Approach of a Liberal Humanist

The ‘Leavisites’ introduced above soon became attached to the liberal humanist movement because of their progressive political beliefs and their devotion to English literature as a means of ‘drycleaning the soul’. This group was defined by “its rigid adherence to a very specific canon of English texts, its concentration on the ‘close reading’ of texts, its faith in the ‘vitality’ of language as an indication of the well-being of a culture, and its resolute antagonism to industrial society and the culture it produced” . The study of English, then, was to learn from the English texts that represented their expression of essentially humanistic aims, i.e. studying English literature became the means by which people attained what used to be achievable during the Renaissance by studying ‘ancient’ literature.The language was considered the ‘lifeblood’ of a given culture where the debasement of its language could reflect and contribute to the degradation of the lives of its citizens. Basically, this meant — that studying literature according to the rules instituted by liberal humanism will really make you a better person.

‘Beginning Theory’ observing the following “Two things stand out in their approach:firstly,this kind of reading by moral convictions than any model of what constitutes a systematic approach to literary criticism .The second notable aspect is that it seems to by pass matters of form,structure,genre and so on,launching straight into discussion of matters of content.”