M.A.

English
Part II

Course II

LITERARY CRITICISM AND THEORY

BLOCK

Classical and Neo-Classical Criticism

School of Distance Education

The English and Foreign Languages University
Hyderabad – 500 007, India
Written by
Mahasweta Sengupta (Introduction to the Course)
Prakash Kona (Units 1 to 4)

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Mahasweta Sengupta

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LITERARY CRITICISM AND THEORY

BLOCK I

CLASSICAL AND NEO-CLASSICAL CRITICISM

Contents

Introduction to the Course i

Introduction to the Block vi

Unit 1 1
Introduction to Classical Criticism

Unit 2 21
The English Renaissance:
Philip Sidney and the Beginnings of English Criticism

Unit 3 37
Dryden and Pope

Unit 4 57
Samuel Johnson, Aphra Behn and Joseph Addison
 INTRODUCTION TO THE COURSE

Welcome to this course on Literary Criticism and Theory – you are

going to explore texts that deal with works of art and literature and
also with the very idea of the production of texts in a certain
culture. This is most probably the first time that you are going to
analyze discourse that concerns the appreciation, understanding
and examining of “literary” texts; till now you have simply read
poems, plays or fiction as primary texts which did not offer you the
principles of analyzing those texts. This course will introduce you
to the major developments that have taken place in the Western
tradition; developments that have sought to provide a frame for
understanding or appreciating literary works at a point of time.

“Criticism” comes from the Greek root KRINEI that signified ‘to
judge’ and the word KRITIKOS meant ‘a judge of literature’. This
word has been in use since the fourth century in Greek, and in
English the word “criticism” signifying the “study and analysis of
literary writing” originated in the !7th century.1 As students of
literature, we have always largely depended on critics to tell us
what a text meant, we have believed that one needs a certain point
of view or “frame” to explain and understand what a particular text
signified. This is where the term “theory” assumes importance; we
can understand and interpret a literary text only when we have a
“framework” of ideas in our mind. While criticism offered
judgment and interpretation earlier, literary theory formed the
bedrock of intellectual assumptions that mould our interpretation
and therefore now the term is used for this area of study.

One can have no criticism if there weren’t a theory behind;

cultures construct these frames according to the demands of the
time and according to the power structures in operation. You
would see when you read the texts of critical theory that all of
them aspire to make you look at the world and the text in a
particular way – the way that conforms to the ruling structures of
power in a community. You are told how to read a text and how to
look for meaning in a certain manner. In fact, you might have
noticed that the same literary text yields different meanings when
read through different frames. What Shakespeare meant to the
audience in Elizabethan England is not the same as what he means
to contemporary readers. Feminist scholars or New Historicists
have disentangled different strands of meaning in Shakespeare
plays because they have asked different questions. Even when you
do not know “theory”, a text changes its meanings at different
points of time in your life. Consider the recent readings of the play
The Tempest, which you studied in your course on Shakespeare in
Part I, and you will understand what I am hinting at; the notion of
colonization and subjugation of a people and imposing another
language in a distant land yields completely different meanings if
read through Postcolonial theory, and this is how theory operates
in framing questions for a literary text.

In fact, the editors of the Norton Anthology of Theory and

Criticism remind us of the impossibility of having an “antitheorist”
position in relation to literature; they say that “it itself presupposes
a definition of literature, and it promotes a certain way of
scrutinizing literature. In other words, -the antitheory position turns
out to rely on unexamined, and debatable- theories of literature and
criticism. What theory demonstrates, in this case and in others, is
that there is no position free of theory, not even the one called
‘common sense’.2 You would very often find scholars who assume
that they are reading literature “objectively”- without any
relationship with the world in which they live. Most often, this is a
way of evading questions of ideology and politics and limiting
literature within a very restricted domain. After all, reading is an
act that is intimately networked to our communities and its rituals;
don’t assume that you are beyond the invisible lines constructed by
society.

You should certainly be aware of the term “politics” in relation to

your literary studies; that word has become over-burdened with
meanings associated with it. When we talk of politics in literature,
we are looking at it from a much wider perspective of choices and
options that the readers exercise in deciding the meaning of a text.
Contemporary research has demonstrated that hardly ever do we
deploy literary texts without a programme in mind. You would
read everything that has been written in a culture if you did not
have to fit into a particular way of looking at the world – all
curricula and syllabuses are formed with specific ideas to be
incorporated into the student’s mind. At any historical period, there
are different voices that speak, either for, or against, or resisting
the dominant system. We are supposed to read and learn from the
ones that fit into the dominant ideology of the community that we
live in. You should be aware that this does not mean that there
were no contrary voices; most often, it is simply out of your reach
for various reasons.

In this course, you would get acquainted with the texts of English
literary criticism and theory, and we will begin with Plato who
supplies the foundations of Western knowledge systems.
Remember that you will read only selected parts of the ideas of
major critics and not their entire work or thought. We will simply
discuss some basic ideas that form the bedrock of the work of
critics who were speaking at a particular historical period. You can
also read them on your own if you want and get yourself familiar
with other ideas in their work. This is your first encounter with
critics who were commenting on the process of art or literature and
you are free to read as much as you want. We are simply
introducing you to major ideas that have dominated the area in
criticism in the Western (English) world. There are many other
ways to look at/read the world, and do not assume that these are
the final explanations available to interpret reality.

I am sure you know that artists and critics have always tried to
explain and interpret their work. What is it that they are doing,
what should they represent in their works, why is representation
necessary to understand the culture, what is there in language that
suffuses a life in their representations – are questions that have
provoked thinkers to meditate on the process of creation or
representation. Some human beings are gifted with the ability to
use language to represent ideas and understandings that shape our
readings of the world; they are artists who are poets, novelists,
playwrights and people who have a better command of language. If
some ordinary person wants to compose even a small poem, he or
she would have immense difficulties in formulating his ideas;
whereas an artist has the ability to play around with linguistic
material and experience, he/she can invest the text with meanings
that are not very clearly associated in reality. This is what
differentiates an artist from a commoner – and this is what makes
them capable of commenting on the process of creation.

Remember however, that all such assumptions and ideas are the
products of history – they are circumscribed by the period or time
that they belong to. All human beings, not only critics or artists,
look at the world through the lenses of their own times; it is almost
impossible to locate oneself in a different historical period which
had its own constraints and compulsions. All our efforts to
understand or analyze the world are framed within this domain –
meaning is made in terms of the world that we live in; we try to
explain things in terms of networks that operate in our world. You
will see that all critics speculate on creativity and representation in
terms of their time and their world, they try to figure out the
character of a representation in relation to the demands of their
society. While commenting on the nature of representation, they
sometimes assume universality, they imagine that their ideas will
hold true at all times and in all spaces. This however, hardly
happens; all ideas are circumscribed by the limits of time and
place, they speak most efficiently of the world they live in and the
reality they encounter.

You have to remember one important idea when you decide on a

particular view of things; I have simply given you my approach to
the subject which also happens to be the approach of a majority of
thinkers at present. You need to be aware of the fact that there will
always be a very small percentage of people who will think
otherwise and differ; there are bound to be critics who might still
adhere to Matthew Arnold’s view of a detached criticism in which
you judge texts for what (according to Arnold) they actually are
and profess the ideal position of “disinterestedness” while reading
texts. While I do agree that this position does have the possibility
of existing, I also believe that it has come under serious scrutiny
and challenge. You are free to choose your path in deciding. The
greatest reward of contemporary critical theory is that it offers you
the freedom to choose and does not make you conform to any
specific programme of study.

In reading Literary Theory and Criticism, you should remember

one important thing; these texts deal with foundational ideas and
are not imaginative or fictional discourses. Therefore, you are not
supposed to write long, elaborate essays on them, you will have to
learn to deal with the thoughts and ideas in a precise, exact
manner. Answers and assessments therefore, are not going to be
judged in terms of the length, but in terms of your grasp of the
ideas presented in the text. So, please do not expect this course to
be like your other courses, where you are dealing with creative
writing.

Please remember that we are only familiarizing you with some

major ideas of the critics chosen; you are free to read as much as
you like from their works (or from other critics) out of your own
interest and of course, for your own benefit.

Many of the critical texts discussed in this course are available in

the following anthologies.

Enright, D.J and Ernst De Chickera, ed. English Critical Texts:

16th Century to 20th Century. London: Oxford University Press,
1962.

Ramaswami, S and V.S. Seturaman, ed. The English Critical

Tradition. In two volumes. Madras: Macmillan, 1977-78.

Seturaman, V.S., ed. Contemporary Criticism: An Anthology.

Madras: Macmillan, 1989.

Information on the websites on which the texts are available is

provided under “References and Suggested Reading” at the end of
each Unit.
 INTRODUCTION TO THE BLOCK

In this block, you will read about the works of Classical,

Renaissance and Neo-classical critics. While the beginnings are
traced to the writings of Plato and his disciples, English criticism
proper begins during the Renaissance with the writings of Sir
Philip Sidney. John Dryden and Alexander Pope are the two
important critics of the Neo-classical period in England and we
have tried to familiarize you with some of their works. The last or
fourth unit deals with three more critics of this phase: Johnson,
Aphra Behn and Joseph Addison are unique in their approach and
understanding of literature. Behn is also most probably the first
woman critic to write in English.

One important fact about these critics is that you will have to read
their original writings, there is no way in which you can skip that
and form an opinion about them. You need to read the original
writings compulsorily along with the lessons, and there is no
exception to this.
Unit 1

Introduction to Classical Criticism

Contents

1.0 Objectives 3
1.1 Introduction 3
1.2 Socrates (469-399 B.C.) and
Plato (428/427–348/347 BC) 6
1.3 Aristotle (384–322 BC) 9
1.4 Horace (65–8 BC) 13
1.5 Longinus (1st or 3rd century AD) 15
1.6 Conclusion 18
1.7 Summing up 19
1.8 References and Suggested Reading 19

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 Unit 1
INTRODUCTION TO CLASSICAL CRITICISM

1.0 Objectives

This Unit takes you to the beginnings of Western literary criticism,

viz. classical criticism. After an introduction to the terms “classic”
and “classical” the Unit briefly examines the work of the ancient
Greek critics, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle (all belonging to the
pre-Christian era), the Roman critic Horace (who belonged to the
first century B.C.) and the Greek critic Longinus (1st or 3rd c.
A.D.). The Unit concludes with a note on the contemporary
relevance of all these ancient critics.

1.1 Introduction

If literature is about words used in imagined contexts, criticism is

about more words used to describe how we talk about the imagined
contexts. In that sense criticism has an artistic function not
dissimilar to literature which is to interpret life in its infinite
diversity. The Italian novelist Elsa Morante in one of her diaries
says that “to invent…is to remember.” The filmmaker Fellini in his
1973 movie Amarcord (“I remember”) recreates his hometown
Rimini as Borgo – the setting for a boy’s coming of age in a small
conservative town with its relentless contradictions. In inventing
his boyhood through the film, Fellini is also remembering his own
past. While he is deeply critical of the past he belongs to, he cannot
help but remember it with a poignant irony. Fellini over here is the
creator as well as the critic.

In the book Culture and Value, the philosopher of language

Wittgenstein makes the statement, “We are engaged in a struggle
with language” (13). The distinction between a creator of a text
and a critic has to emerge in a struggle with being able to define
what we mean by an author, or text or critic for that matter. The
struggle to define underlies how we use language.

Notions such as “classical” and “neo-classical” carry within them a

struggle with the language we use to describe what we consider to
be classical or not. The struggle is magnified when we attach the
term “criticism” to it. Is a “classic” song the same as a “classical”
song? As critics we’re philosophers of language and in
Wittgenstein’s terms “clarity” must be the goal of the philosopher
because that’s the whole point of language: use. How we use a

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word to refer to an object or a situation! Fellini’s Amarcord is a
classic movie with classical overtones. The latter because it’s a
commentary on institutionalized religion as embodied in the
Roman Catholic Church. The word “classical” has a collective
character when we use it to talk about institutions such as the
Catholic Church.

However, the association of the term “classical” with tradition is as

problematic as its association with the individual genius of Plato or
Aristotle. If symmetry or order is the essence of the classical, the
need for such symmetry is an awareness of what is missing in a
social and political order that is engaged in a struggle for meaning.
The words “classical” and “criticism” are not presumed innocent
and the phrase “classical criticism” begs more questions than
provides straightforward answers. Is “classical” an age one can
locate in terms of a historical time-frame—for example, the
“classical” poet Virgil (70 BCE – 90 BCE) was a farmer’s son at
the court of the emperor Augustus--- or a notion that can be used
across time and space – T. S. Eliot is a modernist poet who
explores “classical” themes in his work?

The central issue is not whether the classical is an aesthetic term to

identify the parameters of the beautiful in a literary work or a
political term to identify the parameters of a social order or how to
establish a society and a government that reflects the concerns of
common people. The central issue of classical criticism is to
discover or unravel the strategies that writers use to arrive at a
definition of order – whether it is aesthetic or political. In simpler
terms what we intend to examine is: how do we speak of the world
around us without actually being affected by the times in which we
live. The point of criticism is to establish a relationship between
“us” in the present with “those” in the past. In the process we
attribute a social and ethical value to the subject in question.

To evaluate a work of art is no doubt the job of the critic. In the

time-frame in which we live where we’re conditioned by phrases
such as “Think globally and act locally” – not very explicit phrases
actually-- what we need in fact is what Nietzsche in his book Ecce
Homo speaks of as a “revaluation of all values”. “In a revaluation
of all values, in freeing himself from all moral values, in saying
‘yes’ to and placing trust in everything that has hitherto been
forbidden, despised, condemned. This yes-saying book pours out
its light, its love, its delicacy over nothing but bad things, it gives
them back their ‘soul’, their good conscience, the lofty right and
prerogative of existence. Morality is not attacked, it just no longer

4
 comes into consideration... This book closes with an ‘Or?’—it is
the only book to close with an ‘Or?’...” (61-62).

If we’re condemned to choose, as the existential philosopher Sartre

points out, then we’re condemned to revaluate all values. We need
to ask questions without expecting absolute answers. While we aim
to revaluate what it means to “think globally” or “act locally” we
also dwell on a conception of the classical. The question is what
Plato and Aristotle and to a lesser degree Horace and Longinus
grappled with centuries ago.

In our discussion of classical criticism we’re bound to ask

questions. What is meant by the classical in this context? What is
the conception of the classical that emerges in this work? What is
the worldview in which is contained a notion of the classical?
These questions are meant to reevaluate our understanding of the
parameters of classical criticism.

Activity A What is the need to define the classical? How do we define the
classical? What is the relevance of classical criticism to
understanding texts in the present or why is it important to know
classical criticism?

Discussion

The need to define the classical is to bring to light those

characteristics that identify what we mean by the classical. No
literary term is clear unless we specify by means of definition what
we exactly mean by the term. Therefore we define the classical as
a period in literary and social history that broadly comprise the
works of Plato and Aristotle in the Greek world and Horace and
Longinus in the Latin world. Their works serve as a model to how
we interpret texts or how we read and understand the meaning of a
text. Classical criticism continues to throw light on works in the
present because the questions posed by the classical masters are as
relevant now as they were in the past. For instance is poetry a
positive force in social life or do poets produce illusions that
disturb the social order. To this day we need to know if creative
artists are useful to a society or if they are a burden to the order
unlike an engineer or a doctor who has utilitarian value that can in
some sense be quantified. This question Plato asks in the Republic
needs to be debated now as much as it did then.

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1.2 Socrates (469-399 B.C.) and Plato (428/427–348/347 BC)

Although Plato will be remembered as a poet as much as a

philosopher owing to his reader-friendly style of writing,
interestingly he banished the poets from the ideal world of the
Republic. Why did he do that? In one of this dialogues Apology
Plato says: “I soon realized that poets do not compose their poems
with knowledge, but by some inborn talent and by inspiration, like
seers and prophets who also say many fine things without any
understanding of what they say.” (Plato 22) Two points are made
in the above statement – that poets do not compose their work with
“knowledge” but with “inspiration” like “seers and prophets.”
They cannot explain their work as well as even the “bystanders”
They were not as wise as they thought about themselves. In the
dialogue Phaedo Plato says: I realized that a poet, if he is to be a
poet, must compose fables, not arguments. (Plato 53).

What is it about argument that makes it superior to a fable? In the

dialogue Ion Socrates says: “For a poet is an airy thing, winged
and holy, and he is not able to make poetry until he becomes
inspired and goes out of his mind and his intellect is no longer in
him” (942). “Intellect” is what the poets have to abandon before
they make poems or say many lovely things about their subjects
(as you do about Homer) but because it's by a divine gift-each poet
is able to compose beautifully only that for which the Muse has
aroused him…the god takes their intellect away from them when
he uses them as his servants, as he does prophets and godly
diviners, so that we who hear should know that they are not the
ones who speak those verses that are of such high value, for their
intellect is not in them: the god himself is the one who speaks, and
he gives voice through them to us (Plato 942).

In the absence of intellect, the poet becomes someone dangerous to

the ideal state that Plato creates or the Republic. As Socrates says:
“poetry is likely to distort the thought of anyone who hears it,
unless he has the knowledge of what it is really like, as a drug to
counteract it” (Plato 1200). In the Allegory of the Cave the man
who is trapped in the darkness along with other prisoners manages
to enter the world of light. In the beginning he would be unable to
believe that the “shadows” on the wall of the cave are nothing
more than shadows of the objects that created them. “At first, he'd
see shadows most easily, then images of men and other things in
water, then the things themselves. Of these, he'd be able to study
the things in the sky and the sky itself more easily at night, looking
at the light of the stars and the moon, than during the day, looking

6
at the sun and the light of the sun” (Plato 1134). The conclusion
that Socrates draws is as radical as the argument itself:

The visible realm should be likened to the prison dwelling,

and the light of the fire inside it to the power of the sun. And if
you interpret the upward journey and the study of things above
as the upward journey of the soul to the intelligible realm,
you'll grasp what I hope to convey, since that is what you
wanted to hear about. Whether it's true or not, only the god
knows. But this is how I see it: In the knowable realm, the
form of the good is the last thing to be seen, and it is reached
only with difficulty. Once one has seen it, however, one must
conclude that it is the cause of all that is correct and beautiful
in anything, that it produces both light and its source in the
visible realm, and that in the intelligible realm it controls and
provides truth and understanding, so that anyone who is to act
sensibly in private or public must see it (Plato 1135).

With the intellect a person apprehends the reality. The poet

however is an imitator twice-removed from reality. Commenting
on the “true nature of imitation” Socrates points out, in the
following dialogue:

“Shall we then put down all poets, from Homer onwards, as

imitators of images of virtue and of all their other subjects,
without any contact with the truth? As we were saying just
now, the painter will make a semblance of a cobbler, though
he knows nothing about cobbling, and neither do his public-
they judge only by colours and shapes.”

“Yes.”

“Similarly, we can say that the poet with his words and
phrases lays on the colours of every art, though all he
understands of it is how to imitate it in such a way that other
people like himself, judging by the words, think it all very fine
if someone discusses cobbling or strategy or anything in
metre, rhythm, and harmony. These have by their very nature
such immense fascination. I imagine you know what the
content of poetry amounts to, stripped of the colours of music,
just on its own. You must have seen it.”

“I have.”

“It's like a pretty but not beautiful face, isn't it, when youth has
departed from it?”

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 “Exactly.”
(Ancient Literary Criticism 69)
Substantiating his argument for the banishment of poets from the
Republic, Plato says:

Poetical imitation in fact produces the same effect in regard to

sex and anger and all the desires and pleasures and pains of
the mind-and these, in our view, accompany every action. It
waters them and nourishes them, when they ought to be dried
up. It makes them our rulers, when they ought to be under
control so that we can be better and happier people rather than
worse and more miserable.
(Ancient Literary Criticism 74)

The poet or the literary artist is an emotional thinker who

articulates his or her understanding of the world in a metaphorical
language unlike the philosopher who arrives at the truth through
argument and careful reasoning. That’s what makes the poet
“dangerous” because s/he does not live up to the demands of the
“truth” in the same sense as the philosopher. In the play As you like
It Jacques a “melancholy” character is a philosopher of sorts who
delivers the famous monologue “All the world’s a stage” where a
man moves from one childhood to another childhood or “second
childhood,” - “Last scene of all,/ That ends this strange eventful
history,/ Is second childishness and mere oblivion;/ Sans teeth,
sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything." Jacques in some ways is a
parody of the ideal philosopher that Plato constructs in the
Republic who has a vision where, in the words of Rasselas from
the tale by Dr. Johnson, “Human life is everywhere a state in which
much is to be endured, and little to be enjoyed.” While the poet
celebrates life through the use of metaphor the philosopher sees
that more is to be endured than enjoyed. However the distinction
between the poet and the philosopher is not a hard-and-fast one
especially when you notice that Plato is fond of using language in a
metaphorical manner. Whether it is the image of the cave or the
sun or chariot, it is Plato’s use of figurative language that makes
him a great philosopher who continues to exert a powerful
influence on writers and thinkers even in the 21st century.

Activity B What is Plato’s contribution to classical criticism? Do you think

that Plato who is a stylist himself was being fair to the poets in
banishing them from the Republic?

8
Discussion

Plato’s Dialogues and The Republic are literary as much as

philosophical achievements. As a classical critic Plato will be
remembered for articulating philosophy in a literary style
accessible to contemporary readers as much as it did to those who
lived in Athens. Through the use of “dialogue” Plato’s teacher
Socrates who appears as a questioner attempts to examine and
arrive at a critique of views held by certain prominent individuals
of Athens. The method of questioning established views and gently
showing alternative ways of looking at the same situation is known
as Socratic Method. In fact in the dialogue Apology Socrates refers
to himself as a “gadfly,” someone who upsets others with his
questions. The reason why he does that is because: “It is to fulfill
some such function that I believe the god has placed me in the city.
I never cease to rouse each and everyone of you, to persuade and
reproach you all day long and everywhere I find myself in your
company” (Plato 28). Socrates is not just asking questions. He also
wishes to change the way people think about issues concerning
social, political and ethical life. Plato’s use of figurative language
is to make people comprehend the difficult truths of philosophy
and ethics. Therefore he is a literary artist with a moral objective.
Perhaps Plato is unfair to the poets in banning them from the
Republic. However when you think of the ruinous influence that
consumer-based mass culture has on audiences in the present day
we cannot deny that the role of the creative artist has to be clearly
defined in any social order in order to prevent the masses from
being demoralized or indoctrinated by unethical forces.

1.3 Aristotle (384–322 BC)

Unlike Plato’s figurative style of writing which appeals to the

reader’s sensibility while claiming to defend the Idea or the Form
that exists independent of particular instances--the Idea of the
apple exists even if there are no apples in the world--, Aristotle has
a blandness in his writing appealing to the logical faculty of his
readers. Unlike the Socratic Method that uses argument to arrive at
a position–-an argument with an in-built bias in favour of the
Ideal--Aristotle’s method relies on moving from particular
instances to the general.

For Aristotle poetry originates from two causes, imitation and

experience, both of them interestingly being aspects of human
nature. In the book Poetics Aristotle makes the following

9
observation: “Imitation, then, being natural to us—as also the
sense of harmony and rhythm, the metres being obviously species
of rhythms—it was through their original aptitude, and by a series
of improvements for the most part gradual on their first efforts, that
they created poetry out of their improvisations” (5). Poetry falls
into two different kinds: “for the graver among them would
represent noble actions, and those of noble personages; and the
meaner sort the actions of the ignoble” (5). Tragedy shows that
which is noble – an imitation of men better than what they are--and
comedy rests on the “actions of the ignoble” -- “an imitation of
men worse than the average; worse, however, not as regards any
and every sort of fault, but only as regards one particular kind, the
ridiculous, which is a species of the ugly. The ridiculous may be
defined as a mistake or deformity not productive of pain or harm to
others; the mask, for instance, that excites laughter, is something
ugly and distorted without causing pain” (6). Given the “serious
subjects”, epic poetry is similar to tragedy but it is “in one kind of
verse and in narrative form” (6). Aristotle famously defines
tragedy as “the imitation of an action that is serious and also, as
having magnitude, complete in itself; in language with pleasurable
accessories, each kind brought in separately in the parts of the
work; in a dramatic, not in a narrative form; with incidents
arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish its catharsis of
such emotions” (7). According to Jonathan Barnes, catharsis means
“purification,” but not just spiritual purification but also in a
medical sense as well.

The Greek term katharsis sometimes means ‘purification’, and

is applied in particular to certain religious rituals. Many
scholars have supposed that tragic catharsis is a purification,
and that tragedy (according to Aristotle) is essentially
something which refines and improves our souls. Against this
interpretation, Bernays argues that Aristotle has in mind a
medical and not a religious use of the term katharsis. In
medicine, catharsis is an operation of purgation, an operation
effected by a laxative or an emetic. The purgation is worked
upon the spectators of the tragedy. They—or some of them—
have an excessive inclination to pity and to fear; the emotional
pressure is painful and dangerous; the spectacle of tragedy
stimulates and arouses precisely the feelings of pity and fear;
and after the arousal and the emotional outflow which follows
it, the spectators find themselves purged—they are drained
and relieved. Thus tragedy offers not moral improvement but
emotional relief. The theatre offers not a pulpit but a
psychiatrist’s couch. (Laird 158-9)

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Aristotle’s most famous work The Nicomachean Ethics dwells on
the notion of eudemonia which means happiness but also
flourishing and well-being. Happiness is an end in itself according
to Aristotle. “For happiness lacks nothing, but is self-sufficient;
and an activity is worthy of choice in itself when nothing is sought
from it beyond the activity. Actions in accordance with virtue seem
like this, since doing noble and good actions is worthy of choice in
itself” (Book X NE).

Raju, at the end of R. K. Narayan’s novel The Guide experiences

what Aristotle means by eudemonia in contemplation achieved
through the selfless action of fasting with the intention of bringing
rains. “For the first time in his life he was making an earnest effort;
for the first time he was learning the thrill of full application,
outside money and love; for the first time he was doing a thing in
which he was not personally interested” (238). To the question
asked by the American journalist if he had always been a Yogi,
Raju responds not without a dint of irony “Yes; more or less”
(244).

If eudemonia is a state of happiness within oneself Raju is right in

saying that he was always a Yogi. The transcending joy of being
oneself is possible for Raju only at the point when he’s willing to
give up his sense of possession. Possessiveness blinds him to the
eudemonia that contemplation finally can give him. The
flourishing or the ultimate well-being of the individual is somehow
related to the strength to give up a narrow notion of self-interest,
“for this (contemplation) is the highest activity, intellect being the
highest element in us, and its objects are the highest objects of
knowledge” (Book X NE).

In The Eudemian Ethics Aristotle refers to the divine element

within an order that one experiences in contemplation. A
manifestation of the state of inner order that produces transcending
joy is a society that is stable – a society that ultimately must rest on
virtuous action. From an Aristotelian point of view someone like
Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr. would in their politics as in their
lives embody contemplation in action because it is an activity,
“worthy of choice in itself when nothing is sought from it beyond
the activity.” The Good is the Idea or Form of the Good in Plato
while in Aristotle the good is something that is attained. “As in the
Olympic Games it is not the most attractive and the strongest who
are crowned, but those who compete, so in life it is those who act
rightly who will attain what is noble and good” (Book I NE).

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 While the goodness of Raju is similar to Nekhlyudov, a nobleman
in Tolstoy’s novel Resurrection, who must make changes in his
life to redeem himself for the wrong he had done in pushing a
young maid into prostitution, the good that Aristotle speaks of can
be seen in Myshkin from Dostoevsky’s The Idiot; the goodness of
the latter is that he never ceases to believe in the goodness of the
world that is only too ready to betray his expectations. The
complete absence of cynicism is possible only with one who is at
peace with himself. Even in pain and suffering the experience of
eudemonia is a reality for Myshkin. He cannot but be ultimately
happy.

If eudemonia or happiness in the sense that Aristotle implies as

resulting from contemplation is possible only in a just society
where men are liberated from the greed for power the fact that it is
possible in the first place is what makes Aristotle a visionary
philosopher with an eye into the future of humanity.

Activity C What is Aristotle’s view of poetry and how is it different from that
of Plato? Aristotle’s notion of eudemonia is an ethical concept. In
what way is the area of ethics relevant to an understanding of
classical criticism?

Discussion

Unlike Plato who views the role of the poet negatively, Aristotle
has a positive view of the poet. In fact he says in the Poetics that
“Poetry, therefore, is a more philosophical and a higher thing than
history: for poetry tends to express the universal, history the
particular. By the universal I mean how a person of a certain type
on occasion speak or act, according to the law of probability or
necessity; and it is this universality at which poetry aims in the
names she attaches to the personages.” More importantly at the
very opening of Poetics Aristotle declares that he intends to study
the “principles which come first” in understanding “poetry” which
originates in imitation “produced by rhythm, language, or
'harmony,' either singly or combined.”

Although eudemonia which means happiness or flourishing is an

ethical concept, from a literary perspective we see that it is central
to our understanding of the experience of characters in literary
works. Just as in life so in art eudemonia or contemplation is the
goal of the human person.

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1.4 Horace (65–8 BC)

If Horace inthe Ars Poetica (“The Art of Poetry”) sounds pompous

and repetitive – a bit of a lecturing Polonius from Shakespeare’s
Hamlet, in love with his own voice – he, in fact embodies the
classical in the truest sense of the term as a quest for order at the
level of individual creativity. In the process of using the form of a
poem to talk about the art of poetry, Horace in fact defines the
classical more than any other poet of his age.

Along with the Latin masters, Virgil (70-19 BC) and Ovid (43 BC-
18 AD), Horace was a poet during the reign of the emperor
Augustus who ruled from 31 BC to his death in AD 14. In a way
Horace’s Ars Poetica not only represents the peace and stability of
the Age of Augustus but also stands for a defence of the idea of
order. Literature or the literary form is a mirror to the social and
political order and must reflect a formal need to prevent the
meanings of words from dispersing in all directions leading to
chaos or anarchy.

Hence the very first section of the Ars Poetica is “Unity and
Harmony.” Societies perish in the absence of unity and harmony
that is ensured by the presence of a strong state. The form keeps
the content under control to make sure that unity and harmony
prevail and meaning is preserved from chaos. The opposite state
would be close to what Horace describes in the opening lines of the
poem through an image which a surreal artist like Salvador Dali
would’ve visualized in the 20th century:

If a painter had chosen to set a human head

On a horse’s neck, covered a melding of limbs,
Everywhere, with multi-colored plumage, so
That what was a lovely woman, at the top,
Ended repulsively in the tail of a black fish:
Asked to a viewing, could you stifle laughter, my friends?

If the image of “a human head on a horse’s neck” is what Horace

dreads because it would invoke “laughter” and perhaps derision, it
offers an insight into how the original Augustans (not the pale
imitation of “order” that the 18th century England stood for)
thought about language and life. D. A. Russell in his essay “Ars
Poetica” points out that:

The Ars, with its many facets, the shimmering surface that
catches so many divergent lights, admits of course many
observations on this level. But this one is worth more than a

13
 moment’s pause. It brings out two essentials of the process
that turned poetics into this sort of poetry. It reminds us that
the poiema, the thing made, could never be material for a
poem without the maker, without his emotions and morals, his
credibility, his honesty. Only by bringing in the artist could
the ‘art’ be made to live. And second, this particular sort of
poem, like the Satires and Epistles, needs something to laugh
about, and, perhaps more important, someone to laugh at. It is
the madman who sticks in our mind most, it is the caricature
that brings the complicated and allusive artfulness of the
whole poem most vividly to life. (Ancient Literary Criticism
339)

Plato lived in turbulent times and saw his master Socrates – the
wisest of men that the Oracle at Delphi had declared - unjustly put
to death by the “Thirty Tyrants” who were in charge of Athens.
Following the death of Alexander, Aristotle had to escape from
Athens out of fear of being executed like Socrates. The need for
ultimate order, cosmic order, human order, social order, ethical and
philosophical order and order in style – all these are reflections of a
world desperate for a sense of certainty.

The poetic form of the Horatian ode written in stanzas of two to

four lines is evidence of the fact that he took his own advice given
to poets in Ars Poetica only too seriously. The “tongue
interpreting, shows heart’s emotions” in these Odes of Horace. The
fixed-stanza form is fully exploited to explore themes of a deeply
philosophical nature with a pagan celebration of the present.

You'll leave behind your expensive pastures and

your city house and your country villa which
the Tiber flows by, you'll leave them behind, and
your heir will possess your riches piled up high.

It makes no difference whether you're wealthy, born

a descendant of ancient Inachus, or whether you live out
in the open, a poor man and of a humble family --
[you're still] the prey of pitiless Orcus.

Activity D Can a literary text be interpreted without an understanding of

form? What is the central point that Horace is trying to make in
Ars Poetica?

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Discussion

An understanding of form is vital to the interpretation of a literary

text. In the absence of form a literary text ends up in chaos or
disorder. A poem has to be carefully constructed and just not just
be a product of one’s emotions. In fact the privileging of “form”
over inspiration is the central point that Horace is attempting to
make in Ars Poetica. D. A. Russell makes mention that Ars
Poetica “was for long the most accessible source of the basic
tenets of classical criticism: the doctrines of propriety and genre,
and the underlying assumption that the poet, like the orator, sets
himself a particular task of persuasion and is to be judged by his
success in bringing it off” (Ancient Literary Criticism 339).

1.5 Longinus (1st or 3rd century AD)

Unlike Horace in whom we see that the poet has a social function
of responding to his audience, in On Sublimity by Longinus we’re
struck by the individuality of the text in its emphasis on the
relationship between literary genius and greatness. “Sublimity” is a
metaphor that connects both of them. “Sublimity is a kind of
eminence or excellence of discourse. It is the source of the
distinction of the very greatest poets and prose writers and the
means by which they have given eternal life to their own fame.”

The greatness however does not rest on a vacuum. It rests on the

ability of genius to make great comparisons. Take the example that
Longinus gives: “In praise of Alexander the Great, Timaeus writes:
‘He conquered all Asia in fewer years than it took Isocrates to
write the Panegyricus to advocate the Persian war.’ What a
splendid comparison this is-the Macedonian king and the sophist!”
In his Life of Cowley Dr. Johnson famously said of the
metaphysical poets that in their work, “the most heterogeneous
ideas are yoked by violence together.” The comparison that
Timaeus makes in bringing together Alexander’s conquest of Asia
and Isocrates writing the Panegyricus carries this sense of being
“yoked” with an irony that disguises the “violence”. The conqueror
and the poet – most heterogeneous ideas - are brought together in
the same statement because both are achievements that demand
enormous abilities.

Greatness as experienced in the form of sublimity is as much a

moral and psychological trait as it is intellectual and philosophical.
A literary artist is also a moralist. In his essay, “The artist’s

15
struggle for integrity,” James Baldwin says that an artist must be
true to the person that he or she is. You cannot be creative for
money or fame or power. You can be creative only when you’ve
the ability to disdain these things. Says Baldwin: “The poets by
which I mean the artists are the only ones who know the truth
about us. Soldiers don’t. Statesmen don’t. Union leaders
don’t….Only artists can tell. Only artists have told what it is like to
die….what it is like to feel….what it is like to love.”

The aesthetic – how we define the beautiful - and the moral – how
we live our lives - go together for sublimity to be possible in the
highest sense of the term. The poet is both a stylist as well as a
moralist. True sublimity is about achieving perfection of the self in
terms of the “integrity” that Baldwin speaks of as much as it is
achieving that integrity in the work of art itself.

People who could have these advantages (wealth, honor and

power) if they chose but disdain them out of magnanimity are
admired much more than those who actually possess them. It
is much the same with elevation in poetry and literature
generally. We have to ask ourselves whether any particular
example does not give a show of grandeur which, for all its
accidental trappings, will, when dissected, prove vain and
hollow, the kind of thing which it does a man more honour to
despise than to admire. It is our nature to be elevated and
exalted by true sublimity. Filled with joy and pride, we come
to believe we have created what we have only heard.

Longinus brings two things together in the above quote: the

“magnanimity” of those who do not care for wealth and
“elevation” in poetry. Further down he says: “In literature, nature
occupies the place of good fortune, and art that of good counsel.
Most important of all, the very fact that some things in literature
depend on nature alone can itself be learned only from art.”

Sublimity is a literary technique that leads one to elevation. For

instance, the Persian poet Hafez says in one of his ghazals: “If that
Shirazi Turk would take my heart in her hand,/ For the dark mole
on her cheek/ I would give Samarkand and Bukhara/ And add
thereto even my body and my soul.” The “dark mole” is certainly
without a price; but if it has to be valued at all then Hafez would
not only give Samarkand and Bukhara – two famed cities on the
Central Asian Silk Route, the former also being the capital of
Timur the Lame’s empire - but “add thereto even my body and my
soul.” The thought is a sublime one – the fact that a person can

16
give everything he possesses for a “dark mole” on the cheek of the
beloved. That’s what makes the expression a sublime one as well.

A sublime thought cannot but have a sublime expression. Sublime

thoughts are rooted in a moral sensibility. The beauty of the “dark
mole” has awakened the moral sensibility in the poet and elevated
him to utter lines filled with grandeur so much so that legend says
that Timur complained: “With the blows of my lustrous sword, I
have subjugated most of the habitable globe…to embellish
Samarkand and Bokhara, the seats of my government; and you,
miserable wretch, would sell them for the black mole of a Turk of
Shiraz!”. Hafez, not without some irony responded: “Alas, O
Prince, it is this prodigality which is the cause of the misery in
which you find me,” a response that fortunately pleased the
dreaded Timur the Lame.

The sublime is not a discourse that happens through pure

inspiration. While “competence in speaking is assumed as a
common foundation for all,” the important sources of the sublime
are: great thoughts, inspired emotion – both of which are “natural,”
certain kinds of figures of thought and speech, noble diction and
dignified word arrangement. One of the ways of achieving
sublimity is by conscious imitation of “great writers” of the past.

When we are working on something which needs loftiness of

expression and greatness of thought, it is good to imagine how
Homer would have said the same thing, or how Plato or
Demosthenes or (in history) Thucydides would have invested it
with sublimity. These great figures, presented to us as objects of
emulation and, as it were, shining before our gaze, will somehow
elevate our minds to the greatness of which we form a mental
image.” Therefore imitation in itself is not to be looked down upon
as an artistic failure in terms of a lack of originality. Earlier in the
essay, Longinus points out that “lapses from dignity arise in
literature through a single cause: that desire for novelty of thought
which is all the rage today.

The attempt to be original does not always lead one to the sublime;
on the contrary it could be a frivolous end in itself serving no
higher purpose as such. At the same time Longinus wisely
observes that genius takes risks that mediocrity cannot. He asks
himself the question: “What then was the vision which inspired
those divine writers who disdained exactness of detail and aimed at
the greatest prizes in literature?

17
 It may not always be possible to find a straight answer to the
question, but Longinus asserts confidently that, “Freedom from
error does indeed save us from blame, but it is only greatness that
wins admiration.”

Activity E What in your view constitutes the “sublime”? Make a list of books
and passages that can be included in your definition of the
sublime.

Discussion

All great literary works carry within them a sense of the sublime.
We attach a notion of permanence to a great literary work – take
for example Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey or the plays of
Shakespeare. They not only appeal to our sense of delight but they
do so in a way that does not exhaust the senses that usually is the
case with a sensational work. We do not return to a sensational
product but a great work owing to its sublimity is constantly
inviting us to return for refreshing ourselves with new ideas and
thoughts that help us discover who we are and what is our role in
life.

1.6 Conclusion

The struggle with language or the struggle to arrive at a definition

is at the heart of the classical discourse. That’s what makes them
contemporaries in fact - whether it is Plato’s ideal universe,
Aristotle’s insistence on reason as the basis of knowledge,
Horace’s form-based definition of a literary text or Longinus’
sublimity – the attempt of classical criticism is to inevitably throw
light on the relationship of a work of art to the author and the
world around that he or she belongs to. This relationship of the
author to his or her worlds needs to be defined. It needs to be
located, identified and understood for what it means to itself and to
us looking at it from the vantage point of the present. The classical
critics from Plato to Longinus sought to explore the relationship
between art and life – a debate that moves into the twenty-first
century making those ethical, social, literary and philosophical
concerns that we see in these writers as relevant today as they
might have been then.

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1.7 Summing up

In this Unit, we looked at the origins of Western literary criticism,

called classical criticism. We discussed the work of the Greek
critics, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and Longinus and that of the
Roman critic Horace all of whom are generally regarded as the
major figures of ancient (classical) literary criticism. We
concluded with a few remarks on their continuing relevance.

1.8 References and Suggested Reading

Aristotle. Eudemean Ethics – Books I, II and VIII. Translated by

Michael Woods, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005.
----------. Nicomachean Ethics. Translated and Edited by Roger
Crisp, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
Baldwin, James. “The artist’s struggle for integrity.” Rec. July 31,
2006. Audio CD.
Horace. Ars Poetica. Trans. A. S. Kline. Web. 2005.
Horace. Odes. Trans. Michael Gilleland. Web. 2010.
Laird, Andrew. Oxford Readings in Ancient Literary Criticism.
Oxford: OUP, 2006.
Lear, Gabriel Richardson. Happy Lives and the Highest Good - An
essay on Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. Princeton UP:
Princeton, 2004.
Longinus. On the Sublime. Trans. H. L. Havell. Project Gutenberg.
March 10, 2006.
Narayan R. K., The Guide. Chennai: Indian Thought Publications,
2003.
Nietzsche, Friedrich. Ecce Homo. Trans. Duncan Large. Oxford:
OUP, 2007.
Orwell, George. “Politics and the English Language” (1946). Web.
February 01, 2010.
Plato, Complete Works. Ed. John M. Cooper. Indianapolis: Hackett
Publishing Company, 1997.
--------. “Parable of the Cave.” The Republic. Trans. Benjamin
Jowett. The Internet Classics Archive. 13 Aug. 2009.
Russell, D. A and M. Winterbottom. Eds. Ancient Literary
Criticism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Culture and Value. Oxford: Blackwell,
1998.

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