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The Messiah of Modernism: F. R. Leavis (1895-1978) Author(s): George Watson Reviewed work(s): Source: The Hudson Review, Vol. 50, No. 2 (Summer, 1997), pp. 227-241 Published by: The Hudson Review, Inc Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3852750 . Accessed: 02/04/2012 02:09
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GEORGE

WATSON

The F.R.

Messiah Leavis

of

Modernism:

(1895-1978)

as one who agile and burnished, the By his fifties, when I first knew him, his bald brown head was ringed an tonsure, by a natural conferring undeniable air of dedication, even a touch of the monkish, and his face was always marked In fact I could not by a severe reserve. Even loved age sun. confidently say that I ever features ill-constructed looked it was repeating tense and a final in obsessive, phrase on saw with Leavis some smile, purpose. striking intonation: the and As for "... his the narrow voice, like in any for the a rising

in old

he

looked

mannerisms

way, any intelligible way," syllable intelligible being His per? uttered with an intensity that was almost intimidating. in order to be elaborately constructed to sonality appeared with words like "central" and "necessary" being used with impress, Proud of his French a cold finality that settled all debate. accent, in the French like Proust he always pronounced names way? to disparage, usually were insular. It would you often why his arguments that have however, since his loyalties from first to last

last

be misleading a bottled sensed were

was bullying. But to say that his manner which explains anger ready to explode, in committee?a answered fact so seldom

In him to think them unanswerable. may encouraged as if only he could be aggressively forgiving, private conversation could be expected from you, for past wrongs an abject apology unctuous at times, of manner, almost sweetness and a crucified He to have suffered for his beliefs. made an implicit claim less. By his middle submission, years he had nothing who were of an age near his own, since they shed all the friends too high to pay, and knew the price of his friendship had found demanded who of a younger generation, only disciples He was the messiah, and never contradicted. and a prophet. a leader Modernism, seldom by then, interrupted of literary

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When

it comes in be

to messiahs them in the or not.

there

is no middle unbeliever Leavis. a fault for of F.R.

only embarrassment fortable to committed.

believe

As an

way, and you can I felt a natural It is never one has not com?

company

forgiven, especially yet is a report, the charmed outside then, composed as from a bystander. I may have But for that very reason circle, missed a good deal. To be inside could be an it, beyond doubt, Leavis did not seem a dry, self-important exciting experience. little man to everyone. There were those who openly avowed he This that in only enthusiasm little for being in literary studies at all, and when or collapsed, as it inevitably did, they were but the sad realization that they had been interested faded reason

was their left with

Leavis rather than in literature. "When Leavis read poetry a lecture," one disciple has written, "it could seem as if for during the moment the world stopped." That, in the glory days, was how it had felt to be a Leavisite. L.C. Knights, who in 1932 was to become began the from first editor first of Scrutiny, has when told Leavis No one how read at their very meeting, discipleship to him such All of an a

passage Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. there is no arguing with the mystery moments; which leaves the historian at a loss. Like an historian he is left now Socialism, out of a shade. image The and with the impossible

can explain of charisma.

of National

task of conjuring

it seems charisma, clear, began only in his middle those who knew Leavis before the 1930s knew another to the views eminent of his late father, citizen of Cambridge, who and had

years, being: been

conformist diffident, a prosperous and about his own

modest

attainments. His most admired mentor in personal G.G. Coulton, an elderly youth seems to have been the Reverend historian of the English Middle a disturbingly Ages and hardly radical figure, with whom the young Leavis took bicycle-rides after once told me) day by (so an eyewitness at a respectful distance of several yards. In an written soon after in 1921, he once letter, early graduating confessed to "a singularly which is unprepossessing gaucherie," lunch, following day out of town disarming; and his Cambridge, A wholly (1924). of English periodicals is entitled which lies unpublished in thesis, The Relationship to Literature of Journalism conventional it traces the early evolution piece, from their seventeenth-century origins doctoral Coulton

GEORGE WATSON

229

down

to

Addison

and

card-indexing on forward

young conventional

Steele, historian. lines.

and His In

the it is plainly life continued early the late 1920s he

work

of

to move in taught he married

and in 1929 mainly for women's colleges, Cambridge, Roth. one of his pupils, Queenie and perhaps His first book, He was not precocious. New

his best, he was when in English Poetry (1932), appeared Bearings is a modest work. Its preface forty, and it is a becomingly nearing of loyalty to T.S. Eliot, who by then was so celebrated declaration that he did not need to be to be named. original, the critic "How book and considerations an largely indebtedness I suppose these it is make plain: of as well as personal, little will

the that adding poet," for some years." Which they "commonplaces arguments on Eliot in had long been lecturing had. By 1932 LA. Richards so the odd word "vicarious"; which perhaps explains Cambridge, of as a master is also just. Ending the avowal, modest, though to a master. as a disciple almost deferentially, he began, disciples, had been There like his Western ordinary tradesman is a darker father, Front in side, he had to be sure, to Leavis' early life. A pacifist, on the as a Red Cross served orderly where death later his and mutilation were a well-to-do father, of head in hospital

acknowledgement, to a certain

vicarious

years died instruments, in May after a motorcycling two weeks accident, nearly injuries his final exami? Leavis began 1921, and by a tragic coincidence in the his degree, on the very day of his death, nations achieving of twenty-six. mature first class, a few weeks short of the age sights; in musical to be balanced are only with difficulty griefs private over a long life. By ones that accumulated the imaginary against so much of his own life the time he died, in 1978, in his eighties, task to unpick now a laborious that it is by had been reimagined as poor, He came to think of himself the real from the fictitious. Such a modest in 1921 he had inherited competence though often thirties the depressed and during successful father, himself He convinced than his colleagues. more affluent head at sit like a death's and would had failed, digestion dinners, eating would tell how, as anyone. He Cambridge nothing, out of Cambridge, came to think though though his old of friend he could himself from seemed that his a

1916-18, and three

college

Denys Thompson eat as hearty a dinner as an outsider encouraged to

English,

in his youth

he had been

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Quiller-Couch, by Sir Arthur there. He came to believe,

then

the that

too, him him, or had appointed appoint in Cambridge must have known that faculties came to believe that his friends and even family were enemies, them out of hearing and forbade have them that recently because probably of his wife, who the house. The then

of English only professor the Faculty had failed to he only belatedly, though do not members appoint. of his confided He own to them of Leavis

he sometimes

anathematized

biographies were two in 1995?all more appeared?there or less hagiographical, fail to understand how much of his largely was self-induced. sorrow was no need for him to be so There He lived a prosperous life in the university resolutely unhappy. town where he was born, was hearkened unto and even, by some, revered. No his griefs doubt sincere and were felt. keenly Whether is another matter. they had much substance His resentments rather were little, at once many and genocide, by starvation a year or two late; heroic, in that he persuaded so many granted him that he had narrowly around survived an enormous and an academic concerted and literary establishment persecution by fearful lay of a truth heart other no at the that only he would of his charisma. tell. That No other myth of persecution and critic, literary part of that he it matters would heroic. Petty, because in a tragic century marked say, whether or not academic tenure was petty and

several

perhaps advanced had been

opinion

has ever persuaded a large academic, in his time and against the evidence

in the myth of Leavis' unquestioningly excited interest age by what they said. in his day, excited it by what he was, or rather by what he Leavis, claimed to be. He was the crucified hero of Modernism, and those who denied were worse than opponents. him, in that mythology, of civilization itself. They were the enemies This was the magic circle one choose to enter or might life. Other thinkers of the It has left many accounts. In All Men and playwright, has told Duncan, (1964), poet how, when you were taught by Leavis, you became "conspirators whose aim was to blow up the English Faculty"; and, even better, that you did not have to read much to think you knew you learned obstinately Are Islands Ronald it all, since in the whole of English literature "there are not more remain outside.

persecution a Leavisite

no other ever built a myth of systematically wronged; so successfully into what he uttered and wrote. To be was to believe

GEORGE WATSON

231

of the first quality." Of course freshmen pages like to be told that: discipleship relieved of you of the burdens If you were a Leavisite, there was no need to wear your curiosity. Davie, once shrewdly remarked, eyes out. Another pupil, Donald in Ronald that Leavis' minority Hayman's My Cambridge (1977), culture gathered irreplaceable was modelled charm in on of his the church?a the communion of a tradition English dissenting of saints, no less?and that the

than

a hundred

journal Scrutiny (1932-53) quarterly fact that every issue made you a lay ultimately simple or books or whole of "perhaps a dozen authors present periods of literature and genres which I not only need not, but should not read." in fact, made a life look excitingly he created Leavis, simple; Peter Hall, first director of the National world of easy dismissal. in London, in his Diaries (1983), on hearing once mused Theatre to of his death in April 1978, that as a student you only pretended his in his lectures. "In fact we were enjoying imbibe humanism character great a touch assassinations," adding, could moralist be so destructive that a naively: "Strange about creative artists."

not unparalleled, Certainly At all events Savonarola. by his reputation 1940s, Cambridge souls. In his verse Betjeman, who When I know It was middle had

when you think of Plato and however, achieved a Siberia-style Leavis had and in literary London, by the years; to sound like a distant made tundra of lost Summoned John by Bells (1960), it sound subarctic: comes they're a wind lit,

come

autobiography went there, seldom

To blow

all the way from the lamps out that I must light

Cambridge every time mine

up again.

an outsider in those years, to convince always difficult, Cam? in the life of literary Leavis modest a place played never His within Cambridge, by contrast, disciples bridge. was not local but doubted it, and they were right. His reputation how worldwide. of publicity, and he was a master in part, was because in polemical the world, before his name notably skillfully kept or write books to lecture letters to editors, long after his capacity which Letters in Criticism had waned. (1974), usefully Perhaps That,

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them, will stand to future ages as his most characteristic Two In February attack on C.P. Snow's 1962 his vituperative a Jove thunderbolt from Cultures was a well-calculated (1959) its student arsenal was plainly running low. It embarrassed whose collects work. in Cambridge but sent shock waves through the media, retirement When he reached tabloid age, a few press. teach at the new university of to months later, he was appointed of the United followed his only lecture-tour York, and there In 1965, when a States. But by then the shades were lengthening. audience even the in his called The Cambridge Quarterly was founded periodical with his disciples and his last recriminations followed, honor,1 dozen years were passed in a flurry of personal accusations of bad faith. One of his disciples restrained himself from shouting barely of "Liar, liar," it is said, as he left the room, fresh in the discovery what had known that Leavis for years: was blessed, or many with a creative cursed, memory. So he was. But there are, after all, lies and lies. What are we to call those where the is not offender himself? begins by convincing in any simple and by the time Leavis sense, since convinced himself that what he said was

Fantasy uttered true. never

fertile in self-deception. He had endlessly for scholarly in any case. It was foreign to accuracy, school of LA. Richards he had been reared the whole in, since it smacked of spiritual "I am a partisan of (it was believed) poverty. cared

lying, he had long His mind was

I once heard Richards lecture. "I have literature," say in a public never professed and if I were offered I scholarship, scholarship it." I never heard Leavis say anything not accept would like that, but his whole manner and conduct it, and it is the proclaimed sort of remark, alas, all too likely It makes life look simple audience. It was only after his Cambridge that to endear and easy. retirement itself to a student

in 1962, however, the larger instances of fantasizing became A commit? public. tee set up by Downing to recommend a successor College disbanded at once when he told them, that the unprompted, had assured him he could choose one for himself. In July college 1973 his old collaborator Denys Thompson revealed in a letter to

1 In 1996, The CambridgeQuarterlypublished an F.R. Leavis Special Issue called "Reminiscences and Revaluations" as Vol. XXV, No. 4, on the occasion of the publication of F.R. Leavis:A Life in Criticism Ian MacKillop. by

GEORGE WATSON

233

the

Guardian

that

"we

in composing and Environment (1933), laugh? in Leavis' garden, as he later told me, as they did so. ing together offered there of the decay In other words, the evidences solemnly as Thompson an invention?though, were of literary culture in his published "some of them have remarked letter, cheerfully dissection" since deal Henry Leavis was years In been further That goes a great as genuine pieces." quoted period text of howlers like using a late, revised than careless of James's the excellence to illustrate early style. James a text to compare of a colleague. favorably or to verify a reference as he But it was only in his last as a fabricator. view, a justified sinner. The of a Justified Sinner to commit election

compiled Culture

our

own

advertisements

for

was as likely that all

to think this

hero-villain

he was exposed he was, in his own novel of James Hogg's

he has been believed (1824) The Scottish novel murder. Leavis, religion. agnostic his college who murdered his Like in the

justified was of course him,

Confessions by divine rather

reputations before father style, with and

of Calvinism. a critique had no than people, he was he once a high-minded remarked to

late Victorian

though

great chaplain, that he admired (no doubt) meaning of the of the arts was wholly Victorian, too, a survival above all in its claim Eliot and Matthew Arnold, George once As Henry James of great literature. moral authority Ruskin's garden session." of art, in the Atlantic he finds a sort of delight, view That and up his self-appointed Literature was to be the sums Leavis' view Monthly (1878): of assize-court

"I like religion," emphasis, His view moral seriousness. age of to the said of of a

"Instead He

Victorian, view alive.

to a nicety. task as a critic

in permanent was the last that

As he would

age. religion say, it was central. one might easily come to think, a fib a cause justified, So urgent after all, and the to be saved, world was a whole or two. There to be the commanding of which he held himself culture minority in anything he did. If him, in his own mind, spirit fully justified had in fact shouted the disciple "Liar, liar" after him as he left the as a as impermeable his hide found have he would room, of a great truth, and if for an tank. He was the bearer Sherman his wife, instant he forgot it there were always those about, notably to remind him once of the fact. "India was remarked to a group of admirers, he communist," going "and I sent some of my

was to keep of a religionless

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out pupils loss. When Leavises defiance

it." He was never wrong, never at a they stopped an American Dickensian out that the justly pointed in Dickens the Novelist (1970), had falsely claimed, and in of the

and

that they had always admired record, published a disciple was ready with an answer and a justification. to Leavis, he explained, like novel-writing to his idol D.H. Lawrence, was "the product of a savage pilgrimage" by which ever deeper truths about mankind are explored. If Dickens meant Dickens, Criticism little to Leavis in the preoccupations became an increasingly powerful some years after Leavis' appeared the summer of haps paranoia Dickens did not matter?never because?well, were that is simply "his because then, 1930s, elsewhere." But in the 1940s "Dickens focus." death, That amazing in The Sewanee apologia Review in Per?

1985, and it is characteristically is the one form of mental illness matter mind because in the why. he did. 1930s to Leavis later Some

barefaced.

to be infectious. he did not mattered is no So place, of course when, book he and savage of the Dickens

because

Dickens always admired and with his wife's help, he came to write a whole belatedly about him, even though it was not true and even though others it was not true. Such knew are the ways of the One of Trollope's to the title heroes, pilgrim. according book, view, wrong. knew had an even

to admit evidently, Leavis was entitled

you to say he had

that

years A savage were once

pilgrimage mistaken.

he was right. Leavis, in spite of his many changes of more enviable He knew he had never been gift.

were never views, in the sense of party affiliations, political in his writings, and perhaps for that very reason have prominent sometimes been misunderstood. He has been called a liberal none of his more important date from that critic, though writings His short period in the 1960s when, as an ex-socialist, he tentatively the Liberal supported Party. Much of New Bearings was probably written before he was a socialist, but on present evidence that cannot be established. In the 1930s he sat on a Cambridge committee various shades of left-wing representing opinion, in the Party, and dedicated seats to electing a socialist to represent the university in the House of Commons; but he never seems to have university been a Marxist?rather a socialist in the English tradition of John including days of members of the Communist

GEORGE WATSON

235

Ruskin

and

William

Morris.

but no friend conservative, because he hated economic

By his last years he was some sort of if only of the Conservative Party, and British mem? motorways growth,

of the European common and he ended a long market; bership the modern world and all its works, life in bitter isolation, hating His disciples a sort of Tory Green. might hold any view of public So though affairs or none, he earned view or none. any religious of for himself the title of a social critic, he did so independently any lasting church. The ated. commitment, of his of a dedicated kind, to a party or

radicalism

An open or of inferior and Lord and marquess to me to dress at a faculty

shirt, social

has perhaps personality is no more the mark tieless, than of a gentleman origin an Oxford

been exagger? of an iconoclast

David

Cecil,

grandfather any better.

committee, of a gentleman," which him "the satisfaction with disagreed has been since duelling sounds illegal terribly grand, especially he took of years. Not that he was grand, for hundreds though was a seventeenth-century that an ancestor in the belief pride Huguenot than most duke. He was a man of the middle classes, rather richer

professor never seemed a Tory prime minister, in a bitter exchange Leavis is reported, of a colleague who had to have demanded

his ease, taking whose was a father

successful of a commercially of his colleagues because he lived he derided the garden-suburb ethos, father; and though and in a series of villas all his life in just such a suburb, choice, by he often His poverty, of which of mounting affluence. suggestive illusion. to have been a self-induced seems spoke, how to place him. An early certain be entirely in the New English L. Beevers, critic, Weekly in writing John was only two years old, oddly thought when Scrutiny April 1934, Fascism: not aided one who unwittingly or rather him a fascist, One could not one of full-blooded "the shirted, kind, with its programme of the State and its progressive its exaltation violence, "thin and dilute: more but something altogether as the worst type of bit as sentimental every although back non-creative"?looking a programme to create vigor that never translated reaction to a rural or to preliminary militarism,"

if not convincing. provoking, sources here, along with Allen

England, a passive a creed," evolve That is thoughtitself into action. shared are some there Perhaps Tate and the Southern Agrarians

and, watery . . Fascism,. "the but without

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of the never called

1930s have

in the American marched to

critical drum. been

tradition. He was

But Leavis for

would a pre-

he bitterly in short, he hated the Industrial technicologico-Benthamism: and its alleged effects. Perhaps he was a Green Revolution cultural the Greens before ever thought of having a party. But if they had England he would His probably style, which have has found often a reason been for not joining it. was an almost denigrated,

industrial

any before it had

nostalgic ruined by what

blend of the assertive and the evasive. The claims look unique bold and large, but they often dwindle if you into the nebulous them. A single instance examine will serve, and it is classic. One Novelist a passionate Lawrence, (1955), attack on T.S. Eliot for having eulogy, thought too little of Lawrence, Leavis concludes, whose genius, "manifests itself in an infallible of judgement" with "an unfailingly centrality ends books, with a bitter sure that when that and that their sense which of the difference makes between it ..." that which That makes for life and against it. Infallible, you think about Lawrence was always right: an implausible claim, evidently, one open to easy derision. But look again, and you will see it was not Lawrence's that were infallible but judgements The school or rather of Scrutiny of all texts such be seen at all. a is impressively devious, at first glance, mean might of his last D.H.

So what does central mean? centrality. itself on its close reading of texts, prided the master's. You were banished except question; as an open The and as for "that which makes confession

if you asked for life," it would

last words

of insensitivity to question the phrase of the book are darkly and richly gnomic:

I speak as one who, when years ago Mr Eliot wrote in The Criterion of the frightful consequences that might have ensued if Lawrence 'had been a don at Cambridge, "rotten and rotting others" ', was widely share the supposed?at Cambridge, anyway, where it mattered?to honor of the intention with Lawrence. That writing is the sort In of sentence fact that gave Leavis the reputation of it is a cleverly boast of some disguised it looks as if Eliot had attacked the reading

badly. At first importance. if so. In young Leavis, all those years ago in the 1930s. Impressive, fact it merely claims that Eliot was "widely supposed" to have done whether the supposition was true or false. so, and it is not revealed Cambridge mattered, no doubt, because Leavis lived and worked

GEORGE WATSON

237

there. of

So though

Eliot

having thought outcome was much Such

may not have him important as if he had. claims them had look

done enough

Leavis to

be

the signal honor the attacked,

evidence, one disprove attack when

self-aggrandizing which makes that

stand

of the reach beyond all the more adroit. How could

far

Leavis the target of Eliot's thought people read The Criterion} By a subtle trick of suggestion, they in the line of victims Leavis places himself like an expert attorney, his hero Lawrence and in the path of fire of the most beside presump? age. It is not just the enormous but the skill by which leaves one gasping, of Leavis is veiled. This was the one aspect that presumption He was a great underrated. was consistently which in his lifetime celebrated tion critic of the of the passage that Those who thought stylist. missed the diction crabbed ever had much whether, to doubtful to human convince fountain say that in a lifetime him point was a potent thinker cursed and altogether. It is doubtful by if he it is

his own, genuinely he ever added of writing, with that and

But he was artist enough knowledge. for years and for decades, thousands, truth. of irreplaceable the illusions had grown thick

a particle to words he was a A

By the last years before few months Companion congratulation. an unsigned with was contempt addressed on

a in January his death, 1978, when wrote to him, as I did, in LA. Richards of Honour, had I had no reply, and expected none; Richards "We repudiate that read simply letter one-sentence from any approach himself Leavis by you." In Mrs. and delivered Leavis' hand, it and one was by hand, but it leaves later Leavis

menacing. he became

Richards, now with dead, plating they and

amused, it, was merely receiving a blank sense of waste. A few months his widow survived letter him which, that

writings, unsigned one is left with the undying have composed together, to will reduced of an extravagant of a self-tortured being, image of the mind that could take It is hard to conceive mere tetchiness. at it defies any attempt from such an act, and though satisfaction must justification, There some explanation must be attempted.

by only three years. like many of their

Contem?

of Leavis' are two aspects and at the are seldom mentioned, them briskly and in brief. outline

life which, being unpalatable, I shall callous risk of seeming

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One

is that,

from

his middle found her conventional

years, alarming,

he was afraid

of his wife.

good many people for is not a matter have called her

the embodiment

she had right. A bitter woman, and became a lack of academic promotion her husband's pleasure in

myself, including Leavis is reported to mockery. of passionate which sounds will, been profoundly disappointed by

so this

of jealous increasingly to take no fame, and by her last years she appeared in the mortification of others. Of emi? life except

she had been expelled Jewish family in London, nently Orthodox on marrying out and formally declared and though the dead, was acrid. In his was close and lifelong, its atmosphere marriage last years Denys Thompson used to say it was rather like having a circular do so, saw in the since him she didn't his his and would at the world to house. She did not instant the obedience for what her?"And was nag him or have and unfailing. cause But to she to

nagged to do) reply," editor even

it had

done allegedly editor didn't repeat forbade

(or failed

say, and

he would

my reply"?she publish and she held court to her unending children, open and personal One simply or to had to listen literary opinions. leave. All that helps to explain the world had no way of something at the time, when Leavis in public sounded like a understanding fearless He was more like the Cowardly Lion in The prophet. Wizard ofOz. If you never win an argument at home, after all, you are bound to want to win one when you are out of the house. A reminded blood who had colleague her of a small brought boy 'You up children home coming should see is that once from the other told school me he with

publish your "And the obediently him his friends and

female

on his face, shouting, The other truth, no less was bored this with is not

Leavis

saddening, literature. for interest

guys." by his middle years life it is one

Again, common should What

a matter when

be painful and even insoluble. It is not usually to change in one's forties, and easy, possible, profession the situation cries out for a displacement of some kind. yet activity Some academics in which Leavis never go into administration, or even showed the faintest ability or interest: in fact he was inclined, on

being The dilemma

age, perhaps it happens than when it does not. is there, after all, that an active and intelligent presumption should continue with the same interest for half a century? can

enough be less surprised

to lose

mockery. by middle

In academic and

GEORGE WATSON

239

to turn a committee, Some to resign. failed, had neither Leavis, who of cultivating

a literary seminar that and, when to make money, a life for which Leavis try nor inclination; some turn to pleasure. aptitude to himself in the sense had no such options, turned

it into

his reputation it against rival critics by and guarding He became the keeper of the Leavis cult: a destructive comment in that its god was its and perhaps curious religion unique and Lionel its prophet could its priest. not There could be no other be mentioned gods in his presence: if they were not Edmund told a to he once

Trilling he was a dangerous rival; Cambridge so was everybody evil, were buffoons; Wilson's qualifications "We doubt lecture-audience. talk about to talk

prophet but he.

colleagues, else. "We doubt Dickens," Wilson's

about Edmund

qualifications We suggests The pontifical how far he any literature." how little, by the absence of argument had left reality behind; and executioner. then, he cared for it. He was judge, jury like books. If you But then he did not, by then, spoke admiringly of an author he would contemptuous silence. an embattled recreations look or, if the His lectures

was his wife, fall into speaker were about himself?imaginative had the him been due the first to notice or T.S. Eliot

that

a great poet, how veneration of D.H. Lawrence, traduced him and

of a past life: how he Henry James was a great novelist the world had failed in lamentably how then a friend had him once have had allowed "He of Oxford, should the told world how betrayed no right of emerged it called

or an editor

W.W. Robson reply. One early admirer, from a meeting scornfully: remarking I Am a Great Critic." Meanwhile Why blow the whistle on some of his claims. C. Day Lewis, soon to be Poet Laureate, in the 1920s Maurice freshman Oxford

In The Buried Bowra had

to begun (1960), Day when he was an

"urged me to Dr to Dr Leavis, read The Waste Land at a time when, according to have in any English Leavis was the only teacher university to avoid the of T.S. Eliot." It was difficult the genius acknowledged voice of Leavis in those postwar years: but did you have to believe it? in reputation, man, however exploded in those sad last he had to teach. and even in retirement Often, his to say, he would fall silent during at a loss for something years, William him read a short poem I once heard own lectures. by to be "There is nothing to his audience: Blake and then remark He was still a famous said about this, nothing." His classrooms were not empty only

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THE HUDSON REVIEW

because glum. Harvard he

he was celebrated, but those who had turned the 1950s a volcano By in the mid-1960s no about more for than former was accounted dull friends he diatribes and

came

looked and

bored

and to since

extinct,

his visit

a disappointment, punctuated

uttered of out

reflections editor more When

Scrutiny, of him than he died

example, he had."

colleagues. remarked merely: of disciples sanctioned. noticed committed

by bitter Of the first "We whose The got lives Cam?

he left a shrinking had come to little, or litde he would of his influence began long before for Oxford, bridge. unorthodox admirers as the interest 1970s, itself which in the had

band have some

decline

it was

outside

example, like F.W. Bateson was

and W.W.

if slightly Robson as late

in literary longer like India and Australia. Louis fresh English reviews

after Cambridge had ceased to long and his reputation survived even matter; London and in some Commonwealth countries I recall

bar with sitting in a Cambridge in the early 1960s and failing MacNeice to persuade him, as he was from and the BBC, that Cambridge London was no continued seized with the longer for years to assume around revolved him and was the central spirit of Scrutiny. London that all things in literary his school, long after his of academic life discipline

Cambridge claim that had come

literature to look

University twenty

Press, volumes

vainglorious still impressed for a world

and empty. In 1963 the Cambridge by his name, reprinted Scrutiny in with an index and an market, Retrospect by Leavis himself.

embarrassingly self-congratulatory Somewhere he was read. Ironical, ers should always

that London reviews and academic perhaps, publish? have kept his reputation alive for so long, since he had believed that a sinister establishment of reviewers and had been the on comment of his career. I never great adversary of the praise heaped him, in any upon but then no praise was ever journals, sense a hostile in every qualification of or has

publishers him heard those enough, phrase. another the been last

years, by the and he could was

He

kind.

world

in any case infatuated with an establishment Readers of Evelyn Waugh will call it Brideshead, of tided families. I do not know that the matter truth when

mentioned

1950s, the famous

in print, but the sober was an ebullient name-dropper and the aristocratic: "...

is that Leavis, by the it came to the rich, to lunch by the

invited

GEORGE WATSON

241

vice-chancellor seemed

Lord and Lady X, who then went to stay with my very charming, very charming, " His voice would rise in of ... . old pupil who is now director "All very delightful, his social triumphs: animation as he relived after my lecture?met did not interest money of the titled still world

but rather tiring." Though very delightful, of the monied did; the him, the world more. he did, before story ended In 1981 the pupil he had ardently Morris Shapira, by then a lecturer The murdered Like at his home in Canterbury he had written but

was dramatic. its epilogue wanted as a college successor, of Kent, was in the University in a homosexual That encounter. is not

nothing. surpris? many disciples, to say, since ing. While the spell of Leavis lasted there was nothing or faded, there was Leavis had said it; and when the spell broke, woven since it had been to say for another reason, by nothing in Those who need exciting Leavis and not by literature. teaching to be said, are it hardly needs order to think literature exciting, be bitter. was bound to so the outcome by literature, that she she died his widow angrily protested before Just the first of his books herself, had written including large chunks that for years and insisted of The Great Tradition (1948), chapter role. So there was her unacknowledged she had been resenting themselves unexcited it. for Leavis in the grave, or beyond no peace movement fall of the The rise and Scrutiny contemplated to see wished or the did not claim teach in that restrained and measured the to live. terms. death its collapse literature as confirming how teaches had best be have

Some

Leavis that, or his school, to be drawn. It would be more prudent, bound it is, was perhaps, a more limited to draw still not wholly reassuring, though but tells you not make you better, that literature conclusion: may what you are.

of humanism, Literature plainly rash as so the conclusion,