F. R. Leavis and Cultural Studies: From Leavis to Hoggart, and to Williams

Abstract

Abstract: The present paper aims to clarify the genetic historical relationships between F. R. Leavis's cultural criticism and the discipline of Cultural Studies. It attempts a general survey of Leavis's criticism on culture, connecting him with the early development of Cultural Studies represented by Richard Hoggart and Raymond Williams in the 1950s, and examines the complexity, contradictions and struggles in the transition from Leavis to Hoggrat and to Williams. Through an analysis of Leavis's cultural criticism, Hoggart's Uses of Literacy and Williams' Culture and Society, the paper delineates the internal relationships of intertextuality. The development of Cultural Studies has been a complicated process of absorbing mass culture and denying Leavisism, with contradictive and critical affirmation of culturalism.

Key words: F. R. Leavis, Richard Hoggart, Raymond Williams, cultural studies, mass culture

Zhang Ruiqing. F. R. Leavis and Cultural Studies: From Leavis to Hoggart, and to Williams[J]. Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art, 2015, 35(1): 205-214.

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