Thursday 30 September 2021

THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT’S WOMAN – JOHN ROBERT FOWLES

 

THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT’S WOMAN - JOHN ROBERT FOWLES

            John Robert Fowles, one of the greatest novelists of international stature, was born on March 31, 1926, in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, England.  As he grew up in the English suburban culture, his early life was intensely conventional.  After the education from the University of Edinburgh, Fowles had two years military service.  However, he realized in 1947 that military life was not fit for him.  Then he spent four years in Oxford.  Having had several teaching jobs, he served as English department Head at St. Gordic College, London. Though Fowles never identified himself as an existentialist, the writings of Jean Paul Sartre and Albert Camus motivated him to develop a feeling that the world was absurd.

Saturday 25 September 2021

NEW HISTORICISM

 

NEW HISTORICISM

 

The term ‘New Historicism’ was coined by the American critic Stephen Greenblatt (b:1943) in his book ‘Renaissance Self fashioning: from more to Shakespeare’ (1980).  New historicism is a method of literary criticism that emphasizes the history of the text by relating it to the configurations of power, society or ideology in a given time.  Though there were many critics in the 1970s with the same tendencies, this book challenged conservative critical views about Jacobean theatre and linked the plays much more closely with the political events of their era than previous critics done.  Actually, historicism is a theory in which history is seen as a standard of value or a determinant of events.  But, New Historicism is a method based on the parallel reading of literary and non literary texts, usually of the same historical period.  It practices a study in which literary and non-literary texts are given equal weight and constantly inform and interrogate each other.  It involves an intensified willingness to read all the textual traces of the past.  It has a combined interest on both the ‘Textuality of History’ and the ‘Historicity of the Texts’.

The practice of giving ‘equal weighting’ to literary and non-literary material is the first and major difference between the ‘new’ and ‘old’ historicism.  A new historical essay will place the literary text with in the form of non-literary text.  Greenblatt’s main innovation was to juxtapose the plays of the Renaissance period with the horrifying colonialist policies pursued by all the major European powers of the Era.  Through ‘The Modernist Shakespeare’ of Hugh Grady, he draws allegation to ‘the marginalization and dehumanizing of suppressed others’, by starting an essay with the analysis of a contemporary historical document which overlaps in some way with the subject matter of the plays.  Thus, new historicism accepts Derrida’s deconstructive reading.  Whatever is represented in a text is thereby remade.  Thus its aim is not to present the past as it really was, but to present a new reality by re-situating it.

As an example of ‘old’ historicism, we may consider E.M.W Tillyard’s, ‘The Elizabethan World Picture’(1943) and Shakespeare’s History plays (1944), where conservative mental attitude of Elizabethan and their outlooks reflected in Shakespeare’s plays are taken into considerations.  Here the traditional approach to Shakespeare is characterized by the combination of the historical framework with, the practice of ‘close reading’.  But, the New Historicism is resolutely anti-establishment, always on the side of liberal ideals of personal freedom and accepting and celebrating all forms of difference and ‘deviance’.   It is powerful enough to penetrate the most intimate areas of personal life.  New historicism deals with power struggles with a social system, how it affects people and also how they rebel against it.  ‘The Tempest’ is the play full of such struggles between Caliban and Prospero.  Prospero accuses Caliban of being ungrateful for all that he has taught and given.  So, he calls him a lying slave, where as Caliban sees Prospero and Miranda as imperialists who took control of his island.  Thus, according to the New Historicists ‘The Tempest’ is about colonization and freedom apart from forgiveness.  In this way, the New Historicism opens up new dimension for the reader.  The goal of new historicists is to comprehend literature through its historical and cultural context while analysing the cultural and intellectual history portrayed by the literature.

            Though the New Historicism is founded upon post-structuralist thinking, it avoids the latter’s dense style and vocabulary.  Instead it presents its data and draws its conclusions.  The data is also allowed to be interpreted.  The material itself is often distinctive and fascinating.  It is totally different from those produced by any other critical approach and immediately gives the reader the feeling that the new territory is being entered.  The political edge of the new historicist is sharp and at the same time it avoids the problems faced by the Marxist criticism and helps them to have a critical enquiry of their own and thereby enrich the process of defining, classifying and evaluating the works of literature.  In this way the past is no doubt revived for the utility of the present.  Moreover, cultural materialism is actually one of the major anthropological perspectives for analysing human societies.  But, the key difference between New Historicism and cultural materialism is that New Historicism focuses on the oppression in the society that has to be overcome in order to achieve change, where as cultural materialism focuses on how that change is brought about.  Though the methods of New Historicism are not greatly valued or admired by historians, its approach is a way of ‘doing’ history which has a strong appeal for non-historians.


------Thulasidharan V

 

 

           

Monday 20 September 2021

THE LANGUAGE OF PARADOX – CLEANTH BROOKS

 

THE LANGUAGE OF PARADOX – CLEANTH BROOKS

 

            Cleanth Brooks (1906-1994) is an eminent American teacher and critic.  His ‘Modern poetry and tradition’ (1939) and ‘The Well-Wrought Urn: studies in the structure of poetry’ (1947), were important in establishing the new criticism that stressed close reading and structural analysis of literature.  He made an impact on the critics of his time through his critical pronouncements that were helpful to establish suggestiveness in poetry.  He is of the opinion that the statements and images in a poem are in an organic relationships, with a part qualifying and adding meaning to the other.  So, a conscious effort is made by the poet to convey the precise meaning through the use of poetic language where words attain diverse meanings.  The referential language is incapable of representing the specific message of the poet.  So, the uses of ambiguity and paradox become inevitable.  As the language of the poetry is different from the language of science in the poet’s language, connotations play a great part as denotations.

            ‘The Well Wrought Urn: Studies in the Structure of poetry’ is a collection of eleven essays and ‘The Language of Paradox’ is the first essay of this collection.  The essay begins with the statement ‘Few of us are prepared to accept the statement that the language of poetry is the language of Paradox’.  This happens because all consider Paradox as a mere figure of speech and fail to notice the effectiveness of this literary device.  ‘Paradox’ literarily means the assertion of the unification of opposites.  When a poet can neither present his experiences as a statement nor as an abstraction like a scientist, he uses paradox.  Here, the poet can unify the complexities of human experiences into one whole to represent the manifestation of a total experience.  Thus Paradox becomes ‘appropriate and inevitable to poetry’.  In order to ascertain his assertion, Brooks analyses several poems minutely to conclude that paradox is one of the common and a necessary structural properties contained in poetry.

            Brooks analyses how paradox works in Wordsworth’s sonnet ‘Composed upon Westminster Bridge’

            Never did sun more beautifully steep

            In his first splendour, valley, rock or hill…..

The paradoxical situation is depicted in the usual unattractive noisy, smoky industrial city of London and the splendour of the morning in the smokeless air.  These lives present the contrast between the mechanical and dull life of London and the freshness and glory of the morning images.  Wordsworth is shocked and amazed at the paradoxical picture of London.  Under the impression of death, the city acquires the organic life of nature.

            According to Brooks the use of paradox rests on wonder in Romantic poetry but in Neo-classics it depends on irony.  To prove this he quotes a stanza from Alexander Pope’s poem, ‘An Essay on man: Epistle II’

            Created half to rise, and half to fall;

            Great Lord of all things, yet a prey to all;

            Sole Judge of truth, in endless error hurl’d;

            The Glory, Jest, and riddles of the world.

Pope describes the pathetic condition of Man here.  Though Man considers himself the best of God’s creation, he meekly surrenders to everything he controls, and becomes a slave of all that he possesses.  Man claims to be the judge of truth, but commits errors.  Among God’s creation, man is the glory, joke and puzzle that the world has ever seen.

            Brooks is also of the opinion that paradox is a central device in metaphysical poetry.  Here he talks about John Donne’s ‘The Canonization’ where the title contains a metaphor in the form of a paradox.  Donne treats the profane love of the two lovers to be the divine love of a pair of hermits, who have renounced worldly desires and pleasures. The two lovers consider their body a hermitage.  They sacrifice everything for the sake of love and they are regarded as saints.  The comparison is carried on till the end of the poem.  Even the lovers are compared to the phoenix that rises from its ashes.  Moreover, the lovers realize that the Well Wrought Urn, ‘a pretty room’ that would hold the lover’s ashes would not be considered insignificant when compared to the ‘half acre tomb of Prince.  Moreover, he says that Donne marvellously maintains the simultaneous duality and singleness of love and the double and contrary meanings of ‘die’, that’s both sexual union and literal death in this poem.  In this way conveying several meanings with the right depth and emotion is impossible in any language without the help of paradox. 

According to Brooks the urn that holds the ashes of the phoenix as well as the ashes of the phoenix lovers is the poem itself.  He is also of the opinion that the very urn is similar to Keat’s ‘urn’ that contains truth and beauty.  Thus, an analysis of paradox in a work of art will draw inferences either to reconcile the opposites or to harmonize them.  So, he says that paradox is essential to the structure of a poem and also claims that the language of poetry is the language of paradox.


-------Thulasidharan V

 

Friday 17 September 2021

MARXIST CRITICISM

 

MARXIST CRITICISM

 

Karl Marx (1818-1883) a German Philosopher and Friedrich Engels (1820-1895) a German sociologist were the joint founders of Marxism.  They themselves called their economic theories ‘Communism’.  They designated their belief in the state ownership of industry, transport etc rather than private ownership.  They announced the advent of communism in their jointly written ‘Communist Manifesto’ of 1848.  As Marxism is a materialist philosophy, it looks for concrete, scientific, logical explanations of the world of observable fact.  It doesn’t believe in the existence of a spiritual world ‘elsewhere’.  The aim of Marxism is to bring about a classless society, based on the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange.  Though they did not put forward any comprehensive theory of literature, Marxism stresses that a writer’s social class and its prevailing ‘ideology’ have a major bearing on what is written by a member of that class.

In 1905, Lenin argued that literature must become an instrument of the party.  So, experimentation was banned then.  So, there were two streams, ‘Engelsian’ stream that stressed the necessary freedom of art and the ‘Leninist’ stream that insisted an art that committed to the political cause of the Left.  In 1920s and 1930s ‘Engelsian’ which was also called ‘Russian Formalism’ flourished.  The most prominent members of the group were Victor Shklovsky and Boris Eichenbaum.  The familiar world appear new to the common man through Shklovsky’s idea of ‘defamiliarization’.

The French Marxist thinker Louis Althusser (1918-1990) developed the Marxist approach through the introduction of various concepts like 'Overdetermination' and 'Ideology'.  Overdetermination that borrowed from Freud refers to an effect that arises from various causes rather than from a single factor.  This concept undercuts simplistic notions of one-to-one correspondence between base and superstructure.  Ideology is another term of him.  ‘Ideology’ is a system of representations of images, myths, ideas and concepts endowed with an existence and has a historical role at the heart of a given society. It obscures social reality by naturalizing beliefs and by promoting values that support it.  The civil society spreads ideology through law, text books, religious rituals and norms so that the people imbibe them without their knowledge.

'Decentering' is the key term of Althusser to indicate structures which have no essence or focus or centre.  Art has a relative autonomy and is determined by the economic level only ‘in the last instance’. Althusser then talks about 'Interpellation', a trick where all are made to feel that they are choosing when really they have no choice. Interpellation makes us feel like a free agent when things imposed upon us. He also makes a distinction between the state power and state control. State power is mentioned as repressive structures that include the law courts, prisons, the police force and the army.  They are the external forces.  But, the power of the state is also mentioned by their internal consent.  Althusser calls them as ideological structures or state ideological apparatuses.  They are such groupings as political parties, schools, the media, the churches, the family and art that foster an ideology, a set of ideas and attitudes.  Then they feel that they are freely choosing what is in fact being imposed upon them.  This is where the writers and critics of Leninist stream focused their attention and tried to utilize literature as an instrument of the party.  Apart from Althusser Terry Eagleton, the best known British Marxist critic has also had his contributions to Marxist criticism.

The founder of Italian communist party Antonio Gramsci (1861-1934) was a politician, philosopher, and linguist.  He introduced concepts like 'Hegemony' and 'Subaltern'.  'Hegemony' is the domination of particular section of the society by the powerful classes.  Most often it works through consent rather than by power.  It is the moral and intellectual leadership of the upper class in a particular society.  The term 'Subaltern' is a collective description for a variety of different and exploited groups who lack class consciousness.  But, now it is being used to represent all marginalized sections like Dalit, women and minorities.

Marxist criticism emphasizes on class, socioeconomic status, power relations among various segments of society and the representations of those segments.  Marxist criticism is valuable because it enables readers to see the role that class plays in the plot of a text.

So, Marxist criticism has basically its conflict with Post-Structuralism and Post –Modernism.  Moreover, it is against Psycho analysis that isolates individuals from the social structures in which they exist.  The Marxist critics make a division between the ‘overt’ (surface) and the ‘covert’ (hidden) content of the literary work and then relate the covert subject matter of the literary work to basic Marxist themes, such as class struggle, the progression of society through various historical stages, such as the transition from feudalism to industrial capitalism.  Thus, the conflicts in King Lear is made to be read as being ‘really’ about the conflict of class interest between the rising class (the bourgeoisie) and the falling class (the feudal overlords).  Moreover, they also succeed in their explaining the nature of a whole literary genre in terms of the social period which ‘produced’ it.  But they never discuss the details of a specific historical situation and relate it closely to the interpretation of a particular literary text, like the critics of new Historicism and cultural materialism with an archeological spirit.

 

 -----Thulasidharan V

Monday 13 September 2021

FEMINISM

 

FEMINISM

 

          Feminism is the belief in full social, economic and political equality for women.  Numerous feminist movements and ideologies have developed over years and represented different viewpoints and aims since 19th century.  Charles Fourier, a French philosopher is credited with having coined the word ‘feminism’ in 1837.  Depending on the historical movement, culture and country, feminists around the world have different causes and goals.  However, the feminist movements are divided into four ‘waves’ and through these movements won right to vote, legal and social equality, individuality and diversity and fight against violence against women now through ‘me too’ movement.

          The woman’s movement of the 1960 greatly influenced by Virginia Woolf’s ‘A room of one’s own (1929)’ and Simone de Beauvoir’s ‘The Second sex (1949)’.  The feminist literary criticism of today is the direct product of the ‘women’s movement’ of the 1960s.  The representation of women in Literature was felt to be one of the most important forms of ‘Socialization’ and ‘Conditioning’.  In 1970s Elaine Showalter coined ‘gynocriticism’.  She defined it as ‘the history, styles, themes, genres and structure of writing by women, the Psychodynamics of female creativity; the trajectory of the individual or collective female career; and the evolution or laws of a female literary tradition’.

          However, there are divisions within feminism on its aims, goals methods, theories and inspirations apart from the waves of it.  The ‘Cultural feminism’ believes that the contributions of ‘female culture’ such as child care, domestic work etc have been disregarded and greatly devalued in society as the social systems have evolved with ‘Male culture’.  Liberal feminism stresses the importance of gender norms and gender socialization in the society.  Similarly Marxist feminism too argues for gender equality.  Radical feminism focuses on the violence that women suffer and fights against gender related violence. Ecofeminism believes that it is the patriarchal system that causes the oppression of both women and the environmental.  The men in power are able to take advantage of both women and the environment because they see them passive and helpless.  Post colonial feminism that emerged in the third world countries believe that they have to work for gender equality within the logic of their own cultural models.  Post-modern feminism believes that there is not one unique absolute definition for gender.  So, there is no single basis for women’s subordination and no single method of dealing with the issues.

          Apart from this, Showalter has also detected in the history of women’s writing a feminine phase that covers 1840-1880, in which women writers imitated dominant male artistic norms and aesthetic standards.  Another feminist phase in between 1880 and 1920, in which, radical and often separatist positions are maintained.  Finally, a female phase that from 1920s that looked particularly at female writing and female experience.  Yet another issue was also there concerning the existence of a language that is inherently feminine.  According to Virginia Woolf, as the language use is gendered, when a woman turns to novel writing, she finds that there is ‘no common sentence ready for her use’.  She quotes many sentences from Charlotte Bronte and George Eliot.  But, Jane Austen rejected it and instead ‘devised a perfectly natural, shapely sentence proper for her own use.  However, Elaine Showalter in her essay, ‘Towards a feminist poetics’ advocates a new way of reading.  She stresses that women should turn to female experience as the source of an autonomous art.  The feminist criticism, free from the divided consciousness of ‘daughters’ and ‘sisters’ is to be made a permanent home.

          Feminist criticism can be divided into two varieties.  The first one is concerned with woman as a reader of male produced literature.  It is a historical grounded enquiry.  Its subjects include the images and the stereotypes of women in literature, the omissions and misconceptions about women in criticism and the exploitation and manipulation of the female audience in popular culture and film.  The second type is concerned with women as a writer.  That is with woman as the producer of literature.  Its subjects include the Psychodynamics of female creativity linguistics and the problems of female language.  This Gynocriticism is a type of criticism designed by feminists to evaluate works by women as feminist works.  It takes into consideration the circumstances in which a work of art is produced, the point of view of the author, and the motivation and attitudes of the characters.  One of the problems of feminist critique is that it is male-oriented.  If we study the stereotypes of women and the limited roles play in literary history, we are trying to learn what not women have felt and experienced, but only what men have thought women should be.  So, the task of feminist critics is to find a new language, a new way of reading that can integrate women’s intelligence and experience, their reason and their suffering.  This enterprise should not be confined to women.  Women are not only the daughters and sisters of men but also their teachers, publishers and many others.  So, all women who are also critics, poets and philosophers should also share it with them.  So, as Showalter says feminist criticism is not simply a visiting criticism, it is here to stay.


-----------Thulasidharan V

Monday 6 September 2021

Archetypal Criticism - The Archetypes of Literature - Northrop Frye (1921-1991)

 


          Northrop Frye was born in Southern Quebec province Canada.  He studied theology and was keenly interested in Canadian literature, culture and education.  Though his critics charge him with arbitrariness in his taxonomy and catergorisation of literary works, his influence as a literary critic, theorist and educator extended worldwide.  His first book on William Blake won him fame.  In his second book, ‘Anatomy of Criticism’, he articulated the role of archetypal symbols, myths and generic conventions in creating literary meaning.

        The word ‘Archetype’ was derived from the Greek word ‘Archetypon’, means, “beginning pattern”.  According to Frye Archetype in literary criticism refers to a recurrent image, character, plot, theme or pattern that have passed through by its repetitions in many works across the centuries.  To prove his point, Frye draws sources from different areas including Bible.  The detailed studies of primitive myths by James Frazer and Jessie Weston have also helped him.  But, the main source for Frye, perhaps, was the Psychologist Carl Jung, particularly Jung’s account of the ‘Collective Consciousness’.

          In defining genuine criticism, Frye says that it is connected to but different from philosophy, theology, history and the social sciences.  Knowledge of ‘archetypes’ enables us to perceive the shared myths that literary works rely on and explore.  Through this awareness, we can glimpse the underlying ‘Structure’ of the structures of all works.  Creative writers have used myths in their works and critics analyse texts for a discovery of “Mythological patterns”.  This kind of critical analysis of a text is called Archetypal Criticism.  T.S. Eliot has used mythical patterns in his creative works.  The waste land is a fine example for it.

          There is a type of criticism, which focuses only on an analysis of a text.  Such criticism confines itself to the text and does not give any other background information about the text.  This type of criticism is called formalistic or structural criticism.  In historical criticism the background information helps the reader to understand the text.  So, the reader needs both these criticisms to have a better understanding of the text.  Archetypal criticism is a synthesis of structural criticism and historical criticism.

          Owing to Jealousy, Othello, in the Shakespearean play inflicts upon himself affliction.  This is the particular truth of the drama from which the reader learns the general truth of life that Jealousy is always destructive.  This is called the inductive method of analysis under structural criticism.  Similarly, the historical inductive method that helps the reader understand the genre of drama originates from Greek religion.  So, Archetypal criticism, the combination of both these criticisms is an all inclusive one.  It involves the efforts of many specialists.  An editor analyses the text.  A rhetorician analyses the narrative pace.  A literary social historian studies the evolution of myths and rituals.  Thus, a thorough understanding of the text is possible under archetypal criticism.

          As a matter of fact, the world of nature is governed by rhythm and it has got a natural cycle.  The seasonal rhythms in a solar year are spring, summer, autumn and winter.  This kind of rhythm is also there in the world animals and human beings.  Crops are planted and harvested rhythmically every year and they have their seasons.  During planting and harvest, sacrifices and offering are made which are rituals.  Actually, works of literature have their origins in such rituals and the archetypal critic discovers and explains them.

          A writer usually gets a concept or idea of his work in a moment of inspiration.  Then he expresses what he has ‘perceived’ in the form of proverbs, riddles and folktales.  He uses myths either deliberately or unconsciously, and it is the critic who discovers the archetypes, myths in a work.  Every myth has a central significance in a myth centre.  That may be God, Demigod, Super human or Legend.

          Frye classifies myths into four categories.

1.     The Dawn is spring and is said to be birth phase.  The birth of a hero, his revival and resurrection, his defeating the powers of darkness and death are all the happenings here.  The father and mother are the subordinate characters here.  This phase is with archetypes of comedy and rhapsodic poetry.

2.     The Zenith is summer and is said to be marriage or triumph phase.  Myths of Apotheosis of the sacred marriage and of entering into paradise are found in this phase.  The companion and the bride are the subordinate characters.  This phase has the archetypes of romance and pastoral poetry.

3.     The Sunset is autumn and is said to be the death phase.  Myths of fall, of dying God, of violent death and of sacrifice and of the isolation of the hero are found in this phase.  The traitors are the subordinate characters here.  This phase has the archetypes of tragedy and elegy.

4.     The darkness is winter and is said to be the desolation phase.  Myths of the triumph of these powers, myths of floods and the return of chaos and the myths of the defeat of the hero are seen in this phase.  The witch and ogre are the subordinate characters here.  This phase has the archetypes of satire.

These are the four categories of myths that Frye identifies in different types of works written by different writers.  Thus, Frye classifies the literary universe into four categories, corresponding to the four natural seasons: Comedy corresponds to spring; romance to summer; tragedy to autumn and satire to winter.  Apart from these Northrop Frye says that there is a quest–myth that makes the hero goes in quest of a truth or something else.  In this way a critic can analyse myths and finds how a drama, a lyric or an epic has been evolved.  Moreover, Frye is also of the opinion, that there are twelve brand archetypes namely, The Innocent, Everyman, Hero, Orator, Explorer, Creator, Ruler, Magician, Lover, Caregiver, Jester, and Sage.

Moreover, according to Frye, to attain perfection the comic and tragic visions of life that are used in the creation should be analysed.  In a comic vision of life in a myth the human world is presented as a community.  There a here is presented as the representative whereas in a tragic vision of life, the human world is in tyranny.  Similarly, in the comic visions of life, in a myth, the animal world is presented as a community of domesticated animals like a flock of sheep with pastoral images.  But, in the tragic visions of life, there are vultures, serpents, dragons and so on.  According to Frye all who deal with literature need two powers, a power to create and a power to understand.  As criticism has every characteristics of a science, it should have a systematic study with any piece of literature that it deals with.  Moreover, every poet has his private mythology, his own spectroscopic band or peculiar formation of symbols, of much of which, he is quite unconscious.  So, the critic should take over, where the poet leaves off and with the help of literary psychology he should connect the poet with the poem.  No doubt, this is quite possible if he applies archetypal criticism here.


-----Thulasidharan V

 

Sunday 5 September 2021

T.S. ELIOT’S LITERARY CRITICISM – TRADITION AND INDIVIDUAL TALENT

 

T.S. ELIOT’S LITERARY CRITICISM – TRADITION AND INDIVIDUAL TALENT


          Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888 – 1915) was a versatile genius who during his lifelong span of literary activity achieved distinction as a poet, playwright, journalist and critic.  In 1948, he was awarded Nobel Prize for his outstanding, pioneer contribution to present day poetry.  As he said, his criticism was merely a 'by-product' of his 'private poetry work shop'.  The value of Eliot’s criticism arises from the fact that he speaks with authority and conviction and his prose style is as precise and memorable as his poetry.  The critical concepts like ‘Dissociation of sensibility’, ‘Unified Sensibility’ and ‘Objective Correlative’ have gained for him wide popularity and appeal.

          The phrase ‘Objective Co-relative’ was first used by Eliot in his essay on ‘Hamlet’.  Eliot defines ‘objective co-relative’ as ‘a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events’, which shall be the formula for the poets’ emotion, so that ‘when the external facts are given, the emotion is at once evoked’.  In his opinion the emotion can best be expressed in poetry through the use of some suitable objective co-relative.  For example in ‘Macbeth’ the dramatist has to convey the mental agony of Lady Macbeth and he does so in, ‘The sleep, walking scene’, not through direct descriptions, but through an unconscious repetition of her past actions.  Her mental agony has been made objective so that it can as well be seen by the eyes as felt by the heart.  Here the external situation is adequate to convey the emotions.  Instead of communicating the emotions directly to the reader, the dramatist has embodied them in a situation or chain of events that suitably communicate the emotions to the reader.  But, ‘Hamlet’ is an artistic failure as the external situation does not suitably embody the effect of a mother’s guilt on her son.  The disgust of Hamlet is also in excess of the facts as presented in the drama.

          Another popular phrase ‘Dissociation of sensibility’ and ‘Unification of Sensibility’ were first used by T.S. Eliot in his essay on the Metaphysical poets of the early 17th century.  By ‘Unification of Sensibility’ he means ‘a fusion of thought and feeling’, ‘a recreation of thought into feeling’.  Such fashion of thought and feeling is essential for good poetry.  Bad poetry results when there is ‘dissociation of sensibility’.  There the poet is unable to feel his thoughts.  Eliot finds such unification of sensibility in the metaphysical poets, and regrets that dissociation of sensibility set in the late 17th century.  According to him, 'Tennyson and Browning are poets; and they think, but they do not feel their thoughts as immediately as the odour of a rose.  But, a thought to Donne was an experience; it modified his sensibility'.  Similarly Eliot’s 'The Theory of  Impersonality of poetry’ is the greatest theory on the nature of the poetic process after Wordsworth’s romantic conception of poetry.  According to him poetry is not letting loose of emotion but an escape from emotion, not an expression of personality, but an escape from personality.  Moreover as he considered drama as one among several forms of poetry, he always advocated for a revival of poetic drama in the modern age.

 

TRADITION AND INDIVIDUAL TALENT

          The ESSAY ‘Tradition and Individual talent’ was published in 1919 in the Times literary supplement, as a critical article.  The essay is divided into three parts.  The first part gives us Eliot’s concepts of Tradition and the second part deals with his theory of the impersonality of poetry.  The third part sums up the whole discussion.

          According to T.S Eliot the word ‘tradition’ is disagreeable to English ears.  Because, when they praise a poet, they praise him for those aspects of his work, which are ‘individual’ and ‘original’.  Actually they praise the poet for the wrong thing here.  If they examine the matter critically with an unprejudiced mind, they will realize that the best and the most individual part of a poet’s work is that, which shows the maximum influence of the writers of the past.  Here, tradition does not mean a blind adherence to the ways of the previous generations.  For Eliot, tradition is a matter of much wider significance.  Tradition, in the true sense of the term, cannot be inherited.  It can only be obtained by hard labour.  This labour is actually, knowing the past writers.  It is the critical labour of shifting the good from the bad.  A writer who has the historic sense feels that the whole of the literature of Europe from Homer down to his own day, including of his own country, forms one continuous ‘literary tradition’.  As tradition represents the accumulated wisdom and experience of ages, its knowledge is essential for really great and noble achievements.

          The sense of Tradition doesn’t mean that the poet should try to know the past as a whole, take it to be a lump or mass without any discrimination.  The past must be examined critically and only the significant in it should be acquired.  The poet must also realize that the main literary trends are not determined by the great poets alone.  Smaller poets also are significant.  According to T.S. Eliot, knowledge does not merely mean bookish knowledge and the capacity for acquiring knowledge differs from person to person.  Shakespeare, for example could know more of Roman history from Plutarch than most men can from British museum.  Such awareness of tradition sharpens poetic sensibility and is indispensible for poetic creation.

          In the second part of the essay Eliot develops further his theory of the impersonality of poetry.  He compares the mind of the poet to a catalyst and the process of poetic creation to the process of a chemical reaction.  Suppose there is a jar containing oxygen and sulphur dioxide.  These two gases combine to form sulphurous acid, when a fine filament of platinum is introduced into the jar.  The combination takes place only in the presence of the piece of platinum, but the metal itself does not undergo any change.  It remains inert, neutral and unaffected.  The mind of the poet is like the catalytic agent.  It is necessary for combinations of emotions and experiences to take place, but it itself does not undergo any change during the process of poetic combination.  The experiences which enter the poetic process, says Eliot, may be of two kinds.  They are emotions and feelings.  Poetry may be composed out of emotions or feelings or out of both.

          As Eliot believes that poetry is not letting loose of emotion but an escape from emotion and it is not the expression of personality but an escape from personality, it doesn’t mean that he denies personality or emotion to the poet.  Only he needs the poet depersonalize his emotions.  There should be an extinction of his personality.  This impersonality can be achieved only when the poet surrenders himself completely to the work that is to be done.  It is possible only if he acquires a sense of tradition and the historic sense along with the sense of the present moment of the past.  This is how the separation of art from artist is achieved. 


-----Thulasidharan V

Saturday 4 September 2021

SIR. PHILIP SIDNEY’S AN APOLOGY FOR POETRY/THE DEFENCE OF POESY (CRITICISM 5)

 

SIR. PHILIP SIDNEY’S AN APOLOGY FOR POETRY/THE DEFENCE OF POESY

(CRITICISM 5)

 

          Sir. Philip Sidney was born on 30th November 1554 in Kent.  In 1582 he was knighted and became member of Parliament.  In 1586 he was mortally wounded in the battle field and succumbed to it.  It is said as he lay dying, Sidney composed a song to be sung by his deathbed.  In the last quarter of the 16th century, the need for a proper understanding of the nature and function of poetry was widely felt.  Moreover, in 1579, Stephen Gossen, who was a puritan published a treatise, ‘The School of abuse’, in which he attacked poetry and drama of the age.  The book was also dedicated to Sidney.  So, Sidney besides being a public servant, who was also a man of letters of great reputation, wrote his Apology for poetry in order to vindicate poetry against the onslaughts of the puritans.  Though it was written in 1583, it was published in 1595 by Henry Olney with the title ‘Aplogy for poetry’ and in 1598 by William Ponsonby with the title ‘Defence of Poesy’ posthumously.

          In ‘Apology for poetry’ Sidney talks about the antiquity and universality of poetry.  Apart from discussing the kinds of poetry and their usefulness, he strongly objects tragicomedy and the violation of the unities.  Moreover his remarks on style, diction and verification are very effective.  He defines poetry as an art of imitation.  As it is representing, counterfeiting or figuring forth, it is really a speaking picture and so its end is to teach and delight.

          Sidney divides poetry into three broad divisions namely religious poetry, philosophical poetry and true kind of poetry.  Religious poetry praises God, where as philosophical poetry imparts knowledge of philosophy, history, astronomy etc.  He is of the opinion that as it is “The sweet food of sweetly uttered knowledge”, it is not to be condemned.  The third kind of poetry are divided into lyric, pastoral, heroic, tragic, comic and satiric etc.  Pastoral poetry deals with the lonliest life and thus arouses sympathy and admiration for simple life.  Similarly elegiac poetry arouses sympathy for the suffering and the miserable.  Thus, they soften the heart.  Comedy and satire laugh at follies and imitate common errors in a ridiculous fashion and so are effective in warning men against such errors.  Tragedy reveals the wickedness of men and women and reveals the uncertainty of life.  Lyric hymns praise God and Men and thus, enkindle virtue and courage.  The Epics present the pictures of heroic men and heroic action.  Thus, he argues and proves that there is no any evil in any of these kinds of poetry.

          The aim of poetry is accomplished by teaching most delightfully a notable morality.  Since the object of all arts and sciences is to lift human life to the highest altitudes of perfection, in a way they are all servants of poetry.  The philosopher teaches virtue and vices in abstract arguments where as the historian by showing them through examples and experiences of the past ages.  But, the poet gives perfect examples of vices and virtues and makes virtue succeed and vice fail in his poetry.  Thus, Sidney demonstrates the superiority of poetry over history and philosophy.

          The Senecan drama and the Aristotelian precepts were the sources of Sidney’s theory of tragedy. He follows the medieval tradition and says that tragedy should show the fall of tyrants.  He condemns modern tragedy for the incongruous mingling of the comic and tragic and the gross violation of the unities.  However, the rule of the three unities of action, place and time were not followed in England even after his strict demand. Sidney defines comedy, “as an imitation of the common error of life which are represented in the most ridiculous and scornful manner.  So, that the spectator is anxious to avoid such errors himself”.  So, he condemns contemporary farcical comedy and is in favour of a comedy of a more intellectual kind.  According to him the proper material for comedy are the weaknesses, follies and foibles of mankind of a harmless kind.  Thus, he considers comedy a weapon of social reform.

          Sidney is unique as a critic.  He is judicial, creative and original.  He inaugurated a new era in the history of English literary criticism.  His practical criticism is an illuminating piece of literary criticism.  Doubtless, his treatise is a landmark in the history of English criticism in England.  So, more truly than Dryden he is the father of literary criticism in England.


------Thulasidharan V

Friday 3 September 2021

ON THE SUBLIME: DIONYSIUS LONGINUS (CRITICISM 4)

 

ON THE SUBLIME: DIONYSIUS LONGINUS

(CRITICISM 4)

 

          The exact date and authorship of the Greek Treatise ‘On the Sublime’ is unknown.  Two Longinuses are claimed to be the author of this treatise.  It was actually in 1554 that the Italian critic Robortello ascribed it to a rhetorician named Dionysius Longinus of the first century AD and this authorship was generally accepted up to the beginning of the 19th century.  Then some critics pointed out that the work belonged to another Longinus who lived in the 3rd century AD.  As we are told that the treatise was written to correct the faults of an essay on the same subject by one Caecilius, who is definitely known to have belonged to the 1st century AD, we must accept the later half of the first century AD as the most likely date of its composition.  So, no doubt Dionysius Longinus is the author of this treatise.

          ‘On the Sublime’ is the most precious legacy of the Greco-Roman period and a critical record of great worth and significance.  Though one third of the original document is missing, it contains a lot to be considered as one of the best pieces of criticism that have come down to us from the antiquity.  The treatise is addressed to one Terentianus, a friend or a pupil of Longinus.  Longinus tells him of his purpose of correcting the faults of Caecilius’s essay on the ‘Sublime’ and makes some other preliminary observations.

          Sublimity is a certain loftiness and excellence in language.  It is only through sublimity that the greatest poets and prose writers of Greek and Latin have delivered their eminence and gained immortality.  Sublimity does not merely persuade.  It carries us away almost irresistibly.  Sublimity is a gift of nature.  It won’t come from the painstaking observance of the rules of rhetoric.  For the further explanation of the nature of the Sublime, Longinus compares the true Sublime with the false Sublime.  The false Sublime is characterized by bombast of language which is as great an evil as swellings in the body.  This ugly and parasitical growth in literature appears from the pursuit of novelty in the expression of ideas which may be regarded as the fashionable craze of the day.

          The true Sublime ‘Pleases all and pleases always’ as it arises from lofty ideas clothed in lofty language.  It gives us joy and exalts our spirits, as it expresses the thoughts of universal validity, the thoughts common to men of all ages and countries.  To acquire the true sublimity both nature and art are equally necessary.  He says “Fine writing needs the curb, as well as the spur”.  He complains Caecilius for his omitting some of the five sources of Sublimity.  Either he believed that Sublimity and emotion were one and the same thing and always existed and developed together or he thought that emotion had no contribution to make to Sublimity.  So, he was wrong.  In Longinus’s opinion there is nothing so productive of grandeur as noble emotion in the right place.

          According to Longinus the five principal sources of Sublime are, Grandeur of thought, passion, the uses of figures, diction and dignified composition.  Noble and lofty thoughts find their natural expression in lofty language.  Lofty thoughts itself is an echo of greatness of soul.  Such greatness and nobility of soul can be cultivated by nourishing the mind on thoughts that are elevating.  So, one who wants to attain this must feed his soul on the works of the great masters like Homer and Capture some of their greatness.

          The second source of the Sublime is vehement and inspired passion.  There should be genuine emotion.  Strong and powerful emotion would contribute more to loftiness of tone in writing.  The third source of attaining excellence of style is the use of figures.  Figures should not be used mechanically, rather, they must be rooted in genuine emotion.  Longinus does not deal with all figures, but only with those that give distinction to style.  The figures treated are the rhetorical question, Asyndeton or the omission of conjunction, hyperbaton or inversion, periphrases, a roundabout way of saying things by which the use of common place words is avoided and Apostrophe or address to abstract or inanimate objects.  These all will bring the expression a richer note and more tuneful rhythms.

        The fourth source of the Sublime is diction which includes choice and arrangement of words, as well as the use of metaphor and simile.  Both ordinary and striking words must be suitably chosen, for both are necessary for the formation of an impressive style.  Similarly metaphors are necessary to give elevation to style.  Along with metaphors he considers the use of hyperboles, which he says, must also rise from emotion.  The fifth source of Sublime is dignified and noble composition and arrangements.  By this he means a verbal order that is usually called rhythm.  Words must be harmoniously set.  Such harmonious combination of words appeals to the soul and enables the reader to share the emotions of the author.  The true Sublime uplifts the soul and fills the mind with joy.  As it overcomes the test of time, it remains memorable.  Here, Longinus quotes the lines of Iliad and proves the force and vigour of Homer that captures the desperate mood of Ajax in the mist and baffling night. 

Zeus, father, yet save tho'u Achaia's sons 

From beneath the gloom.  

And make clear day, and vouchsafe unto us with our eyes to see!

So, it be but in light, destroy us!

            Here, he doesn't plead for life as it will demean his stature.  Instead, he craves for death that is worthy of his bravery.  Thus he proves how Homer uses appropriate thought, emotion and dictum to suit the intensity of emotion that befits the situation.  This is what he says as sublimity. True sublimity has social implications because of its possessing inherent moral values. So, it is enjoyed by all, irrespective of time, place and age. So low and undignified vocabulary ill sounding words and vulgar idioms should be avoided.  Brevity is effective, but consciousness of expression will mar the Sublime.  These are the views of Longinus on the Sublime.

          Longinus is one of the greatest critics of antiquity.  Like Aristotle, he based his theories on existing Greek literature.  He likewise aimed at a rational explanation of literary phenomena.  So, his methods of theorizing are analytic, inductive, philosophical and historical.  He is said to be a pioneer in the field of analytical criticism as he has applied the analytical method in his analysis of one of the important love lyrics of Sappho (570 BC – Greek Poetess).  He is also said to be the first romantic critic as he emphasizes on imagination and emotion.  A lot of similar things in the pages of Longinus’s ‘On the Sublime’ will never grow old and its freshness and light will continue to charm all ages.  That is why it remains towering among all other works of its class.

 

------Thulasidharan V

 

F.R.Leavis – Hard Times: An analytic note (The Great tradition)

 

F.R.Leavis – Hard Times: An analytic note

(The Great tradition)

 

          Frank Raymond Leavis is one of the leaders of Cambridge critics, who had their major influence in English literary studies from the mid 1920s.  He was also Charismatic and undisputed leader of the critical world of England.  F.R. Leavis believed that literature should be closely related to criticism of life and that it is therefore a literary critic’s duty to assess works according to the author’s and society's moral position.  In that way, he not merely inherited, but took upon himself the role of the torch bearer of the humanistic tradition earlier initiated by his spiritual predecessor Arnold.  So, F.R. Leavis is of the opinion that literature affords us examples of writers like Arnold, Ruskin, Conrad and Lawrence who showed what it is to lead an ideal life, a life not accessible to the one promoted by Science and technology.

          ‘The Great tradition’ (1948) of F.R. Leavis is a work in fictional poetics discussing the merits of Jane Austin, George Eliot, Henry James and Joseph Conrad.  It was he who declared boldly that D.H. Lawrence belonged to the great tradition of novelists.  ‘Scrutiny’ is a journal that he published for twenty one years along with his wife Queenie Roth, a specialist in British fiction is his best contribution to English letters.  Though ‘Hard Times: An analytic note’ is included in ‘The great Tradition’, it does not form a part of the principal discussions of the book.  Leavis is of the opinion that Charles Dickens is primarily an entertainer, a caricaturist who cannot be considered significant as Henry James.  The great novelists, George Eliot, Henry James and Joseph Conrad in the tradition identified by Leavis are pre-occupied with form for they are technically original and use their genius to frame uniquely appropriate methods and procedures in their art.

          According to Leavis, George Eliot’s novels are the creations from her personal experiences that are closely related to the middle and lower class of the rural England of the 19th century.  Henry James is a genius who creates an ideal civilized sensibility and possesses the capacity to communicate by the finest means of implication. Joseph Conrad is also an innovator in form and method who takes serious interest in life.

However Leavis gives great importance to Dickens's 'Hard times'. The title ‘Hard Times’ is significant as it deals with the inhumanities of Victorian civilization.  Leavis considers ‘Hard Times’ a moral fable with a definite intention that exhibits satiric irony in the first two chapters.  The descriptiveness of the passages in Hard Times reveals the sensitivity of Dickens and from the employment of symbolism that emerges out of metaphor, the candid portrayal of the Victorian society stands apart.  Sissy’s symbolic significance shows the vitality of life that is resourceful and provides a stark contrast to the lifeless rigidity of utilitarian principle. While Sissy represents vitality, Bitzer is more unemotional and mechanical in approach.  This shows Dickens unique capacity to represent human spontaneity with skill and deftness.  The descriptions of the circus athletes, their agility, frivolousness and their movements are perfectly designed by Dickens.  The circus life represents the vital human impulse that is trampled under utilitarianism.  Through this Dickens expresses profound reaction to industrialism that has degraded life in the Victorian society. 

          Dickens observes life in the urban scene where the usual depiction of human kindness and essential virtues assert themselves in the midst of ugliness and banality of life.  Sissy Jupe functions to convey the artistic flexibility of Dickens that finds her confronting utilitarianism with great subtlety.  The irony of situation is effectively designed when Gradgrind’s daughter is married off to Bounderby.   Louisa’s development under Gradgrind shows inhibition of natural affection and her capacity for ‘disinterested devotion’ is in sharp contrast to the vitality and force of life as depicted by Sissy Jupe.  Here, Leavis praises Dickens for his revealing the pathos related to the mechanistic life with a poetic beauty.  So, he calls Dickens an imaginative genius, a poetic dramatist whose possibilities of concentration and flexibility in the interpretation of life can only be compared to a dramatist like Shakespeare.


-----Thulasidharan V