The Great Tradition: F.R. Leavis and the Shaping of English Literature
Frank Raymond Leavis: A Critical Influence on English Studies
The Great Tradition and Its Controversial Claims
Frank Raymond Leavis exerted a significant influence on the field of English Studies, sparking intense debate along the way. His most controversial work, The Great Tradition (1948), offers a critical examination of English fiction. The book’s opening declaration, “The great English novelists are Jane Austen, George Eliot, Henry James and Joseph Conrad,” immediately sets the stage for controversy.
Leavis’s Vision of Education Through Literature
Leavis believed in education through literature, arguing that cultural standards could be maintained through teaching. He saw universities as “recognized symbols of cultural tradition.” According to Robertson’s The Leavises of Fiction, Leavis focused on novelists rather than poets because they depicted individual lives within their social contexts.
Fundamental Features of The Great Tradition
Following in the footsteps of Mathew Arnold and George Eliot, Leavis argued that literature should be judged as an expression of life’s complex moral reality. Several key features characterize his approach:
- Emphasis on Theme over Form: Leavis prioritized subject matter (theme) over form, believing that human experience was the richest material for a novelist.
- Realism and Correspondence with Life: He stressed the importance of a novel’s air of reality and its connection to life, while also acknowledging the significance of aesthetics, style, and technique.
- Moral Significance without Didacticism: Leavis argued that a novel should carry moral significance without being a disguised moral essay.
The Great Novelist and Impersonal Art
Leavis believed that great novelists arose from an intense personal fidelity to reality, achieving a vision uninfluenced by personal bias. He illustrated this concept by comparing and contrasting poems by Wordsworth, Tennyson, Shelley, Blake, and others. He argued that a poem achieved impersonality when the poet’s thought controlled their emotional life, resulting in a sincere and mature evocation of reality.
Leavis used D.H. Lawrence’s Rainbow, Women in Love, and Sons and Lovers to exemplify impersonality, arguing that Lawrence’s maturity allowed him to transform personal experience into art.
Defending Human Values in a Technological Age
One of Leavis’s core convictions was that significant writers defend human values against the dehumanizing forces of technology.
Leavis and New Criticism
Leavis is considered a leading figure in New Criticism, a movement emphasizing close reading. He encouraged readers to analyze every detail of a novel, from language and characters to irony, understanding how the novelist structured these elements to create meaning.
The Novel as a Dramatic Poem
Leavis viewed the novel as a dramatic poem, where meaning arises from the novelist’s dramatic methods and poetic evocation of language within the narrative.
Leavis’s Influence on Literary Criticism
Leavis’s critical approach encouraged readers to actively engage with texts and develop their own interpretations. Terry Eagleton, a prominent literary critic, argued that Leavis’s belief in “essential Englishness” contributed to a shift in class dynamics within English culture, favoring certain writers over others.
The Interrelation of Literature and Criticism
Literature and criticism are intertwined, with literary works reflecting, considering, or opposing the spirit of their age. Each era interprets past literature through the lens of the present, as seen in the feminist re-readings of D.H. Lawrence’s work.
Evelyn Waugh: A World in Decline
A Handful of Dust and Brideshead Revisited
In The Situation of the Novel, Bergonzi examines the fiction of Evelyn Waugh and Anthony Powell. Waugh’s detachment and nostalgia for a vanished world under pressure from a rapidly changing civilization contributed to his success as a major novelist.
The Impact of War and the Landscape of Ruins
The two World Wars and their aftermath left a lasting impact on Waugh’s work. Much of the literature of the late 1940s and early 1950s reflects the post-war landscape of ruins. Brideshead Revisited, for example, portrays a lost world and culture, highlighting the enduring power of the past on the social imagination.
Catholicism and the Decline of Tradition
Catholicism pervades Brideshead Revisited, culminating in Lord Marchmain’s deathbed repentance. The dismemberment and decay of Brideshead symbolize the broader corruption of modern life. Characters like Hooper and Rex Mottram are judged against the moral and aesthetic standards of the past.
A Handful of Dust and the Aristocracy
In A Handful of Dust, the aristocracy, particularly Catholic aristocrats, are portrayed as guardians of traditional values in a world threatened by encroaching modernity.
Themes and Symbols in Waugh’s Work
- Nostalgia for a Vanished World: Waugh’s works often express a longing for a lost era of order and stability.
- The Country House as a Symbol of Decay: The decline of the country house represents the erosion of traditional values and the destructive forces of modernity.
- Themes of Nursery and Schoolroom: Characters like Sebastian (with his teddy bear) and Tony (with his boyhood treasures) embody a yearning for the innocence and security of childhood.
- The Waste Land and the Emptiness of Modern Life: The title A Handful of Dust alludes to T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Waste Land,” highlighting the emotional emptiness of the modern world.
Waugh’s Satire and Social Commentary
Waugh’s fiction often employs mockery, black humor, and satire to critique the rising middle classes, as seen in the opening chapter of Brideshead Revisited.
Outstanding Features of Waugh’s Work:
Waugh’s distinctive style and social commentary solidified his place as a major figure in 20th-century literature.