Name: If Not Critical By Eric Griffiths (Fellow in English, Trinity College, Cambridge Lecturer in English, University of Cambridge University)
SKU: 9780198805298
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If Not Critical Summary

If Not Critical by Eric Griffiths (Fellow in English, Trinity College, Cambridge Lecturer in English, University of Cambridge University)

Eric Griffiths delivered hundreds of lectures at the Faculty of English in Cambridge, yet his lectures were never turned into books. If Not Critical brings together ten lectures, published here for the first time, that offer a representative selection of Dr Griffiths' original, fully-argued, and richly exemplified contributions to literary criticism and literary history. Crammed into his writing are decades of reading in several languages and across most genres and literary periods. In these lectures, he pursues the blind spots not only of other people's arguments, but of the whole business of criticism in general, with what he calls its 'over-concentration on a narrow range of examples . . . such over-concentration warps our thinking'. Implicit and explicit throughout his work is the argument that 'an appropriately wide range of instances is essential to making progress in conceptualisation'; that what we need, in order to do better thinking, is 'a keener attention to a greater variety of examples'. Such examples include, in these lectures, the works of Shakespeare, Dante, Kafka, Beckett, Racine, Rabelais, T. S. Eliot, and Jonathan Swift.

If Not Critical Reviews

Eric Griffiths used to deliver his lectures quickly, but I suggest you read them slowly. The 10 collected here in If Not Critical about some of the writers closest to his heart - Dante, Shakespeare, Racine, Primo Levi, Samuel Beckett - are richly textured, crammed with insight and often very funny. For anyone interested in how literature works, and why it matters, they are vital reading. * Sameer Rahim, The Telegraph *
A collection of the controversial critic's lectures showcases his distinctive style and astonishing range [...] If Not Critical serves both as a memorial and a fitting companion piece to The Printed Voice: it is the printed voice of Griffiths. Compiled and edited by a former student, Freya Johnston, it's not exactly a work of scholarship, nor indeed of literary criticism or literary history - it is far too various and unorthodox to be summarised. It is a demonstration, rather, of the art of thinking aloud, on paper. * Ian Sansom, The Guardian *
[T]his book deserves a wide audience... Ten of these scintillating, thought-provoking pieces are simply not enough. * Nicholas Lezard, Dhaka Tribune *
Johnston, a former student, has gathered a fittingly eclectic selection of ten of [Griffith's] lectures, ranging from Dante to Rabelais and Eliot (T. S.) to Swift. * Jonathan Bate, Times Literary Supplement *
If Not Critical catches something of the movement of a speaking voice and the demands it makes on the listener. It is literary criticism 'to the moment' [] Griffiths is above all an apostle of close reading. He treats the passages he discusses as morally and psychologically instructive as well as semantically subtle. He attends to small details of syntax or diction, but he is also concerned with the big questions: mortality, morality, why we laugh at things [...] this book is a labour of intellectual devotion. * John Mullan, London Review of Books *
Mr Griffiths attracts superlatives. The Guardian once declared him the cleverest man in England. Donald Davie, a poet and critic, called him the rudest man in the kingdom. And for many of the pupils he taught over 30 years at Trinity College, Cambridge, he was the greatest teacher they ever had. * The Economist *

About Eric Griffiths (Fellow in English, Trinity College, Cambridge Lecturer in English, University of Cambridge University)

Eric Griffiths is Fellow in English at Trinity College, Cambridge and Lecturer in English at the University of Cambridge. He is the author of The Printed Voice of Victorian Poetry (Clarendon Press, 1989) and co-editor of Dante in English (Penguin, 2005). Freya Johnston is University Lecturer and Tutorial Fellow in English at St Anne's College, Oxford. She is the author of Samuel Johnson and the Art of Sinking, 1709-1791 (Oxford University Press, 2005), general editor of The Cambridge Edition of the Novels of Thomas Love Peacock (Cambridge University Press, 2016-) and co-editor of Jane Austen's Teenage Writings (Oxford World's Classics, 2017).

Additional information

Sku

GOR009237296

ISBN 13

9780198805298

ISBN 10

0198805292

Title

If Not Critical by Eric Griffiths (Fellow in English, Trinity College, Cambridge Lecturer in English, University of Cambridge University)

Author

Eric Griffiths (Fellow in English, Trinity College, Cambridge Lecturer in English, University of Cambridge University)

Condition

Used - Very Good

Binding type

Hardback

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Year published

20180322

Number of pages

268

Prizes

N/A

Cover note

Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.

Note

This is a used book - there is no escaping the fact it has been read by someone else and it will show signs of wear and previous use. Overall we expect it to be in very good condition, but if you are not entirely satisfied please get in touch with us

If Not Critical Eric Griffiths (Fellow in English, Trinity College, Cambridge Lecturer in English, University of Cambridge University)

If Not Critical by Eric Griffiths (Fellow in English, Trinity College, Cambridge Lecturer in English, University of Cambridge University)

Summary

If Not Critical Summary

If Not Critical by Eric Griffiths (Fellow in English, Trinity College, Cambridge Lecturer in English, University of Cambridge University)

If Not Critical Reviews

About Eric Griffiths (Fellow in English, Trinity College, Cambridge Lecturer in English, University of Cambridge University)

Table of Contents

Additional information

Customer Reviews - If Not Critical