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___________________________________________________________________________ Role of Spectacle in Tragedy Spectacle is one of the six components of tragedy, occupying the category of the mode of imitation. Spectacle includes all aspects of the tragedy that contribute to its sensory effects: costumes, scenery, the gestures of the actors, the sound of the music and the resonance of the actors' voices. Aristotle ranks spectacle last in importance among the other components of tragedy, remarking that a tragedy does not need to be performed to have its impact on the audience, as it can be read as a text. 

Spectacle (opsis) Refers to the visual apparatus of the play, including set, costumes and props (anything you can see). Aristotle calls spectacle the "least artistic" element of tragedy, and the "least connected with the work of the poet (playwright). For example: if the play has "beautiful" costumes and "bad" acting and "bad" story, there is "something wrong" with it. Even though that "beauty" may save the play it is "not a nice thing". Spectacle is like a suspenseful horror film.

Summary Aristotle now narrows his focus to examine tragedy exclusively. In order to do so, he provides a definition of tragedy that we can break up into seven parts: (1) it involves mimesis; (2) it is serious; (3) the action is complete and with magnitude; (4) it is made up of language with the "pleasurable accessories" of rhythm and harmony; (5) these "pleasurable accessories" are not used uniformly throughout, but are introduced in separate parts of the work, so that, for instance, some bits are spoken in verse and other bits are sung; (6 ) it is performed rather than narrated; and (7) it arouses the emotions of pity and fear and accomplishes a katharsis(purification or purgation) of these emotions. Next, Aristotle asserts that any tragedy can be divided into six component parts, and that every tragedy is made up of these six parts with nothing else besides. There is (a) the spectacle, which is the overall visual appearance of the stage and the actors. The means of imitation (language, rhythm, and harmony) can be divided into (b) melody, and (c) diction, which has to do with the composition of the verses. The agents of the action can be understood in terms of (d) character and (e) thought. Thought seems to denote the intellectual qualities of an agent while character seems to denote the moral qualities of an agent. Finally, there is (f) the plot, or mythos, which is the combination of incidents and actions in the story. Aristotle argues that, among these six, the plot is the most important. The characters serve to advance the action of the story, not vice versa. The ends we pursue in life, our happiness and our misery, all take the form of action. That is, according to Aristotle, happiness consists in a certain kind of activity rather than in a certain quality of character. Diction and thought are also less significant than plot: a series of well-written speeches have nothing like the force of a well-structured tragedy. Further, Aristotle suggests, the most powerful elements in a tragedy, theperipeteia and the anagnorisis, are elements of the plot. Lastly, Aristotle notes that forming a solid plot is far more difficult than creating good characters or diction. Having asserted that the plot is the most important of the six parts of tragedy, he ranks the remainder as follows, from most important to least: character, thought, diction, melody, and spectacle. Character reveals the individual motivations of the characters in the play, what they want or don't want, and how they react to certain situations, and this is more important to Aristotle than thought, which deals on a more universal level with reasoning and general truths. Melody and spectacle are simply pleasurable accessories, but melody is more important to the tragedy than spectacle: a pretty spectacle can be Literary Criticism [Section-E ] Selected Notes

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___________________________________________________________________________ arranged without a play, and usually matters of set and costume aren't the occupation of the poet anyway.

Q. 1. What didAristotle meanby "Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities" ?

Answer : Aristotle is referring to Suspension of disbelief in character arts (especially in the fantasy genre)

First a few definitions: Probability is the likelihood of an event happening. The sample space of all events that can happen in the universe represents the "possibilities". Believable is good drama, even if impossible Probable Impossibility refers to a situation that is impossible to happen in the real world, but is probable in the universe of imaginary events that is assumed to exist. This lets the reader/audience suspend her judgment concerning the impossibility of the narrative. In other words, create your own imaginary worlds (with impossible events like fish raising families and being able to talk), but within that create believable plots.(for example, Finding Nemo). Being believable works better than being realistic Improbable Possibility refers to a situation that is a possibility in the real world, but is extremely unlikely. For example James Bond winning every poker game. Sure, it is possible that someone can win every game, but it is extremely unlikely. This makes bad drama. 

fictions (impossibilities) that seem plausible can make good drama, while not-impossible but ridiculously unlikely actions make bad drama. He's drawing a fairly fine distinction in that some things that didn't happen seem like they could have happened: you easily suspend disbelief. Science fiction is most rife with this, and the stories that Aristotle cites as examples (Oedipus, The Odyssey) have a tinge of the sci-fi to them.

Aristotle In his Poetics he describes a number of qualities useful, if not crucial, to the art of drama. One of these is the idea of probability:

In general, the impossible must be justified by reference to artistic requirements, or to the higher reality, or to received opinion. With respect to the requirements of art, a probable impossibility is to be preferred to a thing improbable and yet possible. Again, it may be impossible that there should be men Literary Criticism [Section-E ] Selected Notes

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___________________________________________________________________________ such as Zeuxis painted. ‘Yes,’ we say, ‘but the impossible is the higher thing; for the ideal type must surpass the reality.’ The key phrase in understanding the concept, I think, is ‘the requirements of art’. If we were looking at the requirements of ‘science’ I think the improbable would be hugely preferred to the impossible. However, Aristotle believed that art’s purpose was to represent a reality ‘higher’, ‘greater’, or perhaps just more harmonious, than our own. His example, Zeuxis, painted highly idealised portraits. For Aristotle this was ok, because it represented reality in a way that was ‘higher’, or more perfect. Aristotle justified this by reference to the ‘action’ of the drama, where each action must bear a relationship of plausibility with objective reality and with the previous events within the drama. It becomes more acceptable to a drama’s audience, he says, to introduce impossibility, such as a god, rather than an improbability,

Q2. A commonplace is a rhetorical device developed by teachers like Aristotle, and has been used in numerous applications in public speaking for many years. Ironically, the commonplace is less common now, though you’ll still see references to commonplace books, which are quite different. Even before Aristotle, the Sophists, a group of itinerant scholars traveling the various Greek city-states often taught how to write and deliver speeches. They often performed such speeches for audiences to gain new students, and were occasionally asked to speak on a specific topic with little preparation time. In order to create material that sounded scholarly, they usually had prepared a number of themes or compositions that could be easily adapted quickly to be performed at will. Aristotle called these themes commonplaces, and by the term he meant no derision. In fact he taught his students to create a variety of prepared themes, which could be delivered as occasion required.

They generally took two forms: encomium or vituperation. Encomiums praised something, usually something virtuous that affected most people, like different emotions, or things like democracy. Vituperation criticized something considered evil. Sentiment in both literature and rhetoric had begun to praise the truly extemporaneous, instead of the prepared, and often dismissed commonplaces as something to be avoided because they sounded trite and repetitious

Q3 . Art of Rhetoric . Aristotle’s Art of Rhetoric is one of the first and most important ‘textbooks’ for speech production. Following Aristotle, the purpose of rhetorical speech consists in persuading by argumentation. In this respect he defines rhetoric as «the faculty of discovering the possible means of persuasion in reference to any subject whatever.» (Rhetoric I, 1355b/14,2). Now, persuasion presupposes – as any perlocutionary act – that the utterances have been understood by the Literary Criticism [Section-E ] Selected Notes

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___________________________________________________________________________ audience, in short: it presupposes (text) comprehension.1 When analysing the first three phases of rhetoric – heuresis, taxis and lexis – two features in particular stand out on account of the role they play in argumentation: topos and metaphor, which are treated in the heuresis and the lexis. 2 Metaphor works in a heuristic and aesthetic manner, while topos operates in a heuristic and logical manner. This difference is grounded in their respective characteristics, which will be discussed in the second and third sections of this paper. In the fourth section it is shown how metaphor and topos are based on common knowledge and how they are used in rhetorical text production.

Q4. How to define Topos ? In contrast to metaphor, topos is never explicitly defined by Aristotle. However, in The Art of Rhetoric Aristotle calls topoi general features, «which may be applied alike to Law, Physics, Politics, and many other sciences that differ in kind, such as the topic of the more or less» (Rhetoric I, 1358a/21). Following CH. STETTER (1997: 370), the topos is «a place of common belief, where orator and audience meet each other.» In the techne rhetorike, the topoi bear a double function: on the one hand, they are ‘search locations’, which the author has to come across in the process of heuresis in order to find proper premises for structuring the argumentation. Additionally, the term denotes its concrete realisation as the premise of the so-called «Rhetorical Syllogism».

Literary Device (Point of View ):Point of view is the perspective from which a story is narrated. Every story has a perspective, though there can be more than one type of point of view in a work of literature. The most common points of view used in novels are first person singular (“I”) and third person (“he” and “she”). However, there are many variants on these two types of point of view, as well as other less common narrative points of view.

The term point of view (POV) refers to who is telling a story, or who is narrating. The narrator of a story or novel can appear in three main ways: first person, second person and third person. Definition: Point of view is the manner in which a story is narrated or depicted and who it is that tells the story. Simply put, the point of view determines the angle and perception of the story unfolding, and thus influences the tone in which the story takes place. The point of view is instrumental in manipulating the reader’s understanding of the narrative. In a way, the point of view can allow or withhold the reader access into the greater reaches of the story. Two of the most common point of view techniques are the first person, wherein the story is told by the narrator from his or her standpoint and the third person wherein the narrator does not figure in Literary Criticism [Section-E ] Selected Notes

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the events of the story and tells the story by referring to all characters and places in the third person with third person pronouns and proper nouns. First Person : This narrator is usually the protagonistof the story, and this point of view allows the reader access to the character’s inner thoughts and reactions to the events occurring. All of the action is processed through the narrator’s perspective, and therefore this type of narrator may be unreliable. Second Person : This point of view either implies that the narrator is actually an “I” trying to separate himself or herself from the events that he or she is narrating, or allows the reader to identify with the central character. This was popularized in the 1980s series Choose Your Own Adventure, and appears in the recent novel Pretty Little Mistakes by Heather McElhatton: Third Person This point of view definition uses “he” and “she” as the pronouns to refer to different characters, and provides the greatest amount of flexibility for the author. Significance of Point of View in Literature  The choice of the point of view from which to narrate a story greatly affects both the reader’s experience of the story and the type of information the author is able to impart. First person creates a greater intimacy between the reader and the story, while third person allows the author to add much more complexity to the plot and development of different characters that one character wouldn’t be able to perceive on his or her own. Therefore, point of view has a great amount of significance in every piece of literature. The relative popularities of different types of point of view have changed over the centuries of novel writing. For example, epistolary novels were once quite common but have largely fallen out of favor. First person point is view, meanwhile, is quite common now whereas it was hardly used at all before the 20th century.

Example: In the popular Lord of the Rings book series, the stories are narrated in the third person and all happenings are described from an “outside the story” point of view. Contrastingly, in the Literary Criticism [Section-E ] Selected Notes

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popular teen book series, Princess Diaries, the story is told in the first person, by the protagonist herself. Definition of Stream of Consciousness (or Internal Monologue) When used as a term in literature, stream of consciousness is a narrative form in which the author writes in a way that mimics or parallels a character’s internal thoughts. Sometimes this device is also called “internal monologue,” and often the style incorporates the natural chaos of thoughts and feelings that occur in any of our minds at any given time. Just as happens in real life, stream-of-consciousness narratives often lack associative leaps and are characterized by an absence of regular punctuation. The term “stream of consciousness” first came about in 1890 when the philosopher and psychologist William James used it in his book, The Principles of Psychology. He used it to describe the natural flow of thoughts that, even while the different parts are not necessarily connected, the brain does not distinguish one thought as strictly independent from the next. May Sinclair was the first person, in 1918, to adapt the definition of stream of consciousness to literature. Difference Between Stream of Consciousness and Free Writing The activity of free writing is a technique to remove inhibitions from creativity. Free writing encourages a writer to get words down on paper without editing or worrying about the product, knowing that most of it will not necessarily be all that interesting. Stream of consciousness, on the other hand, is writing that has been polished and has a purpose, even while giving the impression that it is somewhat “random.” Authors who use the technique of stream of consciousness do so with intentions to guide the character from one place to the next internally and not just let the character’s thoughts go haywire. Significance of Stream of Consciousness in Literature Stream of consciousness is a device that gained popularity in twentieth-century literature. There are some examples of stream of consciousness before this time, such as in the 1757 novel Tristam Shandy or Edgar Allen Poe’s precursor style in “The Tell-Tale Heart” and other works. In general, however, it’s considered a modern style.

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Stream of consciousness can be found in literature from different cultures and languages. Stream of consciousness examples can be found in the works of French writer Marcel Proust, Indian writer Salman Rushdie, Irish writer James Joyce, Italian writer Italo Svevo, Mexican writer Roberto Bolaño and contemporary American novelist Dave Eggers. Authors use stream of consciousness to more closely follow a character’s interior life. Stream of consciousness gives a very direct view into the subtle and sometimes rapid shifts in the way a character thinks while going about his or her day. This provides a very intimate relationship between the reader and the character.

Examples of Stream of Consciousness in Literature Example #1 I grow old … I grow old … I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach? I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think that they will sing to me. (“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S. Eliot) This is one of the early examples of stream of consciousness writing from the twentieth century (it was published in 1915). T.S. Eliot explores his narrator’s inner life throughout the poem, moving from one thought to the next quickly. The above excerpt shows several different thoughts within the space of just a few lines. However, the use of stream of consciousness in this poem belies a real depth of feeling, as the narrator seems to want to make himself understood throughout the poem and struggles with that connection. 1) One of the characters in William Faulkner’s novel The Sound and the Fury is Benjy, a cognitively disabled man. His section of the novel is written in a stream of consciousness style, documenting Benjy’s sensory experiences of the world without the advantage of being able to really understand them

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Definition of Symbolism When used as a literary device, symbolism means to imbue objects with a certain meaning that is different from their original meaning or function. Other literary devices, such as metaphor, allegory, and allusion, aid in the development of symbolism. Authors use symbolism to tie certain things that may initially seem unimportant to more universal themes. The symbols then represent these grander ideas or qualities. For instance, an author may use a particular color that on its own is nothing more than a color, but hints at a deeper meaning. One notable example is in Joseph Conrad’s aptly titled Heart of Darkness, where the “darkness” of the African continent in his work is supposed to symbolize its backwardness and the possibility of evil there . There are also cultural symbols, such as a dove representing peace. The American flag: The thirteen red and white stripes on the American flag symbolize the original thirteen colonies, while the fifty stars are a symbol for the fifty states. The five Olympic rings: The primary symbol of the Olympics is the image of five interlocking rings 

Significance of Symbolism in Literature Symbolism has played a large role in the history of literature. Symbols have been used in cultures all around the world, evident in ancient legends, fables, and religious texts. One famous example of symbolism is the story of the Garden of Eden, in which the serpent persuades Eve to eat an apple from the tree of knowledge. The serpent in this story represents wickedness and the apple is a symbol for knowledge. Symbolism is equally important in poetry, prose, and plays, as well as in all genres of literature, from science fiction to fantasy to fiction for young adults (just think of Harry Potter’s scar —a symbol of his being the “chosen one”, as well as his ability to overcome evil). When analyzing a piece of literature, examining the primary symbols often leads to a greater understanding of the work itself. Though the definition of symbolism most often relates to a literary device, there was also a nineteenth-century literary movement called “Symbolism.” The movement was chiefly based in France, Russia, and Belgium, and was greatly influenced by the works of Edgar Allen Poe. Symbolists rejected realism, and instead thought that truth could only be represented in an indirect manner, i.e., through symbols. Famous symbolists were Charles Baudelaire, Stéphane Mallarmé, Paul Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud, and Ezra Pound.

Examples of Symbolism in Literature

Nathaniel Hawthorne named his novel The Scarlet Letter after the central symbol of the book. The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams takes its name from the most prevalent symbol in the play. Literary Criticism [Section-E ] Selected Notes

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Q5 .

What is end of poetry according to Samuel Johnson ?

Samuel Johnson (18 September 1709 [O.S. 7 September] – 13 December 1784)

Shakespeare has united the powers of exciting laughter and sorrow not only in one mind, but in one composition. Almost all his plays are divided between serious and ludicrous characters, and, in the successive evolutions of the design, sometimes produce seriousness and sorrow, and sometimes levity and laughter.

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That this is a practice contrary to the rules of criticism will be readily allowed; but there is always an appeal open from criticism to nature. The end of writing is to instruct; the end of poetry is to instruct by pleasing. That the mingled drama may convey all the instruction of tragedy or comedy cannot be denied, because it includes both in its alterations of exhibition and approaches nearer than either to the appearance of life, by eshewing how great machinations and slender designs may promote or obviate one another, and the high and the low co-operate in the general system by unavoidable concatenation.

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It is objected, that by this change of scenes the passions are interrupted in their progression, and that the principal event, being not advanced by a due gradation of preparatory incidents, wants at last the power to move, which constitutes the perfection of dramatick poetry. This reasoning is so specious, that it is received as true even by those who in daily experience feel it to be false. The interchanges of mingled scenes seldom fail to produce the intended vicissitudes of passion. Fiction cannot move so much, but that the attention may be easily transferred; and though it must be allowed that pleasing melancholy be sometimes interrupted by unwelcome levity, yet let it be considered likewise, that melancholy is often not pleasing, and that the disturbance of one man may be the relief of another; that different auditors have different habitudes; and that, upon the whole, all pleasure consists in variety. When Shakespeare’s plan is understood, most of the criticisms of Rhymer and Voltaire vanish away. The play of Hamlet is opened, without impropriety, by two sentinels; Iago bellows at Brabantio’s window, without injury to the scheme of the play, though in terms which a modern audience would not easily endure; the character of Polonius is seasonable and useful; and the Grave-diggers themselves may be heard with applause. The force of his comick scenes has suffered little diminution from the changes made by a century and a half, in manners or in words. As his personages act upon principles arising from genuine passion, very little modified by particular forms, their pleasures and vexations are communicable to all times and to all places; they are natural, and therefore durable; the adventitious peculiarities of personal habits, are only superficial dies, bright and pleasing for a little while, yet soon fading to a dim tinct, without any remains of

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___________________________________________________________________________ former lustre; but the discriminations of true passion are the colours of nature; they pervade the whole mass, and can only perish with the body that exhibits them. Narration in dramatick poetry is naturally tedious, as it is unanimated and inactive, and obstructs the progress of the action. Shakespeare found it an encumberance, and instead of lightening it by brevity, endeavoured to recommend it by dignity and splendour. His declamations or set speeches are commonly cold and weak, for his power was the power of nature; when he endeavoured, like other tragick writers, to catch opportunities of amplification, 'SINCE THE END OF POETRY IS PLEASURE, THAT CANNOT BE UNPOETICAL WITH WHICH ALL ARE PLEASED.' .

Q6. Lives of the Poets ? 1. " To a poet nothing can be useless. Whatever is beautiful and whatever is dreadful

must be familiar to his imagination: he must be conversant with all that is awfully vast or elegantly little. The plants of the garden, the animals of the wood, the minerals of the earth, and meteors of the sky, must all concur to store his mind with inexhaustible variety: for every idea is useful for the enforcement or decoration of moral or religious truth; and he who knows most will have most power of diversifying his scenes, and of gratifying his reader with remote allusions and unexpected instruction."

Samuel Johnson 2.

" It is a general rule in poetry, that all appropriated terms of art should be sunk in general expressions, because poetry is to speak an universal language. This rule is still stronger with regard to arts not liberal, or confined to few, and therefore far removed from common knowledge." Johnson: Dryden (Lives of the Poets)

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"The essence of verse is regularity, and its ornament is variety. To write verse is to dispose syllables and sounds harmonically by some known and settled rule -- a rule however lax enough to substitute similitude for identity, to admit change without breach of order, and to relieve the ear without disappointing it." Johnson: Dryden (Lives of the Poets)

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Poetry "It seems natural for a young poet to initiate himself by pastorals, which, not professing to imitate real life, require no experience; and, exhibiting only the simple operation of unmingled passions, admit no subtle reasoning or deep inquiry." Johnson: Pope (Lives of the Poets)

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Poetry; Similes "A simile, to be perfect, must both illustrate and ennoble the subject; must show it to the understanding in a clearer view, and display it to the fancy with greater dignity; but either of these qualities may be sufficient to recommend it. In didactic poetry, of which the great purpose is instruction, Literary Criticism [Section-E ] Selected Notes

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___________________________________________________________________________ a simile may be praised which illustrates, though it does not ennoble; in heroics, that may be admitted which ennobles, though it does not illustrate. That it may be complete, it is required to exhibit, independently of its references, a pleasing image; for a simile is said to be a short episode." Johnson: Pope (Lives of the Poets)

Q7. What is the main concept in "Preface to Lyrical Ballads" by William Wordsworth? In the Preface to Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth wanted to express his theory of poetry. The Preface is therefore a justification of that theory and of the themes and styles of the poems in Lyrical Ballads. One aspect of this theory was to use themes about common life (usually in rural environments and situations involving a connection to nature). Thus, Wordsworth wanted to explore how one could attain profound truths and sublime emotional experiences via the imagination. In other words, this process is about understanding the extraordinary while experiencing the ordinary. Poetry is to be created out of these extraordinary/ordinary experiences. Poetry will be the spontaneous overflow of emotion reflected in tranquility. The poet has an experience and, reflecting on it later, can arrive at a deeper understanding about that experience and about the act of reflection. The process of experience/feeling and reflection is not just a method for poetic creation; it is also Wordsworth's recommended method for experience in general. Wordsworth wanted the style of Lyrical Ballads to stick with the common life theme. He proposed to avoid personification and traditional poetic diction, favoring instead more common (natural) language of people. In a sense, focusing on feeling (lyrical) more than poetic form (i.e., a ballad), Wordsworth shifts the focus from form to content. Although he was attempting a less formalistic poetry in favor of a more natural (even more prose-like) poetry, he did note that verse was the best form for conveying strong emotional content.

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I might perhaps include all which it is necessaryto say upon this subject by affirming, what few persons will deny, that, of two descriptions, either of passions, manners, or characters, each of them equally well executed, the one in prose and the other in verse, the verse will be read a hundred times where the prose is read once. One could easily argue that a poem (or a song) has a longer life in the memory than a passage from a work of prose (i.e. a novel). This isn't just because a poem tends to be a shorter work. It's also because of the cadence and rhythm, natural mnemonic devices. In depicting poems about realistic, common people in rustic environments, Wordsworth was rejecting the poetry of the past which tended to treat kings, queens, and heroes in an overly regimented style. For Wordsworth, real people were more relevant. More to the point, Wordsworth believed that sublime emotions can be discovered in the experience and reflection of common experiences. In other words, it can be inspiring to identify extraordinary virtue in a poem about an extraordinary hero whose exploits are unbelievable to the point of being legendary. Wordsworth supposed that (his main concept) it would also be inspiring, more relevant, and more rewarding to identify extraordinary virtue in a poem about ordinary life.

Q8. brief summary to Wordsworth's Preface To Lyrical Ballads that defines Wordsworth's idea of the poet, poetry and poetic language?

While Wordsworth is not setting out a complete poetic defense wherein he defines his aesthetic ("I have therefore altogether declined to enter regularly upon this defence"),

it is true that in the Preface he does discuss his ideas of what the poet is, what poetry is and, most importantly to Lyrical Ballads, what the language of poetry is. Wordsworth first implies that a Poet is one who arranges language expressing ideas in metrical form. This language he arranges is "in a state of vivid sensation." In other words, it is emotional reaction to ideas or emotional expressions of feeling. Literary Criticism [Section-E ] Selected Notes

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 The Poet is one who "rationally" (i.e., reasonably) imparts the "vivid

sensation," or emotionalism, in metrical form to readers. In other words, in Wordsworth's view, the Poet discerns vivid emotional states in people around him and captures those emotional states in poetic meter and rhyme ("metrical arrangements") to "impart" this vision to the reader.

Wordsworth also has something to say about what a Poet is not. This false Poet substitutes "feeling ..., philosophical language" with "arbitrary and capricious habits of expression" that falsely accrues honor to their poetic skill. In other words, these anti-Poets turn their backs on the real language of everyday expressions of emotion and invent "their own creations" of poetic language that are artificial, the product of a whim, lacking philosophical importance, lacking clarity. They think they become honored poets this way but really only "furnish food" for poor taste that has no solid bearings and is "fickle." Regarding Poetry, Wordsworth implies that Poetry is in part a matter of what is customary: [The reader will] struggle with feelings of strangeness and aukwardness: they will look round for poetry, and will be induced to inquire by what species of courtesy these [Lyrical Ballads] can be permitted to assume that title.

More importantly though, Poetry is the outflowing of emotion--of sentiment--that has been tempered by serious, "long," deep thought and that therefore describes "objects" and "sentiments" that relate to "important subjects" of discussion.

Poetic language, according to Wordsworth--and this is one of the paramount ideas in the Preface--is the language of common people speaking everyday expressions and expressing everyday sensations of rural (i.e., pastoral) people in an [idealized] rural life. Wordsworth says this language is "more emphatic" having "greater simplicity" being "more accurately contemplated" and "incorporated with the beautiful and permanent forms of nature." In other Literary Criticism [Section-E ] Selected Notes

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words, commonplace, "low," "rustic" language is more intuitive, insightful, genuine, sincere than is the contrived elegant language of Poets (or anit-Poets). Importantly, Wordsworth concedes that this language must be (1) filtered through the Poet's mind and (2) cleaned up, "purified," of what is vulgar, crass, incorrect and offensive before this shinning quality of greatness can show through. Thus many critics, including Coleridge, have found great contradiction and fallacy in Wordsworth's position on poetic common, low, language. The language, ... [must be] (purified indeed from what appear to be its real defects, from all lasting and rational causes of dislike or disgust)

Q9. Discuss Wordsworth's views on poetic diction in "Preface to Lyrical Ballads". Essentially, Wordsworth denied that there should be such a thing as a diction specific to poetry. He thought that artifical poetic diction used by many writers obscured the sentiment and feeling that ought to be the focus of poetry. Rather than ornate, basically ornamental language, Wordsworth thought the diction of prose and the diction of poetry should be the same: It may be safely affirmed, that there neither is, nor can be,any essential difference between the language of prose and metrical composition.  Wordsworth went even further, asserting that poetry ought to be written in

the "language really spoken by men," which would accentuate the emotive power of the works by giving them more authenticity. In short, he hoped to strip away what he saw as the pretensions and stuffiness of poetry as it had been written by his predecessors, and his views on diction were central to this project.

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Q10. Critically refers to atleast Three contradiction in wordsworth preface ? OR What are some ideas about poets and poetry proposed by William Wordsworth in his "Preface" to the Lyrical Ballads (1802)?

Answer :In his "Preface" to the Lyrical Ballads (1802), William Wordsworth lays out many of the ideas often associated with Romanticism in English poetry. Among those ideas are the following: 1. an emphasis on the "real language" actually spoken by human beings, especially human beings from the lower reaches of society. Wordsworth thus rejects the kind of “poetic” language that had come to seem stale, artificial, and unconvincing. 2. an emphasis on "vivid sensation," or heightened emotion and perception. 3. an emphasis on using poetry to provide "more than common pleasure." 4. an emphasis on "incidents and situations from common life." 5. an emphasis on using “imagination” to “throw a certain coloring over” descriptions of such incidents and situations so that ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual way . . . in order to make these incidents and situations interesting by tracing in them . . . the primary laws of our nature: chiefly, as far as regards the manner in which we associate ideas in a state of excitement. 6. an emphasis on “[l]ow and rustic life,” which often reveals essential human nature more readily than the kinds of lives lived by the allegedly more sophisticated persons of the upper classes. 7. an emphasis on “the essential passions of the heart.” 8. an emphasis on a “plainer and more emphatic language” than is usually found among the highly educated 9. an emphasis on the ways human emotions are “incorporated with the beautiful and permanent forms of nature.” 10. a rejection of the kinds of “arbitrary and capricious habits of expression” traditionally used in conventional poetry

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11. an emphasis on poetry as a “spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” but also on the poet as a person who has “thought long and deeply”: 12. For our continued influxes of feeling are modified and directed by our thoughts, which are indeed the representatives of all our past feelings . . . . 13. an emphasis on “the fluxes and refluxes of the mind when [it is] agitated by the great and simple affections of our nature.” 14. a rejection of the emphasis on abstract ideas and conventional personifications that had characterized the poetry of the eighteenth century. 15. an emphasis on looking directly and steadily at whatever the poet tries to describe and thus a rejection of “falsehood of description.” 16. an emphasis on a kind of poetic language that resembles the language of common prose. 17. an emphasis on the poet as “a man speaking to men” – that is, as a person who can effectively articulate the kinds of thoughts and feelings experienced by most human beings.

Q11. Terry eagleton views on Reflectionist Theory ? The question of partisanship in literature is bound up to some extent with the problem of how works of literature relate to the real world. Socialist realisms prescription that literature should teach certain political attitudes assumes that literature does indeed (or at least ought to) reflect or reproduce social reality in a fairly direct way. Marx and Engels, interestingly, do not themselves use the metaphor of reflection about literary works, although Marx speaks in The Holy Family of Eugne Sues novel being in some respects untrue to the life of its times, and Engels could find in Homer direct illustrations of kinship systems in early Greece.

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___________________________________________________________________________ Nevertheless, reflectionism has been a deep-seated tendency in Marxist criticism, as a way of combating formalist theories of literature which lock the literary work within its own sealed space, marooned from history. In its cruder formulations, the idea that literature reflects reality is clearly inadequate. It suggests a passive, mechanistic relationship between literature and society, as though the work, like a mirror or photographic plate, merely inertly registered what was happening out there. Lenin speaks of Tolstoy as the mirror of the Russian revolution of 1905; but if Tolstoys work is a mirror, then it is, as Pierre Macherey argues, one placed at an angle to reality, a broken mirror which presents its images in fragmented form, and is as expressive in what it does not reflect as in what it does. If art reflects life, Bertolt Brecht comments in A Short Organum for the Theatre (1948), It does so with special mirrors. And if we are to speak of a selective mirror with certain blindspots and refractions, then it seems that the metaphor has served its limited usefulness and had better be discarded for something more helpful.

Q13. Centripetal Criticism Northrop Frye ? NORTHROP FRYE “THE ARCHETYPES OF LITERATURE”

As such, Frye contends, in a vein similar to the New Critics that literary criticism must be put on a systematic and scientific basis. He dismisses as “Pseudo-criticism” all criticism with “centrifugal” tendencies, that is, which diverts our attention away from the literary work itself. He counts in this regard C literary criticism that masquerades as “casual value-judgments”, ones that are not “based on literary experience . . . but are . . . derived from religious or political prejudice”. He is evidently thinking here of what the New Critic John Crowe Ransom calls the ‘Moralistic’ Approach To Literary Criticism Practised By The Humanists And The Marxists Alike );

literary criticism of the sort advocated by I. A. Richards that focuses on the “impact of literature on the reader” (the so-called ‘affective fallacy’ against which Wimsatt and Beardsley famously warned); and

literary criticism that focuses on the author as the source of the literary work Literary Criticism [Section-E ] Selected Notes

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(the so-called ‘intentional fallacy’ against which Wimsatt and Beardsley also famously warned). He dismisses in this regard all “Sentimental Judgments” that are “based either on non-existent categories or antitheses (‘Shakespeare studied life,Milton books’) or on a visceral reaction to the writer’s personality” .

Evidently, Frye shares much in these three respects with the New Critics and their opposition to moralistic, affective (reader-oriented) and intentional (author-oriented) approaches to criticism. In their place, Frye advocates a “rhetorical or structural analysis of a work of art” , an approach that is “centripetal” in thrust, rather than‘centrifugal.’  Another huge influence on Frye in this regard is Aristotle’s philosophy and literary theory. Aristotle famously argued that to understand any natural or humanly-made phenomenon, it is necessary to ascertain the four conditions (causes) necessary to its existence: 1. The Material Cause (the material of which something is made – in the case of art, the words and actions of humans and their natural and social environments represented), 2. The Efficient Cause (the divine or human agent responsible for its existence – the artist or author), 3. The Formal Cause (what it is meant to be, what shape it is meant to have), and 4. The Final Cause (to what end it exists, its ultimate purpose). Frye is uneasy with emphasising the first two of these causes because each tends to be centrifugal, that is, to lead the critic away from the literary work per se. For example, the “material cause of the work of art” , for Frye consists in the “social conditions and cultural demands which produced it” . The quest to understand the material cause of literary works leads the critic outside of his own discipline (i.e. the study of literature) and into the province of biography, socio-political history and literary history. Similarly, the quest to understand the “efficient cause” of the literary work leads the critic to focus on the relationship between the writer and his / her work, rather than the work itself. Literary Criticism [Section-E ] Selected Notes

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Alluding evidently to Freudian psychoanalysis, Frye cites in this regard what he terms the “Fallacy of Premature Teleology” , the view that the “critic should not look for more in the poemthan the poet may safely be assumed to have been conscious of putting there” . Frye asserts that a “kind of literary psychology connecting the poet with the poem” is unavoidable for revealing the “failures in his expression, the things in him which are still attached to his work” as well as his “private mythology, his own . . . peculiar formation of symbols, of much of which he is unconscious” . However, Frye is of the view that criticism should not degenerate into mere biography for the simple reason that this leads one away from the work in order to focus on the individual responsible for it.

Q14. What is Centripetal Criticism ? criticism is a structure of thought and knowledge existing in its own right, with some measure of independence from the art it deals with .Criticism that is centripetal moves toward the meanings embedded in the text itself (usually poems)—like, what's going on with the actual words right there on the page? The poem's rhyme scheme, alliteration, use of metaphor, and all of such things form and inalienable part of centripetal criticism. Centrifugal criticism asks about the outside context of a work—usually a novel. What was the social, political, and cultural context of, say, Moby-Dick Centrifugal criticism also looks at the syntax and use of language—but more for what it tells you about relations among the characters, tone, and events of the narrative and less about the aesthetic qualities of the words themselves. As I say, "Criticism will always have two aspects, one turned toward the

structure of literature and one turned toward the other cultural phenomena that form the social environment of literature" Literary education should lead not merely to the admiration of great literature, but to some possession of its power of utterance. The ultimate aim is an ethical and participating aim, not an aesthetic or contemplative one, even though the latter may be the means of achieving the former. [From The Well-Tempered Critic] Literature cultivates your "conscious life," giving you deeper insight into the use and value of language. Giabatista Vico :

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___________________________________________________________________________ He actually championed the idea that philosophy had a huge debt to poetry and was even derived from poetry. I call him "the first modern thinker to understand that all major verbal structures have descended historically from poetic and mythological ones"

Q15. Fredriche Jameson module of Parody and Pastiche ? Pastiche and parody are both examples of INTERTEXCTUALITY. Unlike parody, pastiche celebrates, rather than mocks, the work it imitates. Parody, pastiche, and the shift from modernism to postmodernism are all terminological minefields.  According to Jameson, a major change in intertextual practices occurred in the 1950s. Instead of parody, with its nuanced evaluations of past styles which still function as benchmarks even when the styles are rejected or transformed, we get pastiche. In this practice, the ingrained awareness of cultural history which marks parody has vanished.

A PARODY is a work that mimics in an absurd or ridiculous way the conventions and style of another work - in order to derive ridicule, ironic comment or affectionate fun. Critics defines parody as “ any cultural practice which provides a relatively polemical allusive imitation of another cultural production or practice .” Duchamp's parody of the Mona Lisa adds a goatee and moustache. Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci A PASTICHE is “ a medley of various ingredients; a hotchpotch, farrago, jumble .” The term denotes a technique employing a generally light-hearted tongue-in-cheek imitation of another's style; although jocular, it is usually respectful (as opposed to parody, which is not). Pastiche is prominent in popular culture. Many genre pieces, particularly in fantasy, are essentially pastiches. George Lucas’ Star Wars series is often considered to be a pastiche of traditional science fiction television serials or radio shows. Parody An imitative work created to mock, comment on or trivialize an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of satiric or ironic imitation.

Pastiche A work of visual art, literature, or music that imitates the style or character of the work of one or more other artists. Unlike parody, pastiche celebrates, rather than mocks, the work it imitates. Example: The movie "Super 8" is a pastiche of 1980's adventure films, specifically imitating the style of Stephen Spielberg's early career, because it celebrates and embraces the style unironically. Pastiche and Parody are often confused because they both involve imitation, but the easiest way to distinguish the two is this: Pastiche embraces the imitation through general affection for the source material, whereas Parody is meant to mock and make fun of the source material.

Satire Satire is a genre of literature, and sometimes graphic and performing arts, in which vices, follies, Literary Criticism [Section-E ] Selected Notes

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___________________________________________________________________________ abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, corporations, and society itself, into improvement. Although satire is usually meant to be funny, its greater purpose is often constructive social criticism, using wit as a weapon and as a tool to draw attention to both particular and wider issues in society.

Q16. In what ways Feminine different from Female ? Thus 'feminine' represents nurture, and 'female' nature in this usage, 'Femininity' is a cultural construct: one isn't born a woman, one becomes one, as Simone de Beauvoir puts it In Toward a Feminist Poetics Showalter traces the history of women's literature, suggesting that it can be divided into three phases: 1. Feminine: In the Feminine phase (1840–1880), “women wrote in an effort to equal the

intellectual achievements of the male culture, and internalized its assumptions about female nature” (New, 137). 2. Feminist: The Feminist phase (1880–1920 ) was characterized by women’s writing that protested against male standards and values, and advocated women’s rights and values, including a demand for autonomy. 3. Female: The Female phase (1920— ) is one of self-discovery. Showalter says, “Women Reject Both Imitation And Protest—Two Forms Of Dependency

—And Turn Instead To Female Experience As The Source Of An Autonomous Art, Extending The Feminist Analysis Of Culture To The Forms And Techniques Of Literature”

The Marxist view of the necessary dialectical relationship between theory and practice also applies to the relationship between female experience and feminist politics.If the confusion of female with feminist is fraught with political pitlfalls. this is no less true of the consequcnces of the collapse of feminine into female. Among many feminists it has long been established usage to make 'feminine' (and 'masculine') represent social constructs (patterns of sexuality and behaviour imposed by cultural and social norms), and to reserve 'female' and 'male' for the purely biological aspccts ofsexual difference.Under patriarchy men will always speak from a different position than women,and their political strategies must take this into account Virginia Woolf believe “A women’s writing is always feminine; the only difficulty liwed in defining what we means by feminine”

The feminist struggle, she argues, must be seen historically and politically as a three tiered one, which can be schematically summarised as follows: 1. Women demand equal access ( the symbolic order. Liberal feminism. Equality. 2. Women reject the male symbolic order in the name difference. Radical feminism. Femininity extolled. 3. Women reject the dichotomy between masculine and feminine as mClaphysical Literary Criticism [Section-E ] Selected Notes

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Q17. What does Elliot means lemon squeezer school of

criticism ?

Write a note on New Criticism or the New School of Literary Criticism. Modern literary criticism has a bewildering variety. There are various modes and techniques, currents and crosscurrents of criticism in vogue at present. Criticism has been influenced by new discoveries and researches in the field of sciences, anthropology, sociology, psychology, Philosophy and linguistics.

New Criticism By the late thirties both psychoanalytic and sociological criticisms had lost much of their vogue, and many of the younger critics turned 'for guidance to a group that has since come to be known as the New Critics. These New Critics are mainly the followers of T. S. Eliot but they have also been deeply influenced by Coleridge, Henry James, Ezra Pound and I. A. Richards. This New Criticism flourished in the forties and fifties. The most important critics of this school were John Crowe Ranson, Allen Tate, Robert Penn Warren, and R. P. Blackmur. The Chief Ideal Before The New Critics Was To Free Literature From The Pressure And Competition Of Science. They asserted that content and form are separable —that 'the content of a poem could be located only in the specific dynamics of the form.' They tried to read a poem as a poem and were anti-historical. New Criticism was decidedly an American movement. But a reaction had set against it under the leadership of Ronald S. Crane of the University of Chicago. The Chicago School of Critics known as neo-Aristotelians insisted upon a return to questions of design and structure. The New Critics have been criticised by Lionel Trilling for neglecting the historical sense.

While analysing a poem, a play or a work of literature, the New Critics very often laid stress on ambiguity, irony, paradox and tension. In fiction they stressed upon 'the point of view' and the metaphoric use of language. Critics like Cleanth Brooks and William Empson indulged in elaborating their complexities of interpretation without caring for the meanings imposed by history. In fiction, they laid emphasis on symbolism. They contributed for the refinement of critical sensibility. The New Critics treated all literary works as if they were lyrics. Sometimes they provided monolithic readings that stiffen the poem into a moral allegory. In general, they seem to believe that criticism can or should become an impersonal technique approaching the precision of science. Literary Criticism [Section-E ] Selected Notes

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T. S. Eliot calls it 'the lemon-squeezer school of criticism." According to T. S. Eliot , the function of criticism is the exposition and elucidation of art and also correction of taste, and thereby promoting understanding and enjoyment of art. A good critic must be impersonal and objective, and must not be guided by his ‘inner voice’, but by authority outside himself. By this he meant tradition. A critic must be learned not only in the literature of his own country but also in the literature of Europe, from Homer to his own day. However, he must not judge the present by the standards of the past, as the requirements of each age are different, and so the canons must change from age to age. Next, he should have a highly developed ‘sense of fact’. By this, Eliot does not mean biographical or sociological knowledge, but knowledge of the technical details of a poem, its genesis, its setting etc. It is these facts that a critic must use to appreciate a work of art. However, Eliot is against the ‘lemon squeezer’ school of critics. Practitioners of poetry make the best critics. Such poet critics have a thorough knowledge and understanding of the process of poetic creation, and so they are in the best position to communicate their own understanding to the audience. Again, comparison and analysis are the chief tools of a critic. He must compare not to pass judgment but to elucidate the qualities of the work. Throughout, the Publication of "The Function of Criticism”. essay demonstrates the influences Eliot had on the New Critics. While Eliot states early on that he failed to see why he was deemed by current literary scholarship to have given birth to New Criticism (106), he also uses the essay as a platform from which to proclaim a number of principles that are quite similar to those of the New Critics: 1.

the idea of the circumstances surrounding a work's creation as irrelevant

2.

the "danger . . . of assuming that there must be just one interpretation of the poem as a whole, [and] that it must be right" (113)

3.

the lack of a need to assess the author's intent

4.

the unimportance of the "feelings" of the reader

5.

the limitation of literary criticism to the study of the literary object, i.e., the work itself

However, at the same time, Eliot takes the opportunity to disavow that school of criticism. He ridicules one of the methods of New Criticism, known today as close reading, describing it thus: The method is to take a well-known poem . . . without reference to the author or to his other work, analyse it stanza by stanza and line by line, and extract, squeeze, tease, press every drop of meaning out of it that one can. It might be called the lemon-squeezer school of criticism. . . . I imagine that some of the poets (they are all dead except myself) would be surprised at learning what their poems mean . . Eliot is here giving voice to one of the most common objections to New Criticism, namely that it removes all the enjoyment from a work of literature by dissecting it. This essay strongly asserts that enjoyment is an important component of the reading of literature. Eliot makes no distinction between "enjoyment and understanding," Literary Criticism [Section-E ] Selected Notes

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___________________________________________________________________________ seeing the two not "as distinct activities—one emotional and the other intellectual. To understand a poem comes to the same thing as to enjoy it for the right reasons" . On the whole question of enjoyment, Eliot diverges from the general trend of New Criticism, which primarily concerned itself with interpretation. Eliot further distances himself from the New Critics with his implication of the possibility of misunderstanding a poem , an idea that the New Critics would consider heretical.

Q18. Art is a substitute gratification

-FREUD’s

Comment ? Freud places art and pathology together as comparable strategies of adaption,for artists and neurotics.In an Autobiographical Study Freud offers a midecal diagnosis of how the imagination allows the libido

to

get

around the respective demands of reality. There ar passages in wchich freud suggests Art is a substitute gratification and science a diversion.At the end of the twenty third introductory lecture ,freud offered a brief psychology of art.”The Artist”,he said,”wants to attain honor,power,wealth, and the love of women;but he lacks the means to reach theses satisfactions”. Structure of art is vicarious itself.

Q19. EDWARD SAID ON GERMAN AND ANGLO FRENCH ORIENTALISM ?  Orientalism, the late Edward W. Said’s magnum opus of literary criticism and polemic, is a book that attracts both passionate adulation and vitriolic criticism. During his lifetime, because of his persona as a public intellectual and his steady output of no-holds-barred critic  Orientalism, as defined by Said, is “a way of coming to terms with the Orient that is based on the Orient’s special place in European Western experience,” and he notes that,  “The Orient [is one of Europe’s] deepest and most recurring images of the Other.” Literary Criticism [Section-E ] Selected Notes

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___________________________________________________________________________  He continues, “Orientalism is a style of thought based upon an ontological and epistemological distinction made between ‘the Orient’ and (most of the time) ‘the Occident.’”  [9] Orientalism, as a body of produced knowledge, “is—and does not simply represent—a considerable dimension of modern political-intellectual culture, and as such has less to do with the Orient than it does with ‘our world.’”  [10] It is a “created body of theory and practice in which, for many generations, there has been a considerable material investment.”  [11] Said dots other definitions of what he means by “Orientalism” throughout the book, and his belief in the connection between the production of knowledge and (state) power is far from subtle: “Orientalism…is knowledge of the Orient that places things Oriental in class, court, prison, or manual for scrutiny, study, judgment, discipline, or governing.”  [12] Also, he states: “Orientalism is better grasped as a set of constraints upon and limitations of thought than it is simply as a positive doctrine,” and “…Orientalism was ultimately a political vision of reality whose structure promoted the difference between the familiar (Europe, the West, ‘us’) and the strange (the Orient, the East, “them”).”   [13] Said claims that when not used to describe the whole of Asia, the term “‘Orient’…was most rigorously understood as applying to the Islamic Orient.”   [14] This claim is contrary to my own experience as an “Oriental” who clearly hails from East Asian heritage. This claim is also interesting considering that British colonialism in India predates similar involvement in the “Islamic” Middle East/Orient, to use Said’s terminology. Thus, it is somewhat strange to cut off “the Orient” at the “Islamic” (Central Arab) Middle East and Egypt, excluding most of what lies east of Iraq and west of Egypt.  Finally, for Said, the Orientalist attitude toward the Oriental (subject) peoples was one of condescension and superiority, as exemplified by the British viceroy Lord Cromer in late nineteenth century Egypt, who believed that “Orientals” simply do not know what is best for them and thus require European counsel and guidanceism

Q20. EDWARD SAID ON GERMAN AND ANGLO FRENCH ? In the 1960s and ’70s, a number of scholars began to pay careful attention to German cultural constructions of the “Orient” in the literary and philosophical works from the Baroque period to Romanticism.i However, with the publication of Orientalism (1978),

Edward Said’s

analytical framework became, for good or ill, the dominant scholarly paradigm. In the wake of the appearance of Said’s volume, a decade or more passed before the scholarship on

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popular or academic Orientalism in Germany attempted to move beyond what Said had intitially said on the subject. The purpose of this essay is to consider the exceptionalism of German Orientalism, one that employs imagery of the Orient for very different purposes than the French and British variants. The central question under consideration regards the utility of this imagery in the tradition of German Orientalism. The construction of the idea of the Orient in German thought and literature in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, I argue, did not allow German thinkers to identify with the dominant powers of western Europe, but rather with the Oriental Other. In other words, they were engaged in a process of self-Othering. One hesitates to describe German Orientalism as being “special” in light of the imposing tradition of arguments over the Sonderweg thesis. New light might be shed on a different variant of Orientalism by comparing the German phenomenon with Irish Orientalism, as described by Joseph Lennon: “to study Irish writings on the Orient ... is also to study Irish cultural narratives of antiquity, Celticism, and nation” The image of the Orient with which they identified was, of course, one of their own making. To argue that these German thinkers identified with the oriental victims of western imperialism is not to argue that they were, in reality, such victims. Nor is it to argue that this identification came as a result of any genuine engagement with or understanding of the “Other” with whom they sought to identify.  Self-Othering, as it is described below, was a curious rhetorical strategy which involved two distinct forms or acts of Othering— imaginative constructions of the oriental Other with whom one could identify and the western imperial Other, against whom one was seeking to construct an identity.ii Both the Indian and western European Others could be made to serve as the ideal mirrors for thinkers who wished to see themselves, and their country, at twice their natural size.  As a rhetorical strategy, self-Othering has some noteworthy historical precedents in Michel de Montaigne’s essay “On Cannibals” and Bartolemé de Las Casas’s Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies, both composed in the sixteenth century. Montaigne was writing in reaction to the devastation of the Wars of Religion in Literary Criticism [Section-E ] Selected Notes

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France, while Las Casas was issuing his condemnation of the inhumanity of Spanish imperialism. Both authors, however, were taking advantage of the blank canvas that had been provided by the New World in order to level their critiques of contemporary European society.  The difficulty of dealing with German Orientalism begins, naturally enough, with Said himself. In the Introduction to Orientalism, he wrote that despite the fact that by about 1830 German scholarship had fully attained its European pre-eminence ... at no time in German scholarship during the first two-thirds of the nineteenth century could a close partnership have developed between Orientalists and a protracted sustained national interest in the Orient. There was nothing in Germany to correspond to the Anglo-French presence in India, the Levant, North Africa.  “What German Oriental scholarship did,” he continued, “was to refine and elaborate techniques whose application was to texts, myths, ideas, and languages almost literally gathered from the Orient by imperial Britain and France”. If there could be no “sustained national interest” in the Orient; if “there was nothing in Germany to correspond to the Anglo-French presence in India, the Levant, North Africa,” how then did German Orientalism fit into Said’s larger thesis? Said continued, “what German Orientalism had in common with Anglo-French and latter American Orientalism was a kind of intellectual authority over the Orient within Western culture. This authority must in large part be the subject of any description of Orientalism, and it is so in this study”. The German thinker of this era that Said pays the most attention to is Goethe, whose role in what Schwab calls the “Oriental Renaissance” was, to be generous, minimal.  One of the central contentions of Said’s argument is the claim that “the Orient has helped define Europe (or the West) as its contrasting image, idea, personality, experience” (Orientalism 1–2). In the case of numerous German Indophiles of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries this speculation simply does not hold true. The remarkable degree of identification of German thinkers with India has already been suggested and verified in considerable detail with regard to Herder, Adam Müller, and Joseph Görrres among others. In the following discussion I will focus on the case of Friedrich Schlegel. With the publication of his Indier

Über die Sprache und Weisheit der

[On the Language and Wisdom of the Indians] in 1808, Schlegel emerged as the

first serious student of Sanskrit and Indian thought in Germany. Schlegel is a Literary Criticism [Section-E ] Selected Notes

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particularly important figure since his arguments in that essay opened the door to the establishment of Sanskrit studies and academic Indology in Germany. It is also worth adding, though it will not come in for consideration here, that Schlegel, far more than Herder before him, first introduced what we might call “racial” speculation into his 

writings on India—a precedent with a painful legacy. India first entered into Friedrich Schlegel’s thinking in the late 1790s, most likely as a result of the extraordinary popularity of Georg Forster’s translation of Kālidāsa’s drama Śakuntalā (1791), and the Indian themes developed in the work of his close friend Novalis. Along with Novalis, Schlegel’s primary interest in this period was the articulation of a strikingly bold conception of modern art and poetry, and it was in this context that India first struck him as a source of inspiration. Schlegel’s earliest interest in India was part of an aesthetic project—the “new bible” or new mythology—with only obliquely political implications. However, from the outset Schlegel was concerned with establishing an affinity, even a deeper connection between Oriental and German cultural traditions.

 In hisGespräch über Poesie [Dialogue on Poetry] (1799), he contended that after the fall of the Roman Empire, European literature had been resuscitated by the “heroic poetry” of the Middle Ages, a tradition that had its roots in the German people (KFSA II 296). The “wild energy” of Gothic poetry was influenced, he claimed, by “charming fairytales of the Orient,” an influence introduced by contact with Arab culture. Occident-blogspot.com/ORIENTAL NOTES on GERMAN and FRENCH ORIENTALISM

Said’s sharp focus only on British and French, and to a lesser degree American, Orientalism is one of the key criticisms that is often raised about his approach in Orientalism. He defends his decision, saying that he chose to focus primarily on British and French scholarship about the Orient because those two countries took the first “major steps in Oriental scholarship,” and that there scholarship was later “elaborated upon by the Germans.” [18] Said argues that Germany lacked, “[a] national interest” in the Orient and thus was not an example of Orientalism as he defines it.

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He did acknowledge/claim though that, “…what German Orientalism had in common with Anglo-French and later American Orientalism was a kind of intellectual authority over the Orient within Western culture.” [20] It is interesting here to note Said’s rather generic use of the descriptive “Western,” considering that he claims in Orientalism’s new afterword that such a term refers to “no stable reality.” [21] Other critics have noted that Said is inconsistent in his use of the term “Orient,” fluctuating between the position that it is a fiction and the position that it has been “misrepresented” by the Orientalists. In one of the more recent critiques of Orientalism, the British Orientalist and Arabist Robert Irwin contends that Said’s explanation decision to largely ignore German Orientalism is built upon spurious claims. Despite Irwin’s often caustic tone throughout his book, which is part criticism of Orientalism (and sometimes of Said himself) and part a history, quite fascinating and overdue it must be said, of European Oriental Studies, he brings up some valid issues and points to several errors of fact made by Said in the passage quoted from Orientalism above: To Said’s way of thinking, since Britain was the leading imperial power in modern times, it follows that it must have been the leading centre for Oriental studies and, since Germany had no empire in the Arab lands, it followed that Germany’s contribution to Oriental studies must have been of secondary importance. But…the claim that Germans elaborated only on British and French Orientalism is simply not sustainable. Consider the cases of [the German Orientalists] Hammer-Purgstall, Fleischer, Wellhausen, Goldziher (Hungarian, but writing and teaching in German), Nöldeke and Becker. It is impossible to find British forerunners for these figures. The reverse is much easier to demonstrate. We have seen how much Nicholson’s Literary History of the Arabs, Wright’s Arabic Grammar, Lyall’s translation of Arabic poetry, and Cowan’s Arabic-English Dictionary explicitly owed to German scholarship. These works are not marginal, but central to Arabic studies in Britain. Is it really possible that British scholars were mistaken in their belief that they needed to follow German scholars of Arabic and Islam? And why did Renan, whom Said believes to have been a major French Orientalist, believe that Germans dominated the field? And what about the overwhelming pre-eminence of German scholars in Sanskrit studies?

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[22] Said differentiates thus between British and French Orientalism: “British Oriental expertise fashioned itself around consensus and orthodoxy and sovereign authority; French Oriental expertise between the [world] wars concerned itself with heterodoxy, spiritual ties, eccentrics.” [23] His primary examples to support this view are the British Orientalist Sir Hamilton Gibb and the French Catholic Orientalist Louis Massignon, whose book on the medieval Baghdadi Sufi Mansur al-Hallaj is filled with Roman Catholic motifs. Irwin is critical of Said’s generalization of European Orientalism, and takes him to task for ignoring or glossing over major Orientalist scholars who do not fit his paradigm, such as the pioneering American scholar Marshall G. S. Hodgson and the Lebanese-British Arab Orientalist Albert Hourani. Similarly, one could also bring up the Lebanese historian Philip K. Hitti, the founder of Princeton University’s Department of Near Eastern Studies, which is coincidentally where Bernard Lewis holds an emeritus professorship. In the one brief, superficial reference to Hitti, Said praises him for leading a department devoted to scholarship and teaching, as opposed to the Harvard department Gibb was in, which, according to Said, took a more policy-oriented approach.

[24]Irwin is also critical of Said’s failure to substantively address either Russian or Latin Orientalism. With regard to Russian scholarship, he remarks, “…if one wants to give full and proper consideration to the relationship between Orientalism and imperialism, then one should turn to Russia with its vast empire of Muslim subjects in the Caucasus and Central Asia. No history of Orientalism can be regarded as serious if it has totally neglected the contribution of the Russians.” [25] Said’s neglect of Orientalist scholarship in Latin may, argues Irwin, explain why he has such difficulty pinpointing a precise start date for Orientalism, as he ignores some of the earliest European works, which were all written in Latin. [26].Critics of Orientalism also take issue with Said’s somewhat arbitrary and often unsure, they argue, choice of dating with regard to the “beginnings” of Orientalism. Said himself seems to settle on Napoleon I’s arrival in Mamluk Egypt in 1798 as the start of a sustained “Orientalism.” According to Said, Napoleon launched a full-scale Orientalist project while in

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Egypt where he sought to document information and connect with the locals as a defender of Islam. [27] Further, it is clear that Said sees France’s time in Egypt (1798-1801, though Bonaparte himself secretly left in 1799) as a major milestone in the history of Orientalism: “After Napoleon…the very language of Orientalism changed radically. Its descriptive realism was upgraded and became not merely a style of representation but a language, indeed a means of creation.”

Terry Eagleton: Understanding Brecht (May 1973)

Q21. EPIC THEATRE was primarily proposed by Bertolt Brecht who suggested that a play should not cause the spectator to identify emotionally with the characters or action before him or her, but should instead provoke rational self-reflection and a critical view of the action on the stage. Brecht thought that the experience of a climactic catharsis of emotion left an audience complacent. Instead, he wanted his audiences to adopt a critical perspective in order to recognise social injustice and exploitation and to be moved to go forth from the theatre and effect change in the world outside. For this purpose, Brecht employed the use of techniques that remind the spectator that the play is a representation of reality and not reality itself. By highlighting the constructed nature of the theatrical event, Brecht hoped to communicate that the audience's reality was equally constructed and, as such, was changeable.

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Bertolt Brecht believed that whilst theatre provided entertainment for the spectator it should also engage the spectator’s reasoning rather than their feelings. Therefore, he used a dialectic theatre that intellectually engaged his audience through methods that echoed Marx’s theory, namely that man and society should be re-examined in order to create an equal society. “The task of theatre is not to ‘reflect’ a fixed reality, but to demonstrate how character and action are historically produced, and so how they could have been, and still can be, different.”

History Epic theatre was a theatrical movement arising in the early to mid-20th century from the theories and practice of a number of theatre practitioners who were responding to the political climate of the time through the creation of a new political theatre. Epic theatre was a reaction against popular forms of theatre, particularly the naturalistic approach pioneered by Constantin Stanislavski. Like Stanislavski, Brecht disliked the shallow spectacle, manipulative plots, and heightened emotion of melodrama;

Techniques One of the most important techniques Brecht developed to perform epic theater is the Verfremdungseffekt, or the "alienation" effect. The purpose of this technique was to make the audience feel detached from the action of the play, so they do not become immersed in the fictional reality of the stage or become overly empathetic of the character. Flooding the theater with bright lights (not just the stage), having actors play multiple characters, having actors also rearrange the set in full view of the audience and "breaking the fourth wall" by speaking to the audience are all ways he used to achieve the Verfremdungseffekt.

As with the principle of dramatic construction involved in the epic form of spoken drama amalgamated or what Brecht calls "non-Aristotelian drama", the epic approach to play production utilizes a montage technique of fragmentation, contrast and contradiction, andinterruptions. Each scene, and each section within a scene, must be perfected and played as rigorously and with as much discipline as if it were a short play, complete in itself. Without any smudges. And without there being the slightest suggestion that another scene, or section within a scene, is to follow those that have gone before

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Brecht used comedy to distance his audiences from the depicted events and was heavily influenced by musicals and fairground performers, putting music and song in his plays. Terry Eagleton argues that Bertolt Brecht regards any attempt to define the literary work as ‘spontaneous whole’ which reconciles the capitalist contradictions between essence and appearance, concrete and abstract, individual and social whole, as a reactionary nostalgia. (Eagleton, 2002, 65) The Hegelian and Marxist prints are very obvious here in emphasizing the role of the dialectical struggle of the opposites to generate a synthesis, which is usually left for the spectators themselves to formulate. The issue of hegemony and consent in the Brechtian plays always provokes the audience to find a synthesis out of this dialectical struggle between the thesis and anti-thesis, which is usually a ‘revolution’. Bertolt Brecht’s aggressive political idealism and determination in using art to pose challenging questions about the conflicts between society and morality generated intense controversy throughout his lifetime. Technically, by his late twenties, Brecht had begun to visualize a new theatrical system that would serve his political and artistic sensibility. He saw the stage as an ideological forum for leftist causes and wanted to create theater that depicted human experience with the brutality and intensity of a boxing match. He rejected the conventions of stage realism and Aristotelian drama, which offer empathetic identification with a hero and emotional catharsis. Brecht did not want his audience to feel, but rather to be shocked, intellectually stimulated, and motivated to take action against an unjust society and to awaken them to social responsibility.

Such simplicity may be the effect of the fact that Brecht only insists on the base/superstructure distinction as Terry Eagleton asserts in his Ideology: An Introduction. The statement as such is manifested in the way Eagleton attempts to show Brecht as standing against the idea of "selfhood" as "received". The "selfhood" as a consequence becomes the "ideological illusion" Literary Criticism [Section-E ] Selected Notes

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that is imposed on people's minds. The kind of "received identity" that Brecht describes is actually the product of the superstructures. Although Eagleton as the representative of so many other Marxists underestimates Brecht's vulgar Marxism, the field of western Marxism itself- as enjoying a more philosophically accomplished scholarship- is replete with contradictions that emerge in the works of its well-known practitioners. The contradiction, on the other hand, might be one of the important elements that bind the western Marxists due to the expanded topography of the field itself. The main contradiction in the field of western Marxism owes to the Hegelian pedigree of its forefathers. According to Tony Bennett, the western Marxists see Marx through Hegelian lens as an example we can turn to Lukacs whose treatment of the Hegelian concept of "Totality" as the other to ideology proves to be quite idealistic . The escape from idealism, however, seems to be a far-fetched dream of every Marxist, a dream that has never come true. The analysis of this play not only helps the reader to identify Brecht as an illuminating rather than simplistic playwright but also introduces the bridge between Brecht's drama and his Marxism. When analyzing works of Brecht, one does not have to do much to keep her distance from the zone of complexity in that the dark times Brecht lived in demanded a response that needed to be more "urgent" than complicated as Karen Leeder observes.

Q22. Johnson's comments on the three unities ? Some critics have reservation about the norm of three unities in a dramatic plot regarding the Aristotelian view. They accuse Shakespeare of violating the norm at least at two regards. They find Shakespearean plays lacking Literary Criticism [Section-E ] Selected Notes

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___________________________________________________________________________ the unities of time and place which had long been recognized by Critics and dramatists as essential requirements. But Johnson thought a little bit other wise. In his consideration Shakespeare’s history plays not come under the review of this law of three unities because their very nature which essentially referred to a chronological replacement of times and places. In other plays Shakespeare has largely preserved the unity of action. His maintaining the structure of a dramatic plot- providing a beginning, middle and an end serves for Shakespeare’s awareness of the artistic necessity of plot construction. Very logically the dramatist arranges the connection and coherence of the incidents which very naturally finds a gradual development. The historical background on the observance of three unities had the foundation on two basic principles one suggested that without them no play can attain credibility. But neither of the viewers had the reasonable support. The classical unities, Aristotelian unities, or three unities are rules for drama derived from a passage in Aristotle's Poetics. According to Johnson, the unities of time and place are

not essential for good play. They may add to the pleasure of beauty but neglect may provide more. As the highest graces of a play intends to copy nature instruct life, the observance of the unities of time and place becomes the product of superfluous and showiness art. Suspension of disbelieve is an essential for a good drama. Johnson admits the awareness of the spectators’ disbelief, which is mostly sub-conscience and suspended. In this regard Coleridge points out that several dramatic devices may prove unnecessary of illusion. He argues that it the rejection of unities of time and place is accepted then what is the use of dressing up after the medieval royal customs. Coleridge can be refuted on certain grounds. Without this device a play can rarely offer any real difficulty to the imagination which is only a winged creature, not a snail. Here again Johnson’s attack on the unities remains one of the finest and wittiest things in his criticism. Later forms of expressive arts, including movies, in the modern age have presented the unworthiness of the device.

Johnson can be regarded to have a different out look among the neo-classical scholars. Neo classical always seems to glorify academic values in critics accepts Shakespeare’s violation of unities and also the mingling of tragic and comic elements as liberating ideologies. In this regard Johnson is pioneer of them who had the efforts to make intelligence liberated. Johnson is accused of being “an outright dissenter against the neo classic rules and proprieties” but is also a signal in the world of criticism of the enhance of concept and views. Literary Criticism [Section-E ] Selected Notes

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Johnson claims that with Shakespeare's histories, the unites of time, place, and action are largely irrelevant since, in his plays, "the changes of action be so prepared as to be understood, that the incidents be various and affecting, and the characters consistent, natural and distinct. No other unity is intended, and therefore none is to be sought." With his other works (comedies and tragedies), Johnson adds that Shakespeare sustains the unity of action; even when the events are out of order or superfluous, Shakespeare does stick to Aristotle's linear progression of having a discernible beginning, middle, and end. In terms of time and place, the law of the unities states that for a play to be credible (believable), the events of the play should be limited to a particular place and the time limited to 24 hours. Otherwise, the audience will have trouble suspending disbelief (believing the events could happen) which is to say the audience will have trouble forgetting that they are watching a play. Johnson counters this by saying that all plays are plays: The truth is, that the spectators are always in their senses, and know, from the first act to the last, that the stage is only a stage, and that the players are only players. Therefore, these limitations based on being credible to the audience can not be applied. Johnson also adds that the pleasure of watching theater is that it is fictional; it is not necessary that they have to believe it could happen: "The delight of tragedy proceeds from our consciousness of fiction; if we thought murders and treasons real, they would please no more." Johnson adds that "the unities of time and place are not essential to a just drama . . . " and that simply sticking to the rules does not make a drama good. That which makes Shakespeare's plays "just" is how deeply they apply to human nature. This is perhaps the most significant praise in the essay. For Johnson, there is something true and universal about Shakespeare's appreciation of human nature and this is what makes him timeless. Johnson notes that: "This therefore is the praise of Shakespeare, that his drama is the mirror of life . . . " Johnson does fault Shakespeare for focusing too much on the convenience of the storyline, therefore ignoring the use of his plays as instruction (showing how good could/should triumph over evil). But overall, it is Shakespeare's ability to copy nature (art imitating life), being believable or unbelievable, that makes any of Shakespeare's so called faults irrelevant.

Q23. Wordsworth: The Function of Poetry Literary Criticism [Section-E ] Selected Notes

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In the preface to the Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth also discusses the function of poetry. The function of great poetry is "to please, to move, and to transport." The three functions of poetry fuse into an aesthetic pleasure with moral elevation. However, the moral elevation far outweighs the aesthetic pleasure. The moral function consists first 'in the refinement of feelings', second, 'in the knowledge of Man, Nature, and Human life', and 3. third, 'in the power that makes life richer and fuller.' 1. 2.

"Truth, Grandeur, Beauty, Love and Hope, And melancholy Fear subdued by Faith." The reader of poetry emerges saner and purer than before. The second great function of poetry is to enable us to look 'into the life of things.' While science sharpens our intellect, poetry enriches our moral insight. The moral force of poetry 'is felt in the blood, and felt along the heart'. So Wordsworth says: "Poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge; it is the impassioned expression which is in the countenance of all science." Finally, poetry provides shelter and succor to the afflicted human soul. It is a great force for good and welfare. Wordsworth's own object in writing poetry was

'to console the afflicted; to add sunshine to day light by making the happy happier; to teach the young and the gracious of every age to see, to think, and feel, and therefore to become more actively and securely virtuous.' Thus Wordsworth concludes that 'every great poet is a teacher; I wish either to be considered as a teacher or as nothing'. In this role poetry makes man "wiser, better and happier"

Wordsworth's Theory of Poetry If the publication of Lyrical Ballads marks the climax of the Romantic Revolt, it is because of its importance as a gesture of revolt against the existing poetic practices. In his Preface to the second edition Wordsworth explained in detail what his theories about new poetry were and what was to be looked for in his own poems. The immediate Literary Criticism [Section-E ] Selected Notes

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___________________________________________________________________________ purpose of the Preface was to defend his poems against “the charges of lowness and unpoeticalness that had been made against both their subjects and their diction” to use the words of Graham Hough. The overall intention of Wordsworth was two-fold, that is, to relate poetry as closely as possible to common life, by removing it in the first place from the realm of fantasy, and in the second by changing it from the polite or over-sophisticated amusement to a serious art. . According to him, poetry should be “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings,” not mere satisfaction of a taste for imagery and ornament. Wordsworth’s aim in all this is to show that the poet is a man appealing to the normal interests of mankind, not as a peculiar being appealing to a specialized taste. He says: He is a man speaking to men: a man, it is true, endowed with more lively sensibility, more enthusiasm and tenderness, who has a greater knowledge of human nature, and a more comprehensive soul, than are supposed to be common among mankind; a man pleased with his own passions and volitions, who rejoices more than other men in the spirit of life that is in him; delighted to contemplate similar volitions and passions as manifested in the goings-on of the Universe, and habitually impelled to create them where he does not find them.” In his Preface Wordsworth made four claims:

1. first, “to choose incidents and situations from common life”; 2. second, “to relate or describe them throughout, as far as was possible in a selection of language really used by men”;

3. third, “to throw over them a certain colouring of imagination, whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual aspect”; and,

4. last, “above all, to make these incidents and situations interesting by tracing in them, truly though not ostentatiously, the primary laws of our nature.” The greater part of the Preface is devoted to justification of the first two claims, and this has caused too much stress to be laid on them while the fact remains that it is on the last two claims that the greatness of his poetry rests. THE POETIC LANGUAGE of the eighteenth century was unreal, and its substance was far from being an interpretation of the universal spirit of man. Wordsworth did inestimable service in insisting on a new and true orientation. But he went too far; he said that rustic life and language were the simplest and purest being elementary, in close touch with nature, and unspoiled by social vanity. The fact remains that the rustic has little originality, few ideas, and makes almost no attempt to correlate them. It is also true that Wordsworth proposed to prune it of peculiarities but, as Coleridge observed, this would render it the same as the language of any other section of the community similarly treated. Wordsworth also asserted that the language of poetry differs in no way from that of prose, with the single exception of metre. This is the controversy that still rages and Wordsworth’s finest poetry does not show any influence of this idea. Geoffrey H. Crump has stated categorically that “In his greatest poems he forgot his theories, or the poems are great enough to dwarf the

theories into insignificance, and in his later works he intentionally discarded them.” Wordsworth was a complete innovator who saw things in a new way. Those who approach his poetry for the first time notice two peculiarities – its austerity and its appearance of triviality. It is so in the case of those who fail to see the quality of really human sympathy. Besides, Wordsworth himself is responsible for inviting this sort of response, as he had no relish for the present. Shelley said about him that “he was hardly a man, but a wandering spirit with strange adventures and no end to them.” The triviality of manner is the manner through which he could convey the profoundest truths. While reading Wordsworth’s poems, it is impossible not to be struck by two things

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Q24. Structuralism and Post- structuralism-some practical differences ? Structuralism Post- structuralism 1 2

Parallels/Echoes Balances

Contradictions/paradoxes Shifts/Breaks in: Tone Viewpoint Time Person attitude

3 4 5 6 7

Reflections/Repetitions Symmetry Contrasts Patterns Effect: To show textual unity and Coherence

Conflicts Absences/Omissions Linguistic quirks Aporia Effect:To show textual disunity

1) Structuralism is a way of thinking about the world which is predominantly

concerned with the perceptions and description of structures. At its simplest, structuralism claims that the nature of every element in any given situation has no significance by itself, and in fact is determined by all the other elements involved in that situation. The full significance of any entity cannot be perceived unless and until it is integrated into the structure of which it forms a part. Structuralists believe that all human activity is constructed. It is not natural or "essential". Consequently, it is the systems of organization that are important.

2) Post-structuralism may be understood as a critical response to the basic

assumptions of structuralism. Structuralism studies the underlying structure inherent in cultural products (such as tests), and utilizes analytical concepts from linguistics, psychology, anthropology and other fields to understand and interpret those structures. Although the structuralist movement fostered critical inquiry into these structures, it emphasized logical and scientific results. Many structrualists sought to integrate their work pre-existing bodies of knowledge. This was observed in the work of Ferdinand De Saussure in linguistics, Claude Levi-Strauss in anthropology, and many early 20 thcentury psychologists. The general assumptions of post-structuralism derive from the critique of structuralist premises. Specifically, post-structuralism holds that the study of underlying structures is itself culturally conditioned and therefore subject to myriad biases and misinterpretations. To understand an object (e.g. open of the many meanings of a text), it is necessary to study both the object itself, and the systems of knowledge which were coordinated to produce the object. In this way, post structuralism positions itself as a study of how knowledge is produced.

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Q25. How Eliot Refutes Wordsworth’s Concept of “emotion

recollected in Tranquility” Eliot expresses his anti romantic view of creative process in “Tradition and the Individual Talent.” He disapproves of the romantic view of poetry as a sentimental expression of subjective feelings. Accordingly he rejects the emotive statement of Wordsworth-“emotion recollected in tranquility.” Wordsworth’s formula involves three components for poetic composition- emotion, recollection and tranquility. Regarding the first component, Eliot puts forward his own theory of emotion and feelings. He distinguishes between emotion and feeling. He says hat emotion arises out of personal incident or situation of a poet’s life. It is closely associated with a poet’s private life. Feelings, on the contrary are only remotely or thinly associated with personal situation. Feelings can be aroused by an image, a word or a phrase. For example, the Ode of Keats contains a cluster of feelings which have nothing particular to do with the Nightingale, but which the Nightingale partly perhaps because of its evocative name and partly because of its reputation, served to brig together.

The progress of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality.... It is in this depersonalization that art may be said to approach the condition of science.... Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things.... The emotion of art is impersonal. And the poet cannot reach this impersonality without surrendering himself wholly to the work to be done. And he is not likely to know what is to be done unless he lives in what is not merely the present, but the present moment of the past, unless he is conscious, not of what is dead, but of what is already living." On the contrary, Coleridge’s ‘Dejection’ is composed with the direct use of emotion rooted in personal incident. The emotion of gloomy despair conveyed in Coleridge’s poem is a working up of the poet’s similar emotion evident in a phase of his personal life. Eliot asserts that a poem can be composed either with emotion or with feelings. It is not always necessary that poetry must originate from emotion. In this way Eliot rejects the subjective emotionalism of Wordsworth’s theory. Literary Criticism [Section-E ] Selected Notes

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He further states that it is not for the emotions generated by particular events of a poet’s life that a poet earns distinction. Rather personal emotions are distilled, processed and transmuted into what Eliot calls structural or art emotion, for which a poet deserves consideration. And emotion achieves some degree of impersonality. Thus Eliot depersonalizes the romantic magnification of personal emotion in poetry. Poetry is not a medium to unleash raw emotion in an artless, uncontrolled and undisciplined way. Hence Eliot maintains that poetry is not a turning loose of emotion. Rather it is a controlled, selective, pattered expression of emotion. It demands some kind of some kind of masking and distancing of personal emotion- a kind of artistic detachment, a sort of decorum, some sort of veiling. This is what Eliot means by “an escape from emotion.”

Eliot does not accept that poetry has always something to do with “recollection”. In other words recollection is not an indispensable material for poetry. Earlier Eliot observes that “the more perfect the artist, the more completely separate in him will be the man who suffers and the mind which creates.” This statement implies that poetry is not completely candid (frank) expression of the total personality of a poet. Rather it is an expression of a significant aspect of life. And in creative process, there is a great deal which is conscious and deliberate. Thus Eliot attaches importance to intellect and rational faculty in addition to emotion and feelings.

In one of his influential essays The Metaphysical Poets – Eliot praises the metaphysical poets for their unified sensibility, which results from a fusion of emotion and intellect. Here too he recommends a unified sensibility- a synthesis of emotion and intellect.

Then he refuses Wordsworth’s requirement of tranquility in creative activity. He implies that the moment of composition is a heightened moment of psychic activity and introspection. It is a moment of excitement and concerted effect when the total mind strains to attain the desired height. It is a stimulated state of mind when an intense, purposive intellect brings feelings or emotions into new order. It can not be a relaxed, serene, tension-free state. Wordsworth’s reference to “tranquility” implies a kind of Literary Criticism [Section-E ] Selected Notes

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passive effortlessness. As Eliot says – it is not “ a passive attending upon the event”.

It is a moment or act of concentration- when al mental and emotional faculties are intently occupied in performing a creative fat. Thus Eliot refutes Wordsworth’s formula of creative process. I this way he manifesto his anti-romantic, modern, classical standpoint..

Q26. Archetype as Bricks in the Literary Text (Frye)? Archetype Definition

In literature, an archetype is a typical

character, an action or a situation that seems to represent such universal patterns of human nature. An archetype, also known as universal symbol, may be a character, a theme, a symbol or even a setting. Many literary critics are of the opinion that archetypes, which have a common and recurring representation in a particular human culture or entire human race, shape the structure and function of a literary work. Carl Jung, Swiss psychologist, argued that the root of an archetype is in the “collective unconscious” of mankind. The phrase “collective unconscious” refers to experiences shared by a race or culture. This includes love, religion, death, birth, life, struggle, survival etc. These experiences exist in the subconscious of every individual and are recreated in literary works or in other forms of art. Archetypal literary criticism is a type of critical theory that interprets a text

by

focusing

Greek archē,

on

recurring myths and

"beginning,"

archetypes

and typos,

(from

the

"imprint")

in

the narrative, symbols, images, and character types in literary work. As a Literary Criticism [Section-E ] Selected Notes

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form

of

literary

criticism,

it

dates

back

to

1934

when Maud

Bodkin published Archetypal Patterns in Poetry. Archetypal literary criticism’s origins are rooted in two other academic disciplines, social anthropology and psychoanalysis; each contributed to literary criticism in separate ways, with the latter being a sub-branch of critical theory. Archetypal criticism was at its most popular in the 1940s and 1950s, largely due to the work of Canadian literary critic Northrop Frye. Though archetypal literary criticism is no longer widely practiced, nor have there been any major developments in the field, it still has a place in the tradition of literary studies

Origins Frazer The anthropological origins of archetypal criticism can pre-date its analytical psychology origins by over thirty years. The Golden Bough (1890–1915), written by the Scottish anthropologist Sir James George Frazer, was the first influential text dealing with cultural mythologies. Frazer was part of a group of comparative anthropologists working out of Cambridge University who worked extensively on the topic. The Golden Bough was widely accepted as the seminal text on myth that spawned numerous studies on the same subject. Eventually, the momentum of Frazer’s work carried over into literary studies. In The Golden Bough Frazer identifies with shared practices and mythological beliefs between primitive religions and modern religions. Frazer argues that the death-rebirth myth is present in almost all cultural mythologies, and is acted out in terms of Literary Criticism [Section-E ] Selected Notes

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growing seasons and vegetation. The myth is symbolized by the death (i.e. final harvest) and rebirth (i.e. spring) of the god of vegetation.

As an example, Frazer cites the Greek myth of Persephone, who was taken to the Underworld by Hades. Her mother Demeter, the goddess of the harvest, was so sad that she struck the world with fall and winter. While in the underworld Persephone ate 6 of the 12 pomegranate seeds given to her by Hades. Because of what she ate, she was forced to spend half the year, from then on, in theunderworld, representative of autumn and winter, or the death in the death-rebirth myth. The other half of the year Persephone was permitted to be in the mortal realm with Demeter, which represents spring and summer, or the rebirth in the death-rebirth myth. Jung While Frazer’s work deals with mythology and archetypes in material terms, the work of Carl Gustav Jung, the Swiss-born founder of analytical psychology, is, in contrast, immaterial in its focus. Jung’s work theorizes about myths and archetypes in relation to the unconscious, an inaccessible part of the mind. From a Jungian perspective, myths are the “culturally elaborated representations of the contents of the deepest recess of the human psyche: the world of the archetypes” . Jungian analytical psychology distinguishes between the personal and collective unconscious, the latter being particularly relevant to archetypal criticism. The collective unconscious, or the objective psyche as it is less frequently known, is a number of innate thoughts, feelings, instincts, and memories that reside in the unconsciousness of all people. Jung’s definition of the term is inconsistent in his many Literary Criticism [Section-E ] Selected Notes

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writings. At one time he calls the collective unconscious the “a priori, inborn forms of intuition,” while in another instance it is a series of “experiences that come upon us like fate”. Regardless of the many nuances between Jung’s definitions, the collective unconsciousness is a shared part of the unconscious. To Jung, an archetype in the collective unconscious, as quoted from Leitch et al., is “irrepresentable, but has effects which make visualizations of it possible, namely, the archetypal images and ideas” , due to the fact they are at an inaccessible part of the mind. The archetypes to which Jung refers are represented through primordial images, a term he coined. Primordial images originate from the initial stages of humanity and have been part of the collective unconscious ever since. It is through primordial images that universal archetypes are experienced, and more importantly, that the unconscious is revealed. With the same death-rebirth myth that Frazer sees as being representative of the growing seasons and agriculture as a point of comparison, a Jungian analysis envisions the death-rebirth archetype as a “symbolic expression of a process taking place not in the world but in the mind. That process is the return of the ego to the unconscious—a kind of temporary death of the ego—and its re-emergence, or rebirth, from the unconscious” . By itself, Jung’s theory of the collective unconscious accounts for a considerable share of writings in archetypal literary criticism; it also predates the height of archetypal literary criticism by over a decade. The Jungian archetypal approach treats literary texts as an avenue in which primordial images are represented. It would not be until the 1950s when the other branch of archetypal literary criticism developed.

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Frye Bodkin’s Archetypal Patterns in Poetry, the first work on the subject of archetypal literary criticism, applies Jung’s theories about the collective unconscious, archetypes, and primordial images to literature. It was not until the work of the Canadian literary critic Northrop Frye that archetypal criticism was theorized in purely literary terms. The major work of Frye’s to deal with archetypes is Anatomy of Criticism but his essay “The Archetypes of Literature” is a precursor to the book. Frye’s thesis in “The Archetypes of Literature” remains largely unchanged in Anatomy of Criticism. Frye’s work helped displace New Criticism as the major mode of analyzing literary texts, before giving way to structuralism and semiotics. Frye’s work breaks from both Frazer and Jung in such a way that it is distinct from its anthropological and psychoanalytical precursors. For Frye, the death-rebirth myth that Frazer sees manifest in agriculture and the harvest is not ritualistic since it is involuntary, and therefore, must be done. As for Jung, Frye was uninterested about the collective unconscious on the grounds of feeling it was unnecessary: since the unconscious is unknowable it cannot be studied. How archetypes came to be was also of no concern to Frye; rather, the function and effect of archetypes is his interest. For Frye, literary archetypes “play an essential role in refashioning the material universe into an alternative verbal universe that is humanly intelligible and viable, because it is adapted to essential human needs and concerns” . There are two basic categories in Frye’s framework, comedic and tragic. Each

category

is

further

subdivided

into

two

categories: comedy and romance for the comedic; tragedy and satire (or Literary Criticism [Section-E ] Selected Notes

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ironic) for the tragic. Though he is dismissive of Frazer, Frye uses the seasons in his archetypal schema. Each season is aligned with a literary genre: comedy with spring, romance with summer, tragedy with autumn, and satire with winter. Comedy is aligned with spring because the genre of comedy is characterized by the birth of the hero, revival and resurrection. Also, spring symbolizes the defeat of winter and darkness. Romance and summer are paired together because summer is the culmination of life in the seasonal calendar, and the romance genre culminates with some sort of triumph, usually a marriage. Autumn is the dying stage of the seasonal calendar, which parallels the tragedy genre because it is, above all, known

for

the

“fall”

or

demise

of

the

protagonist.

Satire

is metonymized with winter on the grounds that satire is a “dark” genre; satire is a disillusioned and mocking form of the three other genres. It is noted for its darkness, dissolution, the return of chaos, and the defeat of the heroic figure. Summer – Romance. The birth of the hero. Autumn – Tragedy. Movement towards the death or defeat of the hero. Winter – Irony/Satire. The hero is absent. Spring – Comedy. The rebirth of the hero. The context of a genre determines how a symbol or image is to be interpreted. Frye outlines five different spheres in his schema: human, animal, vegetation, mineral, and water. The comedic human world is representative of wish-fulfillment and being community centred. In contrast, the tragic human world is of isolation, tyranny, and the fallen hero. Animals in the comedic genres are docile and pastoral (e.g. sheep), while animals are predatory and hunters in the tragic (e.g. wolves). For the realm of vegetation, the comedic is, again, pastoral but also represented by gardens, parks, roses and lotuses. As for the tragic, Literary Criticism [Section-E ] Selected Notes

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vegetation is of a wild forest, or as being barren. Cities, a temple, or precious stones represent the comedic mineral realm. The tragic mineral realm is noted for being adesert, ruins, or “of sinister geometrical images” . Lastly, the water realm is represented by rivers in the comedic. With the tragic, the seas, and especially floods, signify the water sphere.

Frye admits that his schema in “The Archetypes of Literature” is simplistic, but makes room for exceptions by noting that there are neutral archetypes. The example he cites are islands such as Circe’s or Prospero’s which cannot be categorized under the tragic or comedic.

Q27 . Said view on Difference between occident and orient ? Significance of orient for occident ? Occidental means Western Hemisphere (Americas), and Oriental means Eastern Hemisphere (Asia). Occidental are native people from the western hemisphere (Europe, North America, South America). Oriental are native people from the eastern hemisphere (the countries of Asia), although "Oriental" is now largely consider an offensive word and the preferred word is "Asian." . (Oriental Asia: Mostly people with slanted eyes Occidental Asia: Southwest people of Asia .Not Eastern and Western Hemispheres)

the difference between Oriental and Occidental Philosophy is that Oriental refers to Eastern Philosophy and Occidental refers to Western Philosophy

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Q28. Post-Modernism as “ Cultural Dominant” of our times ? Post-Modernism is a wide-ranging set of developments in critical theory, philosophy, architecture, art, literature, and culture which are emerging from and reacting to postmodernism. Another similar recent term is metamodernism. truth claims of science are inherently theory-laden and selfreferential. Post-Modernism marks an era of objectivity in the realms of science  Postmodernism is a concept which appears in a wide variety of disciplines or areas of study including art, music, film, literature, architecture, and technology and nowadays has burst into popular usage as a term for everything from rock music to the whole cultural style and mood of recent decades. Blackburn (1994) defined postmodernism as a reaction against a naïve confidence in objective or scientific truth. Post-Modernism rejects the idea of progress in utopian assumptions about evolution, social improvement and efforts in education to produce reform. It denies the idea of fixed meanings, or any correspondence between language and the world, or any fixed reality or truth or fact to be the object of enquiry. The postmodernist approach considers objectivity to be a veil that hides its real nature of power; by stripping objectivity of its disguise, some postmodernists seek liberation, while others “retreat to an aesthetic, ironic, detached, and playful attitude to one's own beliefs and to the march of events”. Modernism and Postmodernism in a Nutshell S No.

Modernism

Postmodernism

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___________________________________________________________________________ 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

objective rational scientific global claims positivist utopian central the best linear generalizing theoretical abstract unification

subjective irrational anti-scientific local claims constructivist populist fragmented better non-linear non-generalizing practical concrete diversity

COMMON CHARACTERISTICS OF POSTMODERNISM Despite the divergence among different usages of “postmodern,” one can find some commonalities centering on Postmodernists. They: 1) Postmodernists are constructivists, in their view, there are no real foundations of truth, for there is no truth, except what the group decides is truth. Postmodernism is preference and truth is a social construct to be eliminated. Truth and persons are given value only as the group values them. 2) Postmodernists are against Absolutism, they value relativism. Knowledge is not stable and eternal as the history of science has shown us, it refers to probabilities rather than certainties, better rather than the best. 3) Postmodernists reject theories because theories are abundant, and no theory is considered more correct than any other. They feel theory conceals, distorts, obfuscates, it is alienated, disparate, dissonant; it means to exclude order, controls rival powers. To them inquiry must be approached pragmatically. 4) question the notion of expertise. The idea that some people (experts) know more than others (non-experts) are not espoused. They believe that interaction between the knower and non-knower is often best seen as a dialog in which there is mutual influence than simple transmission of knowledge from one to the other. In fact, both are involved in an interactive process of knowledge creation. Dialog replaces monolog. Literary Criticism [Section-E ] Selected Notes

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5) Postmodernists reject global decisions. Since reality is culture dependent, changing over time, as cultures do, and varies from community to community, knowledge is not universal .We are cautioned to be careful with generalizations, because they can be deluding. Therefore, Postmodernists are intolerant of truth and values unless they are considered local. Diversity is celebrated. 6) Postmodernists attack notions of reason and means-end thinking .The line “I feel; therefore, I am and what I feel is good” replaces “I think; therefore, I am.” Objectivism is replaced with subjectivism and this is the society `s whims which rule scientific disciplines not physical laws. 7) use analytic strategy which is central to politics of postmodernism

 HOW MODERNISM EVOLVES ?  It seems with the decadence of the Catholic Church and the end of the Aristotelian

logic and with the dominance of the Baconian inductionism and the emergence of the Newtonian physics, the first foundations of modernism were laid. Before the Renaissance, Europe was a theocratic society, in which God was the center of the universe and the supernatural phenomena ruled the natural phenomena and the ARISTOTELIAN DEDUCTIONISM was common, but when Bacon put more emphasis on the role of observation, and when Newton discovered some laws of the nature, man got proud of himself and found himself the center of the universe. Believing he could find the ultimate truth, he left no room for God or for the supernatural and reason. Rationalism and scientific method took over as the dominant interpretations of life. As in philosophy, the modern period was started by DESCARTES who believed in exact and objective knowledge. He was a rationalist who believed in reason, thinking that reason can grasp truths, independent of time and place. The picture born in the Enlightenment gave rise to a civilization which was founded on scientific knowledge of the world and rational knowledge of value, which Literary Criticism [Section-E ] Selected Notes

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placed the highest premium on individual human life and freedom, believing that such freedom and rationality would lead to social progress through virtuous, self-controlled work, and create a better material, political, and intellectual life for all. Origin of Postmodernism in France  Postmodernism philosophy originated primarily in France during the 1960s and 1970s and was greatly influenced by phenomenology, existentialism, psychoanalysis, Marxism, and structuralism. These intellectual movements portrayed the human subject as alienated in contemporary society, estranged from his or her authentic modes of experience and being, whether the source of that estrangement was capitalism (for Marxism), the scientific naturalism (for phenomenology), excessive repressive social mores (for Freud), and bureaucratically organized social life and mass culture (for existentialism). In fact, all rejected the belief that the study of humanity could be modeled on (objectivity) or reduced to the physical science (reductionism); hence they avoided behaviorism and naturalism. Unlike hard sciences, they focus not merely on facts but on the meaning of facts for human subjects.  Another important factor in the development of postmodernism was the situations after the Second World War which led to the decline of grand theories including Nazism, Fascism, and finally Marxism. Lyotard (1984) argued that modern philosophies legitimized truth-claims not on logical or empirical ground, but rather on the grounds of accepted stories or “metanarrative” about knowledge of the world-- what Wittgenstein termed as “language games”. He further argued that in our postmodern condition, these meta-narratives no longer work to legitimize truth- claims. In a way, he stressed the fragmentary and plural characteristics of reality, believing that there is no universal truth and no grand theory is credible

Another strain of postmodernism refers to the radical changes of the society: the end of the last vestiges of European colonialism after the Second World War, the development of mass communications and a media culture and the shrinking of the globe by

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internal marketing, telecommunications, and intercontinental missiles which led to a significant delegitimization of authority and to a more egalitarian society a) Habermas’s (1975) “crisis of legitimation” is the recognition that every author exercises authority that promotes an agenda, denies alternative views, and fails to guarantee its own truth. b) Edward Said (1978) found that colonized people were dehumanized, stereotyped, and treated not as communities of individuals but as an indistinguishable mass about whom one amasses knowledge. c) Derrida (1976) denounced the “Mercantilization Of Knowledge” and the contrived invisibility of the author, a presence behind the text exerting authority and influence but protected from recognition and critique unless deconstructed. For postmodernists, Habermas’s (1975) “crisis of legitimation” is the recognition that every author exercises authority that promotes an agenda, denies alternative views, and fails to guarantee its own truth. d) Foucault (1973) examined how power is legitimized through complex social structures and objected to discourses in which “the privileges of one subject-- to tell stories or decide what the topic is-- materially diminish the rights of other subjects.” . In his opinion, discourse is the medium through which power is expressed and people and practices are governed. 

Outside philosophical and scientific inquiry after the Second World War new tendencies in art, literature, music and architecture emerged which critiqued the bourgeois capitalist social order that carried the economic load of modernity. To name a few developments: dissonant and atonal music, impressionism, surrealism, and expressionism in painting, literary realism, and the stream of consciousness novel emerged which seemed to open the imagination to a subjective world of experience which was ignored by the modern society and technology.

Were all Modernists either skeptical or reactionary in matters of Christian belief? How can we express ideas of the sacred distinct from religious commitment? Literary Criticism [Section-E ] Selected Notes

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MYTHOPOEIA MYTHOPOEIC METHOD :- > Mythopoeia is a narrative genre in modern literature and film where a fictional mythology is created by the writer of prose or other fiction. This meaning of the word mythopoeia follows its use by J. R. R. Tolkien in the 1930s. The authors in this genre integrate traditional mythological themes and archetypes into fiction.

Alan Dundes argued that "any novel cannot meet the cultural criteria of myth. A work of art, or artifice, cannot be said to be the narrative of a culture's sacred tradition...[it is] at most, artificial myth." Works of mythopoeia are often categorized as fantasy or science fiction but fill a niche for mythology in the modern world, He did, however, use Star Wars as an example of the creation of such fantasy worlds by which civilization will one day describe itself.[citation needed] Without relevant mythology, Campbell claimed, society cannot function well Modernist Mythopoeia: The Twilight of the Gods argues that the experimental modernist form of mythopoeia was directed towards expressing a range of poetic perspectives that fall between material secularism and dogmatic religion. Modernist mythopoeia is a literary means of eschewing the language of certainty while giving voice to the nature and function of transcendence in a post-religious context. As a comparative study, Scott Freer offers fresh readings on a range of key trans-Atlantic modernist texts, whilst considering their various mythopoeic method or vision: Nietzsche's Thus Spake Zarauthustra, T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis, Hilda Doolittle's Trilogy, D.H. Lawrence's Birds, Beasts and Flowers!, and Wallace Stevens' Harmonium. The 'twilight' of modernist mythopoeia is the nuanced and complex way of a godless aesthetic, for it accommodates various shades of secularity and religiosity and brings an inconclusiveness to the mysteries of human existence to be embraced and poeticized. The book is a timely addition to the 'post-secular' debate as well as to the 'return of religion' in modernist studies.

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Imagism is a type of poetry that describes images with simple language and great focus. It came out of the Modernist movement in poetry. In the early 1900s, poets abandoned the old ways of writing poems and created a new movement in poetry called Modernism. Imagism was a movement in early 20th-century Anglo-American poetry that favored precision of imagery and clear, sharp language. It has been described as the most influential movement in English poetry since the activity of the Pre-Raphaelites.[ 1] As a poetic style it gave Modernism its start in the early 20th century, [2] and is considered to be the first organized Modernist literary movement in the English language. [3] Imagism is sometimes viewed as 'a succession of creative moments' rather than any continuous or sustained period of development. [4] René Taupin remarked that 'It is more accurate to consider Imagism not as a doctrine, nor even as a poetic school, but as the association of a few poets who were for a certain time in agreement on a small number of important principles'. [5] The Imagists rejected the sentiment and discursiveness typical of much Romantic and Victorian poetry, in contrast to their contemporaries, the Georgian poets, who were generally content to work within that tradition. In contrast, Imagism called for a return to what were seen as more Classical values, such as directness of presentation and economy of language, as well as a willingness to experiment with non-traditional verse forms. Imagists use free verse.

Imagist publications appearing between 1914 and 1917 featured works by many of the most prominent modernist figures, both in poetry and in other fields. The Imagist group was centered in London, with members from Great Britain, Ireland and the United States. Somewhat unusually for the time, a number of women writers were major Imagist figures.

A characteristic feature of Imagism is its attempt to isolate a single image to reveal its essence. This feature mirrors contemporary developments in avant-garde art, especially Cubism. Although Imagism isolates objects through the use of what Ezra Pound called "luminous Literary Criticism [Section-E ] Selected Notes

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details", Pound's Ideogrammic Method of juxtaposing concrete instances to express an abstraction is similar to Cubism's manner of synthesizing multiple perspectives into a single image.

Pre-Imagism Well-known poets of the Edwardian era of the 1890s, such as Alfred Austin, Stephen Phillips, and William Watson, had been working very much in the shadow of Tennyson, producing weak imitations of the poetry of the Victorian era. They continued to work in this vein into the early years of the 20th century.[7] As the new century opened, Austin was still the serving British Poet Laureate, a post which he held up to 1913. In the century's first decade, poetry still had a large audience; volumes of verse published in that time included Thomas Hardy's The Dynasts, Christina Rossetti's posthumous Poetical Works, Ernest Dowson's Poems, George Meredith's Last Poems, Robert Service's Ballads of a Cheechako and John Masefield's Ballads and Poems. Future Nobel Prize winner William Butler Yeats was devoting much of his energy to the Abbey Theatre and writing for the stage, producing relatively little lyric poetry during this period. In 1907, the Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to Rudyard Kipling. The origins of Imagism are to be found in two poems, Autumn and A City Sunset by T. E. Hulme. These were published in January 1909 by the Poets' Club in London in a booklet Literary Criticism [Section-E ] Selected Notes

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called For Christmas MDCCCCVIII. Hulme was a student of mathematics and philosophy; he had been involved in the setting up of the club in 1908 and was its first secretary. Around the end of 1908, he presented his paper A Lecture on Modern Poetry at one of the club's meetings

What is meant by Drama of Ideas ? Best Answer: Modern drama under great influence of Ibsen: Great Norwegian dramatist, give rise to the Comedy of Ideas. Dramas ceased to deal with themes remote in time and place, real drama must deal with emotions. Drama of ideas gave up melodramatic romanticism and pseudo-classical remoteness, start treating the actual life, made drama a drama of ideas. Important dramatist: George Bernard Shaw. Drama of Ideas: 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6)

Revolutionary against past literary models, social conventions and morality. Dealt with the problem of sex, youth. Against romance, capitalism, parental authority. Number of theories, slow actions and frequently interrupted. Study of soul. Inner conflict substituted the outer conflict.

Characters: Questioning, restless, dissatisfied, struggling against prejudice. Drama of Ideas (or the drama of social criticism) in the real sense is a modern development. Literary Criticism [Section-E ] Selected Notes

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A number of contemporary problems and evils are subjected to discussion and searching examinations and criticism in these plays. Thus in it, the structure and characterization are of subordinate importance; its the ‘discussion’ that counts.

Ibsen and then Shaw, Galsworthy and Granville Barker were the chief exponents of this realistic drama of ideas. To Shaw, drama was pre-eminently a medium for articulating his own ideas and philosophy. He enunciated the philosophy of life force which he sought to disseminate through his dramas. Thus Shavian plays are the vehicles for the transportation of ideas, however, propagandizing they may be. Shaw wanted to cast his ideas through discussions. Out of the discussions in the play Arms and The Man Shaw breaks the idols of love and war. The iconoclast Shaw pulls down all false gods which men live, love admire and adore. By a clever juxtaposition of characters and dialogues, Shaw shatters the romantic illusions about war and war heroes Shaw’s message is that war is no longer a thing of banners and glory, as the nineteenth century dramatist saw it, but a dull and sordid affair of brutal strength and callous planning out.

The dialogues of Bluntschli, Riana and Sergius go to preach this message with great success. Here to quote Sergius who says, “War is a hollow sham like love.” One thing however be remembered that in Arms and The Man, Mr. Shaw does not, as some imagine attack war. He is not Tolstoy an in the least. What he does is to denounce the sentimental illusion that gathers around war. “Fight if you will”, says he ‘but for goodness’ sake don’t strike picturesque attitudes in the limelight about it. View it as one of the desperately irrational things of life that may, however, in certain circumstances be a brutal necessity.

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Bluntschli

is the very mouth piece of the play that exposes the scourge

of war. There is a lot of learning in the disillusionment of Riana and Sergius. In the play he has taken a realistic view not only of war and heroism but of love and marriage. He has taken a realistic view of life as a whole. He has blown away the halo of romance that surrounds human life as a whole. His message in this play is, therefore, the destruction not only of the conventional conception of the heroic soldier but of the romantic view of marriage, nay, of life as a whole. He pleads for judging everything concerning human life from a purely realistic point of view. This is the message he conveys through the play, Arms and The Man.

The Golden Bough The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion (retitled The Golden Bough : A Study in Magic and Religion in its second edition) is a wide-ranging, comparative study of mythology and religion, written by the Scottish anthropologist Sir James George Frazer (1854–1941). It was first published in two volumes in 1890; in three volumes in 1900; the third edition, published 1906–15, comprised twelve volumes. The work was aimed at a wide literate audience raised on tales as told in such publications as Thomas Bulfinch's The Age of Fable, or Stories of Gods and Heroes. Frazer offered a modernist approach to discussing religion, treating it dispassionately as a cultural phenomenon rather than from a theological perspective. The influence of The Golden Bough on contemporary European literature and thought was substantial The Golden Bough attempts to define the shared elements of religious belief and scientific thought, discussing fertility rites, human sacrifice, the dying god, the scapegoat and many other symbols and practices whose influence has extended into twentiethcentury culture. Its thesis is that old religions were fertility cults that revolved around the worship and periodic sacrifice of a sacred king. Frazer proposed that mankind progresses from magic through religious belief to scientific thought.

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[4] This thesis was developed in relation to J. M. W. Turner's painting of The Golden Bough, a sacred grove where a certain tree grew day and night. It was a transfigured landscape in a dream-like vision of the woodland lake of Nemi, "Diana's Mirror", where religious ceremonies and the "fulfillment of vows" of priests and kings were held.

Virginia Woolf, in an entirely different context, has brilliantly described the self-deluding effect of this activity: “Women have served all these centuries as looking glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of man at twice its natural size” .

Is it possible to historicize literature ? Frye advocacy for universal grammar of archetypes ? “Always historicize!” exhorts contemporary literary critic Fredric Jameson. Few students of literature and culture these days would find this admonition anything more than common sense. Indeed, one might well wonder how can literature not be seen as existing in history? But this common sense has only been common for a short time, historically speaking. The current ways of “historicizing literature,” of understanding literature in relation to larger historical forces, have mostly emerged since the 1970s. They arose from a number of different sources and took a number of different forms. New forms of literary historicism fundamentally reshaped how texts were interpreted, raised questions about how literary value was determined in different eras, expanded the definition of what kinds of texts counted as “literature,” discovered novel ways to place literary works in relation to other kinds of written “texts,” applied literary critical methods to historical documents, popular culture, and even to works of criticism themselves, asked new questions about the “cultural work” done by literary texts, and rewrote the “canon” of works deemed important enough to be read in literature classes. The single most important factor in resurrecting the historical analysis of literary texts was no doubt a wave of social movements in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s that reshaped the entire culture In the nineteenth century the historical study of literature had taken two main forms: a biographical approach focused on the lives of a set of great authors (mostly male, mostly white), and a more technical, “philological” approach that Literary Criticism [Section-E ] Selected Notes

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___________________________________________________________________________ sought to understand the historical evolution of words and literary forms. Literary study was primarily the work of gentlemen (and a few ladies) with little interest in the social implications of literature. In the early twentieth century two socially conscious schools of criticism, Progressivism and Marxism, challenged these older styles. Marxist critics took up the question of historicization by deepening this critique of capitalism's control of society and literature. Marxist criticism in the 1930s took a variety of forms but all sought to understand the creation and interpretation of literature as a social act fundamentally involved in shaping the course of history. The most common counter to these openly political ways of historicizing literature was (and still is) the claim that literature was somehow above politics. This vague charge was developed into a powerful argument with the rise of a group of scholars who came to be known as the “New Critics” – most notably John Crowe Ransom, Allen Tate, Robert Penn Warren, and Cleanth Brooks, with the criticism of T.S. Eliot much honored as an inspiration. These scholars solidified an antihistorical approach that dominated literary studies throughout the middle decades of the twentieth century. The literary “formalism” of the New Critics emerged from two quite different but mutually reinforcing forces. On the one hand, there was a desire to professionalize literary study in academia by putting it on a more objective, scientific footing reminiscent of the newly emergent social sciences. On the other side, there was a consciously political move to suppress the radical implications of Marxist styles of literary history. Several of the New Critics were associated with the “Southern agrarians,” a group of authors critical of modern capitalism via the rather different route of nostalgia for the preindustrial South. The idea of “timeless” literature has been with us for some time, often attached to the notion of the “classics.” But the idea of “the classics” is itself an historical Literary Criticism [Section-E ] Selected Notes

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___________________________________________________________________________ concept, one emerging in the Renaissance when “classical” Greece and Rome were “rehistoricized” as models for aesthetic creation. While the New Criticism was immensely successful in institutionalizing itself as the single proper mode of doing literary analysis from the late 1930s to the mid1960s, its dominance did not go unchallenged.Young critics emerging in the light of the Civil Rights, Black Power, Chicano, Native American, women's, gay, and other movements of the 1960s and 1970s began to reexamine deeply the ways in which what passed as the canon of literary texts, and the styles of literary analysis, left out both their own historical experiences, and their own ways of experiencing the social power of the written word.

Metahistory took the literary analysis of critic Northrop Frye and applied it brilliantly to history books. White demonstrated with close formal analysis that historical writing was, after all, writing, and as such subject to some of the same laws of form found in fiction. What White called “emplotment” was the process by which the wealth of historical detail on a given subject was turned by the historian into a coherent “story.” Taking the “story” in “history” seriously he argued that close analysis revealed that certain literary laws of form applied as well to historical writing. He found, for example, that historical texts could be categorized into four main types of “plot” – tragic, comic, romantic, or satiric. White showed how all historical analysis tended to gather “facts” into stories utilizing one or more of these “plots,” and he argued that the logic of this pattern was determined more by the Literary Criticism [Section-E ] Selected Notes

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ideology of the historian than by the nature of the historical materials. (White's own analysis might best be considered a fifth kind of plot, the “ironic,” that does not escape its own ideological implications and evasions.) This did not mean that history was “just fiction,” but it did mean that historical truth was inevitably processed through linguistic conventions shared by fiction and non-fiction.

One

might

have

thought

that

historians

would

welcome this effort to show that they too wrote in language, and that they would come closer to historical truth if they took account of the ways in which their narratives were shaped by poetic rules similar to those found in literature. But few empiricist historians embraced this analysis. Instead its influence blended with a theoretical invasion from France that also used formalism to blow apart formalism.

Northrop Frye Essay – Anatomy of Criticism Critical Essays Frye has exerted tremendous influence in the field of literary criticism and in the area of education in literature and the humanities. This influence derives mainly from his Anatomy of Criticism, a work in which Frye made large and controversial claims for literature and literary critics.

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In Anatomy, Frye argued that judgments are not inherent in the critical process. He further asserted that literary criticism can be "scientific" in its methods and its results, without borrowing concepts from other fields of study. Literary criticism, in Frye's view, can and should be autonomous in the manner that physics, biology, and chemistry are autonomous disciplines. For Frye, literature is schematic because it is wholly structured by myth and symbol. The critic becomes a kind of scientist, determining how symbols and myth are ordered and function in a given work. The critic need not, in Frye's view, make judgments of value about the work; a critical study is structured by the fact that the components of literature, like those of nature, are unchanging and predictable. Frye believes that literature occupies a position of extreme importance within any culture. Literature, as Frye sees it, is "the place where our imaginations find the ideal that they try to pass on to belief and action, where they find the vision which is the source of both the dignity and the joy of life." The literary critic serves society by studying and "translating" the structures in which that vision is encoded.

In Northrop Frye's text "Don't You Think it's Time to Start Thinking" he makes a link between language and thinking.

Frye believes that in order to come up with the good idea in the first place, we need the ability to articulate it beforehand. He uses a comical example that until you have words to describe it, you can't articulate whether the pain in your stomach is gas or pregnancy. If you don't have the Literary Criticism [Section-E ] Selected Notes

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language, you might resort to pointing at your stomach or saying pain and gesturing in some way. Frye's point is that to think intelligently, we need to have an intelligent grasp of vocabulary and language structures. To think intelligently, we need to know what words can do and how they work. He takes this a step further. He adds that if we simply learn the basics of language but do not attempt to learn how and why words work in social situations, we merely learn to read and write in order to become puppets: . . . because society must have docile and obedient citizens. We are taught to read so that we can obey the traffic signs and to cipher so that we can make out our income tax, but development of verbal competency is very much left to the individual. Frye refers to Orwell's novel 1984 in which society has been brainwashed to speak as simply as possible. The less articulate they are, the more easily the government can wield power over them. Frye adds that it has been deemed uncool, as an adolescent, to speak articulately. This is obviously a problem.

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Similar to today's media, Frye argues that society relies too much on cliches and what we might call "stock responses" and "sound bites." Note that in political debates and discussions, candidates and pundits use repetitive phrases. The problem is these phrases lack substance. They are stock responses which means that many people use them automatically, at any time, with no real thinking behind them. "Let's make America great again." How many times have you heard this phrase with no clarification? "Great" sounds great but there is no thinking behind it. Such phrases are used to pacify the public into nodding thoughtlessly. Frye says this is a problem at all levels of education. His solution is to put more focus and effort in educating students to think critically precisely by teaching them to speak and write critically. For Frye, thinking intelligently requires a strong grasp of how language works, what it can do, and how it is used (for good and bad) in social situations, in the media, and so on.

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