F. R. Leavis

F. R. Leavis
Leavis pictured in his Friends' Ambulance Unit uniform, 1915.
Born
Frank Raymond Leavis

(1895-07-14)14 July 1895
Died14 April 1978(1978-04-14) (aged 82)
Cambridge, England
Known forNew Bearings in English Poetry (1932)
The Great Tradition (1948)
The Common Pursuit (1952)
Two Cultures? The Significance of C. P. Snow (lecture; 1962)
Spouse
(m. 1929)
Children3
Academic background
Alma materEmmanuel College, Cambridge
ThesisThe Relationship of Journalism to Literature (1924)
Influences
Academic work
InstitutionsDowning College, Cambridge
University of York
Influenced

Frank Raymond "F. R." Leavis CH (/ˈlvɪs/ LEE-vis; 14 July 1895 – 14 April 1978) was an English literary critic of the early-to-mid-twentieth century. He taught for much of his career at Downing College, Cambridge, and later at the University of York.

Leavis ranked among the most prominent English-language critics in the 1950s and 1960s.[1] J. B. Bamborough wrote of him in 1963: "it would be true to say that in the last thirty or more years hardly anyone seriously concerned with the study of English literature has not been influenced by him in some way."[2]

According to Clive James, "You became accustomed to seeing him walk briskly along Trinity Street, gown blown out horizontal in his slipstream. He looked as if walking briskly was something he had practised in a wind-tunnel."[3]

  1. ^ Dooley, David (Summer 1995). "Review: Bloom and the Canon". The Hudson Review. 48 (2): 333. doi:10.2307/3851832. JSTOR 3851832.
  2. ^ Bamborough, J. B. (25 October 1963). "The Influence of F.R. Leavis". The Spectator.
  3. ^ James, Clive (2009) [1990]. May Week Was In June: More Unreliable Memoirs. London: Picador, 57.