L. C. Knights (Lionel Charles Knights) Biography

British critic, born in Grantham, Lincolnshire, educated at Selwyn College and Christ's College, Cambridge. A founder of Scrutiny in 1932, he was its most eminent contributor in the field of Shakespearian studies. He held successive professorships at Sheffield, Bristol, and Cambridge Universities. His essay ‘How Many Children Had Lady Macbeth?’ (1933), collected in Explorations (1946), opened with a provocative review of the state of Shakespearian criticism, very much at the expense of the orthodoxy represented by A. C. Bradley; the second part conducted a detailed thematic interpretation in the manner demonstrated by G. Wilson Knight. His further works on Shakespeare's plays include Some Shakespearean Themes (1959) and An Approach to Hamlet (1960). He also produced numerous works considering literature from a sociological perspective, among them Drama and Society in the Age of Jonson (1933) and Public Voices (1971), a study of literature and politics with particular reference to the seventeenth century. Additional collections of his essays include Further Explorations (1965), Explorations 3 (1976), and Hamlet and Other Shakespeare Essays (1981).