David Boyd
> F.R. Leavis during the 1940s in Scrutiny very savagely attacked Bethell -
suspect
> he was a bit of a psychopath, who had feelings of hate towards avowed
Christians
> such as Bethell (although he seems to have exempted T.S. Eliot from his
usual
> venom.)

Leavis's hero was D.H. Lawrence, hardly a Christian writer. He was always
objectionably irascible, and simply could not understand any attempt to
theorize literature. See his interchange with Wellek. His 'basis' for
reading a text seems to have been a sort of unconscious psedudo mysticism:
One just 'felt' it. Probably his utter inability to understand Dickens is an
index to his perspective.

Carrol