Criticism, as Leavis conducts it, is the relevant, delicately attentive analysis of a complete response to literature; it is a commentary upon the act by which one enters into as full as possible a possession of the experience given in the words. When sensibility is made articulate there will be found in it elements of judgement and discrimination. But they are explicit in the account only because they are implicit in the response. They are distilled by the experience itself, not items carted in from outside. The method of Culture and Environment is the prolongation of this activity into the business of daily life. Culture and Environment shows a mind skilled and scrupulous in the critic's art interrogating its experience in the face of contemporary conditions, and finding there grounds for particular judgements and for a consistent general attitude. Without this poised attention to the texture of our...