SOURCE: "Revaluations (VIII): Shelley," in Scrutiny, Vol. 4, No. 2, September, 1935, pp. 150–80.

Leavis was an influential twentieth-century English critic. His methodology combined close textual criticism with predominantly moral and social concerns; however, Leavis was not interested in the individual writer per se, but rather with the usefulness of his or her art in the scheme of civilization. In the following essay, Leavis discusses several notable critical attacks on Shelley's style.

If Shelley had not received some distinguished attention in recent years (and he has been differed over by the most eminent critics) there might, perhaps, have seemed little point in attempting a restatement of the essential critical observations—the essential observations, that is, in the reading and appreciation of Shelley's poetry. For they would seem to be obvious enough. Yet it is only one incitement out of many when a critic of peculiar authority, contemplating the common change from being...