ABSTRACT
F. R. Leavis's work on the novel is his other area of decisive impact on the critical mapping of English literature. His effect here was even more fundamental in that criticism of the novel in English, even by the 1920s and 1930s, was not much advanced over the condition lamented by Henry James in the 1880s and 1890s. The historical weight of the Clarissa is a product, almost a by-product, of his intentness on his theme. And in assessing the experiential weight of the word 'maturity', the author consider in turn what Leavis means to invoke by the related term 'tradition'. For the fact that some of the key figures in the great tradition are not English allows for a sharper focus on its nature. All these issues are raised in the lecture on The shadow line.
