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overlap. I refer particularly to the last two sections in which the five case studies could have been grouped together followed by the two ‘activity’ articles and concluding with Ponisch’s general view. One or two articles suffer from stilted translations and this edition could have perhaps benefited from the participation of a native English speaker in the editorial team. However, these are but minor irritations; this book is a valuable contribution to the limited literature available in English on this topic. The bibliographies following several papers, and that compiled by Udo Jung at the end of the book (seven pages) are useful to the researcher and practising teacher. The editors are to be congratulated on their initiative in drawing the attention of a wider audience to the experience of ERFA members and of the organisation itself. In reflecting both the theoretical and practical interests of ERFA this book aims at a wide readership. Its publication is opportune at a time when the Englis’h speaking world, particularly in recent years Great Britain and the United States, is beginning to wake up and express concern at its general lack of expertise in foreign languages and has increasing awareness of the need for more language training in midcareer. Although the subject under consideration is mainly English as an international language, the views and information contained herein should not lessen their concern, for attention is drawn to the fact that “there is a growing awareness that the role of English as an international language has reached its peak” (39); developing nations are becoming increasingly nationalistic and there is a call to diversify the foreign languages available in state education systems and within the company framework. Teachers and training officers and indeed anyone thinking of or concerned with the provision of language teaching for industry and commerce will gain much from delving into this review of the German experience; it might help to solve what in the U.K. and U.S.A. is regarded as a ‘problem’ and in many other countries as an integral and normal part of company training. Dennis Ager Christine-Wilding University of Aston in Birmingham Gosta Green Birmingham B4 7ET United Kingdom

The British Council (ed.), Critics on Criticism. London: The British Council, 1980 ( = British Council Recordings on Cassettes). (a) Arnold Kettle in conversation with Graham Martin. (b) Geoffrey Leech in conversation with Neil Gilroy-Scott. (c) I. A. Richards in conversation with Richard Luckett. The role of audio-visual media in the teaching of English language has long been taken for granted, whereas it has been neglected in the teaching of English literature, particularly at the university level. Towards this end, new series of tape recordings have been created by the British Council, one of which is called Critics on Criticism. The three examples selected for review are an indication of the high quality and usefulness of this kind of learning material.

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That tapes like these are of great use for learners who have already reached the necessary level of competence is obvious. The English of the three great scholars is immaculate, and the quality of the recording is excellent. Rarely, if ever, are there difficulties in understanding the text acoustically. The questions of the interviewers are well-organized and lucidly answered. We gain insights into the personality of those interviewed, as well as into their methods and views on literature. The subjects discussed are, with very few exceptions, of general interest, and deal with questions which every literary scholar and teacher has had to tackle in the classroom. Accordingly, the level of abstraction is very high, and thus less suited for school pupils who have not specialized in English literature. The main target audience is certainly of university level, and the tapes are well-suited for use in courses or seminars. The names of the interviewed are, of course, well known to every student of English. They represent three different schools of literary criticism relevant for the course of scholarship during the past twenty years. I. A. Richards is the grand old man of Practical Criticism, and almost certainly the wellspring of a new approach towards poetry now prevalent all over the world. Arnold Kettle may be called a Marxist critic, though he has been accused of lacking “a coherent theory”. For both reasons, his outlook is liable to be more congenial to the attitude now fashionable in German universities. Geoffrey Leech may be called the most prominent representative of stylistic and linguistic criticism. All three share an appreciation of the necessity for plurality in the interpretation of literature, and reject the stringent demand for a single dogmatic truth. All stress the importance of freedom of choice, both for the literary critic and for the student. They are one in their aversion to a rigid canon of literature, and all point out that literature escapes complete scientific analysis. It is of particular didactic interest that the need to avoid technical terminology is emphasized throughout the three interviews. The interview with I. A. Richards is a treat that no teacher of English should miss. Richards’ sovereignty and sensitivity in dealing with subtle literary problems can hardly be surpassed. The voice of this great man, though marked by the signs of age (the recording must have been made shortly before his death), is nevertheless most lucid, both acoustically and in the pattern of ideas he spreads out before us. In an unabashed way, Richards talks about the uses of literature. Following arguments first brought forward by Matthew Arnold, he postulates that literature should contribute to making the reader a better man. It is the duty of a literary critic to teach people how to live. German students will wholeheartedly agree with Richards when he states rather categorically that Anglo-Saxon and the history of the language are dull and repellant to him, and that the influence of universities on criticism is far too prejudicial and should be reduced. Richards wants to see more emphasis laid on the works and not on the authors. He, along with others, was largely responsible for the rejection of biographical details as a tool for the interpretation of literary works: “Biographies lie, as everyone knows.” Richards makes it absolutely clear that poetry is a very serious and difficult business. Writing conversational free verse is a good exercise for students, but it should be made clear to them that what they write is a far cry from poetry. The craft of writing is, in

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Richards’ eyes, a very difficult one, bound by the complexities of sophisticated patterns and rules. The only duty of the teacher is to serve the language and not to encourage mere “self-expression” on the part of the pupil or student. As for the relation of science and poetry, Richards sees them as worlds apart, though he prefers to use the plural forms, “poetries and sciences”, as an indication of the scope of variety in each. What Richards really thinks about his own subject becomes evident when he deals with modern linguistics. He speaks in terms of highest praise of Roman Jacobson, but his reason for doing so is the fact that Jacobson is much happier analyzing Shakespeare than doing linguistics. The trouble with linguists, according to Richards, is that they are incapable of writing proper English, and he voices the suspicion that they “only read one another”. The most interesting point Richards makes deals with the subject of his book Practical Criticism. Richards says explicitly that the title is a misnomer, because the book deals with something like the Principia Critica or Aesthetica, in other words with highly theoretical and general problems of the discipline rather than with their practical application. Arnold Kettle’s interview is a kind of anti-climax after that of Richards. This should not be held against Kettle in view of the fact that Richards is the acknowledged master of the art. Kettle also stresses the exchange of ideas through the medium of literature, which does not enhance one monolithic truth, but rather discussion and dialectic exchange. Literary response cannot, more is the pity, be taught, but we can help students to gain more meaning from literary texts. The contribution of New Criticism to the reception of literature consisted of making people concentrate on the words of a text, but this school tended to isolate the text from the reader, and the literature in general from its social and historical context. The Cambridge School of English had a valuable effect, however, in that it encouraged evaluation and judging of literature. Kettle also speaks of the opposition between “the two cultures”, i.e. sciences and literature. For good or for worse, literature escapes neat, scientific categorization-you can’t be scientific about Hamlet. But it is even more important to develop a sense of the historical dimension, e.g. the role of literary history. In this respect, Kettle is refreshingly undogmatic. The historical setting can be helpful when looking for influences and ideas, but it can also be detrimental if it reduces the distinguished features of a work of art to the mere result of historical determination. The novel, for Kettle, is a very important literary genre not least because it is widely read. Generally speaking, literature is a form of communication, and thus important according to the degree of interaction it triggers. Kettle sees himself as a socialist and a Marxist. His work concentrates on an empirical approach to the problem of literature in the context of society and history. Kettle opposes the notion that literature is a minority pursuit. According to him, many more people are reading literature now than twenty years ago. Like the others, Kettle is against dogmatism. The way people read Milton, for example, has changed immensely in the past fifty years, and that is exactly as it should be. Literature continually offers new answers, if we manage to pose new questions.

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Geoffrey Leech, the last of the trio, is certainly one of the most prominent representatives of the “New Stylistics”. For him, stylistics is the study of language as used in literature, e.g. language as a medium of expression. The goal of linguistic description is to explain what individual words mean in the context of a sentence, and thus to help people understand literature. Leech concedes that linguistics can only explain a small part of the wide spectrum. Linguistic text analysis cannot and should not be a kind of algebra, but should rather remain aware of the fact that only a plurality of methods and techniques can hope to approach adequacy. Mere description is not enough: it is far more important to explain the function of individual words, what you can do with language rather than how language can be described. Of particular interest are Leech’s remarks on. the importance of “foregrounding”, a fashionable terminus technicus which ultimately derives from the Prague Circle. It can be reduced to the notion that the use of language by the poet means a kind of alienation or “de-autonomization” in that it calls attention to what is normally taken for granted by deviating from the norm, a kind of frustration of audience expectations. Leech, of course, is well aware of the controversial problems involved in speaking of a “norm”. But he rightfully argues that something like “common usage” can be postulated as an integral part of the reader’s competence. The main characteristic of Leech’s scholarly achievement is a close linking between criticism and linguistics. He is convinced that practical criticism must move in the direction of linguistics. The great flaw of the New Critics was their lack of a scientific and precise terminology. We can only talk about literature in a scholarly way by means of a metalanguage. Leech’s vision of the “ideal critic linguist” would be a symbiosis of Matthew Arnold and Chomsky. But all this leads to the ultimate question of whether stylistics is really essential for the study of literature. The present situation is characterized by uneasiness towards linguistics, as it offers only very crude tools for the analysis of literature. The progress of stylistics, text linguistics and discourse analysis is promising, but it remains to be seen how they can profitably be applied to larger prose works, or to those which do not differ markedly from normal usage. As for the question of whether literature is going to become increasingly important for linguistics, Leech says no. The tasks of linguistics are infinite, and literature is only one among many. At the same time, however, linguistics can and should use its facilities to develop the intricate and subtle analytic system needed for the evaluation of language in literature. Leech sees the development of a general rhetoric or psychology of aesthetics as one of the major tasks for the future-the correlation of linguistic elements and psychology. As for tasks of the far distant future, stylistics can and will one day be able to rehabilitate “forgotten greats”, such as John Milton, by showing how they weave magic with words. Leech is certainly one of the very few who has the wand for it. Institut ftir Anglistik Universitit Regensburg Postfach D-8400 Regensburg Bundesrepublik Deutschland

Karl Heinz Gdller Jean Ritzke