Literary Criticism – UGC NET – Notes

Greek & Roman Critics and Their Works

Plato (427–348 B.C.)

• Republic

• Symposium

• Laws

• Gorgias

• Phaedrus

Aristotle (384–322 B.C.)

• Poetics

• Rhetoric

Longinus

• On the Sublime

Horace (65–8 B.C.)

• Ars Poetica

• Epistles

• Satires

• Odes

Major English Critics and Their Works

Stephen Gosson (1555–1624)

• The School of Abuse (1579)

Sir Philip Sidney (1554–1586)

• Apologie for Poetrie (1580–81)

Ben Jonson (1573–1637)

• Timber, or Discoveries (1641)

• Prefaces to Plays

• The Poetaster

John Dryden (1631–1700)

• An Essay of Dramatic Poesy (1668)

• Important Prefaces (e.g., Preface to Fables)

Joseph Addison (1672–1719)

• Spectator Papers

  • On True and False Wit

  • On Paradise Lost

  • On the Pleasures of Imagination

  • On Tragedy

Alexander Pope (1688–1744)

• An Essay on Criticism

• Preface to Shakespeare

• Preface to the Iliad

Dr. Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)

• Preface to Shakespeare

• Lives of the Poets

• Rambler Essays

• Rasselas

Romantic Critics

William Wordsworth (1770–1850)

• Preface to Lyrical Ballads (1800)

• Advertisement (1798)

• Essay Supplementary (1815)

S. T. Coleridge (1772–1834)

• Biographia Literaria

• Lectures on Shakespeare

• Table Talk

P. B. Shelley (1792–1822)

• A Defence of Poetry

Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)

• Essays in Criticism

• On Translating Homer

• The Study of Celtic Literature

Victorian & Aesthetic Criticism

Walter Pater (1839–1894)

• Studies in the History of the Renaissance

• Appreciations

• Plato and Platonism

Henry James (1843–1916)

• The Art of Fiction

• The Art of the Novel

• The House of Fiction

Modern Literary Criticism

T. S. Eliot (1888–1965)

• The Sacred Wood

• Selected Essays

• Tradition and the Individual Talent

• The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism

• Religion and Literature

I. A. Richards

• Principles of Literary Criticism

• Practical Criticism

• The Meaning of Meaning

F. R. Leavis (1895–1978)

• The Great Tradition

• Revaluation

• The Common Pursuit

• Scrutiny (Journal)

William Empson (1906–1984)

• Seven Types of Ambiguity (1930)

• Some Versions of Pastoral (1935)

• The Structure of Complex Words (1951)

Major Phases of Literary Criticism

• Classical Criticism – Plato, Aristotle, Horace

• Renaissance Defence of Poetry – Sidney

• Neoclassical Criticism – Dryden, Pope, Johnson

• Romantic Criticism – Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley

• Victorian Moral Criticism – Arnold

• Modern/New Criticism – Eliot, Richards, Leavis, Empson

The word “criticism” is derived from the Greek word Kritikos and the Latin word Criticus. John Dryden first used the term “criticism” in print in its familiar sense of “formal discussion of literature.” In the Preface to The State of Innocence, he observes that criticism, as first instituted by Aristotle, was meant to be a “standard of judging well.”

Criticism cannot exist without creation; creation comes first, and criticism follows. The primary function of criticism is to interpret and judge literary works in an unbiased and dispassionate manner, so that creative writers may produce excellent works and readers may enjoy literature in an enlightened way.

According to Lascelles Abercrombie, criticism helps the writer use his creative energy in the most intelligent and efficient manner. Likewise, it enables the reader to experience literature with greater intelligence, discrimination, and illumination, thereby deepening the aesthetic experience.

Plato (427 B.C. - 347 B.C.)

• Plato, the renowned Greek philosopher, expressed his considered views on literature in the Republic and the Ion. Being the pupil of Socrates, he examined life, society, art, and poetry from a lofty moral point of view.
• In the Republic, Plato is concerned with constructing an ideal state and the ideal man. According to him, art and poetry must be subservient to morality and civic virtue, and the individual’s chief aim should be the pursuit of truth. He evaluates art and poetry from the perspective of morality and social responsibility.
• Plato argues that art and poetry contribute neither to the formation of an ideal state nor to the development of an ideal citizen. Therefore, he condemns poetry on moral, philosophical, and educational grounds, questioning its value in shaping character, promoting virtue, and fostering truth.
• He Condemns Art orPoetry on the following Grounds:

Poetic Inspiration

• In the Ion, Plato points out that the poet composes under divine inspiration and not through rational control like ordinary human beings. Since poetry is written in a state of inspiration, it cannot reliably promote the moral welfare of either the individual or the society.
• In the Republic, Plato observes that the poet is inferior to the philosopher because he appeals to the passions and emotions rather than to the intellect and reason. Poetry, therefore, cannot make the individual a better citizen nor the state a better organization. Emotions, according to Plato, are unsafe guides compared to reason. He illustrates this through the tragic poetry of his age, where weeping and wailing are exaggerated to stir the feelings of spectators. Consequently, poets and poetry have no place in the ideal Republic.
• Plato further indicts poetry for its lack of concern for morality and truth. His judgment is based on a rational analysis of Greek literature, including the epics of Homer, the narrative verse of Hesiod, the odes of Pindar, and the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. He was distressed to find virtue often suffering while evil appeared prosperous. He remarks that poets suggest that wrongdoing, if undetected, is profitable, and that honesty may harm the individual. Such literature, he believed, corrupts both the citizen and the state.
• For Plato, pleasure alone cannot be the function of poetry. Poetry must promote knowledge of virtue, the advancement of Truth, and the cultivation of morality. The poet must be a teacher of justice, goodness, beauty, and virtue. Though he acknowledges Homer as a great poet, he insists that only hymns to the gods and praises of noble men should be admitted in the ideal state, as they uphold higher truth and reinforce moral values.

Theory of Imitation

• According to Plato, poetry is based on imitation (mimesis). He derived his theory of imitation from painting and applied it to poetry. For example, a carpenter makes a bed, which itself is an imitation of the ideal bed or Ideal Form existing in the mind. The painter, who paints the bed, produces an imitation of an imitation. Thus, the painter’s work is twice removed from reality.
• In the same way, the poet, using the medium of language, appeals to the ear, just as the painter appeals to the eye. The poet also creates an imitation of appearances, not of ultimate truth. Plato states that the tragic poet, like all imitators, is twice removed from reality. Both painting and poetry create only a semblance of reality, not reality itself.
• Therefore, according to Plato, poets and artists cannot grasp or communicate truth, nor can they effectively teach morality. Instead, they may corrupt society by appealing to emotions rather than reason. As a moralist, Plato condemns poetry as immoral; as a philosopher, he rejects it as being founded on falsehood. In his view, poetry and other forms of art contribute neither to the moulding of character nor to the well-being of the state, and thus stand condemned in the framework of his ideal state.

Plato's Contribution

Plato did pioneering work in the field of literary criticism. His major contributions may be summarized as follows:

1. He was the first to point out the relationship between poetry and life. He asserted that poetry should aim at moulding human character in an ideal manner and promoting ideal truth within the ideal state. Pleasure alone should not be the objective of poetry; rather, it must serve moral and social purposes.

2. He was the first to propound the theory of imitation (mimesis), which became a foundational concept in literary theory.

3. He classified art into two broad categories: Fine Arts—such as literature, painting, sculpture, and music; and Useful Arts—such as medicine, agriculture, and cooking.

4. Plato also classified poetry into three types:
   (i) Dithyrambic (purely lyrical) poetry,
   (ii) Purely mimetic (imitative) poetry, such as drama, where life is imitated through action and speech, and
   (iii) The mixed type, such as the epic, combining lyrical expression with narrative action.
   He further divided drama into tragedy and comedy, and recognized pity and fear as proper emotions associated with tragedy.

5. Plato was the first to emphasize the doctrine of artistic unity in a work of art, stressing structural and thematic coherence.

Plato stands as a true pioneer of literary theory. As noted by J. W. H. Atkins, with Plato begins the tradition of philosophical criticism, which views literature in relation to life. Indeed, he is regarded as the founder of philosophical criticism and one of the earliest systematic thinkers in aesthetic theory.