April 1, 1948
The Scrutiny Group
The group of critics who were gathered around Mr. Leavis and Scrutiny in the early ‘thirties have, in addition to sixteen years of publication in Scrutiny itself, produced a considerable […]
April 1, 1948
Things Left Unsaid (Selections from “Choses Tues”)
From the French. Painting. The object of painting is uncertain. If it were definite—such as, to produce the illusions of things seen, or, to amuse the eye and the […]
April 1, 1948
Robartes and Aherne: Two Sides of a Penny
Since Yeats’s death in 1939 he has faded, as he would have wished, into a group of myths. Critics, friends, and biographers have built up a variety of unconnected pictures […]
January 1, 1948
Dance Criticism
When people who like dancing say a critic is right they mean he is right enough and that his imaginative descriptions are generally illuminating. He can hardly be illuminating or […]
January 1, 1948
The Critical Achievement of Caroline Spurgeon
Relations between scholarship and criticism in literature have not been very good in our time. To the critic, the scholar is an academic fuddy-duddy whose only interest in great poetry […]
January 1, 1948
Movie Letter: The Costume Romance
Post-war years in movie production have seen a revival of the costume romance as more or less a natural part of popular catering. The charm of “another time” as often […]
January 1, 1948
Radin on Toynbee
Sirs, The attack of one section of the liberal left upon Toynbee could be discerned even before it was launched. The first such attack I saw was a review by […]
January 1, 1948
Flaubert: Portrait of the Artist as a Saint (Reconsiderations IX)
“I have always put myself in what I have written. In place of Saint-Antoine, for example, it is I who am there; the Temptation has been for me and not […]
January 1, 1948
Manners, Morals, and the Novel¹
The invitation that was made to me to address you this evening was couched in somewhat uncertain terms. Time, place and cordiality were perfectly clear, but when it came to […]
January 1, 1948
The Firstness of Dance
Around the world it is always the same—in Labadi, British West Africa; in Dizful, Iran; in Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania—the human body. Of course it may have a black finish or […]
January 1, 1948
A Letter from France
Paris, November 2, 1947 The French are very outspoken about their feeling that this is for them a major time of troubles. Their awareness of it quickly forces itself upon […]
January 1, 1948
Kafka’s Distorted Mask
One need not read very far into The Kafka Problem1 to see how grievously Kafka has suffered at the hands of some of his critics. Mr. Flores has thrown together, […]