Re-reading Leavis

For too long F. R. Leavis has been reviled by the critical establishment. Gary Day explains why this has been the case and why it is time to meet the challenge of his work. In this groundbreaking and controversial book, Day shows that post-structuralism, which defined itself in opposition to Leavis, nevertheless repeats a number of his key ideas.

This, he argues, represents a failure to read Leavis fully and, by implication, a failure to come to terms with the radical dimension of his writing, which was always more critical of the commodification of experience than post-structuralism or indeed post-modernism has ever been.

Day also places Leavis firmly in his historical context by drawing attention to the connections between Leavis's early work and the emergent discourses of consumerism and scientific management. At the centre of each is an image of the body and he analyses what this means for Leavis's conception of reading. By historicising Leavis and aligning him with post-structuralism, it is possible to chart how far criticism can justly claim to be oppositional.

At the same time, Day is able to recuperate from Leavis's work a notion of value which can be deployed against the empty stylisations, banalities and mediocrities of postmodern culture.