CLASSICAL CRITICISM

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CLASSICAL CRITICISM
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• A classic should comprehensively represent the
  spirit of the nationality it belongs to and have
  some claim to universal meaning as well to deal
  with the questions of general philosophical
  importance.

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• In the 20th century the critics used to carry out
  two practices
• (i) Sometimes classicism meant the imitation of
  Greek and Latin themes in modern literature
• (ii) At other times it meant the imitation of
  Greek and Latin forms in composing work of any
  themes

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• The formal imitation of two works of antiquity
  one Greek and other Roman may be used as keys for
  understanding classicism ii-e poetics by
  Aristotle and Art of Poetry by Horace.
• Criticism actually took its roots with the
  appearance of Poetics in which certain rules
  were laid down for writing serious dramas.
• Aristotles poetics became the touchstone of all
  arts in the succeeding years,Critics all over the
  world pronounced their judgments according to the
  direction set out in it with poetics began the
  classical criticism.

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• The classical critics further believed that the
  primary aim of all arts is didactic and pleasure
  and entertainment comes in second phase.
• They emphasized on form,balance order and
  proportion in poetry.
• The classical critics were men with established
  values and morals and the artists to be so.
• The classical critics disproved of any experiment
  in form contradictory to the classical rules.
• They also rejected the fight of imagination a
  work of art.
• Classical critics don't approve off the display
  of subjective feelings,idiosyncrasies,and
  emotions in literature.They want an artist to be
  objective in treatment of realities of life.
• The poet should preach but indirectly if he
  preaches directly then he would be more of a
  priest preaching from the pulpit than a creative
  artist.

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• Hence Aristotles rules were considered to be the
  last word in every field of art.These rules were
  looked upon with awe.
• But with the coming of Dryden and Johnson on the
  literary scene,critics no longer remained over
  enthusiastic in imposing the rules of ancients
  upon the writers of their age.
• Dr Johnson appreciates Ben Johnson who observed
  the rules of classical drama but he loves
  Shakespeare who did not observe rules given in
  poetics.

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NEO-CLASSICISM(THE AUGUSTAN AGE)

• During the period 1650-1800 there was rapid
  development in province of criticism.
• It was not,however,the development of a single
  harmonious system of principles and doctrines.
• Sometimes theories were formed around questions
  primarily of art and sometimes nature was of
  primary importance and sometimes questions of
  ends or effects of poetry were important.

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AUGUSTAN AGE

• The term Augustan age has come to refer to a
  period of highest refinement of any natural
  literature
• In England it is the period from 1680-1750.The
  Age of Pope and Dryden.
• The Augustan age of English poetry grounded its
  claim on classicism on the fancied resemblance to
  the Roman poets of the golden age of Roman poetry
  during the reign of Emperor Augustus.
• Its authors each saw themselves as the second
  Virgil a second Ovid or most of all a second
  Horace.
• They aimed to follow the guidelines laid down in
  the original Augustan Age.
• They assumed that the kinds and mode of treatment
  and all the minor details of literature e-g
  figures of speech used of epithets had been
  settled once and for all by the ancients.
• The authors of neoclassical age so christened
  themselves because they rigidly followed these
  rules.

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• In other words,Neoclassicism implies a respect
  for the rules and principles of Aristotle and
  other Greek and Roman critic.
• It is also known as pseudo-classicism for
  Aristotle was often misinterpreted and much that
  he had never said was grafted upon him.They also
  made significant departures from him e-g when the
  neo classicism preferred epic to tragedy.

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ROMANTIC CRITICISM

• Englishmans Love of Liberty is ingrained in its
  temperament,therefore the English critics could
  not follow the Neo-classical rules.
• Their temperamental liberal was nourished by
  Longinus whose essay on sublime has been
  translated in French and was widely read in
  England.
• Their spirit of free thinking was further
  influenced by the French Revolution and the
  American war of independence.
• Their love for political independence resulted in
  the spirit of free inquiry.
• They started questioning the neo-classical rules
  and exposed the limitations.

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• One of the characteristics of romanticism is
  medievalism
• This interest in medieval legends and stories
  revived in them their appreciation for old
  English masters.The influence of Spencer and
  Shakespeare increased and that of Pope and Dryden
  went down.
• Under German influence there was rethinking on
  the nature of beauty and aesthetic appeal
  accordingly a new aesthetic theory was developed.

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• For centuries it has becomes customary to define
  poetry as imitation or a invention after the
  fashion of Aristotle and Horace the neo
  classicism had narrowed down the meanings of
  these ancient terms.

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• Those who sponsored the romantic criticism
  attempted new definitions of poetry conceived in
  the spirit of freedom which now permeated all
  spheres of human life.
• Emotions and imagination were enfranchised and
  acquired new authority in the domain of art.

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• New principles were formulated successfully by
  Romantic critics.Generally speaking the seminal
  principles of imagination at the core of this new
  literary reflection.
• Imagination is now regarded as the essence and
  animating soul of all poetry.
• Similarly genuine emotion is considered
  indispensable for poetry.

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• Poetic diction in the 18th century had become
  rigid and conventional.Wordsworth pronounced a
  different theory of diction.
• He tried to bridge the gulf between popular
  speech and poetic language.The problems of style
  and meter were reexamined.
• There was a break with the past rhetorical
  tradition which had come down from Aristotle and
  steadily grown more rigorous.

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• For Wordsworth poetry is The spontaneous
  overflow of power feelings.Whereas the neo
  classical critics referred literature to such an
  externous standards as social property or moral
  purity.The romantic critics of the new generation
  assessed poetry in relation to the poets mind
  and its inner working.

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• Romantic criticism deals with fundamental
  questions as to What is poetry? And What is the
  time appeal of poetry.
• No critic before Wordsworth or Cole ridge except
  Sidney had tried to answer such questions.
• The great strength of Romantic criticism consists
  in the profound theorizing about the essential
  nature of poetry.

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WORDSWOTH AS A ROMANTIC CRITIC

• Wordsworth was the first to give a new turn to
  discussion as the nature of poetry by connecting
  it with feeling and making it dependent upon
  imagination.
• His views on language and poetic diction are even
  more strikingly original.They were so
  original,indeed that they provoked much criticism
  when they were first produced.

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• Wordsworth tries to bridge the gulf between prose
  and verse.
• Later Wordsworth pleads that prose and metrical
  compositions make use of the same material,namely
  words and phrases and speak to a same sense.
• Meter adds no novel distinction to the language
  such a distinction emanates only from passionate
  use of language and is thus generic not specific.
• Words of prose and poetry are not clearly
  demarcated so the words which can be used in
  prose can find place in poetry and vice versa.

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• Wordsworth makes it clear that the use of meter
  in poetry is different from the use of poetic
  diction.
• Meter obeys certain rules where as poetic diction
  is arbitrary and capricious.
• In the preface,Wordsworth has defended meter on
  the grounds.

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• (i)It adds charm and pleasure to the language.

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• (ii)Poems written upon humble subjects and in a
  more naked and simple language than the poets own
  compositions have continued to give pleasure from
  generation to generation.

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• (iii) The end of poetry is to produce
  excitement.In the statement of excitement ideas
  and feelings do not follow each other in the
  accustomed order.Meter retrains and tempers the
  eciteest.

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• (iv)Pathetic and painful situation can b rendered
  more effectively in rhyme than in prose.
• (v)It imparts a dream like quality to the poem
  because of which the pain seems remote and more
  endurable.

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• (vi)It imparts passion to the words and makes the
  reader experience appropriate feelings of
  pleasure.
• (vii) We derive pleasure from perception of
  similarity in dissimilarity.The use of meter
  provides the element of contrast.