Henry VII's reign. Caxton's achievement