Structures, Systems, Signs ' We have eaten the apple and we cannot go back to the state of relative innocence that Leavis inhabited.' (DAVID LODGE) In France and America, literary criticism has become a highly abstract and specialised discipline. This development, which stemmed initially from the application of structural linguistics to literature, is generally regarded with contempt or sheer incomprehension in England.
Is this justified?
Denis Donoghue. Henry James Professor of English at New York University. assesses the new criticism in this documentary.
Producer DAVID PERRY followed by an interlude