F. R. Leavis: Elitist in Pursuit of Common Values

Abstract

The critical-historical tradition usually makes T. S. Eliot the spiritual leader of Anglo-American modernism, with F. R. Leavis his most prominent disciple and missionary, eager, as disciples usually are, to propagate the master’s doctrine at its purest, most radical and least compromising.

[W]e want to produce a mind that knows what precision and specialist knowledge are, is aware of the kinds not in its own possession that are necessary, has a maturity of outlook such as the study of history ought to produce but even the general historian by profession doesn’t always exhibit, and has been trained in a kind of thinking, a scrupulously sensitive yet enterprising use of intelligence, that is of its nature not specialized but cannot be expected without special training — a mind, energetic and resourceful, that will apply itself to the problems of civilization, and eagerly continue to improve its equipment and explore fresh approaches (Leavis 1943:58–9).

And another critic of importance, Dr. F. R. Leavis, who may be called the Critic as Moralist? (Eliot 1961:13)