Ian Robinson

Education

He was educated at King Edward VI Grammar School, Retford, and Downing College, Cambridge (he earned firsts in both parts of the English Tripos) where he was a pupil of F. R. Leavis.

Career

With David Sims, he co-founded The Brynmill Press Limited, in 1970, a company devoted to serious criticism which began with the quarterly review The Human World (1970-1974) and went on to publish works of literary criticism, philosophy (including Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Remarks on Frazer’s “Golden Bough”) fiction and poetry. Robinson is a critic of the Matthew Arnold, T. South. Eliot, and F. R. Leavis tradition, as discussed in his book The English Prophets. Along with works of pure literary criticism on Chaucer, he has published much in a category he calls “criticism of language”, beginning with The Survival of English, which includes comments on the language of the media, of religion, of politics.

He thinks that judgement is always a refinement of a sense held in common, and in 2008 published Holding the Centre, trying to demonstrate that a number of the Arts subjects have become incoherent by losing their place in the common language.

Achievements

• Robinson served as lecturer and senior lecturer in the English Department at University College of Swansea from 1961 to 1997 Best known for his 1973 book The Survival of English, Robinson has been a champion of traditional English literature and a critic of what he alleges to be the degeneration of the English language across all departments of modern life.

Works

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  • The Establishment of Modern English Prose in the Reformation and the Enlightenment

    (Ian Robinson traces the legacy of prose writing as a form...)

  • Who Killed the Bible?: Last Words on Translating the Holy Scriptures

    (Book by Robinson, Ian)

  • Untied Kingdom
  • (The Establishment of Modern English Prose in the Reformation and the Enlightenment) Author: Ian Robinson published on (February, 2008)
  • Prayers for the New Babel: Criticism of the Church of England Alternative Service Book by Ian Robinson (1983-02-24)
  • The Survival of English: Essays in Criticism of Language
  • New Idea of a University by Duke Maskell (2002-05-08)
  • Chaucer and the English Tradition by Ian Robinson (2004-10-21)
  • The Survival of English - Essays in Criticism of Language
  • New Idea of a University by Maskell Duke Robinson Ian (2002-05-01) Paperback
  • Prayers for the New Babel: Criticism of the Church of England Alternative Service Book

Politics

Robinson has been politically active as secretary of a constituency association of the United Kingdom Independence Party.