Module 2

Liberal Humanism or Theory before Theory

Liberal Humanism

Humanism is a philosophical and literary movement which has human being as its central

concern. It also holds a general belief that human nature is something fixed and constant. Liberal

Humanism is a term that falls within the domain of Literary Criticism. During the 1970s, the

hour of literary theory, as it is known, Liberal Humanism was a term applied to theory that came

before ‘theory’. The word ‘liberal’ defines something it is not, that is not ‘radically political’ and

thus evasive on political commitment, on how it is aligned. Humanism, in this context also

means something similar, that is something not-Marxist, not-Feminist or not-Theoretical. Liberal

Humanists also believed in the fixedness and constancy of human nature as expressed in great

Literature. There is an implication by an influential school that if you are not a Marxist-critic or a

Structuralist or a Feminist critic, then you are a Liberal Humanist by default. Thus, Liberal

humanism can be defined as a philosophical and literary movement in which man and his

capabilities are the central concern. It can also be defined as a system of historically changing

views that recognizes the value of the human being as an individual and his right to liberty and

happiness.

Evolution of Liberal Humanism           

Liberal Humanism has its roots at the beginning of English Studies in the early 1800s and

became fully articulated between 1930 and 1950. It was attacked by theories such as Marxism

and Feminism beginning in the 1960s. In 1840, F.D. Maurice argued that the study of English
literature connects readers to what is “fixed and enduring” in their own national identity. Liberal

Humanism inspired a scientific, rational world view that placed the knowing individual at the

center of history, and viewed that history as the progress of Western thought. It served as the

catalyst for the modern world’s reliance on individualism and belief in a common human nature,

scientific rationality, and the search for truth as universal knowledge and certainty in the world.

The study of Liberal Humanism finds meaning within the text itself, without elaborate processes

of placing it in contexts. It detaches itself from its context and age; in isolation without any prior

knowledge, prejudice or ideological ideas about the text.

The Emergence of English as an Academic Subject

Until the first quarter of the nineteenth century, English was a monopoly of the Church of

England: English wasn’t taught in Oxford or Cambridge, then the only universities in Britain. To

the universities of Cambridge and Oxford none other than male Anglican communicants were

admitted; the teachers were unmarried ordained ministers who could live in the

college; Catholics, Jews, Methodists and atheists wouldn’t be admitted. Such was the status of

higher education in England. And that was right up to 1820s. The stalemate was broken in 1826

when a University College was founded in London with a charter to award degrees to men. In

1840, upon the appointment as professor of English at Kings’s College in London, F. D.

Maurice introduced the study of set books, and laid down some of the principles of Liberal

Humanism. However the honour of the introduction of Liberal Humanism is traditionally

bestowed upon Mathew Arnold. University of Cambridge founded in 1911, with its lesser weight

in tradition in comparison to University of Oxford, found it easier to introduce the subject

of English. In 1929, I. A. Richards paved the way by pioneering a technique called Practical

and vibrant.

The Key Critics

Aristotle and Samuel Johnson

Aristotle laid down his literary theory in “Poetics” and “Rhetoric”. In “Poetics”, Aristotle

defines the nature of Tragedy, the relative importance of Plot vs Character, the nature of the

Tragic Hero, and refutes Plato’s idea that poetry is only an imitation or a copy of a copy.

Aristotle defined tragedy as ‘an imitation of an action that is natural, complete, and of a certain

magnitude, in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being

found in separate parts of the play; in the form of action, not of narrative, through pity and fear

effecting the proper purgation of these emotions’. Thus tragedy arouses pity and fear in the

audience through the fate of its protagonist, thereby causing in them a catharsis through these

emotions.

Samuel Johnson’s works “Preface to Shakespeare” and “Lives of the Poets” further augmented

the development of literary theory. In fact he’s the first one to apply the principles of practical

criticism to works of various poets. Before this only the Bible and sacred texts of other religions

had seen such close scrutiny. Hence, this was a major development.

The Romantic Poets

After Johnson came the works of Romantic poets like Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats and

Shelley. Wordsworth’s chief work on theory is “Preface to the Lyrical Ballads” which was

published in 1798, and then edited in 1800 and further in 1805. Wordsworth called poetry a
‘spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings’ and that it is emotion ‘recollected in tranquility’.

His aim was to simplify the language of poetry, to make it more like the language of ordinary

people, the language of prose. An important achievement, this anticipated the modern questions

of the relationship between literary and ordinary language, and the difference between literature

and other writings.

Another important work of the Romantic Age is Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “Biographia

Literaria”. Coleridge addressed the same questions as that of the “Preface”. He, however,

believed that Wordsworth wrote his best poetry when he didn’t adhere to his own theories.

Although he had collaborated with Wordsworth on the “Lyrical Ballads”, they soon grew apart

and Coleridge also disagreed with his view that the language of poetry must be like that

of ordinary speech. He held that if the chief purpose of poetry is pleasure, then that pleasure can

be attained only through language.

Shelley also expressed something similar in his “A Defense of Poetry”. He anticipated what the

Russian critics called in the twentieth century ‘defamiliarisation’. Poetry, he said, ‘strips the veil

of familiarity from the world ... it purges from our inward sight the film of familiarity ... It

compels us to feel that which we perceive, and to imagine that which we know’. This further

anticipated T.S. Eliot’s notion of ‘impersonality which he had put forward in “Tradition and the

Individual Talent”.

There was also in the writings of these Romantic poets an anticipation of Freud’s concepts of the

conscious and the unconscious, especially in the writings of Keats who didn’t formulate any

formal critical theory but discussed it continuously in his letters. Keats’ concept of Negative

Capability also privileges the idea of the unconscious. He was a great admirer of Shakespeare
and his reading of the Bard illustrates the genius of Shakespeare. In a letter to his brother, Keats

describes this genius as ‘Negative Capability’- that is when man is capable of being in

uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason. Thus

Negative Capability is the ability to contemplate the world without trying to reconcile opposing

and contradictory aspects of it, without trying to fit them into rational moulds.

The Victorians

After the Romantics came the works of Victorians like George Eliot, Matthew Arnold

and Henry James. There came to be two tracks in literary criticism, one that was practical

criticism-led and followed from Samuel Johnson and Matthew Arnold to T.S. Eliot and F.R.

Leavis. This track was text based, following the method of close scrutiny of the text. The other

track was ideas-led and followed from Sidney, Wordsworth, Coleridge to George Eliot, and

Henry James. It dealt with the big questions concerning literature like, ‘How are literary works

structured? How do they affect readers or audiences? What is the nature of literary language?

How does literature relate to the contemporary and to matters of politics and gender? What can

be said about literature from a philosophical point of view? What is the nature of the act

of literary composition?’ Thus, the track two preoccupations were very similar to what the

critical theorists of the 1960s believed. The concept of ‘close reading’ emerged from the works

of Matthew Arnold , which was adopted by F.R. Leavis and given modern currency. Arnold had

suggested literature as a substitute for religion.

Arnold’s most significant works are “The Function of Criticism at the Present Time” and “The

Study of Poetry”. He called for the disinterestedness of literature and that it should not have any

political commitment. He also put forward the Touchstone Method , a method to assess
contemporary literary works by using aspects of literary works of the past as a touchstone. T. S.

Eliot, William Empson, I. A. Richards and F. R. Leavis were the major names in literary theory

in the Britain of early twentieth century. All except Eliot belonged to Cambridge and were

engineers of a new approach to English Studies. Eliot’s major critical ideas were ‘dissociation of

sensibility’, the notion of poetic ‘impersonality’ and the notion of ‘objective correlative’.

‘Dissociation of sensibility’ is a literary term first used by T. S. Eliot in his essay “The

Metaphysical Poets”. It refers to the way in which intellectual thought was separated from the

experience of feeling in seventeenth century poetry. Eliot used the term to describe the manner

by which the nature and substance of English poetry changed “between the time of Donne or

Lord Herbert of Cherbury and the time of Tennyson and Browning.” In this essay, Eliot attempts

to define the metaphysical poet and in doing so to determine the metaphysical poet’s era as well

as his discernible qualities.

‘Impersonality or the Impersonal Theory of Poetry’ was explained by Eliot in his essay

“Tradition and the Individual Talent”. The central point of T.S. Eliot’s ‘Impersonal Theory of

Poetry’ is that “the poet, the man, and the poet, the artist are two different entities”. The poet

has no ‘personality’ of his own. He submerges his own personality, his own feelings and

experiences into the personality and feelings of the subject of his poetry. The experiences or

impressions which are obviously autobiographical may be of great interest to the writer himself,

but not to his readers. The more perfect the poet, the more completely separate in him will be the

man who experiences and creates.

And finally, the concept of Objective Correlative was first introduced by American Painter

Washington Allston in 1840, but T.S. Eliot is the one who made it famous in his influential essay
on Hamlet in 1919.What it means is that if writers, poets, and playwrights want to create an

emotional response in their audience they must find a combination of images, objects, and

description to evoke the appropriate emotion.

The Ten Tenets of Liberal Humanism

There are some aspects to Liberal Humanism that have been made into what is called the ‘ten

tenets’. They are invisible guidelines literary critics use when reading a text. It is said that “they

can only be brought to the surface by a conscious effort of will.” (Peter Barry).

● Good literature is timeless, transcendent and speaks to what is constant in human nature-

The first thing, naturally, is an attitude to literature itself; good literature is of timeless

significance; it somehow transcends the limitations and peculiarities of the age it was

written in, and thereby speaks to what is constant in human nature ― Such writing is ‘not

for an age, but for all time’: it is ‘news which stays news’

● Literary text contains its own meaning- The second point is the logical consequence of

the first. The literary text contains its own meaning within itself. It doesn’t require any

elaborate process of placing it within a context, whether this be: (a) Socio-political: the

context of a particular social ‘background’ or political situation, or (b) Literary-historical:

whereby the work could be seen as the product of the literary influences of other writers,

or as shaped by the conventions of particular genres, or (c) Autobiographical: that is, as

determined by the personal details of the author’s life and thought

● Text therefore studied in isolation without ideological assumptions or political

conditions- What is needed is the close verbal analysis of the text without prior

ideological assumptions, or political pre-conditions, or, indeed, specific expectations of

‘to see the object as in itself it really is’

● Human nature unchanging- The same passions, emotions, and even situations are seen

again and again throughout human history. It follows that continuity in literature is more

important and significant than innovation.

● Individuality as essence securely possessed by each ‘transcendent subject’- This

transcends our environmental influences, and though individuality can change and

develop (as do characters in novels), it can’t be transformed, is antecedent to, or

transcends, the forces of society, experience, and language.

● Purpose of literature is to enhance life in a non-programmatic way- If literature, and

criticism, becomes overtly and directly political they necessarily tend towards

propaganda.

● Form and content fused organically in literature- This fusion should be such that one

grows inevitably from the other. Literary form should not be like a decoration which is

applied externally to a completed structure.

● Organic form applies above all to ‘sincerity’- Sincerity resides within the language of

literature, noted by avoidance of cliché or inflated style so that the distance/difference

between words and things is abolished.

● ‘Showing’ valued over ‘telling’- What is valued in literature is the ‘silent’ showing and

demonstrating of something, rather than the explaining, or saying, of it. Hence, ideas as

such are worthless in literature until given the concrete embodiment of ‘enactment’
● Criticism should interpret the text- The job of criticism is to interpret the text, to mediate

between it and the reader. A theoretical account of the nature of reading, or of literature

in general, isn’t useful in criticism, and will simply, if attempted, encumber critics with

‘preconceived ideas’ which will get between them and the text

Assignment Questions

1. What is Liberal Humanism?

2. Trace the Evolution of Liberal Humanism.

3. Explain the emergence of English as an Academic Subject

4. The Key Critics of Liberal Humanism and their Contributions.

5. Describe the Ten Tenets of Liberal Humanism.

Books for Reference

Abrams, M. H. and Geoffrey Galt Harpham. A Handbook of Literary Terms. Cengage

Learning, 2009.

Babu, Murukan C., editor. A Textbook of Literary Criticism and Theory. Trinity, 2014.

Barry, Peter. Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory.

Manchester University Press, 2009.

K. Nayar, Pramod. Contemporary Literary and Cultural Theory: From Structuralism

to Ecocriticism. Pearson Education, 2009.

Xavier, Robin. The Methodology of Literature. Mainspring, 2015.

https://www.scribd.com/doc/146119550/Liberal-Humanism-or-Theory-Before-Theory

http://anilpinto.blogspot.com/2013/11/an-introduction-to-liberal-humanism.html

http://www.bunpeiris.org/liberal-humanism/

https://www.britannica.com/topic/humanism

Objective Questions

1. Humanism is a philosophical and literary movement which has ____________ as its central

concern. (human being )

2. Liberal Humanism has its roots at the beginning ___________________ of in the early 1800s.

(English Studies )

3. Until the first quarter of the nineteenth century, English was a monopoly of the

______________. (Church of England )

4. _____________ in his works “Preface to Shakespeare” and “Lives of the Poets” further

augmented the development of literary theory. (Samuel Johnson)

5. _________________ concept of Negative Capability also privileges the idea of unconscious.

(John Keats )

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Explain the terms ‘liberal’ and ‘humanism’ with respect to Liberal Humanism.

2. The monopoly of English learning by the Church of England.

4. Objective Correlative.

5. Preface to Lyrical Ballads.

Glossary

1. Aristotle - Aristotle laid down his literary theory in “Poetics” and “Rhetoric”. In “Poetics”,

Aristotle defines the nature of Tragedy, the relative importance of Plot vs Character, the nature

of the Tragic Hero, and refutes Plato’s idea that poetry is only an imitation or a copy of a copy.

2. Dissociation of sensibility - ‘Dissociation of sensibility’ is a literary term first used by T. S.

Eliot in his essay “The Metaphysical Poets”. It refers to the way in which intellectual thought

was separated from the experience of feeling in seventeenth century poetry.

3. Liberal - The word ‘liberal’ defines something it is not, that is not ‘radically political’ and

thus evasive on political commitment, on how it is aligned.

4. Negative Capability - Negative Capability is when man is capable of being in uncertainties,

mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason. Thus Negative Capability

is the ability to contemplate the world without trying to reconcile opposing and contradictory

aspects of it, without trying to fit them into rational moulds.

5. Objective Correlative - If writers, poets, and playwrights want to create an emotional

response in their audience they must find a combination of images, objects, and description to

evoke the appropriate emotion.

is emotion ‘recollected in tranquility’.

7. Touchstone Method – Matthew Arnold put forward the Touchstone Method, a method to

assess contemporary literary works by using aspects of literary works of the past as a touchstone.

8. Tragedy - Aristotle defined tragedy as ‘an imitation of an action that is natural, complete, and

of a certain magnitude, in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several

kinds being found in separate parts of the play; in the form of action, not of narrative, through

pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions’.