RENAISSANCE IN ENGLISH LITERATURE

DISCUSS THE MANIFESTATIONS OF THE RENAISSANCE IN THE LITERATURE AND CULTURE OF THE PERIOD 

The term ‘Renaissance’ means rebirth or revival. It was the period of the intellectual movement in European cultural history that is traditionally seen as ending the middle ages and beginning modern times. The renaissance started in Italy in the 14^th century and flourished in Western Europe until about the 17^th century.

The aim of renaissance education was to produce the ‘complete human being’. The renaissance man, conversant in the humanities, mathematics and science, the arts and crafts and athletics and sport; to enlarge the bounds of learning and geographical knowledge, to encourage the growth of skepticism and free thought, and the study and imitation of Greek and Latin literature and art. The revival of interest in classical Greek and Roman culture inspired artists such as Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Durer, writers such as Petrarch and prose writers such as Boccaccio; and scientists and explorers proliferated.

Humanism was the first feature of the Renaissance. It freed man from the hold of rigour and puritanical negation of life, by advocating that man is the centre of life. Humanism relegated God and religion to the periphery. It was responsible for reducing the hold of the Church on an individual’s life and setting him free to develop his natural self. Humanism came to influence different aspects of life, especially art and literature. After many centuries, for the first time, the beauty of the human body came to be depicted without restraint in art and literature. Human nature itself came to be examined in all openness.

The major influence that worked the change in the secularization of thought and style in literature, in European countries, was that Christian scholars fled to Italy after the fall of Constantinople in 1453. It was the eastern roman capital. The western roman capital was at Rome. These conservators of culture fled with rare manuscripts of Greek and Roman authors. They were not theologians but pure scholars. The Italian nobles sheltered them and encouraged them to spread learning.

The revival of interest in classical literature in a way served to deepen the glory of man. The glorification of the individual was in direct contrast to the medieval approach. Initially man was looked upon as a product of the original sin of Adam. With the paramountacy of the Catholic Church, every man was regarded as a penitent and had to work out his salvation and the church would cooperate. The church had a hole on man’s mind for 1400 years. All knowledge was related to the bible and theology.

With the arrival of the learned men, thought was revolutionized, therefore man’s thinking was separated from the Bible and theology and knowledge was secularized. The intention of education was no longer didactic. The poems of Homer and Virgil, the lyrics and satire of Horace and the plays of Seneca were revived as a result of human interest. A growing concern for secular man and his experience was evinced. (Thus Renaissance literature was characterized by secularism and individualism.)

The notion of man as an achiever was celebrated. Man was no longer seen as an insignificant thing on earth. Tamburlaine, King Lear and Hamlet exemplify that man has tremendous potential. They celebrate the spiritual aspiration and fulfillment of man. According to Laurie Magnus, the whole philosophy of the Renaissance was contained in Hamlet’s Perception:

      “What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties,

      In form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel,

      In appreciation how like a god; the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals

       – (II   ii 303-307)

If man was glorified and became the sole concern of the writers, the world of human experience became the focal point of human attention. Writers laid stress on individual man’s ambitions, longings and aspirations. Christopher Marlowe’s lines from Tamburlaine speak about the infinite knowledge that man seeks:

     Nature, that fram’d us of four elements,

     Warring within our breasts for regiment

     Doth teach us all to have aspiring minds,

     Our, souls, whose faculties can comprehend

     The wondrous architect of the world

     And measure every wand’ring planet’s course,

     Still climbing after knowledge infinite

     And always moving as the restless spheres

     Wills us to wear ourselves and never rest

     Until we reach the ripest fruit of all

     That perfect bliss and sole felicity

      The sweet fruition of an earthly crown.

 

Thus passage and Faustus’ search for experience are taken to indicate a spirit of exultation. The fruit of the tree of knowledge is no longer forbidden, or, if it is forbidden so much the more exciting

     For lust of knowing what should not be known

     We make the Golden Journey to Samarcand

Gorgeous dreams of both Orient and Occident shimmered and swam in the imagination of poet and dramatist. Tamburlaine, Faustus and the Jew of Malta ferment with visions of far lands and of the wealth and power that they promised. In Shakespeare’s Othello the lure the sea and the far splendor of the Orient lent a certain grandeur to the characters and action. In the Tempest, beneath all its romantic frenzy and charm, the poet is realistically engaged with actual problems of contacts between civilization and savagery. He associates with far, unknown lands, especially the Western World.

That perennial vision of the ideal commonwealth prevalent during this time, and recurrent with the English longing westward overseas, is reflected in Thomas More’s Utopia and Daniel’s Musophilus. More’s Utopia that was published in 1516, describes an ideal society on an imaginary island. Fundamentally, the book is derived from Plato’s Republic and his dream of an ideal state. It is also written from an impulse to react against the glaring abuses of the time, of poverty undeserved and wealth unearned, of drastic punishments, religious persecutions and the senseless slaughter of war. This book was written in Latin and later translated. It was read throughout Europe.

With the introduction of Greek thought, there emerged a Neo-Platonic influence. According to Plato the highest reality was the world of Ideas meant essence of a thing. It was an essentially distinguishing character of a thing. God created these numerous ideas. Ideas created in the Universe could not exist in itself, it needed matter to complement it, to give it full expression. An attracting influence drew matter and Idea together, that was Love. If this did not exist, the world would collapse. Love was praised time and again.

Christianity was the religion of Love, which found expression between mother and child and man and God. Since the Virgin Mary lost her importance, the attributes of perfection, generosity and love were transferred from the divine beloved to the human beloved.

Dante, a famous Italian poet, is best known for his epic poem Divina Comedia or the Divine comedy. It is an allegorical account of his journey through hell, purgatory and Paradise, guided by Virgil and his idealized love Beatrice. His other works include La Vita Nouva in which he celebrates his love for Beatrice. He is one of the earliest poets to shift his focus from the divine beloved to human beloved. He had several followers among the English poets.

Petrach, the Italian lyric poet and scholar, also celebrated this theme in his Canzoniere, which is a sonnet sequence. In these sonnets, the poet craves for the affection, favour and sovereign virtue of his beloved, Laura. Love was a disciplining force, not a form of indulgence. Discipline resulted in restraint. His sonnet sequence was a significant poetic legacy that he gave Europe and England. Each poem expresses an experience of personal love and idealization of love. Nature is in sympathy with the poets. Petrarch found imitators among the English Poets – Sidney, Spenser and Shakespeare.

Sidney’s poems are a combination of Neo-Platonism, the Petrachian and the Pastoral convention. His Astrophel and Stella sonnet sequence was published in 1591. Astrophel means ‘star lover’ and Stella means ‘star’. This sequence is partly autobiographical and was published after his death. It was probably written just before and after his proposed marriage to the beautiful Penelope Devereux failed. Sidney is writing in a convention about a courtship that should have ended in marriage. There is sincerity and depth in this sequence and it is written with real feeling.

Spenser’s achievement was of a different king from Sidney’s. The Amoretti sonnet sequence published in 1595 was written in honour of Elizabeth Boyle. It was a synthesis of various tendencies – the Petrachian and neo-Platonic influence and also the use of native English in his treatment and conception of nature. In this sequence the beloved becomes the source of bliss and happiness, a solution to problems, a lodestar and a haven of peace.

Shakespeare’s sonnets fall into two distinct categories. About 50 early sonnets are taken to be addressed to a young man whose identity is established but still remains a matter of conjecture. The remaining 100 sonnets are addressed to a female beloved, reputably to the ‘Dark Lady’. Shakespeare’s sonnets go well beyond their conventional manner and philosophical idealism, to reveal depths of thought and feeling that are known only to one who have come to grips with life and pondered over his experience with detached and sane judgement.

The poems of Wyatt and Surrey deserve special mention. Tottel’s Miscellany distilled the best English song of nearly forty years, and in turn it proved the chief propagator of English love poetry for a generation more. Wyatt had composed nearly a third of the collection and Henry Howard, the Earl of Surrey, had contributed forty songs. Much of Wyatt’s work was translated from Petrach’s love poetry, and that of other Italians. Latin poets, Horace, Martial and Ovid also influenced the English poets. It was full of imported conceits, and of a new ‘poetic’ phrase and diction that circulated long and wide. The Elizabethian sonnet ending always with a couplet is said to have been invented by Surrey, though it is approached by Wyatt. Under Wyatt’s fingers the music began to stir, and rose to fuller melody in Surrey’s lines.

The political philosophy of expediency propounded by Niccolo Machiavelli in his book The Prince gained prominence. According to this view, that which was politic was to be adopted in preference to that which was just and right, and what served the need of the moment. If the end or the goal was useful, the means could be anything. Murder, deceit and treachery became the philosophy of unscrupulous people. It repudiated honesty. This doctrine of expediency appealed to Renaissance dramatists who modeled their villains and bastards along these principles. Machinations became the principle in all their activity and they came to be regarded as Machiavellian.

Christopher Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta was written on these lines. Barabos, has been sinned against by Christian rulers, but he loses all sense of proportion and resorts to indiscriminate destruction. He displays traits of Machiavellian disposition and kills all the nuns in the convent.

Shakespeare modeled his villains and bastards on this principle. The bastard in King John and Edmund in King Lear, have been modeled on the Machiavellian principle. Bastardy was a social stigma in Christian society and Edmund and other characters who see no prospect in life, invariably turn to Machiavellian principles to achieve their ends. Thomas Kyd and John Webster also used Machiavellian characters in their plays The Spanish Tragedy and The Duchess of Malfi respectively.

Another very popular and influential book of the age was by the Italian writer Baldassare Castiglioni. He presented his humanist doctrine in his work Il Cortegiano or The Courtier. He put forward his view of the ideal gentleman at court who was to be highly accomplished in all fields.

This book exerted a cultural influence on literary minds. The ideal man underwent a change. The medieval ideal was ‘vita contemplativa’ or the contemplative mind, characterized by an ascetic or a pertinent sinner. He was represented by the figure of the ploughman in William Langland’s Piers the Plowman. The renaissance ideal on the other hand was ‘vita activa’ or the active man. He was to be a courtier, highly accomplished in all fields. Heroic action was stressed which well expressed the greatness of soul.

Christopher Marlowe’s plays exemplify the heroic in man. He is half Apollo, half mortal. Shakespeare was impressed by these ideas and many of his characters, particularly Hamlet and Othello glorify the spiritual potential in man. Hamlet is a philosopher, scholar, prince and soldier, all in one. In Spenser’s Book VI of The Fairie Queene, Sir Calidore is the perfect man who cherishes art and beauty in all fields.

The knight was regarded as an ideal individual. The ideal knight can be seen in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales where he is the repository of Christian values and love, truth, honour, courtesy and freedom. In hi ‘moral battles’ the knight never failed to kill his foe

     He nevere yet no vileyne ne sayde

     In al his lyf unto no maner wight

And the Squire as lover, succeeded in cutting out all sleep, not because mortal lovers can really succeed, but because as an ideal they should be imagined to do so. Thus, when Chaucer calls his knight’s bearing, ‘as meeke as is a mayde’, he is picturing him as conforming to an ideal of chivalry.

The effects of the Renaissance can be seen in the works of Michaelangelo, Leornado da Vinci and Raphael. Michaelangelo is considered the greatest of the Renaissance artists of Italy. His most famous works include the colossal statue of David, ‘The Giant’ carved in a block of marble, his sculptured figures of ‘the Pieta’ and ‘Moses’, and his frescoes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel at Rome. All these figures that celebrate the human body, bear eloquent testimony of the impact of the Renaissance on other forms of art.

To sum up one may say that after 1400, the momentum of medieval literature was spent. There was new matter recovered out of ancient authors, history, biography, poetry, speculations on philosophy, politics and nature. There was as always love, in this case the old courtly love made young by the infusion of Plato’s philosophy; and there was medieval mysticism likewise renewed by mingling with plato’s Mystical ideas. There were besides the fascinating forms of ancient literature to copy and emulate. The whole world was expanding and there seemed to be no bound to man’s imaginings and powers.

LITERARY USE OF LANGUAGE AND NON LITERARY USE OF LANGUAGE

DISTINGUISH CLEARLY BETWEEN THE LITERARY USE OF LANGUAGE AND THE NON LITERARY USE OF LANGUAGE

 

Literature can be defined as anything in print. Thus timetables, catalogues, text books, etc., may all be regarded as literature.

But when we talk of literature we speak of it in a deeper sense. Thus another way of defining literature is to limit it to ‘great books’, i.e., books which are notable for their literary form or expression. These books are selected on aesthetic grounds or for their intellectual eminence or the general force of presentation.

Unlike most kinds of writing, literature is not concerned merely or primarily with the communication of facts. For instance, one would compare a piece of writing about London from an encyclopedia with a poem ‘Westminster Bridge’ written by Wordsworth. The purpose of the former is to give as many facts about London as possible, whereas, words worth wanted to communicate feelings, not information. Thus, while a piece of writing from the encyclopedia is literature in a broader sense, the poem is literature in the fuller and deeper sense.

We could therefore say that ‘literature is writing which expresses and communicates thoughts, feelings and attitudes towards life’.

But then, one can argue that there are other kinds of writings which also perform the same function, for e.g., advertisements and journals. However, according to R.J.Rees, such writing is not literature in the true sense because it lacks one of the qualities that make serious literature i.e. permanence. The advertisement writer and the journalist is concerned only with people of his own time…

The novelist on the other hand or the poet hopes that his works will be permanent.

One way of understanding literature is by considering its special use of language. Language is the medium, which the writer uses to communicate his/her thoughts and visions. Thus language is a material out of which literature is made, just like stone or metal is a medium of the sculptor, paints of the artist, sounds of the musician. However, we should realize that language is a creation of human beings and thus undergoes changes in the course of time. Writers using language record their experiences of life and what they have thought and felt about those experiences of life which have most immediate and enduring interest for all of us. We can then say that literature is fundamentally an expression of life expressed through the medium of language.

Here we have to distinguish the ‘literary’ use of language mainly from the ‘scientific’ language on one hand and the everyday use of language on the other hand. Literary example is connotative in nature, while scientific language is denotative in nature. Literary language abounds with ambiguities permeated with memories and associations. It has its expressive sides and conveys the tone and attitude of the writer instead of merely stating what it says.  Literary language is self referential and tries to draw attention to itself – all kinds of techniques have been devised to draw attention to it, for e.g., metre, alliteration etc.

Not all linguistic durations are considered as literature. If one says that literature is a special kind of language in contrast with ordinary language, then we must first ask, what is this ordinary language? There is no single normal language shared equally by all members of society. Any language consists of highly complex range of discourses differentiated according to class, religion, gender, status, etc and which cannot be neatly unified into a single homogeneous linguistic community. One person’s norm may be another person’s deviation.

According to De Quincey, all that is literature seeks to communicate power, whereas all that is not literature seeks only to communicate knowledge. Thus De Quincey’s distinctions divided writing into literature which serves a didactic purpose and literature which has no end beyond itself. ‘A poem must not mean but be’. There are texts which exist to state an argument, record facts or convert to an opinion but it is literature of the second class which is ‘real’ literature. It belongs to the domain of fine arts. Poetry, drama and fiction when treated artistically cannot like didactic literature be proved right or wrong. They are subject to their own laws which are apprehended not by decisive reason but by intuition, imagination and esthetic sense. Both kinds of literature may be concerned with truth but they arrive at it in different ways – the first by judgment, and the second by intuition.

According to R. J. Rees, good literature is that which has originality. He says ‘of course no work of art can be original through and through. To find an original subject for example for a novel would be almost impossible task since writers have already dealt in one way or another with almost every imaginable situation, but the novelist may nevertheless see an old idea or story in a new light’. None of Shakespeare’s plays were original in the sense that the stories and characters were created, so to speak, out of nothing. Hamlet and Macbeth were real historical characters, Othello was in all probability a character invented by an Italian novel-writer; but the plays Shakespeare made out of these figures were truly original in the sense that they showed old characters and stories and situations in a new and fascinating light. Most good literature is traditional and original at the same time.

It must be remembered that the central themes of all literature – life, love and death – are in themselves unchanging; so are most of our ideas about these great subjects. Yet writers continue to discover new ways of looking at them and will continue to do so as long as mankind exists. Originality then consists not in inventing themes but in seeing and expressing the old unalterable themes in a new way.

This is also what Pope meant when he said ‘True wit in nature to advantage drest; / what oft was thought, but ne’er so well exprest’.

If there is now a tendency to overvalue originality in literature and the other arts, there is an equal tendency to undervalue the quality of technical skill or craftsmanship. Writing is not only a matter of ideas and inspiration, but also of practice and technique. Pope in his Essay on Criticism says: “True ease in writing comes from art, not Chance; / as those move easiest who have learnt to dance”.

In conclusion, one can only say that it is not possible or desirable to come to a definite conclusion about what literature is. 18^th century critic Boswell asked Dr. Johnson, “Then, sir, what is poetry?” Dr. Johnson replied: ‘Why, sir, it is much easier to say what it is not. We all know what light is, but it is not easy to tell what it is’.

THE PLATO ARISTOTLE DEBATE & DIFFERENT VIEWS ON LITERATURE

PLATO

Plato was an idealist and a moralist.

He was converged with the ultimate truth.

According to him the study of literature should be diverted and controlled by the search for the ultimate truth.

He ignored the concept of beauty and pleasure of literature.

For Plato considered literature a vehicle for philosophical inquiry.

According to Plato there are three mutually dependent principles of literature

1.    Thought is prior to forms

2.    Greatness in art depends on the morality of artist

3.    Art and morals are connected – a work of art has an influence on the moral of people – character of the artist is reflected in his works of art.

According to Plato literature was immoral, untrue and false. In his ideal Republic there was no room for poets and poetry.

He attacked literature declaring it as unreal. Plato takes a common example of a bed and distinguished 3 forms in it. The first is the idea or the archetype. The second is the actual piece of furniture, and the third is the artist’s reproduction. Artist’s work is an imitation of an imitation and is twice removed from reality.

Another charge was that in literature emotional element becomes a detrimental factor in the rational aspect.

Plato believes that the poetic imitation ‘waters and cherishes the passion when they ought to whither and makes them govern when they ought to be kept in subjection in order that we may become better and happier instead of worse and more miserable.

Poetics of Aristotle in which we have perhaps the most fruitful of all critical discussion devoted to inquiry into the nature and value of imaginative literature.

There is, oddly enough no single ward in English that corresponds to the Greek Poesis of the German Ditching, terms which refer to products of the literary imagination and do not include, as the term literature does anything at all that is written.

The poet was possessed creature, not using language in the way that moral human beings do, but speaking in a divinely inspired frenzy Plato suggests this view in the Phaedrus the same man is nowhere at all when he enter into rivalry with the madman’.

He develops this view at greater length in Ion where poet is an inspired rhapsodist through whom God Speaks, a man lacking art and Valition of his own, a passive vehicle merely

The Ion is the most elaborate presentation of the nation of poetry as pure inspiration in the ancient world. The nation has been modified and survives even today.

Dryden wrote: ‘Great wits are sure to madness near alli’d’ (Absalom and Achitophal)

Shakespeare noted: ‘The lunatic the lover and the poet are of imagination all compact’.

Plato mediated much on the war between poet and philosopher, emphasized the difference between these two wholly to the advantage of philosopher.

Plato’s objection to poetry is of an epistemological concern

If true reality consists of the ideas of things of which individual objects are but reflection or imitations, then anyone who imitates those individual objects is imitation an imitation, and so producing something which is still further removed from ultimate reality.

There are three arts which are concerned with all things: one which uses, anther which makes, a third which imitates them.

Artist is ignorant of the use and nature of what he imitates

The imitative poet who aims at being popular is not by nature made, nor is his art intended to please or to effect rational principle in the soul; but he will prefer the passionate and fitful temper which is easily imitated.

Poetry feeds and waters the passions instead of drying them up

Plato opposes the reason to the passions

According to him poetry is the product of an inferior part of the soul

 

ARISTOTLE

Aristotle defended literature against Plato’s charges

According to him literature has neither ethical motive nor moral view points.

Aristotle says that art is a union of your productive and creative faculty as well as reason

His concern is one of discovering what infant literature is rather than the normative one of describing what it should be

Mimesis – imitation or representation

For Aristotle the poet works ‘according to the law of probability or necessity’ not according to some chance observation or random invention.

Imitation is natural for man because we do it from childhood

We learn by imitation that is it is a way of obtaining knowledge being introduced to and learning about the world around us

We delight in imitating and works of imitation and it is natural for us to do so. This imitation combines the twin aspects of learning as well and delight and pleasure.

……..

The function of the poet is representing ‘to describe’ but not necessarily what has happened but what has happened but what is ‘probable’ or ‘necessary’. And in this lies the distinction between the historian and the poet that the former imitates what has been while the latter imitates what might be. It is for this reason that the truth of poetry is ‘more philosophic and of graver import’ than history. Because literature represents the universal while history represents the participation, moreover, even if the poet writes something that seem impossible it is all right as long as it is credible. In fact this is preferable to something that is possible but not very convincing.

The poet can represent things in anyone of these three aspects:

1.    As they were or are

2.    As they are said or quote to be or to have been

3.    As they ought to be

Catharsis

Aristotle assures plato’s notion that art corrupts by nourishing the passion (emotion)

Aristotle replies that far from nourishing the passions, it gives them harmless or even useful purgation

Because of the pressure of emotion it purges one of the excess emotions.

Aristotle, by Katharsis, claims some kind of therapeutic value for tragedy

They provide a safe outlet for disturbing passions which is effectively siphons off

Just as medical treatment cures the physical system of its ‘humans’, poetry affect the moral system of the reader by relieving his excess emotion when emotion is artificially excited in the performance or tragedy. Thus the effect of poetry on the emotion is beneficial and harmful.

Tragedy imitates the actions of men

Aristotle placed art upon the dual function of sense and reason. He distinguished the method of creative literature – literature with or without metre form – the method of history and other branches of learning which are metre transcripts of reality; and so separated the truth of art from the truth of logic.

He showed that the appeal to the emotions which Plato blamed is an essential in the dominant form of poetry and proved by medical analogy and by philosophical analysis that the effects of this appeal was not hurtful but beneficial to the moral nature of man.

The poet, says Aristotle, can make an error of the fact the ‘is not in the essential in the dominant form of poetic art’ and does not affect the poetic truth of his work. He distinguishes clearly between practical knowledge and literal truth on the other, and imaginative understanding and poetic truth on the other.

The purpose of literature is to be moving, exiciting elevating, transporting and the critics duty is to see how this is achieved by showing which element best conduce to this result.

Different views on literature

After Plato and Aristotle perhaps the most famous early comment upon the ails of poetry with respect to its audience is his work called Arts Poetic (Horace 165-68 B.C.). He writes ‘the aim of the poet is to inform her delight of to combine together in what he says both pleasure and applicability to life. He who combines the useful and the pleasing win out both instructing and delighting the readers. Subsequent critics have taken Horace’s cue and attributed to literature the power to teach the reader, delight him; move him and act therapeutically upon him. The other side of the poem is that ever since Plato, there have been attacks upon literature voicing the fear that it teaches things unsuitable to the young or even the middle ages.

One of the earliest assertions about literature is that it teaches the reader or that it sets some sort of example to be followed. For Plato literature set a bad example because of its irrationality and therefore submissive in nature; critics have also altered there assumptions and have praised literature because it is irrational or because it is submissive of the opinions of the establishment and they have attacked some kind of literature because they have too openly tone.

Beyond the moral trend, literature has been considered a conveyer of information – social, psychological, historical, scientific while some critics have insisted on the aesthetic irrelevance of its informational function.

The traditional complaints against poet is made on moral grounds. Plato’s is a classic complaint. He is concerned lest the poet reduce everything to the test of hedonic pleasure and pain: ‘pleasure and pain will be the rulers in our state’. Many writers took Plato’s complaints that poetry aims at pleasure and turned it into praise. From Horace through Longinus to Sydney, critics generally claimed that poetry aims to delight.

On the Sublime (Longinus –AD 80)

‘…The marvelous, with its power to amaze, is always unnecessarily stronger than that which seeks to pursue and to please’. Generally it was not until the 18 century when Longinus became particularly fashionable that ecstasy transcending both delight and teaching was considered a purpose of art.

Sydney ‘An Apology…’

His famous essay speaks to the delight and teach principle Sydney claims that because the poet does delight, he is a more effective teacher that the historian or the philosopher. He claims that even though poetry teachers, it is primarily concerned with moving the passions. The philosopher, he says, cannot move the reader deeply as he did. ‘And that moving is of higher degree than teaching it may by this appears, than it is well-nigh, the cause and effect of teaching. Others have tried to establish the therapeutic nature with reference to psychoanalysis.

Freud (1856-1939) Creative writers and Day Dreaming

The unreality of the writer’s imaginative world, has very important consequence for the techniques of his art: for many things which if they were real could give no enjoyment, can do so in the play of fantasy, and many excitements which in themselves are actually disturbing, can become a source of pleasure for the hearers and spectators at the performance of the writer’s work.

Freud and Literature (Lionel Trilling)

…Starba the same criticism and first mate who struggles to mediate between forces embody in movie day and symbolize a balance and suitable rationalism, that is, ego. Perhaps the most controversial fact of psychoanalytic criticism is his tendency to interpret imagery in terms of sexuality.

Dr. Ernest Jones ‘Hamlet and Oedipus’, Dr Jones bases on the thesis that Hamlet’s much debated delay in killing his uncle Cladius is to be explained in terms of internal rather than external circumstances. Jones builds a highly persuasive case mystery of Hamlet as a psychoanalytic suffering from manic-depressive Hysteria combined with (an abulia an inability to exercise will-power and come to decision) all of which may be traced to the heroes severely repressed Oedipus feelings.  Jones also illustrates a strong misogyny that Hamlet is placed throughout the play especially as it is directed against Ophelia and is almost the conscious ideal of fatherhood, the image that is socially acceptable. His view of Claudius on the other hand represents his repressed hostility towards his father as a rival for his mother’s affection.

Mythological Criticism

Mythological criticism deals with relationship of art to some very deep word in human nature. The mythological criticism is concerned to seek out those mysterious archetype built on the certain literary forms that elicit with almost uncanny force dramatical and universal human reactions.

An obviously close connection exist between mythological criticism and psychological approach. Both are concerned with motives that underline human behavior. The difference between the two approaches are those of biological science. Psychology tends to be speculative and philosophic; its affinities are with religion, anthropology and cultural history. And just as dreams reflect the unconscious desires and anxieties of the individual so myths are the symbolic projections of people’s hopes, values and fears and aspirations. Unlike the traditional critic who relies heavily on history and biography of the writer the myth critic is intellectual more in pre history and the biographies of the god’s. unlike formalistic critics who concentrated upon the shape and chivalry of the work itself the mythological criticism is for the inner spirit which gives the form, its vitality, its enduring of appeal. And unlike the Freudian critics who is apt to see the ‘her chicken’ phenomenon as symbolic of some form of sexual neurosis the myth critic assumes a broader perspective.

This approach is relatively new and purely understood. In the first place only during the present century only have the progress interpretative tools become available through the development of such disciplines as anthropology, psychological and cultural history. Second many scholars and teachers of literature have remained skeptical of myth criticism because of its tendencies towards the cult and the occults.

The rapid advancement of modern anthropology since end of 19 century has been the most important simple influence on the growth of myth critic. The most important member was Sir James G Frazer (The Golden Bough – 1890)

Many scholars theorized that from certain primitive rites (killing of the king for the sacrifice of the kingdom). The tragedies of Sophocles (author of Oedipus) and Aeschylus for example were written to be played during the festival of Diouysis and ceremonies during which the ancient Greek celebrated the deaths of kings and the rebirths of God’s of spring and renewed life.

The Quest Motive: Oedipus as the hero undertakes the journey during which he discovered the spins, a supernatural monster with a body of lion and the head of the woman; by answering the riddle he delivers the kingdom and marries the queen. The second motive was the king as sacrificial scape goat. The war fare of the state both human and natural (themes are stricken by rout) is bound up with the personal fate of the ruler, only after Oedipus has offered himself up as the scape goat is the land redeemed. Such critics are prof. Gilbert Murray has provided up with dues to many of Hamlet’s archetypal mysteries. Francis Ferguson discloses how ‘in both plays a royal sufferer is associated with pollution is its various sources of an entire social order; both plays open with an invocation for the well being of the endangered body politic. In both, the destiny of the individual of society are closely intervened, and in the suffering of royal criticism seems to be necessary before purgation and renewal can be achieved.

The second major influence on mythological criticism is the work of Dr. Carl Jung the great psychologist, philosopher and one time student of Freud. Jung’s primary contribution to mythological criticism is his theory of racial memory and archetypes. He expanded Freud’s theory of the personal unconscious asserting that belief is a primeval collective unconscious shared in the psychic inheritance a wall member of the human family. He explains that archetypes are inherited ideas of patterns of thought, they represent inherited forms of psychic behavior. He indicated that archetypes revealed himself in the dreams of individuals. So that we might say that dreams are ‘personalized myths’ are ‘depersonalized dreams’.

The great artist as Jung observes in ‘Modern Man in Search of a Soul’ is the man who possessed the ‘Primordial vision’. A special sensitivity to archetypal patterns and a gift for speaking in primordial images which enabled him transmit experiences of the ‘inner world’ to the ‘outer world’ through his art form… the primordial experience is the source of his creativeness; it cannot be furthered and therefore requires mythological imagery to give its form.

Myth critics who use lines in sights also use the materials of anthropology. A classic example is Moud Bodkin’s Archetypal Patterns in Poetry (1934) and now recognized as the pioneer work of archetypal criticism. She traces several major archetypal patterns through the great literature of western civilization.

Conclusion: it should be apparent from the foregoing illustrations that mythological criticism offers some unusual opportunities for the enhancement of our literary appreciation and understanding. Considering the vastness and the complexity of mythology, a field of study whose mysteries the anthropologists and psychologists are still working too penetrate, a brief introduction can give the reader a superficial and a fragmentary view. As with psychological approach the reader must take care that is for enthusiasm for a new found interpretative key does not tempt him to discard other valuable critical instruments just as the Freudian critic so the myth critic tends to forget that a literature is a more that a vehicle for archetypes and ritual patterns… he forgets that literature is above all art that discrete crisis with supply even intrinsic perspectives as the mythological and psychological only so far as they enhance the experience of the art form and only as far as the structure and potential meaning of the work consistently support such approaches.

A STEP BY STEP GUIDE TO PRACTICAL CRITICISM | POETRY | DO'S & DON'TS

 

Step 1 – Reading and thinking

Read the poem at least three times before you begin to write anything.

While reading try to detect a ‘tension’ or more simply a ‘contrast’ in the poem (by trying to see what is positive or negative in the poem. E.g., night and darkness vs light and day; mortality vs immortality; age vs youth, etc.).

Try to identify the general behind the particular – by asking yourself what could be the larger issue that underlies and informs the poem. For instance, ‘The Welsh Hill Country’ is not just a description of the countryside. It seems reasonable to suggest that the poet is dealing with the difference between the superficial appearance of things and the grim reality of life. The poet is talking about disease, waste and decay in life.

Step 2 – Starting an essay

Summarize the poem, establish your sense of the central opposition in the poem, set up the controlling idea for the essay as a whole.

Summarize the poem stanza by stanza (one line for each stanza) In the last line of your introductory paragraph merely touch upon the larger issue you have grasped in the poem – You have now got the content out of the way and can concentrate on pointing out the formal choices the poet has made.

Step 3 – The main body of your answer

After your general opening paragraph devote one paragraph to each stanza. The best approach is to pick out particular words and phrases for comment – not every word and detail but a few and really do justice to them.

Step 4 – Sum up your sense of the poem as a whole.

 

Taken from Practical Criticism by Peck and Coyle

SOME DO’S AND DON’TS OF APPLIED CRITICISM

Do:

Read the poem carefully and cautiously – at least three times before you begin to write anything.

Pay attention to how something is being said instead of only what is said – since it is the ‘how’ that conditions the ‘what’. In other words: the form shapes the content.

Be alert to unusual ways of putting things (language) and keep asking yourself the difficult yet rewarding question, why. Your job is to decide on the aptness of the choice that the writer has made.

Use a few technical terms now and then – it can add sophistication and precision to your writing.

Adopt a logical and argumentative style of writing.

Look for tension, conflict or opposition in the poem.

Look for positive images and impression that can be set against negative images and impressions.

Concentrate on the opening lines. You don’t need to sort out the poem as a whole at this stage. You are simply concerned with getting an initial confident hold on the poem.

Try to see the larger issue that lies behind the particular details of the poem; the tension you have spotted should help you identify a larger issue.

Don’ts:

Waste your precious time (and the examiner’s) with lame technical descriptions which fail to say anything about the effectiveness of the work form a critical or aesthetic point of view. E.g., this is a poem which contains fourteen lines.

Use vague emotive terms like ‘poignant’ – they betray a hollowness of response. Also avoid the use of empty superlatives and adjectives which say nothing about the text.

Praise a poem to the skies because you feel you have to. Merely saying fine things will not gain you extra marks. At the same time, shock dismissive tactics will be equally counterproductive.

Try to analyze the whole poem in advance. If you try to do this you are likely to tie yourself up in knots.

At the outset, worry about details you don’t understand in the poem. Such details can be dealt with later.

Don’t get sidetracked. You are analyzing a poem. Concentrate on the effects that are actually taking place in the poem rather than talking about your own life and experiences.

Get over-ingenious. You aren’t searching for hidden meanings in the poem. Stick to the plain sense of the poem and any larger issues that the plain sense suggests.

 

FEMINISM

Feminism broadly means advocacy of the rights of women. There is no single accepted definition and feminism encompasses agitation for political and legal rights, equal opportunities, sexual autonomy, and the right of self-determination; for e.g., abortion, contraception, etc. The feminist movement stemmed from the recognition of the subordination of women from the existence of discrimination and inequality based on sex.

Feminism is a set of ideas linked to a social movement for change. It has never been a single unified movement but is made up of different elements, which may unite behind a single campaign (e.g., Women’s suffrage). Different phases of the feminist movement have gone under different labels: suffragette, women’s emancipation, women’s liberation, women’s movement, feminism, social feminism, radical feminism.

The two main divisions seen in feminism are:

-      The advocacy of the rights of women on the basis of similarity (i.e., Women are human beings like men and therefore ought to be granted equal rights)

-      The advocacy of the rights of women on the basis of difference (i.e., women are different from men, and therefore ought to be granted the right to represent themselves).

Suffragette Movement (1860-1930)

The suffragette movement united women of very different backgrounds. In the context of the struggle for votes, feminism developed with great speed. The campaign for female suffrage was an important landmark: women realized that they could not rely on political parties or the organized labor movement for support and that they would have to fight themselves for equality and justice.

Among the famous feminists who contributed to the growth of the feminist movement mention may be made of Rosa Parks. She became the symbol of feminist movement when she refused to give up her seat in a bus to a white man. She contributed to the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement in America in the 1960s. The Civil Rights Movement inspired women to try to obtain better conditions for themselves through campaigns of mass agitation and social criticism.

EXISTENTIALISM

 Existentialism is a philosophical movement that developed in Continental Europe in the late 1800s and 1900s. The movement was called Existentialism because its philosophers, writers, etc., are primarily concerned with the nature of existence. The root of the philosophy can be found in Soren Kierkegaard (Danish) and Friedrich Nietzsche (German).

Traditionally, philosophy in Europe was considered a science. Therefore, philosophers like Immanuel Kant, Hegel, etc., tried to establish ‘principles of knowledge’ i.e., universal truths.

According to Existentialists there is no universal truth, no ‘ideal’ and no absolute knowledge. Every individual, scientist, researcher, etc., has a limited time. He/she can only find out so much in his/her lifespan. All decisions therefore are based on this limited knowledge. Therefore, there can be no ‘correct’ decision or ‘ideal way’. Every individual must decide what is right and wrong because society cannot provide one standard, correct way. Every society therefore prescribes different advice based on its different standards. Therefore, the individual has to choose which to accept and reject.

Thus, human choice is subjective because each individual has to make his/her own decisions – this means that humans are completely free – but freedom also means complete responsibility for the choices and actions one takes. Accepting this responsibility is difficult and hence freedom is not without its perils. Hence, existentialists say that humans are ‘condemned to be free’.

This freedom and responsibility often leads to anxiety and hence individuals deny their freedom and blame circumstances for their action – this is self-deception. But to live meaningfully, an individual has to be aware of the nature of our existence (freedom) and accept it.

According to existentialists, self-discovery is best learnt/achieved through the study of the most extreme forms of human experience. Hence, topics like death, difficulty of maintaining and forming relationships, futility of life, etc., are recurring themes.

Existentialists consciously involve themselves in social and political issues because of their belief in freedom of choice and responsibility for one’s choices. They also believe religion to be another example of individual exercising their choices.

POST MODERNISM

Post Modernism is the term used to describe literature and art after World War II.

Modernism refers mainly to literature after World War I. the horrors of war made writers question traditional European society. Traditional themes and modes could no longer represent the harsh realities of the post-World War I world. The narrative is fragmented (stream of consciousness) there is a reversal of traditional symbols (Avant-garde) e.g., Eliot.

Post modernism carries this tradition further. The effects of World War II – atomic warfare, holocaust, - are even more traumatic. Therefore, post modernism brings our themes like absurdity of life, uselessness, etc. It also uses humor etc., which can be understood by everybody. Post-modernist writers purposely twist conventional aspects of literature such as the plot, the hero of the story, etc., to show that existence is meaningless or absurd. E.g., Theatre of the Absurd – Samuel Beckett. There is no coherent plot – two tramps, Vladimir and Estragon are waiting for a person called Godot who may or may not exist – ‘Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it’s awful’ – (often funny).

Post-modernist literature is antihero – the hero is portrayed as a pathetic character, ineffective, passive, not powerful, glorious, and brave. E.g., Arthur Miller – The Death of a Salesman.

Post-modernist writers use stream of consciousness as their form of narrative – long passages of introspection, continuous flow of the characters mental process.

GREEK REFERENCES IN LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI

Few Greek references:

Medusa – In Greek mythology she belonged to one of the three winged female monsters. There other two were called the Gorgons, they were called Steno and Erykah. They had snakes for hair and turned all who looked at them to stone. Medusa was alone mortal and was slain by Perseus.

Harpies – A mythical monster with the face of a woman and the body of a vulture. They defiled whatever they touched. Juno (Jupiter’s wife) sent them to deprive the blind Phineas of food.

Sirens – Sea nymphs of classical myth whose sweet singing lured listeners to their doom.

Scylla – Six headed monster who preyed upon sailors.

Lilith – Female night monster. She was a nocturnal wandering demon especially dangerous to children and women in childbirth. She is also known as the seductress of men. It is a sematic name for the beautiful and licentious (person having lose morals), unmarried harlot (prostitute) who seduces men in streets and fields.

ODE: INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY FROM RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD – WILLIAM WORDSWORTH (1717-1850)

 

Wordsworth is sorry for the loss of childhood which he believes was surrounded by innocence and mystery. He could see in nature all around him a celestial quality. He remembers a period of childhood where everything was fresh and beautiful and how he has lost his faculty of seeing beauty and mystery in nature.

Stanza 1 – His dream is of this paradisial state from which he has come. He has lost this ability of seeing things in celestial quality and God in every ordinary thing which he thinks a child still retains.

Stanza 2 – He believes that nature is unchanging in its beauty. There will always be radiance and star look beautiful, but the only thing is that the poet’s perception of it has changed. The glory has disappeared. He appreciates beauty with regard to things in nature, but he cannot see the celestial light.

Stanza 3 – Labor – small drum; one cataract – waterfall. It is spring time. nature is joyful, lively and gay.

Stanza 4 – Coronal – Garland of flowers. The joy that he feels is forced. It does not come naturally or easily to him as it once did when he was a child. The poet feels that there is something wrong with him because he cannot participate wholeheartedly in the joy of nature. (Pansies are associated with thoughts).

Stanza 5 – This forgetting is the place from where we come from i.e., heaven. Soul comes from God. As we grow old, we move away from the light of God to adulthood.

Stanza 6 – Earth is personified as a foster mother and the child is being compensated for what is lost. The earthly pleasures and pursuits all tend to make us forget our former glorious state.

Stanza 7 – The child has earthly parents and they equip the child to face problems of life, worldly events and pursuits occupy man’s time and energies. He soon busies himself in continually imitating the action and pursuits of others and thereby he forgets his heavenly home.

Stanza 8 – The external appearance does not show how immense the soul is and the great potential the soul has.

Stanza 9 – Soul is immense. Child opens peoples’ eyes to reality of God around them. Child’s mind is constantly in touch with God. Man is constantly in search of though with such things. He need not search it. A grown up man’s mind is dark. He does not know the truth. Freight – soul. Frost can cause harm and destruction. Worries of the world almost frost you. Embers – ashes. In the embers there are tiny sparks of light and these bits of light according to Wordsworth are remembrance of our earlier existence in paradise. If a man is in touch with his childhood, he finds some solace or peace. Although Wordsworth is far removed from blessed state of childhood, there is hope yet. A man can always find strength in remembrance of things passed. Memories of the past are a source of infinite happiness. They are reform of all our understanding which nothing can destroy. So it is essentially the remembrance of childhood. This is the essence of poems.

Stanza 10 – He takes pleasure in nature. He does not want to give it up.

Stanza 11 – He appreciates the morning day is still young as the child is young. The clouds that make things mystique and unclear, the clouds rob the light of the day. Clouds of gloom, depression and sadness make the end of life gloomy and sad. Flowers can provoke men to think deep thoughts. Flowers provoke men to facts of death and life.

 

THE LEECH GATHERER – WILLIAM WORDSWORTH – RESOLUTION AND INDEPENDENCE

 

Wordsworth makes a deliberate choice of the most unpoetic occupation and of the most unheroic hero.

Stanza 1 – The poem begins with a spring morning after a storm. The storm had raged all night and left a serene morning. The poet seems to rejoice int eh beauty that he sees around. The song of the birds announces a season of ecstatic love.

Stanza 2 – Wordsworth describes the fertility of nature on the life which springs from sun, rain and earth. This description of the perfect harmony and life of nature leads Wordsworth to consider his own condition.

Stanza 3 – Wordsworth notices a gap between the harmonious joy of nature and man’s own existence.

Stanza 4 – The very excess of joy leads man to a sense of what he has to lose. Man is therefore fearful of the future. This is the parable of the Garden of Eden in which knowledge of good and evil separates man from natural harmony of the animal kingdom and compels him to work and fear in future and this causes him so much anguish and pain.

Stanza 5 – The poet must experience the extremes of both joy and pain. The nature of man’s fear for the future and his exile from the unselfconscious paradise of the hare and the skylark is made clear in these lines.

ODE TO A GRECIAN URN - KEATS

Stanza 1 – The sight of the beautiful Grecian Urn sets the poet’s mind at work. He imagines it as a bride wedded to the spirit of silence, and as a child adopted by the silently, slow moving time, the urn has beautiful pictures carved on its surface. It has been speechless through the ages, only using its pictures to express its meaning and message. It has not been spoilt by the ravages of time. The pictures on the surface of the urn depict the pastoral life of Greece in a better way than is ever possible in poetry. The scenes depicted on the urn are decorated with ornamental leaf work borders. The poet sees various figures carved on the urn and wants to know whether they are of God’s, or men, or both, belonging to the Valley of Temp (Greece) or Arcadia (mountain district of Greece), places associated with ancient Greek pastoral poetry. On another side of the urn the poet sees various figure of men or gods. There are also figures of shy and unwilling maidens, madly pursued by their young lovers, trying heard to free themselves form their impatient embrace. On still another side of the urn there are pictures of merry singers, playing on their musical instruments. The faces of the people indicate that they are enjoying the utmost pleasure and happiness in their woodland revelry. The poet wants to know the real significance of these woodland scenes.

Stanza 2 – Keats says that the music heard by our ears is pleasing no doubt, but the music played by the figures in stone is much more pleasing and delightful, because it appeals to our imagination and soul. It is more lasting and permanent, and it has infinite variety and charm. Every person listening to it in his imagination is impressed by it in its own way. Art has been given permanence to the musicians and the lover though very near to his beloved will never be able to catch hold of her and kiss her. Yet the lover should not be sorrowful because he and his beloved have been made eternal by art.

AESTHETICISM

 The Aesthetic Movement was a European phenomenon which developed during the latter part of the nineteenth century. It started in France. The movement was a reaction to the insistence of society that art must inculcate social and moral values.

French aestheticism was a self-conscious movement. It began with Theophile Gautier, who in defense of his art remarked that art had lacked all utility. The French writers Baudelaire, Flaubert, Mallarme, and many others began to produce literature which was written for its own sake and not for communicating social or moral values. these writers gained the slogan ‘art for art’s sake’.

The Aesthetic Movement developed into a movement called Decadence. This movement carried the ideology of art for art’s sake to the extreme. According to this movement, art was not handmaid to life, but life was handmaid to art. These writers therefore cultivated artifice and preferred elaborate dress to beautify the human body and cosmetics to increase physical charm by artificial means.

They violated natural standard norms of morality and sexual behavior. They become hedonists.

The doctrine of French Aestheticism was introduced into England by the painter, Whistler, in 1880’s. in the 1890’s Walter Pater expounded Aestheticism which was turned into Decadence Movement by writers like Oscar Wilde, Arthur Symons and Ernest Dawson.

Aestheticism was a reaction to the Victorian attitude towards art and literature. The aesthetes opposed Ruskin and Arnold in their views about art. Ruskin who was a great critic of Industrialism had maintained that art through the evocation of beauty, must bring about cheer in the lives of man and art had to be didactic (when it teaches or preaches moral lessons). Arnold on the other hand upheld the view that poetry must be a criticism of life and must deal with the economic and moral problems of life.

Besides, the advocates of this movement were dissatisfied with the utilitarian and materialist creed, skepticism and pessimism generated by the development in physical and natural sciences. They therefore revolted against the standard function of art accepted by the Victorian writers. They maintained that all art should be beautiful. They maintained that all art must be creative and must be judged in relation to cannons of beauty rather than utility or propaganda. What the aesthetes emphasized was the experience itself and not the fruit of the experience. They also encouraged voluptuousness i.e., the love of the sensual and physical pleasures of life. The sounds of words which express the different aspects of experience became the resources of this technique.

Walter Pater is the master of the Aesthetic movement. He taught the precepts of the ideology of ‘art for art’s sake’ with an intellectual and detached zeal. He maintained that the love of art for art’s sake is the highest form of wisdom. He advocated that art must discover and analyze each particular manifestation of beauty. For Pater, the perfection of life lay in seeking experience in the spirit of the artist and in mysterious receptiveness to beauty.

Walter Pater’s aestheticism is an intellectual hedonism. He upheld the view that for the true artist, all social and moral considerations disappear, his chief and only end is a refined intellectual pleasure.

Pater advocated a consciously artistic prose where words were to be chosen with a loving care so as to express clearly and precisely the underlying thought. The entire emphasis of the artist is on the careful selection of words, on the architectural unity and completeness of design, as if the style were everything and the content were of indifferent value.

(In literature, two things are important in analyzing a work – form and content. Form deals with structure and the literary devices a writer might use. So, a poem may be classified as a sonnet, an ode, a ballad, a lyric, etc. Content is the subject matter, so it is important not just what is said but how it is said).

While Pater represented the aesthetic movement in its most earnest phase, Oscar Wilde belonged to fin de siècle (end of the century) period of the aesthetic movement. As the disciple of Walter Pater, he pushed Pater’s Aesthetic creed to the extreme.

He showed his enthusiasm for the movement by going about in flamboyant costumes and sporting the lily and sunflower in his buttonhole. The most notable effect of the aesthetic cult on him was his disregard for conventional morality. His gifts of satirical wit lent his talent superficial character.

Art said Wilde was a necessity of civilized life, but it had nothing to do with morals of art. Art was neither moral nor immoral. It should not imitate life, but life imitate life. For Wilde, therefore, the artist was not merely a man with certain faculties highly developed, but the artist was a being apart from common humanity, different in kind. The artist wrote only to please himself. The artist was a law unto himself.

In poetry, prose and drama, Wilde embodies the spirit of decadence. His writings are far removed from the realities of life and lack emotional depth but are ornately artistic in style. His plays, stores and novel ‘The Picture of Dorian Grey’, are typical of the decadent aestheticism – ingenious, witty, polished and ornamental in style but lacking in human warmth.