ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the rhetorical form of F. R. Leavis's literary criticism in its function as an existential critique. Reading depends on the reader and is more comparable to musical performance than it is to musical connoisseurship. By a demonstrative reading Leavis tries to define the quality of being for which the language of the text is the irreducible index. The schizophrenic quality of Perry Anderson's account, whereby Leavis is a forceful critic yet intellectually trivial, is only an extreme case of the general difficulty that arises when his real area of strength is not engaged. It is this silence that needs interpreting. If Leavis's view of language gives him an especially strategic importance in that general arena, there is a second feature of his vision which helps explain his special impact in the literary critical sphere. The difference between Leavis and many academic practitioners is not one of principle but of seriousness.
