Omss-Culture: Culturebox: The Literary Critic as Humanist



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culturebox The Literary Critic as Humanist Frank Kermode, 1919-2010, exemplified an ideal that is dying. By Adam Kirsch Posted Thursday, Aug. 26, 2010, at 11:06 AM ET In 2000, Frank Kermode, the great literary critic and scholar who died last week at the age of 90, gave a lecture called "The Cambridge Connection" about the history of the Cambridge University English department. It sounds like a parochial enough topic until you realize that the major figures in that department were I.A. Richards, William Empson, and F.R. Leavis--probably the most important English critics of the 20^th century. Kermode was too modest to include himself in the list. This was a man, after all, who titled his memoir Not Entitled--but he was of the same stature and belonged to the same tradition. This was, as he described it, the "old school [that] was always worried about keeping open the channels between the academy and the intelligentsia broadly conceived." In another essay, he remembered that when he was starting his career in the early 1950s, there was "a general belief, now weirdly archaic, that literary criticism was extremely important, possibly the most important humanistic discipline, not only in the universities but also in the civilized world more generally." To continue reading, click here. Adam Kirsch is a senior editor at the New Republic. Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum What did you think of this article? POST A MESSAGE \| READ MESSAGES Also In Slate Bush GOP Chairman Comes Out of Closet. Will It Change the Gay-Marriage Debate? Why It's So Cathartic When People Like Dr. Laura Schlessinger Take a Fall What's the Best Way To Donate My Old Clothes?	Advertisement
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Now playing: *Slate V, a video-only site from the world's leading online magazine. Visit Slate V* at www.slatev.com.
culturebox The Literary Critic as Humanist Frank Kermode, 1919-2010, exemplified an ideal that is dying. By Adam Kirsch Posted Thursday, Aug. 26, 2010, at 11:06 AM ET In 2000, Frank Kermode, the great literary critic and scholar who died last week at the age of 90, gave a lecture called "The Cambridge Connection" about the history of the Cambridge University English department. It sounds like a parochial enough topic until you realize that the major figures in that department were I.A. Richards, William Empson, and F.R. Leavis--probably the most important English critics of the 20^th century. Kermode was too modest to include himself in the list. This was a man, after all, who titled his memoir Not Entitled--but he was of the same stature and belonged to the same tradition. This was, as he described it, the "old school [that] was always worried about keeping open the channels between the academy and the intelligentsia broadly conceived." In another essay, he remembered that when he was starting his career in the early 1950s, there was "a general belief, now weirdly archaic, that literary criticism was extremely important, possibly the most important humanistic discipline, not only in the universities but also in the civilized world more generally." To continue reading, click here. Adam Kirsch is a senior editor at the New Republic. Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum What did you think of this article? POST A MESSAGE \| READ MESSAGES Also In Slate Bush GOP Chairman Comes Out of Closet. Will It Change the Gay-Marriage Debate? Why It's So Cathartic When People Like Dr. Laura Schlessinger Take a Fall What's the Best Way To Donate My Old Clothes?	Advertisement
Manage your newsletters on Slate Unsubscribe \| Newsletter Center \| Advertising Information Please do not reply to this message since this is an unmonitored e-mail address. If you have questions about newsletters, please go here.
Ideas on how to make something better? Send an e-mail to newsletters@slate.com. Copyright 2010 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC \| Privacy Policy Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive \| c/o E-mail Customer Care \| 1150 15th Street NW \| Washington, D.C. 20071

Culturebox: The Literary Critic as Humanist

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