Aesthetics and Literature

What makes it ‘good’?

In 1948, a book entitled ‘The Great Tradition’ was published, written by F. R. Leavis, a professor of English Literature at

Cambridge University.

Here is the opening sentence of it.

"The great English novelists are Jane Austen, George Eliot, Henry James and Joseph Conrad."

How do you respond to that?

Here’s how one journalist responds to it:

The Canon: The Great Tradition by F. R. Leavis14 May 2009Many refer to it but few have read it. Yes, I am talking about F. R.

Leavis' The Great Tradition, first published in 1948. The date is important. It helps explain the central aim of the book, to determine the significance of the novel after the war, the atom bomb and the concentration camp. Leavis' central criterion for great writing, that it has "a vital capacity for experience, a kind of reverent openness before life, and a marked moral intensity" is a clear reaction to an age characterised by the ideologies of fascism and communism. Where they sought to define, control and close down, literature creates, explores and opens up….

But why should a book that offers a close reading of four novelists, half of whom are women, continue to rouse such ire? The answer lies in the opening sentence. "The great English novelists are Jane Austen, George Eliot, Henry James and Joseph Conrad." There you have it. Definite proof that Leavis was an elitist. But carry on down the page. He is not saying that these are the only novelists worth reading, just that they are the best. They not only "change the possibilities of art for practitioners and readers", they also promote an "awareness of the possibilities of life".

And, frankly, what's wrong with that? It makes the reader sit up and take notice and it dares to say something about the qualities that make great literature and why it matters. Give me Leavis to the subject benchmark statement any day. He is a critic not a bureaucrat; one who opens himself to literature and is shaken by the encounter. It took him 30 years to come to terms with D. H. Lawrence, whose name does not appear in those famous opening words - an omission that shows the great tradition was by no means complete.

So what?

In fact a careful study of the book reveals that, far from being dogmatic, Leavis was constantly thinking about other authors, most notably Dickens, and how they fitted into his tradition. What he meant by that term was how one novelist learnt from another and, in doing so, found his or her own voice. It was the critic's job to trace these complex relations and to assess the author's contribution to the culture at large.

The Great Tradition survives because it throws down the gauntlet in a way no other work of criticism does. Sadly, few bother to read it through. If they did, they would find far more to inspire, provoke and engage them than can be found in many a current work.

Gary Day is principal lecturer in English, De Montfort University.

In fact…

Essential Ideas

• It should be complex.• There should be a sense of ‘unity’ – of all the

elements working together to create the desired effect.

• The use of language demonstrates a certain degree of skill.

• The subject-matter is serious man.

Other critics’ views

• The value of a text is judged according to how pleasurable it is to read (Roland Barthes – a Structuralist.)

Other critics’ views

• The value of a text is judged according to the extet to which it challenges the way we think about the world (Terry Eagleton – a Marxist.)

Other critics’ views

• The value does not lie in the text at all, but in what we do to it by filling in the gaps (Michael Foucault – a New Historicist.)

What about you?

I think the value of a text lies in…

What about this? Does it have literary value, according to your definition?

We laughed, then, and you told meIt was too late for love.Piano strings, plucked in madrigal-like fashion

with diligence.Intimations of intimacy. But, at the end of it all,Only two words:Too late.