Unit I

NOTES

CLASSICAL EUROPEAN THEORY

Structure

1.0 Objectives

1.1 Aristotle: Poetics

1.1.1 Aristotle’s conception of imitation

1.1.2 Aristotle’s conception of the tragic hero

1.1.3 Aristotle’s Definition of Tragedy

1.1.4 Aristotle’s contribution to literary criticism

1.2 Plato

1.2.1. Judicial Criticism before Plato

1.2.2 Life of Plato and His theory of Ideas

1.2.3 Plato’s contribution to criticism

1.3 Longinus

1.3.1 Longinus: The Romantic of the ancient world

1.4 Glimpse of classical Indian Theory

1.5 Comprehension Exercises

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 1.1.1 Aristotle’s Conception of Imitation
NOTES
According to Aristotle epic poetry and tragedy, comedy also and dithyrambic
poetry and the music of the flute and of the lyre, as well as dancing are all in their
general conception, modes of imitation. And he adds that these arts differ from
one another in three respect of the medium of imitation in respect of the objects of
imitation and in respect of the manner of imitation. Poetry is a mode of imitation
which employs language, rhythm and harmony as its medium of imitation. The
objects of imitation in poetry are human beings and their actions. The manner of
imitation in poetry may be dramatic or narrative.

T.R Henn categorically says that the word imitation in the poetics certainly does
not denote a flat or slavish copy. Any such hypothesis according to Henn, is
disproved by the text of this treatise. In fact, all agree that the “term imitation”, as
used by Aristotle in the poetics does not mean a servile or exact reproduction or a
photographic copy. S.H. Butcher gives us a most lucid interpretation of imitation
as an aesthetic term. According to Butcher, imitation as the common characteristic
of the fine arts including poetry was not originated by Aristotle.

In literature, the term in this context first occurs in Plato though it may have been
already current in popular speech a marking the antithesis between fine art and
industrial production. The idea of imitation is connected in our minds with a want
of creative freedom it is generally understood to mean a literal or servile copy:
and the word a transmitted from Plato to Aristotle was already tinged by some
such disparaging associations. The platonic view, that the real world in a week or
imperfect repetition of a ideal archetype led to the world of reality being regarded
as a world of mere imitation. Aristotle accepted as a world of mere imitation.
Aristotle accepted the current term, but interpreted it in his own way, then
deepening the enriching its significance and looking at it from many sides in the
light of the master pieces of Greek art and literature, that imitation does not mean
an exact copy of things as they are is proved by Aristotle’s remark to the effect
that the artist may imitate things as they ought to be. This means that the artist has
the freedom to imitate some idea or ideal which is not to be found as a tangible
reality in this world but which may be visualized by the artist on the basis of what

6
sees in the world. Thus it is clear that Aristotle does not think of the fine arts in
terms of bare imitation or a literal transcript of the world of reality.
NOTES

The Essence of Poetry in the Imitation

Poetry, Aristotle says, is a form of artistic expression and its essence lies rather in
the imitation of the idea them in the mere versification. Within the sphere of
literature, Aristotle finds actual example of such artistic imitation even in prose
writing and he notes the want of common term which would include every
imaginative delineation of life that employs language as its medium of expression.
To illustrate his point, he mentions different kinds of literary composition, which
had not, till his own time been brought under a single label or designation. These
kinds are (1) the mimes of sophron and enarchus, and the dialogues of Plato, all of
them being prose compositions of s dramatic or semi dramatic character and (2)
verse composition, whether written in a single metre or in several metres. The
obvious suggestion which Aristotle here seems to be making is that the meaning
of the word “Poet” should be widened so as to include any writer, whether in
prose or verse, whose work is an imitation within an aesthetic meaning of the
term. The essence of poetry is in the imitation and the verse or metre and melody
are to be regarded as accessories or a seasoning of language. However, Aristotle
does not develop this point in explicit terms and therefore w-e should not
emphasize it too much.

Imitation as an Idealized Representation of Life

Imitation is a creative art. An artist presents idealized things in the traditional

form. It is not enough that the artist should select, combine, embellish or add here
and retrench there. All the elements must be harmonized into an ideal unity of
type. The poet aims at something better than the original or the actual or the real.
He produces a new thing, not the actual things of experience, and not a copying of
reality. He produces in his imitation a higher reality, because the ideal type must
surpass the actual. .In other words, the poet, in imitating the universal, imitates the
ideal, so that we can describe a work of art as an idealized representation of

7
 And To
human life, ad of character, emotion and action, and it is io be a representation
under forms manifest to our senses.
NOTES

1.1.2. Aristotle’s Conception of the Tragic Hero

As regards the tragic hero, Aristotle rules out the virtuous man being brought from
prosperity to adversity, he rules out a bad man being shown as passing from
adversity to prosperity, and he rules out the down fall of the utter villain from
being depicted in a tragedy. He rules out these persons because the aim of a
tragedy is to affect the catharsis of pity and fear, and because this effect cannot be
achieved by choosing such persons for treatment in a tragedy. The tragic hero,
according to Aristotle should be a good man, but he should not be eminently just
or good. He should be a man whose misfortune is brought about, not by vice or
depravity, but by some error or fraility. The tragic hero must also be an illustrious
man, holding an exalted position. In this connection it is pertinent to point out that
in ‘Sophocles' play Oedipus Tyrannus, the misfortune of the hero is not brought
about by any fraility in his character. In this play the very precautions, which
Oedipus takes to avoid the catastrophe, lead to the catastrophe. In this play the
hero does have his faults, but his faults have nothing to do with the disaster which
overtakes him. In his case, the catastrophe is almost wholly due to the working of
fate. The bulk of ancient Greek drama, however, fulfills the choice of a tragic
hero. Shakespearean tragedy also fulfills most of the requirements of the tragic
hero as defined by Aristotle. In Hamlet, Othelo, King Lear, Macbeth, and
Coriolanus, we witness the ruin of noble natures brought about by some error or
defect of character. In another respect, however, Aristotle’s conception of the
tragic hero does not cover some of the ancient Greek plays. For instance,
characters like Antigone and lphigenia suffer misfortune without any error or their
part and without any fraility their character. These characters are morally superior
even to Oedipus. Thus there are some innocent victims of disaster in ancient
tragedy. In Shakespeare too, Cordelia and Desdemona are innocent victims.
However, tragedy, at its best, is a story of human blindness leading to disaster. In
laying down the rule that the tragic hero should be distinguished man of status and

8
rank Aristotle was taking into account the plays of antiquity and of his own time
only. He could not have anticipated that a time would come when such ordinary
NOTES
persons as Tess and Willy Loman would figure as tragic characters. Aristotle’s
tragic hero has touched a fundamental truth.

1.1.3 Aristotle’s Definition of Tragedy

Aristotle has thrown adequate light on the nature of tragedy. Although he has
described a lot about epic, comedy and lyrical poetry, yet he has thrown more
light on the nature of tragedy. He thinks that tragedy was the grand type of all the
arts and in formulating his theory of tragedy, he has imparted us something very
like a theory of fine arts. His definition of tragedy is as follows:

Tragedy, then is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete and of

a certain magnitude in language embellished with each kind of artistic
content, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play in the
form of action nor of narrative, through pity and fear effecting the
catharsis or the proper purgation of these emotions. “

In the definition of tragedy mentioned above some words are undoubtly

controversial. These words are language embellished: Catharsis and purgation of
these emotions. Aristotle himself explained all controversial words. He says
language embellished refers to rhythm, song and music and for each part
separately means that some parts of a tragedy have only the rhythm of poetry
while other parts (the choral odes) have song and music as well. He is quite free
from the moral fallacy in the appreciation of poetry. This would be very strange
for Aristotle is a Greek, and he is certainly not free of the platonic fallacy. But in
poetics there are a number of moral judgments. A, tragedy is the imitation of a
good action. i.e. morally good. The other main difficulty is the meaning of
catharsis. Here the choice lies between the Purity of such emotion and the
purification of such emotions. The first is a medication metaphor, the second and
orphic one, both are possible meaning. The rest of the definition is clear. We fully

9
 appreciate that a tragedy should be action complete and of a certain length. Pity-
and fear are of spectators. So clearly purgation of emotions is clear.
NOTES

1.1.4 Aristotle’s Contribution to Literary Criticism

Aristotle is considered the father of western criticism. It means he is the first great
critic of western world and he is also the father of subsequent literary criticism.
His work poetics is milestone in criticism. More and more details are the different
aspects of drama. More than Plato, he was the real torchbearer of criticism, and
he, by approaching literature with the spirit of a scientist, discovered those
fundamental rules of literature and various kinds, which have become some of the
greatest doctrines of criticism. According to Plato, poetry is an imitation of an
imitation. It is none but Aristotle, who exonerated poetry and art from Plato’s
charge. His interpretation of limitation was exclusively his own. According to
Aristotle, each literary kind has its own peculiarities or peculiar pleasure. It is
another matter that his definition of tragedy scored lot controversies. The widest
changes of style in drama have only established more solidly his doctrine that the
essence of tragic situation consists not so much in crime or in more misfortune as
in a certain “falling or fraility”, perhaps not very bad in itself, but leading in some
cares to crime, in all to misfortune.

Aristotle’s Criticism: Its’ Limitation

Aristotle’s criticism also has certain limitations. It is said that his poetics is the
consequence of his observation of Greek drama and epic. Hence, many of his
principles are not suitable to later day English drama, poetry and fiction. Aristotle
had never seen, says R.A. Scott James, “An intellectual play like Man and
Supermen or Justice though perhaps Euripides came nearest to the type. He knew
nothing the agreeable social sentiments which be fit the character a Somerset
Maugham. A no coward ever came with the limits of his experience. He knew
only the Greek tragedies and the Greek satiric and comic drama. Another
limitation of Aristotle is that Aristotle never as a matter of fact gives us what in

10
modern terms may be called a appreciation of a single book, much less of single
author said Saintsbury. He was further, surprisingly silent about lyric poetry,
NOTES
though lyrics and odes of excellence and charm were composed by Pindar and
Sappho.

Significance of the Poetics

Despite Poetics shortcomings and limitations it has secured very valuable position
in criticism. It has authentic treatises on the art of tragedy. Aristotle’s - Poetics is
a comprehensive treatment of poetry, its nature and art, revealing many of the first
principles of literary theory and the canons of the dramatic art and constituting,
besides a valuable study of critical method a mine of suggestive ideas and one of
the few pieces of systematic criticism that have come down from the ancient
world. Written in the severest of style devoid of -all literary grace, it forms
treasury of ideas of lasting value the full significance of which it has taken
centuries to understand. When we study it, get that Aristotle seem as the first of
the systematic theorist an early exponent of the historical and psychological
methods and incidentally a pioneer in the business of some literary judgment so
that a like in the theory and the practice of criticism the work stands as the
beginning of things developing and extending the findings of Plate. In the history
of criticism its importance is unquestionable and fundamental.

1.2.1 Criticism in Ancient Greece

(Plato (H 27. B.C 347, BC)

Judicial Criticism before Plato

The Age of Pericles

The age of Pericles in ancient Greek is known as the golden period in the realm of
art and literature in Greece. It was primarily an age of creative activity. Artists
like Phidias and Polygnotus, and writers like Aeschylus, sophocles, Euripides and
Aristophanse glorified this age by their works of art and literature. But as no era is
11
 wholly creative or critical seeds of critical inquiry and analysis were also visible
there and blossomed with full fragrance and efflorescence in the 4th century B.C.
NOTES
The beginning of Greek criticism date from the sixth century B.C. through
criticism in antiquity before Plato was not systematic. Greek criticism developed
when the philosophers Xenophanes and Heraculitus condemned Homer advocated
an allegorical interpretation of the two Homeric epic-the Iliad and the Odyssey.

Growth of Literary Criticism in Ancient Greece

The writings of Homer, Hesiod, Xenophanes, Pindar and Gorgias contain stray
hints which throw light on critical ideas in antiquity. The theory of inspiration was
already current in connection with poetry and is suggested in the first place by the
opening lines of the Homeric poems. Both the Iliad and Odyssey begin with an
appeal to the Muse for inspiration to utter the truth of things, and this is confirmed
by Hesiod, who in his preface to the Theorgony, explains how the Muse breathed
into him the art of divine music. Then, too, each poet pronounces indirectly on the
function the poetry but with some amount of difference. To Homer, on the one
hand, the end of poetry was pleasure produced by some sent of enchantment and
this point he stresses at more than are place. To Hesiod, on the other hand the
poetic function was that of teaching or conveying a divine message. Equally
important is Homer’s comment on the quality of illusion in art when on the shield
of Achilles the earth looked behind the plough and like to the ground that had
been ploughed although it was made of gold, that was a marvell us piece of work.

1.2.2 The Life of Plato

Plato, the most disciple of Socrates, was born in 429 BC. He was the son of
Aristotle and Perictione. His parents were Athenians of distinguished linege; His
relatives were friends of Socrates and through them Plato as a boy, was introduced
to him. Plato stated his carrier as poet but after coming in the contact of Socrates
he started to take interest in Philosophy. He desired to shine in politics but after

12
the execution of his Gun1 Socrates in 399 B.C. he abandoned politics and retired
for a time to Megara with other followers of Socrates.
NOTES
Plato founded his Academy in 387 B.C. and taught his pupils philosophy,
mathematics, natural science jurisprudence and practical legislation, Plato wrote
his great books here. The Dialogues-lon Lysis, Gorgias, and Symposium,
Phaedrus and Republic. He was highly respected and honoured by his
countrymen. He died in 347 B.C.

In his own work lone and republic (More specially book X) he has expressed his
views on these subjects forcefully and at length. His views are scattered all over
his works the form of stray references.

Plato’s Theory of Ideas

Plato's doctrine 9f ideas is one of the first principles of metaphysics and takes a
reader in the platonic metaphysics'of transcendental reality. Plato was an idealist.
He believed that ideas or heavenly archetypes one was true and real and all eaithly
things were mere copies of tkm. The world was the prototype of the heavenly
archetype and it should have been the endeavour of human beings to know and
discover this truth. But the poet and the painter or any other artist delighted
human beings by imitating the transient world produced more illusions and
appearances in the llkeness of the ideas. In this way art does not deal in truth. It is
content to represent the data of sense which are themselves a distorted image of
reaiity. It is twice removed fiom reality.

Plato's theory of ideas is based on his theory knowledge.

Plato's theory of imitation stems fiom s theory of knowledge (epistemology). in

the words of David Daiches:

If true reality consists of the ideas of things, of which individual object: are but
reflections or imitations then anyone who imitaies those individual objects whch
is imitating assimilation and so producing something is still further removed from
ultimate reality.

13
 In the Republic (Book X) Plato develops this argument with reference to the
painter and the maker of beds and then applies it in denouncing the poet who
NOTES
imitates reality without necessarily understanding it. In book X of the Republic
Plato argues something like this

There are many tabies in the world but there is one idea of form (Platonic idea) of
table. When a carpenter makes a table he produces a mere semblance of this idea
which is the one real table lying beyond all the tables which have been or can be
made so that the idea, for ow present very general purpose is outside the world
altogether. And when an artist sits down in front of carpenter's table to paint a
picture of it, the picture that results is a copy of something which is itself a kind of
shadow of the real object. Thus the artifact is removed at two stages from reality.

Imitation sf Reality without Understanding It:

Plato says that the poet imitates reality without understanding it just as a painter
imitates what he sees and does got know how to make or use what he sees. So the
arts are imitations of an imitation and thus twice removed figm the truth, they are
also the product of ignorance. Thus it is clear that there is no point in imitation
without purpose and knowledge. The real artist, who knew what he was imitating,
would be interested in realities and not in imitations and would desire to leave as
memorials of himself works many and fair.

Plato's Insistence on Art for the Sake of Life

Plato advocates the doctrine of 'Art for like's sake,' for him the valve of a work of
art is its practicality and utility. As it is stated that the works of art were the partial
image of the iciea. The imitation of substial idea is not possible. So, they helped
neither in imprcving nor in educating mankind. As the artist does not rise up to
Plato's conception of ennobling and uplifting human being.

14
Criticism of Plato's 'Theory of Ideas'

Plato's views on imitation are much criticized. It is not worth of a great NOTES
philosopher. He uselessly attacks art by his doctrines of ideas. He is blamed that
he could not see the mental level of an artist. When painter or artist do their worl
at that time there perfect image of the transcendent. He should not have ignored
that their inward eyes can see the ideal form visible to them. The impression of
which is made on his mental surface, instead of the table made by the carpenter.
In fact poetry is not a slavish imitation or copying, it is creative. It was Aristotle
who put forth this creative nature of art and his attitude to the work of imitation is
altogether mere respectful than his master's. Accordiig to Aristotle the poet
handles them in such a way that he brings out their -universal and characteristics
elements, thus illuminating the essential nature of some event or situation whether
or not what he is telling is historically true. The poet works according to the laws
of probability or necessity not according to some chance observation or random
invention.

1.2.3 Plato's Contribution to Criticism

Although Plato is a critic yet he is not a professed critic and his critical
observations are not ernbodied in any single work. His chief concern was
philosophical investigation which forms the subject of his great work, the
Dialogues. In the coursc of these philosophical discussions the Platonic so crates
made certain utterances on literature which are usually found in lon, Symposium,
Republic Phaedrus and Laws. Although they are no more than scattered references
in a bigger context, the profundity of their thought makes them a very important
contribution, the frlrst of its kind to the art of criticism. In these utterances on
poetry and drama, Plato shows hiinself a discerning critic. Undoubtly he is the
first literary critic of repute.

Apart from his historical significance his intrinsic value is by no means small. His
theory of inspiration is a positive contribution to literary criticism. The theory of
course, is as primitive as it is universal. It was current in connection with poetry

15
 as suggested in the fist place by the opening lines of the Homeric poems. Both the
'Mad' and the 'Odyssey' begin with an appeal to the Muse for inspiration to utter
NOTES
the truth of things and this is confirmed by Heriod, who in his preface to the
'Theogony' explains how the Muse breathed into him the art of divine music. In
this way the theory of inspiration was prevalent before Plato. David Daiches says,
"The lion is the most elaborate presentation in the ancient world of the nation of
poetry as pure inspiration a nation which has had a long history has gone through
many modifications and which serves even ioday."

Plato was the first critic, who advanced the theory of imitation that all art is an
imitation of life and nature that art is an imitation of an imitation. The essence and
his arguments is that poetry is a form of imitation and is, thus, a representation of
an actual and the contingent and not of the ideal and the essential. Thus poetry
takes us away fkom the true rather than towards it Poetry has no concern with
serious things and it a form of trivial amusement. Aristotle dealt with this problem
in the 'Poetics'.

Plato was mdnly concerned with the active side of art and literature. Plato
believed that poetry should subserve individuals and social morality He advocates
that poetry does neither improves man nor promote the well being of the state. He
condemned poetry because it is not only immoral but trivial too, and so
detrimental to the welfare of the state.

Plato was also the originator of the theory of organic unity in a piece of
composition one of thz most fundamental and widely accepted principles of
literary criticism. To quote him:

As far as his manner and style are concerned he set the fashion for criticising in a
way which may be called romantic. Plato is not only the first philosophical critic
but also the first critic to communicate the beauty and charm of creative literature
to his critical pages, derogatory as well as commendatory. His proseses Attic
prose-prose marked by simplicity and richness of thought. The perfection of style
is variety in unity, fieedom, ease, clearness, the power of saying anything of
striking any note in the scale of human feeling without impropriety and such is the
divine gift of language possessed by Plato in the 'Symposium' and 'Phaednzs'.

16
Plato was nct a professed critic of literature and his critical observation zire not
.embodied in any single work. His chief concern was philosophical investigation
NOTES
which forms the subject of his great work, the Dialogue. In the course of these
philosophical discussions the Platonic Socrates made certain utterance on
literature, which is usually found in lion, Symposium, Republic, Fhaedrus, and
Iaws. Although they are no more than scattered references in a bigger context the
profundity of their thought sakes them a very important contribution, the first of
its kind, to the art of criticism. In these utteraces on poetry and drama, Plato
shows himself a discerning critic a Indeed he is the first literary critic of repute.
Positively and negatively he was able to exert profound influence a like upon the
advocates and the antagonists of poetry and art in the succeeding ages. The
puritans and men of their inclination never failed to employ his weapons to
combat the insidious influence of poetry. While its defenders invoked this theory
of inspiration to uphoid the dignity and letters. His outright condemnation of what
he regarded as mimetic arts was really a cllallenge to all who were interested in
imaginative literature and it spurred the daring intellects into deeper enquires to
furnish convincing arguments in suyport of other side of the problem. In this way,
he served as an effective irritant in the develgpment of critical thought.

His theory of inspiration is a positive contribution to literary criticism. The theory

of course is as primitive as it is universal. It was currmt in connection with poetry
as suggested in the first place by the opening lines of the Homeric poems. Both
the 'Iliad’ and 'Odyssey’ begin with an appeal to the Muse for inspiration to ztter
the truth of things, and this is confirmed by Heriod, who in his preface to the
'Theogony' explains how the Muse breathed into him the art of divine music. In
this way the theory of inspiration was prevalent before Plato.

Piato was the first critic who advanced the theory of imitation that all arts in an
imitation of life and nature, that art is an imitation of imitation. The essence of his
arguments is that poetry is a form of imitation, and is thus a representation of an
actual and the contingent and not of the ideal and essential. Thus poetry takes us
away from the true rather than towards it, Poetry has no concern with seriaus
things and it is a form of trivial amusement. Aristotle dealt with the problems in
the 'Poetics'.

17
 Plato was concerned with the didactic side of art and literature. Plato believed that
poetry should subserve individuals and social morality. He was of the view that
NOTES
poetry helped neither to mould character not to promote the well being of the
state.

Plato was also the originator of the theory of organic unity in a piece of
composition, one of the most fundamental and widely accepted principles of
literary criticism. To quote him:

Every discourse must be organized, like a living being, with a body of its over, as
it were, so as not to be headless or footless, but to have a middle and members
composed in fitting relations to each other and to the whole.

Plato is not only the first philosophical critic, but also the first critic to
communicate the beauty and character of creative literature to his critical pages,
derogatory as well as commendatory. His prose is Attic prnse prose marked by
simplicity and richness of thought. The perfection of style is variety in unity,
freedom, ease, clearness, the power of saying anything, and of striking any note in
the scale of human. feeling without impropriety, and such is the divine gift of
language possessed by Plato in the 'Symposium' and 'Phaedrus'.

1.3.1 Longinus: The First Romantics Critic of the Ancient World

Longinus is known as the first romantic critic in the sense that he laid stress on
passion, ecstasy, transport, imagination, intensity and exaltation. All the romantic
critics have repeatedly emphasizeci all these features in their criticism. In
Longinus, all the romantic traits can very easily be traced. Longinus stressed on
the aesthetic criticism which was paramountly adhered to be the romantic critics.
Actually during the classical period in Greek and Roman criticism, a work of art
was judged by the canons of set critical rules. Longinus could not adhere to these
traditional and classical rciles. He revolted agdinst all such set rules. His advocacy
for "the quaiity of transport or ecstasy" is the greatest proof of his a romantic
critic.

18
It was his paramount assertion that the sublime can never be achieved through
external force like the set ruled and regulation of criticism. He told that it is the
NOTES
heart and the mind of man from where the sublimity will spring. He says that
people who thiik that through classical adherence in from and taste. we cannot set
sublimity, are wrong. Imagery and amplificatiog can be considered greater value
and triumphantly upheld that it is only through imitation amplification and
imagery that sublime can be achieved and once (the sublime) is acheved, there can
be in excess ecstasy or transport. Gibbon is also attracted by Longinus ecstasy or
transport.

Longinus as a romantic critic emphasized the use of 'Metaphors'. Since he was

having romantic vein, he could not deny using 'Metaphors,' which greatly impart
an accurate aid to the promotion of everybody is romantic temper. Rhys Roberts
has remarked in this connection.

He is subject rather than objective. He is better fitted to fire the young to convince
the maturely skeptical. He speaks rather of 'transport3 than of 'purgation’ or
'universal'.

M.R. Abrams has likewise regarded Longinus as "the first romantic critic.

He remarks.

The consonance of his treatise with the familiar romantic tradition is the reasou
why later day students of criticism who find Aristotle schematic Horace worldly
and rhetoricians trivial, respond to Longinus as animatiag and modern.

George Saintsbury has traced a lot of qualities of Being a romantic critic in

Longinus. According to him, he was the first romantic critic. His trace of ecstasy
or transport was a unique thing. His emphasis on the imagination is a new
research. His understanding of the vital importance of high thinking and high
feeling was entirely depending on his remantic fervour, yet the stands alone,
observes prof. George Saintsbury. "We must skip fifteen hundred years and come
to Coleridge before we meet any critic entirely cf his class, yst free fgm some of
his limitation. His work remains to weririg among all other works of the class, the
work of a critic at once Promethean and Epimsethean in his kind, learning by the

19
 mistakes of all that had gone before, and presaging with instinctive genius, much
that was not to come centuries after.
NOTES

1.4 Glimpse of Classical Indian Theory

The Tradition of Drama and Theatre in India

Drama in Indian had rich and glorious tradition. It begins its journey with the
Sanskrit plays. We can get perfect glimpse of tradition in 'Natyasastra' the oldest
of the texts of the theory of the drama, claims for the drama divine origin and a
close connection with the sacred Vedas themselves. A.L. Basham, a prominent
historian expresses similer views in his own way. The origin of the Indian theatre
is still obscure. It is certain however that even in the Vedic period dramatic
performances of some kind were given and passing reference in early source point
to the inaction at festivals of religious legends, perhaps only in dance and mime.
The surviving Sanskrit dramas are numerous and varied, ranging fiom short one
act play lets to very long plays in ten acts. The chief dramatists were Asvaghasa,
Bhasa, Kalidas, Bhavabhuti and Sudrak. Tragedies like Urubhanga, romances like
Abhijnana-Sakuntalam and historical plays like Mudrarakshas form an
imperishable part of our literary heritage.

All literahue in Sanskrit is classified into Drishya and the Sravya. While poetry in
all foms can be said to fall under the latter, drama falls under the former. Drama in
Sanskrit literature is covered under the broad umbrella of rupaka which means
depiction of life in its various as aspects represented in foms by actors who play
various roles.

The Sanskrit drama grows around three primary constituents: nmely, vastu(Plot),
Neta (Hero) Rasa (Sentiment). The plot could be eiihcr principal (adhikarika) or
accessory (prasangika). The former concerns the primary characters of the theme
and pervades the entire play. The latter serves io further and supplement the main
topic, aid relates to subordinate characters other than the chef ones. This is further
divided into banner (pataka) and incident (parkari). The former is a small episode

20
that presents, describes, improves or even hindens the primary plot to create added
excitement. The latter involves minor incidents represented by minor characters.
NOTES
In Abhijnana- sakuntalam, Vivkramor vactyam, and Malavikagni-mitram of
Kalidas and Swpanavasavadattam of Bhasa, Sringara or the erotic is the chief
rasa. Veera or the heroic is pervading rasa in venisamhara and Mudra Rakshasa of
Visakhadattas.

It is significant to note that Sanskrit drama never offers tragedy unlike many of
the Shakespearean plays. While all emotions including grief, terror, and disgust
are depicted the Sanskrit drama never allows a tragic catastrophe to cause a
painful impression in the minds of the audience.

Thus we do not miss the impact of Sanslcrit playwrights like Bhasa and
Bhavabhuti as K.R.S. Iyengar observes: But all five plays are stepped in poetry
and romance, recalling the spirit and flavor of the distinctive dramatic type
exemplified in different ways by Bhasa, Kalidas and Bhava Phuti-though, of
course, all have Aurobindonian undertones.

1.5 Comprehension Question

1. Examine Aristotle's contribution to literay criticism.

2. Critically examine Aristotle's definition of tragedy.

3. Make a note on the three unities of Aristotle.

4. Critically examine Aristotle's statement that the poet is a maker of plots

than of verse. Illustrate your answer.

5. Write in your own words Aristotle's definition of tragedy as the imitation

of an action, serious, complete and of a certain magnitude.

6. Make a note on Aristotle's opinion an limitation.

21
 7. Write salient features of tragic hero of Aristatle.

NOTES 8. Write a note on criticism in Ancient Greece.

9. Throw adequate light on the growth of literary criticism in Ancient Greek.

10. Assess Plato's theory of ideas with apt illustration.

11. Discuss Plato insistence on Art for the sake of like.

12. What is Plato’s contribution to criticism? Answer in your our words.

13. Consider Plato is originator of the theory of organic unity in a piece of

composition.

14. Consider Longinus as the first romantic critic of the ancient world.

15. Critically examine Longinus as a literary critic.

16. Write an authentic note on classical Indian theory.

22
 UNIT- II
NOTES

RENAISSANCE AND NEO-CLASSICAL

THEORY

2.0 Structure

2.1 Johson's Criticism

2.1.1 Johnson's Criticism of Shakespeare: The Preface to Shakespeare :

A Note

2.1.2 Johnson View on the Unities

2.1.3 A General Estimate of Johnson's Criticism of Shakespeare

2.2 William Wordsworth

2.2.1 The Preface to the Shakespeare: Its Genius's and History

2.3 Matthew hold

2.3.1 Mathew Arnold: A Critic

2.4 W. Pater

2.4.1 Pater's Appreciations

2.4.2 Pater as a Critic

2.4.3 An Exponent of Aesthetic Movement

2.5 Coleridge

2.5.1 Coleridge on Imagination

2.6 Comprehension Exercise

23
 2.1.1 Johnson's Criticism of Shakespeare
NOTES
The Preface to Shakespeare: A Note

Johnson's remarks on Shakespeare's dramatic art in his preface bring out clearly
his originality as a critic. At the outset he establishes Shakespeare's sound claims
to supremacy in literature not by applying classical or neo classical rules, but the
Logicians test of all great literature namely ''length of duration and continuance of
esteem." After that he analyses the quality of Sh&espeare7s art which has given
him supremacy over others. He defmes this quality as the universality of his
outlook, the faithful portrayal of the fundamental qualities of human nature comon
to all ages. He says:

"Nothing can please many, and please long, but a just representation of general
nature. Particular aanners can be known to few, and therefore few only can judge
how nexly they are copied. The irregular combinations of fanciful invention may
delight a while by that novelty of which the common satiety of life sends us all in
quest; but the pleasure of sudden wonder are soon exhausted, and the mind can
only repose on the stability of truth."

Shakespeare as the Poet of Nature:

Shakespeare is above all writers, at least above all modern writers, the poet of
nature; the poet that holds up to his readers a faithful mirror of manners and of
life. His Characters are nor, modified by the customs of particular places,
unpracticed by the rest of the world, by the peculiarities of studies or professions,
which can operate but upon small numbers, or by the accidents of transient
fashion or contemporary opinions: they are the genuine progeny of common
humanity; such as the world will always supply and observation will always find.
His persons act and speak by the influence of those general passions and
principles by which all minds are agitated and the whole system of life is
continued in motion. In the writing of other poets a characters is too often an
individual, in those of Shakespeare it is commonly a species'

24
Shakespeare art's is contrast with that of the other dramatists. In this connection
Johnson says: The theatre, when it is under any often direction is peopled by such
NOTES
character as were never seen conversing in a language which was never heard,
upon topics which will never arise in the commerce of mankind. But the dialogue
of this author is often so evidently determined by the incident which produces it,
and is pursued with so much ease and simplicity that it seems scarcely to claim
the merit of fiction, but to have been gleaned by diligent relation out of common
conservation and common occurrences.

Shakespeare's Handling of the Supernatural

The same universal treatment is to be found in Shakespeare's handling of the

super natural. Even where the agency is supernatural the dialogue is level with life
Shakespeare approximates the remote, and familiarizes the wonderful, the - event
which he represents will not happen; but if it were possible its effects would
probably be such as he has assigned; and it may be said: that he has not only
shown human nature as it acts in real excrescencies, but as it would be found in
trials, it cannot be exposed.

Shakespeare's Style

Johnson has a word of praise for Shakespeare's style. He says there is style in
every nation, which never becomes obsolete, a certain mode of phraseology so
consonant and congenial to the analogy and principles of its respective language
as to remain settled and unaltered, his style is probably to be sought in the
common inter course of life, among those who speak only to be understood,
without ambition of elegance---- there is a conversation above grossness and
below refinement where propriety resides, and where this poet (Shakespeare)
seems to have gathered his comic dialogue. He is therefore more agreeable to the
ears of the present age than any other author equally remote, and among his other
excellences deserves to be studied as one of the original masters of our language.

25
 Johnson's Defence of Shakespeare's Characterization

NOTES
Johnson gives answer to the charges against Shakespeare's characterization as
made by Dennis, Rymer 2nd Voltaire. Dennis and Rymer have described
Shakespeare s Romans as "not sufficiently Romans" Where as Voltaire had
objected to his represent action of the usurping king in Hamlet as a drunkard. To
these charges Johnson replies:

Shakespeare always makes nature predominate over accident, and if he preserves

the essential character is not very careful of distinctica super kduced and
adventitious. His story requires Romans, or kings but he thinks only of men. He
knew that Rome, like every other city, had men of all dispositions, and wanting a
buffoon he went into the senate house for that which the senate house would
certainly have afforded him. He was inclined to show a usurper and a murderer
not only odious but despicable, he therefore added drunkenness to his other
qualities, knowing that kings live wine like other men, and that wine extents its
natural power upon kings. These are the petty cavils of petty minds, a poet
overlooks the casual distinction of country and condition, as a painter, satisfied
with the figure, neglects the drapery.

Defects in Shakespeare's Plays

Johnson then points out a few defects in Shakespeare's plays. In the beginning he
says that there is no poetic justice in his plays. He has written without moral
purpose:

His first defect is that to which may be imputed most of the evil in books or in
men. He sacrifices virtue to convenience, and is much more careful to please than
to instruct, that he seems to write without any moral purpose. This fault the
barbarity of his age cannot extenuate: for it is always a writer's duty to make the
world the better and justice is a virtue independent of time or place.

26
He also finds faults in his plots and their endings. The plots are often so loosely
formed, that a very slight consideration may improve them, and so carelessly
NOTES
pursued that he seems not always fully to comprehend his own design.. it may be
observed that in many of his plays the latter part is evidently neglected. When he
found himself near the end of his work, and in view of his reward, he shortened
the labor to snatch the profit. He, therefore, remits his efforts where he should
most vigorously exert them, and his catastrophe is improbably produced or
imperfectly represented. He also objects to Shakespeare's anachronisms or
violations of chronology. Then he points out certain faults in comedies:

in his comic scenes he is seldom very successful when engages his characters in
reciprocation of smartness and contests of sarcasm their jerks are commonly
grass, and their pleasantry licentious, neither his gentlemen nor his ladies have
much delicacy, for are sufficiently distinguished from his clowns by any
appearance of refined manners.

Again he says:

There is a tendency in Shakespeare to amplify unduly the narratives and set

speeches, and to fall in his tragedies into bombast and obscurity. In tragedy his
performance seems to be worse, as his labour is more. The effusions of passions
which exigency forces out are the most part striking and energetic, but whenever
he solicits his invention or strains his faculties, the offspring of his theories is
tumor, meanness, tediousness, and obscurity in narrative he affects of
disproportionate pomp of diction, and a wearisome train of circumlocution, and
tells the incident imperfectly in many words, which might have been more plainly
delivered in few.... His declamations or set speeches are commonly cold end
weak. . .

In the end he points out the tiresome quibbles in his plays.

A quibble is to Shakespeare, what luminous vapours are to the traveler, he follows

it at all adventures it is sure to lead him out of his way, and sure to engulf him in
the mire. It has some malignant power over his mind, and its fascinations are

27
 irresistible... A quibble is the golden for which he will always turn aside from his
career, or stoop from his elevation. A quibble was to him the fatai Cleopatra for
NOTES
which he lost the world, and was content to lose it.

2.12 Johnson Views on the Unities

Unities display three unities, unity of action, unity place and unity of Time.
Johnson views on the unities are as follows:

Unity of Action

Johnson advocates Shakespeare's non-observance of the mities of time and place.

He regards the unity of action as essential for the drama and Shakespeare, he
observes, has generally preserved it in accordance with Aristotle7s requirement.
His plots have a beginning, middle, and an end, all the events are linked together,
and conclusions result from what had gone before. But Shakespeare paid no
regard to the unities of time and place. Shakespeare thmks that the necessity of
observing the unities of time and place arises from the supposed necessity of
making drama ciedible. The critics holds it impossible than, an action of months
or years can be possibly believed to pass in three hours; or that the spectator can
suppose himself to sit in the theatre, while ambassadors go and return between
distant kings, while armies are levied and towns besieged, while an exile was
dears and returns, or till he whom they saw courting his mistress, shall lament the
untimely fall of his son. The mind revolts from evident falsehood, and fiction
loses its force when it departs from the resemblance of reality.

Johnson Expresses His Views like This:

The objection arising from the impossibility of passing the first hour at
Alexandria, and the next at Rome, supposes that when the play opens, the

28
spectator really imagines himself at Alexandria and believes that his walk to the
theatre has been a voyage to Egypt, and that he lives in the days of Anthony and
NOTES
Cleopatra. Surely he that imagines this may imagine more. Etc that can take the
stage at one time for the palace of the polemics, may take it in half an hour for the
promontory of Action. Delusion, if delusion be admitted, has no certain limitation
if the spectator can he once persuaded, that his old acquaintances are Alexander
and Caesar, that a room illuminated with candles is the plain of Pharsalia, or the
bank of Granieus, he is in 2 state of elevation above the reach of reason, or of
truth, and from the heights of empyrean poetry may despise the circumscriptions
of terrestrial nature. There is no reason why a mind thus wandering in ecstasy
should count the clock, or why an hour should not be a century in that calenture of
the brains that can make the stage a field.

Unity of Place

The spectators are aware of the fort that they are watching only a drama. Form the
first act to the last they know that all players are only players. They come to hear a
certain number of lines recited with just gestures and the elegant modulation. The
lines relate to some action and an action must be in places very remote from each
other; and where is the absurdity of allowing that space to represent first Athens,
and then, Sicily, which has always know to be neither Sicily nor Athens, but a
modern theatre.

Unity of Time

In the same way Shakespeare does not regard the unity of time essential for the
drama. He thinks that time is, of all modes existence, most obsequious to the
imagination: A lap of years is easily conceived as a passage of hours. In
contemplations we easily conceived as a passage of hours. In contemplations we
easily contract the time of real actions, and therefore, willingly permit it to be
contracted when we only see their imitation. ''How the drama moves, if it is not
credited?'

29
 A possible question may be asked, Johnson's reply is: It is credited with all the
credit due to a drama. It is credited, whenever it moves…. as a just picture of a
NOTES
real original; as representing to the author what he would himself feel if he were
to do or suffer what is there feigned to be suffered or to be done.... The delight of
tragedy proceeds from our consciousness of fiction; if we thought murders and
treasons real, they would please no more. Imitations produce pain or pleasure, not
because they are mistaken for realities, but because they bring realities to mind.
Johnson expresses his views clearly and forcibly:

That the unities of time and place are not essential to a just drama, that though
they may sometimes conduce to pleasure they are always to be sacrificed to the
noble beauties of variety and instruction; and that a play, written with nice
observation of critical rules, is to be contemplated as an elaborate curiosity, as the
product of superfluous and ostentatious art by which is shown, rather what is
possible, than what is necessary.

2.1.3 A General Estimate of Johnson's Criticism of Shakespeare

The services Johnson rendered to Shakespeare are only second to these he

rendered to the language in which Shakespeare wrote. The preface to his edition
of Shakespeare is certainly the most masterly piece of his literary criticism: and it
may still be doubted after all that has been written about Shakespeare in the
century and a half that separate it from our own day, whether the world can yet
show any sixty pages about Shakespeare exhibiting so much truth and wisdom as
these. All Johnson's gifts are seen at their best in it: the lucidity; the virile energy
the individuality of his style: the unique power of first placing on the level of the
plain man and then lifting the plain man to his; the resolute insistence on life and
reams, not learning of ingenuity, as the standard by which books a& to be Judged.
No one ever was as free as Johnson from that part of literature which a fine
French critic, one of the subtlest of his countrymen, called, "I ingenious sans bon
sense", and he never showed himself as free of it as in his Shakespeare. The
master of life, whether life or nature be his subject shows plainly that he has seen

30
it with his own eyes, inspired the greet critic with more even than his usual
measure of sanity; and perhaps the very best things in the preface and the notes
NOTES
are the frequent summoning of ingenious sophistries to the bar of a merciless
merely lifeless application of mechanical rule, read again the famous passages in
the preface where he dismisses the claims of the unities of place and time to be
necessary to the proper illusion of drama. Never did critic show himself freer of
the easy slavery to traditional rules which afflicts or consoles sluggish minds. In
Johnson pages at any rate, there is always an appeal open as he says from
criticism to nature and, though all his prejudices except those of the anti Gallican
must have carried him to the side of the unities, he goes straight to the truth of
experience obtains there a decisive answer, and records it his a few pages of
masterly reasoning. The first breath of the fact as known to everyone who has
visited a theatre, is required not for the sake of deceiving the spectators, which is
impossible, but for the sake of bringing order into chaos, art into nature, and the
immensity of life within limits that can be compassed by the powers of the human
mind the unity of action, which assists the mind is therefore vital, the unities of
time and place, which are apparently meant to deceive it, are empty imposture for
the truth is that the spectators are always in their senses, and know, from the first
act to be last, that the stage is only a stage and the players only players the delight
proceeds from our consciousness of fiction if we thought murders and treasons
real they would please no more.

But this is simple one especially famous passage in an essay which is full of
matter from the first page to the last. It says little, of course of the sublime poetry
of Shakespeare, and it cannot articipate the criticism of the imagination which
Goethe and Coleridge have taught us bo expect from every writer about
Shakespeare. They day for that was not yet: and as Johnson, himself among the
first to suggest the historical and comparative point of view in criticism, says in
this very preface, every man's performances, to be rightly estimated, must be
compared with the state of the age in which he lived and with his own particular
opportunities, He had a difficult task, and he performed it so admirably that what
he says can never be out of date. It had not then become superfluous of insist on
the greatness of Shakespeare. If it has since become so, no smdl share of that
result may be ascribed to Johnson. We forget that, because, as he said of Dryden it
31
 is the fate of the critic who convinces to be lost in prevalence of his own
discovery. Ever certainly has the central praise of Shakespeare, as the moster of
NOTES
truth and universality, been better set forth than by Johnson. Ours ears are
deliglted, our powers of admiration quickened, our reasons convinced, as we read
the succession of luminous and eloquent paragraphs in which he tries Shakespeare
by the tarts of time, nature, of universality, and finds him super in all. Shakespeare
has had subtler and more optical critics than Johnson. But no one has equally
insist, lucidity and finality which Johnson shows in his own field.

2.2 Romantic Criticism: William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth (1770-1850) is one of the greatest poets of England, one to

whom Matthew Arnold assigns as place near only to Shakespeare and Milton. He
was primarily a poet, and not a critic. He has left behind him no comprehensive
and systematic treatise on literary criticism. His criticism consists of
Advertisement to the Lyrical Ballads, 1802 with an Appendix on Poetic Diction.
The preface was constantly revised for the subsequent editions of the Lyrical
Ballads. For the 1815 edition, the poet wrote a new Preface and the older one was
added as an Appendix. The volume also contained an essay, Supplementary to the
Preface.

The 1802 Preface is generally taken as the standard text and competent critics
regard it as a land mark in the history of criticism.

Wordsworth's critical works also include his ~rotes to "The Thorn" and other
poems as well as critical remarks of great significance scattered all up and down
his correspondence.

Its Genesis and History

Wordsworth’sss preface to The Lyrical Ballads- is a critical document of abiding

significance. It underwent a number of revisions till it acquired its present form. It

32
is first published in 1798 and Wordsworth merely added a short introduction to
this edition. The second edition of the Lyrical Ballads published in 1800
NOTES
containing detailed Preface. He began writing it in the summer of 1800 and
completed it by the end of September. Coleridge claimed in 1802 that it was "half
a child of my own brain", since many of its ideas has originated in discussions
between the two poets, and he may have even given further help by making notes
on these topics. Nevertheless, it was Wordsworth who finally shaped this material
and in doing so assimilated it to his own way of thinking. With the several of his
formulations Coleridge subsequently comes to disagree.

The 1800 Preface was revised, enlarged and perfected for the 1802 edition of the
Lyrical Ballads. The most significant addition to the 1802 preface is the long
account of the nature, qualifications and functions of a poet the demonstration of
his superiority over the man of science and an examination of the nature of poetic
pleasure. To this edition Wordsworth also added an Appendix on poetic diction,
devoted to a consideration of poetic diction and its history.

The Preface was constantly revised and perfected for each subsequent edition of
the Lyrical Ballads, but basically the poets views remained the same. No
significant changes were made for the edition of 1805. But in the edition of 181 5
this Preface appeared as an Appendix and the volume was provided with an
entirely new Preface. To this volume Wordsworth also added an Essay
Supplementary to the Preface. The Mace that we study today is that of 1808.

Wordsworth's Aim

Wordsworth himself teils us that his aim in writing the Preface was not to give an
elaborate account of his theory of poetry or to make a systematic defense of Ms
point of view. He added the Preface because he felt that his poems were of a new
kind, both in theme and style, and therefore, he should not hurl them at the head
of the people without a world of introduction. Every new and original poet has to
create the taste by which he is read and enjoyed and the creation of such a taste
was Wordsworth is basic objective in writing the preface. He seeks to bring about

33
 drastic revaluations of earlier poetry so that his own poetry may be properly
appreciated.
NOTES

Poetic Diction

The theme which dominates the Preface, and which Wordsworth pursues most
consistently is his argument against poetic diction. As Derek Roper points, out the
immediate objects of his attack were the gaudiness and phraseology of
contemporary poets.

Wordsworth's fundamental objection to what he elsewhere calls a vague glossy

and unfeeling language is that to separate poetry from ordinary speech is to
separate it from human life. For him, the great value of poetry is that it permits the
sharing of experience, the communication of truths carried alive into the heart by
passion. The view of poetry as communication is not confined to one period or
movement but ii has never been so forcefully expressed as in the great passage.
Wordsworth added in 1802, fore shadowed by his earlier sentence: "Poetry sheds
no tears such as angel sweep, but natural and human tears she can boast of no
celestial ichors (Fluid) that distinguishes her vital juices from those of prose the
same human blood circulates through the veins of them both.

Function of Poetry - Poetic Pleasure

Poetry is known as communication and it is his awn pleasure that the poet
communicates. Traditionally the function of poetry was supposed to be both to
instruct and delight, but for Wordsworth the function of poetry is to give pleasure.
However his conception of pleasure is an exalted one. Poetic pleasure is not mere
idle amusement like rope dancing or sherry drinking. Serious poetry provides a
pleasure of a more exalted kind. It is the pleasure which results from increased
knowledge and understanding. He considers poetry superior to bot history and
philosophy, as well as to science. He regards it as the most philosophical of all
writings, the impassioned expression that is the countenance of all science. The
appeal of science is merely to the intellect poetry complements science by adding

34
feelings to its truth, and by its imaginative treatment it makes people more fully
aware of them.
NOTES

The Poet: His Qualification

In a long passage added in 1802 he gives us his view of the nature and character
of a poet. The poet is essentially a man speaking to man, he differs from other
men not in nature, but merely in the degree of his &s. He is a man of greater
sensibility, observation, reflection and imagination of greater powers of
communication. He can, therefore, comprehend truth to which other remain blind.
He can see into the heart of things and can communicate his own understanding of
the soul of things to his readers. Thus the Preface makes it clear that
Wordsworth's understanding of his own calling is a very exalted one.

Richness of Preface

The preface is a rich piece of writing. Its themes are manifold and it raises many
questions. To quote Margaret Drabble, It is quite impossible to try to give an
account of all the questions raised by the Preface, for in it Wordsworth covers an
enormous stretch of ground, throwing out quite effortlessly the most acute
observations on the relationship of poetry and science on the use of metre on the
place of pleasure in art on Aristotle a taste and its cultivation arid on the history of
poetry. It raises, in fact almost every knotty aesthetic problem are can think of and
deal with it with an amazing confidence and energy. It cannot read too often:
every time it seems to contain something new and unexpected it marks the
beginning of a new age.

Some Faults

Undoubtly, the Preface has its faults, is Coleridge, who criticizes it for the needles
obscurity of its half, and the extreme elaboration and constrainedness of its
diction. As Garrod tells us the Preface is a propaganda pamphlet and such as

35
 suffers fro111 the sin of exaggeration and over emphasis. Wordsworth frequently
goes to extremes. Derek Roper points out that considered as the introduction to a
NOTES
collection of poems, the Preface is not a tactful piece of writing forty pages of
none too easy prose dithered readers at the outset. These who preserved ran some
risk of being alienated either by the extreme form in which Wordsworth states
some of his doctrines or by his failures of tone, which is sometimes pedantic,
sometimes

arrogant and sometimes absurdly defensive. Wordsworth makes bold claims for
his poems, such as not all of them will bear, declares that to appreciate them
despite revaluations of earlier poetry will be necessary and cautions the reader
interminably as to how they must and must not be read. Despite this care, the
account he gives of the poems is misleading since they are much more diverse
than the Preface suggests. Coleridge was right in concluding that it was this
Preface which provoked the hostility of critics from 1802 onwards.

Its Value and Significance

Despite this weakness, the Preface is probably the most important single
document in the history of English criticism. It helped substantially to bring about
the reforms Wordsworth most wanted, it gave valuable new insights into the
nature, scope and function of poetry and into the creativc process, and above all it
set new standards for the discussion of such matters by its intense seriousness and
by its gasp of inward experience. By comparison with Wordsworth is Preface. All
previous writings on poetry seem superfical. It is the first comprehensive attempts
to build up a theory of poetry.

The preface is an unofficial manifesto of the English Romantic Movement. It

explained the aims and objectives of romanticism and thus gave to the romantic
movements a definite direction and programme. The Preface is a great irritant to
thought; it poses numerous questions and provokes discussion.

36
2.3.1 Matthew Arnold: A Critic
NOTES
Arnold was the greatest and most influential critic of the Victorian age. In his
theoretical writings he was concerned with social education religious Cultural as
wail as literary improvement. He was not satisfied with the social values and
literary principles prevailing in his own times. He saw the degenerated standards
of art and literature false social values and indifference to moral ideas around him
and wanted to bring about a reform in all of them. Dissatisfied with his own age
he went back to the ancient Greece for inspiration. He saw that the best poetry
was to be found in writers like Homer and Sophocles, and propagated their
thorough study by the writers of his own age. He found in their works what he
thought to be the greatest quality of poetry a combination of great action and
grand style. In his critical principles he was also influenced by Gothe and Sainte-
Beuve from Goethe he learnt the sanity, and above all the architectonic quality or
art. From Sainte-Beuve he learnt that, in forming critical opinions, we should +&e
into account the life and personality of the writer, and that the main quality of a
critic is dinintersstedness. A critic can formulate correct judgments only when he
is disinterested when he has no other ends and interests save the literary.

Arnold's criticism is of great historical importance. He provided the classical

resistance to the prevalent but degenerate romantic criticism. His classicism- his
love of Greek culture, art and literature is reflected in almost all his critical
writing. He did an invaluable service to the cause of literature and criticism by re-
affirming the classical principle of the importance of the action of high
seriousness and of grand style and the importance of the study of the ancients as
models of excellence and Perennial sources of inspiration. He stressed the need
and value of comparative criticism and the necessity of having international views
of all literatures. He brought about a reform a criticism by strongly opposing the
intrusion of personal, literary or religious prejudice in passing judgments on
creative writers. He was very much concerned with the real estimate of a work of
art. The critic's duty according to him was to leave the real estimate of a work to
rise above the fallacies of the historic and the personal estimates, and to see the

37
 object as it really was. He raised criticism there should be a synthesis of
imagination and reason.
NOTES

Arnold comes before us as a great reformer. If the chief merit of a critic is to

promote in others the intelligent appreciation, the conscious enjoyment of
literature then, in the words of Prof. Saintsbury, few critics can mute -this
question more triumphantly than Mr. Arnold. Arnold thinks that a critic can affect
a reform in society, and therefore he set himself to the task of defining the critic's
duty in the relation to society. In this connection R.A. Scott James says, "In that
body of hold's work, dealing with critical principles which has most affected the
public mind, and has passed into currency as his distinctive doctrine, he is dealing
with a function of criticism that did not concern Aristotle at all. Aristotle shows us
the critic in relation to art".

Arnold dissects a critic. The one gives us the principles which govern the making
of a poem, the other the principles by which the best poems should be selected
and made known. Aristotle's critic owes allegiance to the artist, but

Arnold's critic has a duty to society. He is a propagandist tilling the soil 90 that
the best ideas" may prevail, making an intellectuals situation of which the creative
powder can profitably avail itself. To prepare a social atmosphere which will
stimulate the artist to make the best that has been written familiar to the problem
of I perfection or how believe it was on the way to becoming a branch of "social
reform".

Arnold like Sainte Beuve, believes that the life and personality of a writer have a
great impact of his work and we should take them into consideration while
judging his work. He, therefore, adopted the biographical method of criticism.
This was the same method used by Dr. Johnson in his lives of the poets. In his
essays on poets Arnold studies their life and simultaneously presents before us an
assessment of their works in relation of their lives. As George Watson says:

Here, as in Johnson's 'Lives' most studies begin in biography and end in criticism,
but now the two principal components are utter merged, so that we should seek in

38
vain the moment of separation, and both subserve a mysterious end superior to
biography and, critical analysis alike Lionel Trilling also says that Arnold
NOTES
Possessed a biographical talent richly suited to critical purpose, not so brilliant
and dramatic as to over- shadow the litera7 evaluation but alert to the tone and
inflection of personality, able, by reference to there, to illustrate the spiritual
meaning of style. In part learned from Johnson and Cotton, in large part from
Saint Beuve, it was a biographical method whose results for their entire frequent
wrongheadedness, were perhaps more reassuring than Sainte-Beuve's because
they wrong from a more firmly based temperament.

Arnold made criticism a creative activity. According to him criticism was creative
as poetry and in good criticism there should be a synthesis of imagination and
reason. His aim was to make criticism a pleasant creative activity and not mere
dry rationalism. In this connection, Lionel Trilling says:

"If we are to understand Arnold appeal to his contemporaries, we must understand

his dual intention of criticism. If few are to follow the fluctuations of his opinions,
his offer confusing modulations, we must see that his criticism is the recirculation
of the two traditions whose warfare had disturbed his youth- rationalism and faith.
It is an attempt to bring this synthesis to bear on all the aspects of modern life. He
steers course both my compass and by stars reason but not the cold and formal
reason that makes the mind a machine, but not the escape from the earth binding
facts "The main elements of the spirit's life, he says," is neither the sense and
understanding nor the heart and imagination. It is the imaginative reason. The
imaginative reason with this phrase Arnold feels he has closed the gap between
head and heart, between feelings and intellect, a schism, as it had appeared in his
poetry".

One of the distinguishing features of Arnold's criticism is its comparative method

and international view of all literatures. According to him a writer should be and
judged not only in the light of the literature of his own country, but in the light of
literature of all the countries all that is known and thought the best in the world
Saints Bury says.

39
 He may be said imperfectly romantic or even anti romantic as he was to have been
the very first critic to urge the importance the necessity of that comparative
NOTES
criticism of different literature the half blind working of which had helped to
create, if it had not actually created, the romantic movements. In England he was
absolutely the first to do this systematically and with something like though not
with complete impartiality.

In his essay on Wordsworth, he says that there should be a court of judgment for
all the writers of the world.

Let us conceive of the whole group of civilized nations as being, for intellectual
and spiritual purpose, one great confederation, bound to a joint action

working towards a common result, a confederation whose members have a due

knowledge both of the part, out of which they all proceed, and of one another.
This was the ideal of Goethe and it is an idea which will impose itself upon the
thoughts of modern societies more and more. Then to be recognized by the verdict
of such a confederation as a master, or even as a seriously and eminently worthy
workman in one's own line of intellectual or spiritual activity is indeed glory, a
glory which it would be difficult to rate too highly.

The last thing in this connection is his brilliant prose style. He writes in a
persuasive manner and leaves the impact of his personality on the readers. A kind
of radiance, a sweetness and light, pervades all his works which make him an
extremely pleasing writer. Referring to his prose style, Lionel Trilling says:

Arnold has a manner and a style rather new to England and perfectly adapted to
art of criticism elegant yet sinewy, colloquial yet reserved, cool yet able to glow
into warmth careful never to flare into heat. It was a style which kept writer and
reader at a sufficient distance from each other to allow room between them for the
object of their consideration. The opposite of Macaulay's of which it has been said
that no one could tell the truth in it, Arnold's, "prose was sinuous and modulated,
permitting every nuance and modification that exactness required.

40
There are some defects in Arnold's criticism and those critics who see defects only
try to belittle the value of his criticism. It has been pointed out that there is no
NOTES
system and logical arrangement of ideas in his criticism and that is suffers from in
consistency. T.S. Eliot says 111 this connection that he had not the power of
connected reasoning at any length his flights are either short flights or circular
flights. Nothing in his prose work, therefore, will stand very close analysis, and
we may well feel that the positive content of many works is very small. Arnold
sometimes pronounces absurd judgments and it has offended many critics. For
example, he prefers the letters of Shelley to his poetry and says that he is "a
beautiful and intellectual angel, beating in the void his luminous wings in vain."

He was not able to appreciate Chaucer and Burns properly then, it is said that
Arnold is a preacher, preaching religion and morality with the Leal of a prophet.
His moral predilections have vitiated his criticism of Shelley and Keats. But here
it can be said that Arnold's" religion was poetry. He thought that religion and
morality were as broad as life and since poetry can never be divorced from life,
religion, morality and poetry, to him, became one. Then, Arnold has a habit of
repeating certain phrases, 'like criticism of life high seriousness', 'grand style the
Application of noble ideas to life', which sometimes become very boring. It is for
this reason that he is often called an advertising agent a salesman of literature.
T.S.

Eliot calls him "rather a propagandist for criticism than a critic." His dogmatism is
also not liked by many critics in this connection Raleigh says:

The method-of his criticism is essentially and wholly dogmatic. He believed in

dogma and Authority as engines of practical good and in an academy as a means
of literary salvation. He wanted only the best and highest things for poetry, he was
very quick to discern them and was so confident in his judgment that he cared not
at all to reason about him, or to analysis the causes of their greatness.

Arnold's scholarship was limited and sometimes he shows ignorance in his

criticism of writer. He did not understand Celtic literature properly, and therefore
his study of Celtic literature remains a stupid and useless performance. In the

41
 same way he did not understand very well the French and Russian languages, yet
he expressed his views on Amiel and Tolstoy. Then, his persona! mannerisms and
NOTES
cult for classicism, or" "neotato classicism" have vitiated his cruical judgment. He
had unbounded feet for his cult and it made him blind to the beauties of the
romantic poetry.

Summing Up

Arnold certainly has limitations, yet in spite of them, he is a great critic prof.
Saintsbury sums up the whole position in the following manners:

His services, therefore, to English criticism, whether as a perceptist or as actual

craftsman, cannot possibly be overestimated. In the first respect he was if not the
absolute reformer. The leader in reform of the slovenly and disorganised condition
into which romantic criticism had fallen. In the second, the things which he had
not, as well as those which he had, combined to give him a place among the very
first. He had not the robustness of Johnson the supreme critical reason (as against
understanding) of Coleridge scarcely the exquisite, if fitful appreciation of Lamb
or the full blooded and passionate appreciation of Hazlitt. But he had exacter
knowledge than Dryden's the fineness of his judgment shows finer beside
Johnson's bluntness, he could not woolgather like Coleridge, his range was far
wider than lambs, his scholarship and his delicacy a like gave him an advantage
over Hazlitt. Systematic without being hidebound well read (if not exactly
learned) without pedantry, delicate and subtle, without Weakness or dilettantism,
catholic without eclecticism, enthusiastic without indiscriminateness Mr. Arnold
is one of the best and most precious of teachers- on his own side. Arnold was the
most influential critic of his age, and continues to inspire writers even today.
Referring to his wide influence Lionel Trilling says, "Other critics may have been
momentarily more exciting, Hone was eventually more convincing." T.S: Eliot
has said that the academic literary opinions of our time were formed by Arnold.
F.O. Matthiessen, recalling the comment, Specifies George Saintsbruy, Charles
Whibley, A.C. Bradley W.P. Ker and Irring Babbitt as the continuations of the
Arnold tradition, and in another essay Eliot finds that the assumptions of Arnold.

42
Criticism was adopted by Walter Pater, Arthur Symons, J.A. Symonds Stephen
and F. W.E. Myers. For half a century, R.A. Scott James says:
NOTES
Arnold's position in (England) was comparable with what that of Aristotle in
respect of the wide influence he exercised, the mark he impressed up on criticism
and the blind faith which he was trusted by his votaries.

2.4.1 Pater's Appreciations

Appreciations is a collection of critical essays first published in 1889. The writer

of this work was the historical and critic Waiter Hoxatio Pater. Chronologically
Pater was the third great critic of 19" century, the two before him being Colridge
and Mathew Arnold.

The Theme

Appreciatins is a collection of six critical essays. Except the first which deals with
style these essays deal with a great English writer each. These writers are:

i. Charles lamb

ii. Wordsworth

iii. Coleridge

iv. Sir Thomas Browne

v. Rossetti

Pater himself was a romantic and subjective critic and very characteristically, he
chose writers of the same kind for his critical appreciation. He particularly excels
in the treatment of writers like Sir Thomas Browne and Coleridge who, like him
were given to introspection and self analysis. In his appreciation, of a writer, Pater
does not follow constantly the same set plan. His method varies from writer to

43
 writer. Biographical details are thrown here and there with his critical impressions
(Which are all too personal) of the writer concerned.
NOTES

His essay "Of Style" as would be expected, deals with style. Pater emphasises the
need for adhering to the inner truth of the moment rather than any ingenious
external devices for an effective style. He refuses to believe in the differentiation,
between form and matter. He is for their complete fusion. The highest of arts,
according to him is music for in music the form and the matter are
indistinguishable. He likes that literature which is near music in this respect. In
conclusion Pater makes a distinction, according to David Daiches, "somewhat
surprisingly" between good art and great art. The greatness of art depends also on
"the quality of the matter it informs or controls". It is on, this, "its campus its
variety, its alliance to great ends or the depth of the note of revolt, or the largeness
of hope in it, that the greatness of literary art depends". But says Daiches, the
theme is not fully worked out.

Criticism

In his practical criticism, observes Daiches, his concern is to day his finger on the
essential element in the mind or sensibility of the writer. Wordsworth, for
instance, Subdues man to the level of nature, and gives him thereby a certain
breadth and coolness and solemnity. Similarly Coleridge is described as "A true
flower of the emmei" and so on.

A word about Pater's style in Appreciation Pater himself seems to follow the
principles of style which he has laid down in his essay about style. The end of
style according to him, is beauty of expression, which however, is not so easy of
attainment for achieving it the writer should choose every word and cadence with
a world of care so that his language reproduces the right mood at any given
moment. Commenting upon the mutual conformity of Pater’s theory and practice,
Compton Rickett points out: No man more conscientiously tried to put into put
into practice his precepts than he. No essayist has been more sensitive to the
colour and gradation of shades in words than he: and there is an amazing delicacy

44
and subtlety in the critical nuances by which he endeavoured to actualise for the
reader the object of his criticism.
NOTES

2.4.2 Pater as a Critic

With reference to criticism Pater follows the tradition of Longinus. Longinus

method was that of impression as opposed to Aristotle7s method of precept.

Patter Criticism Subjective and Impressionistic

Like Hazlitt and Lamb, Pater has method of criticism. It is entirely subjective and
impressionistic. He judges a work of art by the impressions it makes on him and
not by any rules or set standards. Explaining the essential characteristics of Pater's
criticism. Benson says:

It is true that his knowledge is not pedantically applied, that he concerns himself
little with minute and technical questions of art criticism, but I conceive that
Pater's attempt was always to discern the inner beauty, the essence of the things is
to disentangle the personality, the humanity of the artist rather than to classify or
analyse the work. And so it cones about that his art criticism is essentially a
creative thing In the reference of Pater's impressionistic method Cazamian says:

His method is that impressionism which Hazlitt and Lamb had brilliantly
illuminated. His intuition, no less acute is still more, personal than theirs, in so far
as it is more limited, exclusively governed by the feeling of his own powers, in so
far, too as it readily utilizes semi conscious states, the dim regions of the inner
world and as his judgments more often are a divination of the obscure parts and of
the reverse side of the souls. Penetration to that degree has a ton of morbid; will
deem it disquieting. It is made up of too composite a sympathy. Whatever in case
may be the 'Appreciations of Pater are recreations, the substance of which we feel,
drawn himself.

45
 Pater does not separate the idea from the expression in literature because he
regards both of them important in artistic creations. He observes both the sides of
NOTES
the work.

Pater's Style

In spite of certain defects Pater is a great critic. There is a peculiar charm of style
in all his writings. Benson says about his achievement and position in English
literature. In literature he practically struck out a new line. The tendency of the
best prose writers of the century had been as a rule to employ prose in a prosaic
manner. Landor had aimed at Greek austerity of style. Macaulay had brought to

perfection a bright hard balanced method of statement like the blowing of sharp
trumpets. This was indeed the prose that had recommended itself to the test of the
early Victorians it was full of a certain sound and splendour, rolled along in kind
of impassioned magnificence but the object of it was to emphasise superficial
points in an oratorical manner to produce a glittering panorama rich in detail it
made no appeal to the spirit awaking at best at a kind of patriotic optimism, a
sense self glorification.

Pater really struck out a new line in English prose working on the principles
enunciated by Flaubert in widely different region. The essence of his attempt was
to produce prose that had never before been contemplated in English full of colour
and melody, serious exquisite, ornate. He devoted in simple and stately, whether
he is involved and intricate, he has the contrast always in view. His object was
that every sentence should be weighted, charged with music, haunted with echoes
that should charm and suggest rather than convince or state. The danger of the
perfection to which he attained is the danger of over influence seductive
sweetness; the value is to suggest the unexplored possibilities of English as a
vehicle for a kind of prose that is wholly and essentially poetical. The triumph of
his art is to be metrical without meter, rhythmical without monotony. There will,
of course always be those whom this honeyed laboured cadence with affect
painfully with a sense of something stifling and over perfumeds. One does not
praise his works as the perfection of style. There is limpidity and lucidity of prose

46
style- prose as used by Newman, by Matthew Arnold, by Ruskin in chastened
moods -to which no style that depends upon elaborateness and artifice can attain;
NOTES
but it may fairly be claimed for Pater that he realized his own conception of
perfection. The style is heavy with ornament, supple with artifice.

We get in philosophy of Pater skeptical spirit, designing to plunge beneath

established system is and complacent explanation. He takes account a religious
beauty. It carries minds to the inner spirit. All the charm of ritual and ceremonial
in worship has for Pater an indefinable and constant attraction. He is forever
recurring to it, because it seems to him to interpret and express an emotion a need
of human spirit, whose concern is to comprehend if it can what is the shadowy
figure, the mysterious will, that moves behind the world of sight and sense.

2.4.3 Water Pater (1839-93)

Pater an Exponent of the Aesthetic Movement

In the aesthetic movement Pater's ride is vital and this movement first started in
France, then it came to England and remained dominant there till the closing years
of the nineteenth century. In France its chief exponents were Gautier, Baudelaire
and Flaubert. One significant thing about them was that they were worshipper of
beauty and believed that in art. Content is less valuable then form and art has
nothing to do with moral and ethical questions. But in Victorian age we get a sort
of moral and spiritual degradation, in England. Writers like Ruskin and Arnold
wanted to redeem people from this state. They wished to sultain art with moral
and spiritual standards. It means that they wanted art to deal with moral (Arnold
used the word in its widest sense) subjects and in this way effect the spiritual
improvement of men. The aesthetes, on the other hand, reacted against these
writers and said that art had nothing to do with morality, that it is its own end and
that the final test of art was its pleasure giving quality. Their creed may be
summed up in the phrase. Art for Art's sake Aesthetes did not want art of an
inferior and vulgar type away from reality. They hoped for the highest kind of art
in which the artiest shows fidelity to what he sees. When he has endeavoured to
47
 see to the best of hs power. This is too much helpful in developing the mental. In
this connection Benson presents his view as follows:
NOTES

When the whole movement has so to speak, shaken down, when we can look
dispassionately at the pat which the aesthetic school has played in the mental
development of the age, we shall be able. While we condemn whole heartedly the
excesses of advanced disciples to discern the part that Pater and the leaders of the
movement played in setting the deliberate appreciation of the subtle effects of
impassioned art in its right place among the forces and temperament.

Pater's Critical Works

It is known to all that Pater is the greatest exponent of this aesthetic movement.
He is branded as worshipper of beauty not of the licentiocs. Sensual or voluptuous
kind but the higher intellectual beauty. He writes in a scholarly manner and does
not attract a large body of readers his criticism is to be found in his studies in the
History of the Renaissance (1873) "Marius the Picurean' Appreciations (1 889),
Plato and Platonism (1 893).

The Function of Criticism

Pater advocates that a work should not be judged by particular theories and
preconceived notions on him but by the impression that work of art produces on
him. Defining the critical process he says: to feel the virtue of the poet or the
painter, to disengage it to set it forth these are three critical duty. The critic is first
task is to see where lies the distinctive merit of the work and to feel the feelings of
the writer. Then, he has to distinguish and disengage this characteristic excellence
from what is dross and common in the work. And lastly, he has to interpret to the
world. A Critic's greatness can be judged only on the basis of his success in all
these things. The first (Pater does not say this but we may) is a passion of pleasure
passing into an action of inquiry, the second is that action consummated the third
is the interpretation of the result to the world.

48
2.5.1 Coleridge on Imaginations
NOTES
In chapter XIII of Biographia Literaria, Coleridge Writes: "The imagination then I
consider either as primary, or secondary. The primary imagination I hold to be the
living power and prime agent of all human. Perception, and as a repetition in the
finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite I am. The secondary I
consider as an echo of the farmer coexisting with the conscious will yet & till as
identical with the primary in the kind of its agency and differing only in degree
and in the mode of its operation. It dissolves differs dissipates in order to re-
create, or where this process is rendered yet & till at all events, It struggles to
idealize and to unity. It is essentially vital, even as all objects (as objects) are
essentially fixed and dead."

In chapter LXV of the book he calls imagination, a magical and synthetic power
and ads. This power first put in action by the will and understanding and retained
under their ire missive though bindings, gentle and unnoticed, control reveals
itself in the balance or reconciliation of 6pposite or discordant qualities of
sameness, with difference of the general with the concrete the idea with the image
the individual with the representative the sense of freshness, with old and familiar
objects' a more than usual state of emotion with more than usual order Judgment
ever awake and steady self possession with enthusiasm and feeling profound or
vehement and while it blends and harmonies the natural and the artificial still
subordinates art to nature; the manner to the matters; and our admiration of the
poet to our sympathy with the poetry.

Primary Imagination

The extracts clearly bring but Coleridge's views on the nature and function of
imagination, and the ways in which it is distinguished from fancy. According to
Coleridge Imagination has two forms primary and secondary, Primary
imagination is merely the power of receiving impressions of the external world
through the senses. It is the Power of Receiving the objects of the human mind
receives impressions and sensation from the outside world, unconsciously and
involuntarily, it imposes some sort of order on those impressions, reduces them to

49
 shape and size so that the mind is able to form a clear image of the outside world
it is in this way that clear and Coherent.
NOTES

Secondary Imagination

The primary imagination is universal, it is possessed by all. The secondary

imagination, on the other hand may be possessed by others also, but it is the
peculiar and distractive attributer of the artist it is the secondary imagination
which makes artistic creation possible, Secondary imagination is more active and
conscious in its working. It requires an effort of the will, volition and conscious
effort. It works upon what is perceived by the primary imagination, its raw
material is the sensations and impressions supplied to it by the primary
imagination, By an effort of the will and the intellect, the secondary imagination
selects and orders the raw material and re-shapes and modifying power which by
it plastic stress7re shapes objects of the external world and sleeps them with a
glory and dream that never was on sea and land. It is an active agent which,
"dissolves, diffuses, dissipates, in order to create." This secondary imagination is
at the root of all poetic activity. It is the power which harmonises and reconciles
opposites, and hence Coleridge calls it a magical, synthetic power. This unifying
power of the imagination is best seen in the fact that it synthesis or fuses the
various faculties of the soul perception, intellect, will emotion- and furies the
internal with the external, the subjective with the objective, the human mind with
external nature, the spiritual with the physical or material, It is through the play of
this unifying Power that Nature is coloured by the soul of the poet, and soul of the
poet is steeped in nature. The identity, which the poet discovers in man and nature
results from the synthesising activity of the secondary imagination.

Imagination and Fancy

Imagination and fancy on the other hand differ in kind. There are activities of two
different kinds. Fancy is not a creative power at all. It only combines what it
perceives into beautiful shapes, but like the imagination it does not fuse and unity.

50
The difference between the two is the same as the difference between a
mechanical mixture and a chemical compound. In a mechanical mixture a number
NOTES
of ingredients are brought together. They are mixed up but they do not lose their
individual properties. They still exist as ingredients combine to form something
new. The different ingredients no longer exist as separate identities. They lose
their respective properties and fuse together to create something new and. entirely
different. A compound is an act of creation, while a mixture is merely a bringing
together of a number of separate elements.

2.6 Comprehension (Questions) Exercise

1. Make an attempt on Johnson’s Preface to Shakespeare.

2. Assess Ben Johnson as a great critic.

3. Write Johnson is opinion on Shakespeare is characterization.

4. Write in your our words Johnson views on The Unities.

5. Estimate Johnson's Criticism of Shakespeare.

6. Analyse Wordsworth's statement that all good poetry is the spontaneous

overflow of powerful feelings."

7. Wordsworth's Preface to the Lyrical Ballads makes a crucial turning point in

the way critics look at poetry. Can you summarize salient features of
Wordsworth's criticism?

8. What is poet? What is Wordsworth's opinion on that?

9. The primary problem in Preface to the Lyrical Ballads seem to be the proper
language of poetry. Do you agree? If yes, answer reasonably.

51
 10. Attempt a comparison of the views of Wordsworth and Coleridge
concerning the imagination.
NOTES

11. Attempt a brief explosion of Coleridge's concept of the simplistic power of

imagination.

12. Consider Mathew Arnold as a critic.

13. How do you react to Arnold's belief that a literary masterpiece is the result
of the convergence of the power of the man and the power of the moment?
Illustrate your answer.

14. Examine Pater as a critic.

15. Do you agree with this opinion that Pater is exponent of the Aesthetic
Movement? If yes. Why? Present reasoned answer.

52
 Unit III
NOTES

MODEM AND POST MODERN THEORY

Modern and Post Modem Theory

3.0 Structure

3.1 Virginia Woolf

3.1.1 Virginia Woolf s Modern Fiction

3.1.2 Virginia Woolf s The Modern Assay

3.2 T.S. Eliot

3.2.1 Life and Career of T.S. Eliot

3.2.2 Tradition and Individual Talent

3.3 Comprehension Exercise

53
 3.1.1 Virginia Woolfs Modern Fiction
NOTES
Virginia Woolf was multifaceted personality. He was essayist, writer, short story
writer, reviewer, critic, biographer, diarist and novelist. She became indefatigable
writer by her own choice. When we study Virginia woolf one important thing we
get that she described psychological aspect of characters. Virginia Woolf was an
omnivorous reader and it was primarily through reading that she beczime a great
writer. Virginia Woolf read everything important fiom ancient Greek literature
down to Modern literature; she read the writings of Plato and Aeschyius, Spinoza
and Hume. Among old English writers of her cwn country, Defoe, Stern, Locke,
Jane Austen, De Quincy and Meredith were a few whom Virginia Woolf read
with interest and who became a source of inspiration to her.

In Virginia Woolf s life her father, Sir Leslie Etephan played very vital role. Of
diverse shaping iniluences on her mind and art, her father was the foremost. He
was not only her father but her mentor also. His lessons became life - long
precepts for Virginia Woolf.

To read what one liked because one llked it, never to pretend to admire what one
dici not- that was his only lesson in the art of reading. To write in the fewest
possible words, as clearly as possible, exactly what one meant that was his only
lesson in the art of writing. He was a full-fledged library to her. Because of her
father she usually enjoyed scholars meeting. Leonard Woolf, her hucband was
also too much co-operative to her. Her husband brought social and political
interests into her life and shared her genuine interest in literature.

Virginia Woolf found fiction writing congenial to temperament. Moreover,

Fiction dominated the literary scene in the age she lived. But she soon realized
that the correct form of the novel, in which she had been working till then, would
not do. She was hampered by the convention of an intricate continuous plot, by set
descriptions of people and scenes ffom without and by the necessity to provide

54
link passages. But when she examined the technique of poetry, she found that
these mechanical devices were not essential, verse could achieve an economy and
NOTES
a directness which were lacking in prose.

Virginia Woolf was interested more in the life of the- mind in sensations,
thoughts, feelings, intuitions- than in the life of external action. In 1919, she
published" Modem fiction which became her manifesto. Virginia Woolf called her
immediate predecessors Wells, Bennett and Ga1sworthy"- materialists and added
that "the sooner English fiction turns its back upon them, as politely as may be,
and marches, if only into the desert, the better for its soul. She czlled thein
materialists as they wrote of important things. And spent immense skill and
immense industry making the trial and the transitory appear the true and the
enduring.

Woolf finds fault with the forced tendency of a writer to provide a plot, to provide
comedy, tragedy !ove interest a d an air of probability embalming the whole so
impeccable that if all his fagers were to come to life they would find themselves
dressed down to the last buttor, of their coast in the fashion of the hour she asks,
Is life like this? Must novels be like this,? The answer is in the negative. She
assertively says:

Look with in, and life, it seems, is very for from being like this. Examine for a
moment an ordinary mind on an ordinary. The mind receive5 a myriad
impressions- trivial, fantastic, evanescent or engraved with the sharpness of steel.
From all sides they come, an incessant shower of innumerable atoms.

Virginia Woolf, thus, asks the new novelists to come closer to life and to preserve
more sincerely and exactly what interests and moves them, even if to do so they
must discard most of the conventions which are commonly observed by the
novelist.

55
 To Virginia Woolf, fiction has the widest scope. Anything between the sky and

NOTES the earth may be the proper subject of a novel. "The proper stuff of fiction does
not exist; everythmg is the proper stuff of fiction. Every feeling, every thought,
every quality of brain and spirit is drawn upon, no perception comes a miss."

In ''Mdern fistion" Virginia Woolf laid down her hypothesis. Now she was to test
it before it could be utilized in the novels. In her essay on "Modern fiction",
Virginia Woolf says:

The most elementary remarks upon modern English fiction can hardly avoid some
mention of the Russiar, influence and if the Russians are mentioned. one runs the
risk of feeling that to write of any fiction save theirs is waste of time is waste of
time. If we want understanding of the social and heart where else shall we find it
of compareable profoundly?

Virginia Woolf became a novelist not by accident but by choice. In "Modern

fiction” anci her other critical essays regarding fiction she formulated certain
theories and stressed the point that writing of fiction needed overhauling as life
which the novel mirrored had undergone a great transformation. She felt that life
in the 20th century was not the scene as it was in earlier centuries, its meaning and
mode had changed and the novel, therefore, had to be changed both form wise and
content wise of course, it was an uphill takes and it could not be done at a stroke.

3.1.2 Virginia Woolf s The Modern Essay

The Review of Rhys

Mrs. Virginia Woolf gave her impressions on 'Modern English Essays', edited by
the Ernest Rhys. These essays were written between 1870 and 1920. She describes
the definition, nature and scope of essay. The essay can be short or long, serious

56
or trifling about God and spinaza or about turtles and cheap side. The essay must
be pure like water or - pure like wine, but pure from dullness deadness and
NOTES
deposits of extraneous matter.

The Essays of Ernest Rbys

She does not want to describe deeply the history and origin of the essay. It has its
own principles which can be detected fiom Mr. 'Ernest Rhys five volumes of
Modem Essay. Mr. Ernest Rhys says that it is useless to go profoundly into the
history and origin of the essay. Its present is more important than its past. Some
writers got international fame, while others were obscured by time. These essays
show that some principles control the chaos. The progress of hidory is denoted by
it.

The Purpose of Essay

The purpose of the essay should he taken into consideration. It must give some
pleasure. The very first word of the essay should impress the reader so much that
he may fsel refieshed till end. The reader of thc essay should encounter the
experiences of amusement, surprise, interest and indignation. "We may soar to the
heights of fantasy with Lamb or plunge to the depths of wisdom with Bacon; but
we must never be roused”

The Salient Features of Essay

A novel has a story, a poem rhyme, but an essayist has nothing of that sort. He
must know how to write. He must be well learned, but he should hse his leaning in
essays, but Mark pattison could not frame his essays well. Matthew Arnold was
also conscious essayist. Theie is not a space for literal truth telling and &ult
finding in a "Where everything should be for our good rathei for eternity that for

57
 the March number of the Fortnighty Review. There is no voice of scold in the

NOTES essay, but instead there is another voice of a man stumbling drowsily among loose
words, clutching at vogue ideas."

The True Essayist

An essayist should say clearly his ideas in a simple language. A good essay must
be pure, pure like water, pure like wine, but pure from dullness, deadness and
deposits of extraneous matter. He should produce his conception clearly before his
readers. The essay should be polished.

Walter Faler, Swift and Browne

Walter Pater was successful in writing his essay according to his plan. He fbsed
his material before writing the essay; one may get a unified vision of his
conception as a whole. He has produced the specific quality in his essay despite
limitations. He achieves shape and intensity by following truth. He avoids taking
help of those ornaments which ancient writers preferred and modern dislikes.
Nobody appreciates the extravagant description of Leonarde's lady. Now the gush,
the rhctoric and much high stepping ar.d cloud pronouncing of ancient writers has
its splendour and sobriety. The glamour of Sir Thomas Browne and the vigour of
swift may be mentioned here".

The Ornamentation

The ornamentation is served by the use of metaphors and artificial polishing. But
its spontaneity is finished and words lose their natural colour. If the theme of the
essays is light, there is some scope in the ornamentation. Stevenson and Samuel
Butler chose different methods for exciting the interest of the readers.

58
The Victorian Essayist

NOTES
The Victorian Essayists, too, differ from cne another, yet they had something in
common. They wrote for the public which had ample leisure at their disposai and
kept a high standard of cuiture. Mrs. Biffell was good, direct and simple. Mr.
BGerbohm brought personality into his essays quite consciously and purely. She
says, "Literature is stem, it is no use being charming, virtuous, or even learned
and brilliant into the bargains, unless, she seems, to reiterate you filfill her first
condition to know how to write. And this knowledge how to write is possessed' to
perfection by Mr. Beerhobm".

The Sensitive Essayist

The essayist is the most sensitive person to face public opinion. Tne essays of Mr.
Beerbohm were suited to the drawing room and became very popular. The essays
should not be lengthy. An essay should not exceed fifteen hundred words. Mr.
Belloc's essays are short, and the personality they reflect is not natural. The essays
of Mr. Lucas, Mi. Lynd or Mi. Squire are distinguished from the beauty of Walter
Pater. Mr. Cultton Block iil brought the essay out of private drawing room.

3.2 T.S. Eliot

3.2.1 Life and Career of T.S. Eliot

Thomas Stearn Eliot enjoyed long life span of more than seventy five years and
his period of active literary production extended over a period of forty- five years.
He has come to be regarded as one of the greatest of English poets, and he has
influenced the course of modern poetry more than any other poet of the 20th
century. Yet opinion concerning the most influential man of letter of the 20th

59
 century has not £reed itself fiom a cloud of unknowing. Says Hugh Kenner and

NOTES therefore the learned author proceeds to call him the invisible poet. This
unknowing has resulted partly from Mr. Eliot's deliberate mystifications - he
called himself of possum and tried to pretend that he was no poet at all and partly
fiom the different nature of this writings.

Birth and Parentage

However, it may be the facts of his life are clear and well known. He was born on
20th September 1888 at St Louis, Missori, industrial city in the centre of the
U.S.A. his ancestors on the father's side had migrated to America in 1668 fiom.
East Coker (the name of one of four quarters) in somersetshire, England, and had
become flourishing merchants at Bosten, New Engiimd. It was the poet's
grandfather who had life New Eogland for St. Louis, and established a Unitarian
church there. He was man of academic interests and in course of time he became
the founder of the Washington University at St. Louis and also left behind him a
number of religious writings. But the poet's father Henry Eliot did not enter the
church. He took the brick trade at St. Louis in which he was very successful. He
married Charlotte Steams, whc came directly from Boston when they married.
She was an enthusiastic social worker as Woolf as writer of caliber. In her writing
it can be seen that keen interest in technical innovations which we fmd in the
poetry of ow poet. Thus, it is clear that Eliot's grandfather and his mother
contributed a lot to his development as writer, especially as a religious poet. From
his father he inherited his business ability which led him to the bank, and later on
made him such a successful head of a publishing fim, Mr. Eliot's complex, many
sided personality was the outcome of a number of inhecited factors.

Boyhood and Education

The boy Eliot was first sent to school at St. I.ouis day- School where he studied
till 1905, when he went to Harvard University. At school he was considered a

60
brilliant student, and in 1900 won a gold medal for Latin. He began writing at
school and showed a marked technical proficiency and sense of humour. In 1897,
NOTES
his father built a holiday resort at eastern point, near Cape Ann, in New England
and here the poet passed his school vocations. It was here that the poet became an
expert yachtsman, and consequently, sailing images arc frequent in his works.
Near Eastern point there is three rocks as the dry salvages, and a part of the Four
Guartet derives its title fiom them.

The poet was at Harvard fiorn 1966 where he pursud a wide-ranging course of
studies in language and literature, the classics, and German, French and English
literatures. Particulxly keen was his interest in cornparatwe literature. Two of his
teachers, Irving Babit and George Santayana, influenced him profoundly, and he
owed his sense of tradition largely to them. Romd the year 1908, he had Arthur
Symon’s book the swbolist movement in literature, and this stimulated his interest
in the poetry of the French symbolists, especially Laforgue.

European Tour

Eliot graduated from Harvard in 1910, and prompted by his interest in the French
symbolic he went to French and spent a year at the Sorbonne University at Paris,
studying widely in many contemporary writers. In 1911, from Paris, Eliot went to
Bavaria, Germany, Where he came into contact with important German writers
and read their works. He returned to Harvard later in the year and studied
philosophy specially Indian and Sanskrit literature and philosophy. He was by
naturaliy, an introvert, and in order to shake off his shyness he booked boxing
lessons. In 1913, he was elected the president of the H8rvard philosophical club.
However, the very next year he undertook another trip to Germany to continue his
philosophical studies there.

61
 Eliot in England: Marriage

NOTES
With the outbreak of the First World War, Eliot had to leave Germany. He came
to England and continued his studies at oxford till 1915. His financial difficulties
compelled him to take up the job of a school teacher. From England he submitted
his thesis on the philosophy of Bradley for the doctorate degree, but - never
returned to Harvard to back degree. The outbreak of the first world war, his
mobbing with Ezra Pound in London in 1914, and his introduction through him to
the lively literary circles of the London of the time, and finally his marriage to an
English Vivienne High. He made London his home. Thus though born an
American, Eliot came to be a naturalized citizen of England.

Career as a Journalist: Takes to Poetry

In 1917, Eliot gave up teaching, and entered the foreign department of Lloyds
Bank, where he worked till 1925, dealing with, "documentary bills acceptances,
and foreiga exchange." During all this time he was also writing vigorously and
several times became ill with over work. In 19 18, he registered for the U.S. Navy,
but was not taken into seivice owing to his poor health. He worked as the assistant
editor of the egoist from 1917-1919 contributed frequently to the Athenaeum, and
in 1925 became the edition of the exterior which he continued to edit till the
outbrezk of the second world war, in 1925 he joined the new publishing Firm
Faber and Faber, of which he soon became director, and worked in that capacity
till the er.d of his days. During this time he had also been writing poetry, and his
reputation as a poet was constantly growing. The publication of the Waste Land
(1922) attracted Wide interest, its technique was widely imitated and it influenced
even those who were not conscious imitations.

62
His Poetic Plays: The Religious Note

NOTES
Eliot became a British citizen in 1927, and also joined the British church that very
year the event marks an epoch in his poetic career. The poems written after that as
"The Journey of the Magi" "Ash Wednesday", are more religious in tone, they
reflect the stage of Eliot's thinking and feeling about the religion he has adopted
and are a stage in his intention to communicate the feelings. His reputation
continued to grow and he paid a short visit to Harvard, in 1933, to lecture then a
visiting professor. At this time, Eliot was also developing a practical interest in
drama, with a view to reaching wider audiences. The result when the great
masterpieces of poetic drama- The Murder in the Cathedral, The Family Reunion,
The Confidential Clerk, The Cocktail Party, etc. His poetry, after 1935continued
to be religious, but not so obviously Christian as that of the earlier period. His last
major poetic work is The Four Quartets.

Fame and Recognition: Death

Eliot's success both as a poet and in a worldly sense was remarkable. He visited
the U.S.A. severdl times as visiting professor; and continued to publish articles
and essay unto the very end of his days, World recognition of his genius came
with the word of the order of merit and the Nobel prize for literature in 1948. On
the death, in 1947, of his first life, which had been ailing since 1930, he married to
his private secretary, Miss Valerie Fleter, in 1957. This lady was the companion
of his last days and ncrsed him tenderly when he fell ill in 1964. He died on 4th
January 1965 in London, Leaving a void in the literary world which may never be
filled. He was cremated and his ashes were buried in the little village of east
Coker in Somereset fiom where his ancestor, Andrew Eliot had migrated to
America in the 1th century.

63
 3.2.2 Tradition and Individual Talent
NOTES

T.S. Eliot, a spokesman of his age brings a complete our hauling of the existing
poetic criticism. As a conscious artist thinks deeply over the nature and function
of poetry and advocates that poetry is neither play nor random experiment but it is
something which is achieved with the fullest exertion of the powers of the poet.
His Tradition and Individual Talent deals with such vital problems of poetry. He
examines there vital problems exquisitely. He, here, propounds the impersonal
theory of poetry rejecting the poetic theory of the romantic school. According to
romantic theory, poetry is the expression of the personality of the poet. When a
poet is in the state of inspiration, he feels certain deep emotion; he wants to share
his emotion, pleasure and joy with the other through the poetry. In this way he
remakes the poetry a good source of expressions his emotion joy, pleasure and
sentimental directly in the fcrm of the poetry. His poetry is free from all tradition
because tradition proves for him a great difficulty in expressirlg his genuine
emotion. In other words (in addition to this) the romantic theory does not also
attach any importance to tradition but fkeedom from all tradition is considered as
very necessary for artistic creation.

Eliot objects to this personality, subjectivism and fieedom of the poet in the
crzation of poctry. He holds that poet and poetry are two other things. This he
explaics by examine, first, the relation of the poet to the part and next the relation
of the poem to its poet.

Eliot emphasis on tradition should not be confined to a narrow sense, but it has a
wider significance. Tradition means not only a sheer imitation of the past but a
poet must cultivate throughout the life a consciousness of the past a historical
sense. A poet must have knowledge of thp, whole literature of Europe from
Homer to his our generation. Keeping this knowledge of the past in the
background and analysis its relevance and importance to the present he must
proceed to create a new work. When a really new work is created it alters and
revitalises the ideal order which is formed by the part. In the words of Eliot: "Past
64
should be altered by the present as much as the present is dkected by past." In this
way the personality of a poet is merged in the wider range of objectivity of
NOTES
tradition. A writer "Cannot be evaluated or appreciated in isolation but he must be
compared and contrasted with the past writer. Ths compares and contrast is
essential for forming an idea of the real worth and significance of new writer and
his work. But he is not judged to prove good or bad or worse or better than the
past writers.

Eliot fixher points out that the relation of the poet does not mean that he should
know the past as whole. But he must be familiar with the main literary current and
significance parts of the works of the past the only thing is that he must continue
to develop the consciousness of the part throughout his poetic career. For poetry
individuality has no meaning if it is completely out of touch with the wider
background of values already established in the past. Originality requires
awareness.

In other aspect of the impersonal theory of poetty is that there is no connection

between the poet's personality and the poem. Honest criticism and sensitive
criticism is directed qon the poetry not upon the poet. "A traditionless mind will
not be a platinum shred". Creatioil is impersonal only in so far as the creator's
feelings are under fm control, there shculd not be spontaneous overflow.

Eliot further compares a poet's mind to a container in which a large number of

feelings, images, phrases are stored, he describes "Poetry is not turning loose of
emotion but an escape from personality." A poet should depersonalize his
emotions. This depersonalization can be acquired by having a historical sense
what is personal into what is universal.

65
 Comprehension Exercise
NOTES
1. Make a note on Virginia Woolf s Modem Fiction.

2. What has Henry James presented in The Art of ssFiction?

3. Assess T.S. Eliot as a great critic.

Or

Discuss Eliot's contribution to 20th century criticism in the light of the

essay prescribed for your reading.

4. Compare and contrast Eliot and Arnold as literary critic.

5. Write an essay on Tradition and Individual Talent.

Or

Throw light on T.S. Eliot's theory of poetry with apt illustration.

66
 Unit IV
NOTES

ALLIED BRITISH CRITICISM

4.0 Structure

4.1 I.A. Richards

4.1.1 20th Century Criticism: 1. A. Richards

4.1.2 I. A. Richards: Psychological Approach.

4.1.3 The New Criticism

4.2 F.R. Leavis :

4.2.1 F.R. Leavis : A Revaluation

4.3 Ferdinand de Saussure.

4.4 Comprehension Exercise

67
 4.1.1 20th Century Criticism: I.A. Richards
NOTES

Full name of 1.A. Richards is Ivory Armstrong Richards. He is one of the 7 great
critics of the modern age. He has exercised considerable influence on both sides
of the Atlantic. As -matter of fact both T.S. Eliot and I.A. Richards are pioneers in
the field of new criticism. It is another matter we get a little alikeness between.
I.A. Richards and T.S. Eliot has influenced a number of critics on both sides of
the Atlantic. Crowe Ranson, Knneth Burke, Cleanth Brooks, R.P. Biackmur,
Robert Penn Warren, Williom Empson are such new critics. These despite
differences in their theory and practice have repeatedly acknowledged their
indebtedness to him. I.A. Richards is the first rate critic since Coleridge, who has
formulated a systematic and complete theory of poetry and his views are highly
original illuminating. Like colridege Richards is a man of wide learning. He is
widely read not only I literature but also in philosophy, psychology aesthetics. the
fine arts and the broad principles of the various sciences. He has used all this
stupendous learning for the compounding of an amazingly new and original
poetics.

His Birth and Career

Richaids was born in 1893 and educated at Cambridge, where in 1919, he also
grabbed ths post of professor of English literature. Hence, he carried a long and
distinguished career both as a teacher and critic. He delivered his lectures at
Cambridge and Harvard and thus could influence the course of literary criticism in
both countries. His first work, published in 1922, was in collaboration with C.K.
ogdon. This was followed by The meaning of Meaning, 1923, also written in
collaboration with ogdon. In 1924, he produced his work The Principles of
Literary Criticism. It is one of his major works, in which he has presented the best
of himself. It was at one hailed as a highly original work likely to give an entirely
new orientation to critical theory. This was followed in 1929 by his The Practical
Criticism, in which he advocates the practical criticism. The work puts to the test

68
the new theories propounded by him and also clarifies and illuminates his
theories. Science and Poetry, Coleridge on imagination Mencius of the Mind, The
NOTES
Philosophy of Rhetoric and Speculative instruments are some of his other works.

Richards Technique and Basic Principles

From the study of his The Practical Criticism a study of literary Judgment, it is
clear that I.A. Richards is a stzunch advocate of a close textual and verbal study
and analysis of a work of art. The author had three t&gs in his mind while
preparing this book. He says, ''First to introduce a new kind of documentation to
those who are interested in the contemporary state of culture whether as critics, as
philosophers as a teachers as psychologists, or merely as curious persons.
Seccndly, to provide a new technique for those who wish to discover for
themselves what they think and feel about poetry and why they like or dislike it.
Thirdly to prepare the way for educational methods more efficient than those who
use now in developing discrimination and the power to understand what we hear
and read.

It can be said that his approach is pragmatic and empirical. He distributed among
his Cambridge students printed sheets containing twelve poems and invited their
comments. The names of the poets and all other information about them were
carehlly withheld. After getting thei~ comments he gave his own comments,
suggestions and interpretations and conciusion and these are incorporated in the
third part of the book. Thus, Richards by his own work, has made literary
criticism factual scientific and complete.

Stress on Close Textual Analysis

A study of his Practical Criticism, together with his work The Meaning of
Meaning, reveals his great interest in textual and verbal analysis. Poet writes to
communicates and Language is the means of that communication Language is

69
 made of words and hence a study of words is all important if we are to understand

NOTES the meaning of a work of art. Words cany four kinds of meaning or to be
moreprecise, the total meaning of a word depends upon four factors. These are
sense, feelings, tone and intertion. By sense is meant something that is
communicated by the plain literal meanings of the words. Feeling refers to
emotions, emotional attitudes, will, desire, pleasure, unpleasure and the rest.
When we say something, we have a feeling about it an attitude towards it scae
special direction, bias or accentuation of interest towards it some personal flavour
or colouring of feeling. Words express these feelings, these nuances of interest.

By tone is meant the writer's attitude to his reader. The writer closes his words
and arranges them keeping in mind the h d of readers likely to read his a work.
There is relation between the writer and his reader and the tone reflect the
awareness of this relation.

Feeling is only a state of the min;. It does not imply an object. But intention ha5
an object. Intention is the writer's aim which may be conscious or unconscious. It
refers to the effect one tries to produce. This purpose modifies the expression. It
controls the emphasis, shapes the arrangement draws attention to something of
imprtance.

Richards says, Originally language may have been almost purely emotive; that is
to say a means of expressing feeling about situations a means of expiring
impersonatlt itudes, and a means of bringing about concerted action. In poetry
language returns to that primitive condition, language of poetry affects feelings.

"The statements in poetry are there as a means to the manipulation and expression
of fillings and attitudes. Hence we must avoid an intuitive reading and also an
over literal reading of poems. Words in poetry have an emotive value, and A the
figurative language used by poets conveys those emotions effectively and
forcefully.

70
The Context: Its' Importance
NOTES
Words also acquire a rich associative value through their use by different poets in
different context. The context in which a word has been introduced is all
important. Thus words have different meaning in different contexts. Words are
symbols or signs and they deliver their full meaning only in a particular context.
They work in association and within particular context. Meaning is dependent on
context. But the context may not always be apparent and easily perceptible. We
get missing context and ambiguity.

Words havc different meaning in different contexts. Sense and feeling have a
mukal dependence of the sound of word has much to do with the feeling it evokes.
First, the meaning may arise fi-om the meaning and be governed by it the fseling
is the result of grasping the meaning. Secondly the meaning arises from the
feeling evoked. Thus, the word gorgeous First generates a feeling fiom it is very
sounds. Thirdly, sense and feeling may be related because of the context.

A complete poem can influence a slllgle word or phrase contained in it either

through the feeling or through the sense. Richards argues that we need one careful
reading to find the meaning and another to grasp the feeling.

A New Critic with a Difference

I.A. Richards is at one with the new critics in his stress on close textual and verbal
study of a poem. His study of words as means of communication and his stress on
their fourfold meaning and on the way in which meaning is determined by them
and metre, are original and striking, and have gone a long way towards shaping
the course of literary criticism in 20th century. Both in England and America, and
evaluation of a work of art started the vague of experimentation and analysis in
literary criticism. He challenged intuitive cursory reading as well as over literal
reading and literary criticism. By his insistence on verbal analysis (Though T.S.
Eliot sneered at it as lemon squeezing) he has revealed new and unexpected

71
 meanings, and in the words he has studied, has turned verbal and structural

NOTES analysis into interesting and fitful techniques.

In all these respects I.A. Richards along with T.S. Eliot, may be called the
founding father of New Cxiticism. He has been constant source of inspiration to
the new critics- more particularly to John crow; Ransom and William
Empesonmany of whom have used his tools and techniques on an extensive scale.
But he differs fiom the new critics in one importat respect. While the new critics
limit themselves rigorously to the poem under consideration, on I.A. Richards also
takes into its effect on the readers. For him the real value of a poem lies in the
reaction and attitudes it creates and w-hether or not its conducive to greater
emotional balance, equilibrium, peace and rest in the mind of the readers. In the
view of new critics all such considefations are extrinsic and they come in the way
of the appreciation and evaluation of work of art as it is in itself.

4.1.2 I.A. Richards' Psychological Approach

I.A. Richards is a new critic with a difference and the difference arises fiom his
keen interest in psychology. His interest in psychology will be best brought out by
a brief consideration of his views on the value of art and the function of tragedy

There are conflicting instincts and desires, or appetencies as he calls them, in the
human mind. Man is often torn between conflicting pulls suffers from mental
uneasiness. The main function of art is to enable human mind to organize itself
more quickly ard completely than it could do otherwise. In short, art is a means
whereby we can gain emotional balance, mental equilibrium, peace and rest. What
is true of the individual is also true of society. A society in which arts are fieely
cultivated exhibits better mental and emotional tranquility than the societies in
which arts are not valued. Harmony is produced by the work of art in that it
stimulates usually opposed aspscts of being, keen thought, yet strong feeling fear
(as a tragedy) yet calm. Equilibrium among these is maintained in that there is no

72
desire no actior, only a poised awareness, a general intensification of
consciousness exercising all a man's faculties and together. In this way is
NOTES
produced state of mind in which all the faculties are a live and active and pleasure
results fiom their harmonies adjustment. All the complex thoughts, feelings and
desires which are stimulated are simultaneously put into an ordered pzttern
leailiug to mental peace and pleasure. This harmonization of varying impulses
accounts for the pleasure which arises fiom reading or witnessing, a great tragedy.
Tragedy pleasure calm of mind, all passion spent does not result fiom the
purgation of any impulse or impdses it results from a harmonization of opposite
impulses. In thus way LA. Richards uses his knowledge of psychology to resolve
the age old controversy regarding the sources of tragic pleasure and the nature of
tragic katharsis.

4.13 The New Criticism

The new criticism it is no longer new but quite old. Like modem American poetry
the new criticism of America cannot be considered strictly within the bounds of
the new world. The old world has contributed to the making of it no less than the
new, though it is in the new that it took its shape. Its sponsorers, exponents and
practitioners, both English andA merican have made it a pervasive force in 20th
century. The term new criticism became current after the publication of John
Crowe Ransom's book 'The New Criticism.'

It has come to be applied to the wide spread tendency in Recent American

criticism deriving in pat from various elements in I.A. Richards, Principles of
Literaryenricism (1921) and Science and Poetry (1926) and From The Critical
Essays of T.S. Eliot. Notable critics in this mode are Cleanth Brooks, Robert Penn
Warrep, R.P. Blackmur, Allen Tate, J.C. Ransom and William K.Wimsatt. An
important English critic who shares some critical tenets and practices with these.
American New Critics-is F.R. Leavis. Understanding Poetry (1938) is the
standard textbook of -the new criticism.
73
 Their Methods
NOTES
New critics did close reading of the text. Their honest criticism and sensitive
appreciation were directed not upon ihe poet but on the poetry. Their critical
vision was not concerned with the historical or sociological aspects of the age in
which the particular poetry was written. In short, we an summarize their attitudes
as follows :

1. The New critics believe that a poem 'Qua' poem as an object in itself,
primarily as poetry and not another object in itself primarily as poetry and
not another thing. In analyzing and evaluating a particular work, they
usually do not refer to the biography of the author, to the social conditions
at the time of its production or to its psychological and moral effects on
the readers. They also tend to minimize recourse to the history ofliterary
genres and subject matter.

2. The distinctive procedure of the New Critic is explication or close reading:

the detailed and subtle analysis of the complex inter-relations and
ambiguities (multi meanings) of the component elements within a work.
They derived their explicative procedure from such books as I.A. Richards
Practical Criticism (1929) and William Empson’s Seven Types Ambiguity
(1930).

3. The distinction between literary genres, although casually recopkd, is not

essential in the new criticism. The basic components of any work of
literature whether lyric, narrative, or dramatic are conceived to be words,
images and symbols rather than character, thought and plot.

4. The principle of the new criticism are basically verbal which means that
literature is conceived to be a special kind of language whose attributes are
defined by systematic opposition to the language of science and of logical
discourse, and the key concepts of this criticism deal with the meanings

74
 and interaction of words, figure of speech and symbols. There is great
emphasis on the organic unity of structure and meaning, and warming
NOTES
against separating the two by what Cleantk Brooks has called the heresy of
paraphrase.

Achievement of the New Critics

The following is the achievement of the new critics.

1. It taught the generation how to read poetry.

2. It made revaluations of the poetry of the past.

3. It focused attention on contemporary achievement as reflecting

conkmporary cciisoiousness.

4. It anlarged the frontiers of criticism by showing the necessity for

knowledge of other disciplines than literature proper.

5. It turned the attention as nothing else did in the past to the modem
traditional values and provided the readers contain broad tools with
which to approach literature.

In spite of all new criticism have some short comings. The new critics have
removed criticism into a highly specialized technical area where it cannot be read
or appreciated from general eyes of people. Along with it has ignored altogether
the relation of literature.

4.2.1 F.R. Leavis: A Revaluation

E.R. Leaves is the most important English critic and has distinctive contribution to
modern criticism. When we revalue Leavis we can fully be confirmed in the belief
75
 that modern criticism would have been what it is even without Leavis. He remains

NOTES a parasite on I.S. Eliot in spite of the differences between the .two on certain
authors and secondly, under his influence no critic of significance emerged. The
followers of Leavis seek to consider him in isolation fiom T.S. Eliot perhaps
thinking that the shadow of latter tends to belittle him and frequently a long list of
critics who have laid him under cootribution. But we can hardly think Leavis
without T.S. Eiiot. I.A. Richards more than T.S. Eliot or F.R. Leavis has been a
force behind the new critical movement. Eliot and I.A. Richard are considered
two great pillars of modern criticism. Tlie influence of both critics is discernible
cn other critics. Eliot's influence was felt by F.R. Leavis and Richards by the new
critics. After Eliot 2nd Richards R.S. Crane is only critic of great significance. His
critical premises are based on Aristotle's Poetics. It is R.S. Crane, who rspresents
the Aristotelian tradition and sets it in opposition to the Coleridgean tradition as
revealed in I.A. Richards and Cleanth Brooks. Influencing more and more critics
his tradition is still alive.

The admirers of Leavis have ascribed to him various achievements in modern

criticism unmindful of the fact that other critics have bett,er clam to many of
them. Narasimhaiah opines, demonstrating his contribution tc modem criticism.
Leavis affected us more pervasively. We accepted him almost unquestioningly
because he affected us by his recourse to practical criticism, by his demonstration
of the actual organization of the poem (as an object in fiont of us) rather than the
poet, the background material, the ethos, the message, the philosophy, all of
which has figured prominently before him in ow study of poetry. Above all he
taught us to make the necessary challenging discrimination in literature both
because discrimination is life and indiscrimination is death and because one did
not live like Methusellah for 969 years and so one has no time for anything but the
very best". It makes it clear that none of them can be exclusively claimed by
Leavis. It is felt that the Well Wrought Urn is a better work of practical criticism
than revaluation for the reason that it attempts close textual analysis of individual
poems taking them in their total context. While the latter attempts the revaluation
of individual poets taking into considsration their total products. But Leavis

76
mostly keeps his eye on the poet (The body of his works) rather than the
individual poem of course, without touching the non textual data. If we centre our
NOTES
attention on and revalue individual poets rather than individual poems by
particular poet is good or nad. Leavis admits that Wordsworth and Keats are good
poets where as Shelly is a bad poet. But it is not sure that Shelly could not exhibit
good. It means Sheliey's some books are good and Keats and Words worth's some
works are bad also wordswerth does not always exemplify that relation between
thinking and feeling which according to Leavis, represents a continuous
development out of the 18th centuly and it constitutes it Wordworth's strength.

C.D. Narsunhaiah expoisitelyo bserves Leavis. In his essay "Better Literary

History and Better Literary Criticism" he writes, "The old literq historians with
their learned encyclopedic survey of literary theory and impressive accounts of
movements. Influences and such other pedantry have been rooted out of the
academy. This remains Leavis' unique and most significant service to literature
and literary criticism. It appears that he is giving Leavis and undue credit. Just like
other history a Literary History is a narrative of the changing habits, belief
attitudes, taste and purposes of present living in particular times and places, it is
not a history of literature but of Literary men. R.S. Crene in his essay "Critical
and Historical Principles of literary history" expresses the view that Literary
History in order to be literary must be oritical. We can learn the idea of better than
fiom E.R. leans's and before creams formidable scholarship that goes into the
formidable of the principals of literary history. Leavis' views on "Better Literary
History" sink into insignificance.

The admires of F.R. leavis set much store by evaluation in the criticism of Leavis
and other critics associated with scruting S. Betsky differentiates Leavis from the
new critics saying that the former attempts both analysis and evaluation analysis
for the sake of evaluation, whereas the latter attempts analysis for the sake of it.
Leavis does not attempt in the first place that close verbal analysis that we find in
the new critics and secondly he includes in his critical fold many such elements
(for example the idea of morality and culture) as are alien to the new critical
system. 3ut as for evaluation. Can we say that this is something that we have to
77
 learn and get only fiom Leavis only? But it can not be proved that the new critics

NOTES are not so mcch without evaluatim, Donne's Valediction Forbiodding Muring.
Thampsom's The Vine End Cowlly's Hymn: To light are splendid poems.

Unlike the new critics Leavis recognizes the value of literature for life "Leavis
effort, says William Walsh, was to open a connection between sensibility and
practical judgment and to display the resources of literary taste in the interest of
general civility and to do this by bringing into conscious relation and articalate
contrast the structure of our first responses with the assumption of our daily
action. The importance of F.R. Leavis is often overrated and that he is not so
important a figure in modern critical scene as he is thought to be. He is a good
minor critic who brought about a minor movement during his editorship of
Scrutiny.

4.3 Ferdinand De Saussure

Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913) was a Swiss linguist. Who studied in

Germany and France before taking up a university chair in his native city of
Geneva, which he occupied for the rest of his life. He is considered the father of
modern linguistics. His theory of language is well studied among the student and
it should be studied played a seminal part in the development of structuralism as a
method in the human science. The theory was not published by himself in a
complete and authoritative form. The course General linguistics" (first published
in Paris in 1915) which goes under his name was complied by colleagues after his
death, based on lecture notes taken down by Saussure's students in his lifetime its
most recent translator and editor, Raj tarries has described it as "Without doubt
one of the most for reaching works concerning the study human cultural activities.

Saussure argued that a scientific linguistics could never be based on a diachronic

study but only by approaching language as a synchronic system i.e. a system of
which all ths elements and rules are in theory simultaneously available to the user

78
of the language Saussure's discussion of the object of stydy in linguistics,
reprinted below, defends crucially on a distinction between language, langue and
NOTES
parole translated as language.

It is fact that language is made up of words, and another contribution of Saussure's

was his analysis of the word as a verbal sign having two sides, an acoustic image
or sound pattern and a concept. The former he called significant translated by
horrid as signal and the other signific translated as significance. Saussure's crucial
point was that the connection between the two is arbitrary that is to say a
convention accepted by all users of a given language not the result of some
existential link between word and thing. It is the arbitrariness of the verbal sign
that necessitates a systematic structure for language.

Some implications for literary studies which may be glimpsed in the brief extract
f?om the course reprinted below (fiom Ray Harris, translation of 1983) are the
idea that literary texts could be seen as manifestation of a literary system (such as
narrative) the underlying rules of which might be understood, thus making literary
criticism a sore scientific discipline (2) skepticism about historical expianations of
literary phenomenon, especially rescarch into the origins of meaning (3) a
corresponding emphasis on the collective or social construction of meaning in the
production and reception of literary texts (4) a critique of new theories of literary
realism many of the essays included in this book are directly or indirectly
indebted to Saussure's thkary of language.

4.4 Comprehension Exercise

1. What view do you form of Richards as a critic on the basis of year reading
of the essays prescribed for your reading?

2. To what extent is Richard's derivative in his Principals of Literary

Criticism and to what tent original?

79
 3. Consider the salient features of the ne-vv criticism.

NOTES
4. Consider I.A. Richards as a citric.

5. What is Richards' psvchological approach? Write a note.

6. Make an essay on F.R. Leavis S.A. Revaluation.

7. Give an estimate of F.R. Leavis as a critic.

8. Discuss F.R. Leavis' contribution to English criticism.

9. Write the greatness of Ferdinand de Saussure.

10. Write an authentic note on Ferdinand de Saussure

80
 Unit-V
NOTES

PSYCHOANALYTICAL CRITICISM

Psychoanalytical Criticism:

5.0 Structure

5.1 Feminist Criticism

5.1.1 Feminist Criticism: A critique

5.2 Sigmund Freud

5.3 Jacques Lacan

5.4 Cleanth Brooks

5.4.1 The Modern Poet of Revolt

5.4.2 Cleanth Brooks Opinion about Robert Penn Warren

5.5 Comprehension Exercise

81
NOTES
5.1 Feminist: A Critique

Feminist literary Criticism discerns the woman position in world. It responds to

the way woman is presented literature. It has two dimensions the first is concerned
with woman as reader (i.e., woman as the consumer of male created literature) and
the second is concerned with woman as writer (i.e. women the creator of
literature). Feminist writers deny accepting the image of woman as displayed by
male writers. They admit women portrayed by male writers deserve not an
atheistic. The image of woman is from men's point of view not fiom the view
point of women themselves). In this reference Carlo Christ is inclined to say that
women have not experienced their own experience. In this way we see the rise of
two lund of feminist criticism phallocentrism and Gynocriticism. Theoretical
foundation of feminist criticism laid by Simone de Behavior's book titled,'The
Secozd Sex: In its earliest years, feminist criticism describes the misogamy of
litzrary practice : the stereo typed images of women in literature as angels or
monsters, the literary abu3e or textual harassment of women irl classics and
popular male literature a d the exciusion of womm from literary history.

Feminism advocates that world should be enhanced to the advantage of women.

Simone de Beauvoir's phrase the Second Sex' with reference to woman cut ice.
She opines that woman thinks of herself inferior to man and entirely dependent on
him because of patriarchy system. She aluzys thinks of himself from the view
point of male. She realizes that the world is masculine on the whole. For feminism
is an ideology which seeks not only to understand and the world but to change it
to the advantage of woman. Where it is said that woman is inferior debt to man
because of many factors. First of all idea there is biological distinction between
male and female and those who fashioned the world, ruled it and still dominates it
today are men. Needless to say it is only sanely accepted fat. It is now inclined to
agree that there is not a single position in the society including administration and
government which is not being occupied by women today. We have woman

82
Presidents, prime minister, commanders, administrators, Scientists and what not.
The feminist movement aims at overthrowing social practice that lead to oppress
NOTES
on and victimization of women lock, stock and barrel. Simone de Ceauvoir asserts
that one is not born but becomes woman in. In the words of Shirin Kudchedkar, it
disputes the conflation of sex and gender categories and release women from
confinement to gender roles. It aims at making woman the subject of her own
story and not the object of male desire and ma:e satisfaction or a whipping block
fbr male frustration. Women come to realize the authenticity of the lives lead and
struggle to discover for themselves, their own impulses, reactions, desires and
needs. Their quest is for self-knowledge and self-realization which can in turn
lead to relationships based an mutual understanding and respect. Individual
change and social change, both are desired goals, together with an eventual
change in made perception and attitude.

Without understanding the system of patriarchy we cannot understand woman's

position in the world. Men always forced women to look at themselves and think
from male point of view. Needless to say that woman is always looked from male
point of view. Shirin Kudchedkar throws light on women's position in the society
in the following words:

Basic to patriarchy is the conflation of sex and gender roles. The biological sex
distinctions of male and female are by and large acceptable to feminists, though
with the increasing attention paid to homosexuality even these distinctions are
being examined afresh. But the invariable association of socially established
gender characteristics of masculine and famine with these bological sex
distinctions is what feminists chalIenge together with the sexual division of
labour. The social roles of wife, mother, housewife assigned to women go hand in
hand with a division into the public and private domains, the first being the sphere
considered proper to men, the second to women Women become the second sex in
Simone de Behavior's telling phrase. Milton's line, "He for Good only, she for
God in him." Could well be cited as an example of the almost universally held
assumption that man's purpose in life is to serve god, the state society not least his

83
 om self advancement, while woman's purpose is to serve man, Man is seen as the

NOTES norm, wotnan as the other not merely different but inferior lacking. Personality
traits are distinguished in terms of polar oygosities of masculine md fatnine. Men
are considered to be bold, strong assertive, independent, aspiring, rational, logical.
Woman on the contrary are considered to be timid, yielding, gentle, dependent,
self-sacrificing, emotional, and intuitive. Though all cultures claim to praise and
value the womanly quality one can cite an equal number of passages denigrating
women while the verbal praise masks the actual relegation to a secondary
position.

On femirrist literary criticism Elaine Sbowalter asserts in the following w-ords:

new the feminist critique is essentially political a d polemical with theoretical
affiliations to Marxist sociology and aesthetics, gynocritics is more self-contained
and experimental, with connections to other modes of new feminist research. In a
dialogue between these two positions, Carolyn Heilbrum, the writer, and
Catherine Stimpson, editor of the American journal signs: Women in Culture and
Society, compare the feminist critique to the Old Testament : looking for the sins
and errors of the post and gynocritics to the New Testament seelung the grace of
imagination: Both porlds are necessary, they explain, for only the jeremiahs of the
feminist critique can lead us out of the Egypt of female servitude to the promised
land of the feminist vision. That the discussion makes use of these Biblical
metaphors points to the connections between feminist consciousness and
conversion narratives which often appear in women's literature among them. To
each partner, the feminist critics bring he questions about women and gender.

Feminist literary criticism has provided as chance to observe and look at woman
in literature fiom women's even as they have been and are, witbout reference to
what they might be is wretchedly imperfect and superficial. To conduce we are
inclined to say that feminist criticism is concerned with women as the producer of
textual meaning with the history themes, genres and structures of literature by
women.

84
5.2 Sigmund Freud
NOTES
An Australian Psychologist, Sigmund Freud is responsible to bring psychoanalytic
criticism in existence and its development to Jacques Lacan, who is a French
psychologist. In the interpretation and analysis of literature he uses some of the
techniques of psychoanalysis. Psychoanalytical criticism is different fiom
psychological criticism. Psychological criticism studies the mental process to
describe of the author's work. For it is essential to expose the inner reality which
is also the part of one's behaviow. It describes author's work in the line of the
author's personality. Hence it can be succinctly said that it is kind of biographical
criticism. Psychoanalytical criticism, although it is a type of psychological
criticism, it lays emphasis on psychoanalysis and advocates a theoretical
framework for the analysis of iiterature, Since the 1920s a very widespread
psychological type of literary criticism has come to be psychoanalytical criticism.
Sigmund Freud established its premises and procedures Freud had developed the
dynamic form of psychology that he called psychoanalysis as a means of therapy
for neuroses, but soon expanded it to account for many development in the history
of civilization, including warfare mythology, and religion as, well as literature and
the other arts. In the twenty-third lecture of his introduction to psychoanalysis
1920, Freud's brief comment on the working of the artist's imagination set forth
the theoretical framework of what is called 'classical' psychoanalyhc criticism.
Literature and other arts like dreams and neurostic symptoms, consist of the A
imagined or fantasized or fulfillment of wishes that are either rejected by reality
or are restricted by the social standards of morality and propriety.

Freud's theory has three basic premises which laid the foundation of psychological
and psyoanalytic critiism. Which can be succinctly surnmarised like this:

i. An individual's mental process are largely unconscious

ii. Human behaviom is motivated by sexuality

85
 iii. Social taboos attached to sexual impulses compel a person to be inhibited

NOTES about love and sex. According to Freud there are three psychic zones of our
mental process (1) the 'Id' (2) the ego, (3) the super ego.

The 'id' always seeks pleasure are in life. The 'id' is reservoir of libido. The ego
stands for reason and reality where as 'super ego' stands for morality in life. W.L.
Guerin asserts Freud's theory in the following words:

Whereas the id is doainated by the pleasure principle and the ego by the reality
principle, the superego is dominated by the morality principle. We might say that
the id would make us devils, that the superego would have us behave as angels,
and that it remains for the ego to keep us healthy human beings by maintaining a
balance between these two opposing forcas. It was this balance between these two
opposing forces. It was this balance that Freud advocated not a complete removal
of inhibiting factors.

Freud has interpreted life in terms of an individual's attitude to life sex but Lacan
has approached life in terms of psyche and language. C.G. Jung also does in terms
of "Collective unconsciousness common to all cultures. It is essential to analyse
texts in terms of images, symbols and myths of ancient culture of the land. Jung
laid emphasis on the common unconsciousness of the tribe (i.e. human race).
Here, it is apt to illustrate Ross Murfinis Supryia Ray's opinions like this.

Psychoanalytic criticism stands in stark contrast to psychological criticism; it is

actually better known and more widely practiced than its parent approach.
Psychoanalytic critics are not so reluctant to identify-themselves as such; in fact,
most critics who approach literature fiom the standpoint of its relationship to
author's or readers minds identity themselves specifically as psychoanalytic critics
And unlike psychological critics who eschew psychoanalysis psychoanalytic
critics tend to structure their analysis within a relatively well defined theoretical
fimework.

86
Psychoanalytic theories make easy the reading of literature in several ways. For
instant, we can study a work of literature from the stand point of mconscious mind
NOTES
and a text can be studied fiom the wvither point of view that is by studding the
inner reality of the author. The psychology of anthcr's personality is perused. A
text might be read for the way unc;onscious material manifest; itself through
indirect means images or descriptions that iavoice psychological issues.

Literature cannot be said as an expression of one's sexual wish or pine. It does not
describe sexual desire under social pressure. For asserts the inner beauty either in
mundane things or in spiritual things. Hence it cannot always be described by
psychoanalytical criticism, For the author may camouflage and the incidents in the
work may be completely fictitious. It is not always profitable peruse a text from
the author point of view. In the some way characters in a work of art cannot be
interpreted always in terms of their libido or unconscious mind. A reader who
reach the text brings his own personality to bear upon it Psychoanalytic criticism
should not negate the teacher and his libido and unconsciousness mind. Never the
less, psychoanalytic criticism has its validity as tool of criticism in the reading of
literary texts.

Liberal and Marxist ferninisms postulate an identity for women in relationship to

men that assumes a humanist essence for wommhoods by the mid 1970s, feminist
criticism was an international movement with a wide, conflicting range of
theoretical concerns. Indeed the potential porters for a feminist critic are a
narrative of contemporary critical methods and the quarrels.

5.3 Jacques Lacan (1901-81s): As Psychoanalyst

Jacques Lacan throws light on Freud's theories to interpfet in the li&t of

Saussurian linguistics. He advocates that h u m unconsciousness is structured like
a language. He reinterprets Ferdinand de Saussure's signifierlsignified to present

87
 his psycholodcal theory of Criticism. Editor- in -chief of Encyclopedia of

NOTES Semiotics, Paul Bouissec expiains Lacan’s concept of Criticism in the following
lines:

In The Agency of the letter in the unconsci~us or Reason since Freud (1975),
Lacan theorizes the unconscious by rewriting Szussure in Freudian tcms. Lacan
approvingly cites Saussure's perceptions that the two parts of the sign are
arbitrarily related; that signs are related by a system of differences from each
other without positive terms; and that language is a closed, not referential system.
Lacan modifies, however, Saussure’s theory of the relative importance of the two
parts of the sign to the process of signification. His "algorithm" sls in which
represents the signifier and the signified is meant to indicate the incomparably
greater power of the signifier. Most of the time one signifier merely begets
another, rather than effacing itself before a secure signified. To theorize this
signifying chain, Lacan maps Jakobson's linguistic concepts of metaphor and
metonymy upon Freud's psychoanalytic concepts of condensation and
displacement. Both sets of terms indicate forms of disturbance to logical speech;
both reveal another kind of system of work. Lacan starts with Freud on dreams
and notes that the presence of "logical articulations" argues that a dream uses
language not mime. But Lacan insists that the unconscious can also be seen at
work outside dreams, in jokes, slips of the tongue, and puns. Thus disruptioas take
two main forms: condensation/ metaphor and displacement/ metonymy. The
disruption when mapped upon the Freudian model of the acquisition of logical
language as acceptance of the name of the father, work to avoid the censorship
that the incest taboo imposes on the human subject. Condensation/ metaphor get
around the censorship barrier by selecting elements and making a new "whole"
that is a disguise while displacement/ metonymy avoid censorsbip by new
associations and combinations. The parts of metaphor and metonymy haw ihe
relation of one signifier to another, not of a signifier to a signified, for example, in
the metonymic ''thuty sails, "Sail does not equal ship but rather stands for or
displaces it. Likewise, a metaphorical term abolishes the literal meaning but is
itself only another signifier. The word murders the thing.

88
Lazan makes use of Freud's term phallus to sbow how sexual desire in a child and
later in an adult shapes his opinion about other people and the world. M.H.
NOTES
Abraham comments on Lacm's assimilation of Freud's theories with Saussure's
linguistic concept. He opines that Lacan reformulates Freud's views on the early
stages of psychosexual development and the formulation of the Odipus Complex
into a distinction between the prelinguistic stage that he calls the "imaginary" and
the stage after the acquisition of language that ne calls the "symbolic". In the
imaginary stage, there is no clear destination between the subject and an object, or
between the self and others. When it enters the symbolic stage, the infant subject
assimilates the inherited system of linguistic differences, and thereby learns to
accept its pre-determined position in such linguistic oppositions as malelfemale,
fatherlson, and motherldaughter. This symbolic realm of language, in Lacan’s
theory is the realm of the law of the father, in which the "phallus" is "the
privileged signifier” that serves to establish the mode for all other signifiers. In a
parallel fashion Lacan translates Freud's view of the mental workings of dream
formation into textual terms of the play of signifiers.

Lacan exhibits that all processes of linguistic expression and interpretation, driven
by desire for lost md wachievable object, more incessantly along a chain of
unstable signifies without any possibility of coming to rest on a fixed signified, or
presence.

In psychxmalytic criticism the emphasis is on the presence of sexuality in the text.

Lacm goes a step ahead to describe that there is no coherent and autonomous self.
The unconscious and the 'ego, Freudian ierms cannot be separated completely-
Lacan have analyzed literature firom psy~bologicapl oint of view.

89
 5.4.1 The Modern Poet of Revolt
NOTES

Modern American Poetry and Tradition:

Modem American Poetry is generally regarded as anti-traditional. This is because

it has rejected the dead conventions of Victorians like cliches, worn out literary
materials. It writes of American scenes, American things, and the American
people. Brooks justifies this revolt against Victorianism. However, he feels that it
is wrong to identie traditiou with Victorianism. A healthy tradition is capable of
continual modification The English tradition includes mcch more than 19th
century. This revolt against Victorianism though healthy was negative in effect. It
set a high premium on originality. Brooks agress with Eliot in that the most
individual part of a poet's work may be those in which the dead poets, his
ancestors, assert their immortality most vigorously.

Fusion of Victor-ianism and Americanism

The poets of revolt are good to the extent they violate Victorian conventions.
Victorian passages in Vachel Lindsay's poems represent him uniformly at worst.
His poem General Booth Enters Heaven is good in its conception of heaven as an
American small town. Its weakness lies in its padding with Victorian "literary"
phrases. Edgar Lee Masters in his Spoon River Anthology reveals the same
mixture of Victorian diction, rhythms and sentiment. In his Anne Rutledge, we get
an anomalous Victorian patch in the prevailingly frank and modem examination.

Kinds of Poetry of Revolt

Revolt against Victorianism led to realistic American materials. But this

representation is only superficial. This preoccupation revealed itself in two forms:

90
• Poetry of mere objective description of things. Ransom has called it
physical poetry, poetry of things without ideas as Paul Engle's American
NOTES
Song.

• Poetry of new and unworked material. It merges with self-conscious

nationalism as in Whitman or with certain kinds of regionalism. It is poetry
of local colour, as Jesse Stuart's Mm with a Bull-Tongue Plow.

Imagist Manifesto

The poets of revolt whether imagists or regiona!ists did not make more thzn
superficial changes in the organization of their poetry. The Imagist Manifesto
justified the experiment and innovation in subject-matter and in versification. It
liberalized the Victorian restrictions. Its introduction is new materials, like steam
engines, into poetry. But it did nothing to determine the relationsldp of these new
materials to the older 'poetic' materials. Its hnction was fundamentally negative
that of cutting dead wood. Its symbols had a thin and over simple synthesis.

Drawback of Poetry of Revolt

Sandburg in his Definitions of poetry proposes that poetry is a "synthesis of

hyacinths and biscuits. "This fbsion is, however, lacking in poets of revoit
including Sandburg himself. The positive achievement of these poets is usually on
the simplest of levels. For example, Sandburg's poem Washington Monument by
Night begins with description of the physical object. The poem weakens when the
monument is developed into a symbol. The psychology of Washington, the man,
is not sharply realized. The poem peters out completely with the effort to
concentrate the meaning. The violent rejection of tradition thus results in the lack
of psychological subtlety, the lack of complexity in the poet's attitude, the weak
dramatic sense and the general cnl.dity of form. There is a great deal of
primitivism in this poetry. The rejection of fcrmal vers systems has led loose

91
 chant lines and repetition. Complex structure has given place to piling of detail on

NOTES detail as in H.D.'s Sea Gods. Wordsworth and Coleridge, in their revolt, did not
cut themselves off completely from the tradition. These poets of revolt, however,
did not accept even positive aspect of the tradition.

Regionalism, Tradition and the Modern Poet

Victorian poetry was poetry of sharp exclusions. Poetry of Tate, Ransom and
Warren is poetry of inclusion. Their poetry is intrinsically good. Their criticism
helped accomplish the revolution in modern poetry. Their achievement is closely
associated with the vexed questions of regionalism and traditionalism. These
questions are linked with the technique of inclusion. The poets of revolt were
faced with a choice between the raw, unqualified, Present and the dead past.
Modern I poets avoided the dilemma because could weld past with present. Past,
unconnected with the present, is merely 8 collection of sensation or unrelated
images. The problem to hold on to tradition is, thus, 2 problem of sincerity or
integrity. We cannot know the past without knowing the present. Ransom, Tate a
d Warren are Southern poets They are unwilling to sentimentalize the past. They
do not limit themselves to objective descriptions of the local colour of the present.
They mediate their account of the old South through a consciousness of their
experience includes both positive and negative elements fused Poetry striking
directly at the universal is empty and thin. The poetry merely expressing the local
colour of a region is also false. In Ransom, Tate and Warren, regionalism is never
the chief motif of the Poem.

92
5.4.2 Cleanth Brooks opinion about Robert Penn Warren
NOTES

Warren's Poetry and Tradition

Cleanth Brooks points out that modem American poetry started as a poetry of
revolt. It marked a complete break with the past. It was physical or Imagist poetry
which gave an objective description of things. It was also poetry of local colour. It
lacked complex structure and psychological subtlety. Warren's poetry is not
content with such elements. It is not poetry exclusion. It relates rational to the
irrational; experience to the commentary it, the past to the preseni. The effort is to
establish contact with concrete reality and avoiding abstractions.

Nature of Warren's Poems

There is a rich and detailed examination of the particular experience. The illusion
comes as a quietly ironical statement or as modest and guarded statement. The
poet doesn't do my violence to the integrity of the experience. Therefore he allows
only the minimum of commentary. This general method is frequently used to state
the theme of the relation of the rational to the irrational, of the experience as
experience to the commentary on the experience.

History among the Rocks

This poem describes the various ways of dying in the rocks. They are zing,
drowning, and the bite of the copperhead in the wheat. These items of colour are
absorbed in the poem as parts of the larger theme. These ways of dying are all
natural. They appear to be part of the landscape. They appear easy, effortless, and
appropriate. But there are other ways of death. They include death in a battle. The
poem, however, does not fall into an easy resolution with a comment on the
meaninglessness of war in general.

93
NOTES
5.5 Comprehensions Exercise

1. What do you understand by psychoanalytical criticism? Throw adequate

light on it.

2. Make an authentic note on feminist criticism.

3. ''Feminism advocates of women". Do you think ss'? Give reason.

4. Examine Sigmund Freud as psychoanalogist.

5. Make a critical appreciation of Freud's The Nature of Dreams,

6. Make a note on Lacan's The Mirror Stage.

7. Write .a brief note on the modern poets of revolt.

Or

The greatness of poetry lies not merely ir, a revolt against tradition)
discuss.

8. Elucidate the views of Cleanth Brooks about the poetry of Robert Penn
Warren.

9. How is Warren's poetry related to the tradition?

94