The Common Pursuit

In "Revaluation", "The Great Tradition" and "New Bearings in English Poetry", F.R. Leavis revolutionized the way we think about central figures in English literature. This companion volume assembles many of his finest essays. Along with famous pieces on Swift and Shakespeare, Dr Johnson and Henry James, Hopkins, Forster and T.S. Eliot, it is here that Leavis offers some of his most considered reflections on how literature should - and should not - be approached. He shows how major works are "capable of ministering to life" and why criticism can help release their potential. Not everybody will agree with his objections to Auden and Milton or his unequivocal celebration of D.H. Lawrence, yet they provide the benchmark against which other readers can react.