Works on the Fiction Criticism of F.R. Leavis
K.Eswara Reddy
Asst.professor in English
K.S.R.M College of Engineering
Kadapa – 516003
A.P, INDIA
K.Vijaya Bhaskar Reddy
Asst.professor in English
K.S.R.M College of Engineering
Kadapa – 516003
A.P, INDIA
Abstract We find the earliest criticism on the fiction criticism of F.R. Leavis in 1958 in George Steiner’s Language and Silence. George Steiner regards Leavis as a better critic of fiction than of poetry. According to him Leavis admitted that the novel had concentrated the major energies “after the decline of the epic and the verse drama.”1 He admires Leavis for bringing about revaluation in the criticism of English novel with his comparison of The Heart of Darkness with Macbeth. But…show more content… Leavis’s Fiction and The Reading Public on Scrutiny. W.J. Harvey disagrees with the view of Leavis that The Mill on the Floss fails on account of the idealization of Maggie. He thinks that the failure of this novel is due to the disproportion of its structure. He believes that Leavis does less than justice to Adam Bede when he denies it greatness. When Leavis asks about Arthur Donnithorne and Hatty Scoreel episode, “Does one want ever to read that large part of the book again?,”2 Harvey replies, “Yes, I do want to read that part of the book again and it does gain by…show more content… Ronald Hayman in his book Leavis exalts Leavi’s poetry-criticism above his fiction-criticism. But, as we have seen, Leavis’s inclination lies in fiction-criticism. He judges the poets especially by the principle of life, and, as a consequence, fiction above poetry. As he is a moral critic, he mostly exalts life above language. Moreover, he annihilates the distinction of genre when he praises the novelists as poets and their novels as dramatic poems. He regards the novels like The Europeans, Silas Marner and Hard Times as moral fables and the more complex novels like The Rainbow and Women in Love as dramatic poems. This elimination of the distinction of genre is not a new thing in English criticism. Wordsworth had eliminated the difference between prose and poetry with the remark that “ there neither is, nor can be any essential difference between the language of prose and metrical