"F. R. Leavis is more direct in The Great Tradition (1948), which is among other things a running diatribe against Janeite extraordinaire, Lord David Cecil. Leavis dignifies Austen as well as the great tradition of English fiction she originated by insisting on her moral seriousness, and accordingly, the leisured amateurism of Janeites – with their fondness for entertainment, performance and comedy – is noxious to him. His class-based attack upon Lord David, which includes charges of decadence, aestheticism, over-sophistication and evil, contains a homophobically charged gender component as well, for when Leavis casts aspersions on Lytton Strachey and the culture of Bloomsbury, he is aiming to taint Lord David by association."
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Historians from EnglandLiterary criticsUniversity of Oxford facultyBiographers from EnglandUniversity of Oxford alumni
Original Language: English
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Sources
Claudia L. Johnson, 'Austen cults and cultures', in Edward Copeland and Juliet McMaster (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen (1997; 2nd ed. 2011), p. 240
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Lord_David_Cecil
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Lord David Cecil
Lord Edward Christian David Gascoyne-Cecil CH (9 April 1902 – 1 January 1986) was a British biographer, historian, and scholar. He held the style of "Lord" by courtesy, as a younger son of a marquess.
22 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Lord David Cecil →
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