Volume 1, Number 8 · December 12, 1963
The Great Tradition
By Richard Poirier
Scrutiny, (1932-1953) with a Retrospect
by F.R. Leavis
Cambridge, single vol. pp., $6.50
I was at Downing College, Cambridge—Leavis's college—when he announced the end of Scrutiny in 1953. Published for twenty-one years (uninterrupted even by the War), Scrutiny had earned more respect and more denunciation than any other quarterly in English. Its largest printing (in the Fifties) was only 1500 copies, yet these were circulated in school and college libraries in England and America, and were widely read. It was without official blessing of any kind, without financial assistance, without even a secretary to help the editors (most of whom were teaching at the same time), and without enough money to pay its contributors. Still Scrutiny managed to attract a remarkable group of critics—William Empson, I. A. Richards, Santayana, Herbert Read, to name a few. And the work of many distinguished younger critics appeared first in its pages: among them, Martin Turnell, Michael Oakeshott, L.C. Knights, Derek Traversi, Marlus Bewley. While Scrutiny published articles on politics and education, its most important achievement was a nearly complete revaluation of English literature. It was usually the first to make serious critical, rather than merely interpretative, examinations of the great writers of this century, especially Eliot and Lawrence.
Review, 2129 words
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