Arnold Charles Kettle (17 March 1916 – 24 December 1986)Turner, John R. (2004). 'Kettle, Arnold Charles (1916–1986)', ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', 23 September 2004 (online edition). Retrieved 30 December 2022. was a British Marxist literary critic, most noted for his two-volume work ''An Introduction to the English Novel'' (1951), and academic pro-vice-chancellor of the Open University.

Early life

Kettle was born in

Ealing Ealing () is a district in west London (sub-region), west London, England, west of Charing Cross in the London Borough of Ealing. It is the administrative centre of the borough and is identified as a major metropolitan centre in the London Pl ...

, London, and was educated at

Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood Merchant Taylors' School is an 11–18 boys Public school (United Kingdom), public day school, founded in 1561 in London. The school has occupied various campuses. From 1933 it has been at Sandy Lodge, a site close to Northwood, London, Nort ...

and

Pembroke College, Cambridge Pembroke College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. The college is the third-oldest college of the university and has over 700 students and fellows. It is one of the university's larger colleges, with buildings from ...

, where he was a Cambridge Apostle.

Career

Following demobilisation after the Second World War, Kettle gained work at

Cambridge University The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

in 1946, supervising undergraduates. In 1947 he was appointed senior lecturer in the English Literature department of the

University of Leeds The University of Leeds is a public research university in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It was established in 1874 as the Yorkshire College of Science. In 1884, it merged with the Leeds School of Medicine (established 1831) and was renamed Y ...

. His one-time student (and later lodger, friend and fellow Communist Party member) Jim Walsh recalled his second-year tutorials in 1949–50 as "very, very good. He was captivating, and I had never before come across this kind of intellectual experience, which was also emotionally uplifting". 1967 saw Kettle seconded from Leeds as professor of literature to the

University of Dar es Salaam The University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM) (Swahili: ''Chuo Kikuu cha Dar es Salaam'') is a public university located in Ubungo District, Dar es Salaam Region, Tanzania. It was established in 1961 as an affiliate college of the University of London. ...

as part of the post-independence breakup of University of East Africa, helping to set up a literature department there. In 1970, back in the UK, he became the

Open University The Open University (OU) is a Public university, public research university and the largest university in the United Kingdom by List of universities in the United Kingdom by enrolment, number of students. The majority of the OU's undergraduate ...

's first professor of literature, and in 1973 the University's academic pro-vice-chancellor; he worked there until his retirement in 1981.

Politics

Influenced by

F. R. Leavis Frank Raymond "F. R." Leavis ( ; 14 July 1895 – 14 April 1978) was an English literary critic of the early-to-mid-twentieth century. He taught for much of his career at Downing College, Cambridge, and later at the University of York. Leav ...

in his academic writings, he was a man of the left politically and joined the

Communist Party of Great Britain The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was the largest communist organisation in Britain and was founded in 1920 through a merger of several smaller Marxist groups. Many miners joined the CPGB in the 1926 general strike. In 1930, the CPGB ...

in 1936, remaining a member for the rest of his life. Jim Walsh recalled visits to the Kettle household in 1951–52 by J. D. Bernal, Hyman Levy, Jack Lindsay, Brian Simon,

Doris Lessing Doris May Lessing ( Tayler; 22 October 1919 – 17 November 2013) was a British novelist. She was born to British parents in Qajar Iran, Persia, where she lived until 1925. Her family then moved to Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), where ...

, George Matthews and John Gollan.

Personal life

Kettle's wife was Marguerite (Margot) Rosabelle Carritt, ''née'' Gale (1915/16–1995); their children were the journalist Martin Kettle (born around 1948) and Nicholas (born January 1953). Kettle was bisexual, appreciating the lack of prejudice from Communist Party members, but according to John R. Turner "throughout his life he never fully came to terms with his situation".

Selected publications

* Kettle, A. (1951). ''An Introduction to the English Novel'', Volume I (to George Eliot) and (1953) ''An Introduction to the English Novel'', Volume II (Henry James to the present day), Hutchinson University Library. * Kettle, A., Kott, J., & Taborski, B. (1965). ''Shakespeare in a changing world''. * Kettle, A. (Ed.) (1972). ''The nineteenth-century novel: critical essays and documents''. Heinemann Educational Publishers. * Kettle, A. (1991). ''Literature and Liberation: Selected Essays''. Manchester University Press.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kettle, Arnold 1916 births 1986 deaths Alumni of Pembroke College, Cambridge British literary critics Communist Party of Great Britain members Literary theorists People from Ealing