A recent article in The Guardian tells of a new book calling for support to save a threatened species: the academic literary critic.

The latest person to defend the critic is Ronan McDonald, lecturer in the school of English and American studies at Reading University and director of the Beckett International Foundation, in his new book, The Death of the Critic. “The days when people venerated critics, such as Leavis, as arbiters of taste are long over,” he says. “I don’t want to get too golden ageist about this, because Leavis could be rebarbative and prescriptive, but he did strive to take criticism beyond the ivory towers and we have lost something. Scientists, philosophers and historians all seek to reach a wider market and we should do the same.”

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