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by: F. R. Leavis
Amazon.com's Price: $16.95 Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 801
EAN: 9781566631723
ISBN: 1566631726
Label: Ivan R. Dee, Publisher
Manufacturer: Ivan R. Dee, Publisher
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 275
Publication Date: February 25, 1998
Publisher: Ivan R. Dee, Publisher
Sales Rank: 1244400
Studio: Ivan R. Dee, Publisher
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
One of the century's great critics, now back in print. Leavis's central preoccupation here is the nature of thought and language, and the way in which thoughts are expressed in language. Including the famous analysis of Eliot's Four Quartets. With an Introduction by Paul Dean.
Amazon.com Review:
The Living Principle is among the most philosophical of F.R. Leavis's books, a defense of the study of literature as an autonomous discipline involving intellectual rigor of the highest sort. Constant references to the Cambridge University of Leavis's time may make the book seem parochial and dated, but the central premises are still relevant. What has changed? Only that, if Leavis were alive today, he would be defending literature against English departments' trendy intellectual fashions rather than the sneers of philosophers.
Fully a third of The Living Principle is devoted to Leavis's brilliant and irascible engagement with T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets. Other gems include his analysis of exactly why John Dryden's description of Cleopatra in All for Love is so pedestrian next to Shakespeare's in Anthony and Cleopatra. It's a treat to read someone who can talk intelligently about Blake or Dickens in one paragraph, and about Russell or Wittgenstein in the next--without being awed by any of them. --Richard Farr
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating: - First-rate intelligence in literary criticism
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 Now that literary criticism itself is an increasingly rare thing, superseded by the second-hand clich?s of "Theory", misrepresentations of and hostility to Leavis's work have, since his death in 1978, become routine.
Leavis could ... Read More
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