Longinus

 

INTRODUCTION

Longinus, the author of the treatise ‘On The Sublime’ is known as THE FIRST ROMANTIC CRITIC. This is because in his masterpiece, he talks about aesthetic transport and probes the question of sublimity in art. He says that the true aim of literature is to move the reader and to lift them to an emotional transport. He thus, opens new areas for the interpretation of literature.

BACKGROUND

The two chief aims of the poets before Longinus, and even in his times was to instruct and delight.  Their chief goal was to make man wiser and better. But Longinus knew that this alone would not make a great work of art like ILIAD or ODYSSEY. He knew that the epics of Homer, the lyrics of Sappho and Pinder and tragedies of Aeschylus and Sophocles were great because of their sublimity. That is their ability to take the readers on an AESTHETIC TRANSPORT, made them great as he himself asserts,

“For a work of genius does not aim at persuasion but ecstasy or lifting the reader out of himself.”

WHAT IS SUBLIME?

According to Longinus Sublime means eminence of expression which pleases, excites and transports the reader out of themselves to a divine land.  He believed that a great work of art is one which pleases all and pleases every time. Such a work lifts the reader to an exalted world which is formerly unknown to him. According to Longinus,

“Sublimity, flashing forth at the right moment, scatters everything before it like a thunderbolt and at once displays the power of an orator, in all its plentitude.”

HINDRANCES OF SUBLIMITY

•      Turgidity

•      Puerility

•      Cheap display of Passions

Turgidity

According to Longinus, turgidity is unpardonable in tragedy. It means timidity of bombast of language, which is as great an evil as swelling in the body. Certain writers help writing about a passion or a particular emotion in a bombastic language, without having strength and sense in reality.

Puerility

The second vice of the sublime is puerility. This means the use of language is not able to produce the desired effect and creates disinterestedness in the audience.

Cheap Display of Passions

The third vice is the cheap display of passion. That is when the emotions are more than the demand of the audience then they tend to be.

SOURCES OF SUBLIMITY

• GRANDEUR OF THOUGHT
• CAPACITY FOR STRONG EMOTION
• APPROPRIATE USE OF THE FIGURES OF SPEECH.
• NOBILITY OF DICTION

·         DIGNITY OF COMPOSITION

 

NATURAL SOURCES OF SUBLIMITY

•      GRANDEUR OF THOUGHT

•      CAPACITY FOR STRONG EMOTION

GRANDEUR OF THOUGHT

Of all sources of sublimity Longinus places the natural sources that is, the grandeur of thought and capacity for strong emotions at the top.  Commenting on the first source of sublimity, Longinus says that desire for the noble or sublime thought is inborn or natural. But then these thoughts can  not be produced by a person who is mean or servile. Nobility of mind is necessary for producing great literature, Longinus says,

“Their words are full of sublimity whose thoughts are full of majesty.”

Moreover, he also says that one has to study the works of other great writers. Thus, a true artist is noble in thought, well read, sincere to himself and sincere to his ideas.

 

 

CAPACITY FOR STRONG EMOTIONS

The second source of sublimity is the capacity for strong emotions. Longinus believes that only an artist who is intoxicated by passions and imagination can transfer the same passion in his readers. This way he can arouse in them an emotional transport.

TECHNICAL SOURCES OF SUBLIMITY

•      APPROPRIATE USE OF THE FIGURES OF SPEECH.

•      NOBILITY OF DICTION

•      DIGNITY OF COMPOSITION

APPROPRIATE USE OF THE FIGURES OF SPEECH

Longinus knew that the technical sources of sublimity are not mere ornaments. They appeal to our passions and provide us a pleasant surprise. Therefore Longinus calls the appropriate use of the figures of speech as the third source of sublimity. He believes that figures of speech adds grandeur to the work. They should however be used with definite purpose and not artificially imposed. Proper use of the figures of speech appeals to our passions. He says that,

“Art is perfect, when it seems to be nature.”

NOBILITY OF DICTION

Longinus calls correct diction the forth source of sublimity. He believes that suitable words have a moving effect upon the readers and this leads to sublimity. The diction should change as situation and characters change. With proper diction a reader experiences in idea emotionally. He says that the proper use of metaphor contributes a great deal of leading the audience to sublimity.

DIGNITY OF COMPOSITION

Finally Longinus comes to the fifth and final source of sublimity. This is the combination of all the previous sources. It emphasizes on the dignity of composition, that is proper arrangement of words. It combines thought, emotion, figures and words into an organic whole. Such a combination can please, instruct, persuade and also set the reader’s heart on to an emotional transport.

CONCLUSION

Thus, in this way Longinus gives a new direction to Western literary criticism. He makes a happy compromise between the romantic and classical approach. He concludes that the ultimate function of a work of art is to be sublime. Great literature opens new frontiers, new dimensions to the reader and transports them to a divine land.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aristotle

 

INTRODUCTION:

Aristotle, the illustrious disciple of Plato, is according to R. A  Scott James The law giver and absolute monarch to the poets and critics. While Eliot calls him,

“Of universal intelligence displayed an intellect of incredible versatility, Aristotle, an ontological critic, is the worthiest disciple of Plato.”

Aristotle is one of the greatest and most influential philosophers- critics of the world; and his magnum opus, the Poetics is possibly the most famous treatise in Western literary criticism. As Atkins has said,

“The miracle of ‘The Poetics’ is that it contains so much that is of permanence universal interest.”

In this critical book Aristotle cleverly defended poetry from the charges made by Plato He reinterpreted doctrines made by Plato and gave fresh meanings and views on dramatic art. He took tragedy as the most representative form of art. For him tragedy was a grand type of forms of all arts.

HIS OBSERVATIONS ON POETRY:

Aristotle opens The Poetics by defining poetry as Mimesis or Imitation. Aristotle had taken the terms from his teacher Plato.  According to Aristotle imitation is a creative process. In it, the poet draws the material from the phenomenal world. In this way, poet, instead of coping makes something new out of it.

·         IMITATION( The common base of all arts)

In Aristotle views, it is the principle of imitation, which unifies poetry with other fine arts. Imitation is the common base of all arts.

·         IMITATION(Medium and manner)

In the very first chapter of THE POETICS, points out how poetry and other arts differ from one another. He gives the difference considering the medium and manner. Thus, the medium of poet and the painter is different. The poet imitates through language, rhythm and harmony of words while the other imitates through form and colours.

·         Nature and Object of Poetic Imitation:

As regarded to the object of imitation, Aristotle says that the object of poetic imitation is to imitate man in action. The post imitates men not as they are but as they ought to be. According to his theory of imitation.

 Imitation is not a mere photographic representation.

According to Aristotle, imitation means a creation of something , according the idea. He says that an artist imitates because he gets pleasure in imitation. Here Aristotle differs from Plato’s aim of poetry that ‘To teach’. In brief the poet imitates the reality and reconstructs it with his imagination. Therefore imitation is highly necessary for the creation of literary art.

·         SCOPE OF IMITATION:

The object of imitation is the man in action. The action may be internal or external. The poet’s such human experiences emotions and passions are depicted in poetry which can happen in every man. So, the scope of imitation is endless. In this way, Aristotle gives a complete interpretation of the entire nation of imitation and then he comes to tragedy.

THE DEFINITION OF TRAGEDY:

Aristotle’s definition of tragedy in Prof. Butcher’s rendering is as follows:

“Tragedy then is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete and of a certain magnitude, in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornaments, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play; in the form of action not of narrative, through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions.”

According to Aristotle the first most important aspect of a tragedy is imitation. Tragedy imitates ‘actions’. He says,

“Tragedy is not an imitation of persons, that is to say, of what people have in them… but of action and of life and life consists of action.”

The good and serious action include all human actions, or activities like deeds, thoughts and feelings. The action should be serious enough to arouse the emotions of pity and fear.  It should be ‘complete’. That is it should have a beginning, a middle which logically follows the beginning and the middle. The action for the plot of a tragedy should be of a ‘certain magnitude’. By this Aristotle means that it should not be very large or very small. It should be of such a size that it can show the hero passing through certain stages from misfortune to happiness or from happiness to misfortune.

However, the author should keep in mind the limitations of human memory. Aristotle then comments on diction and language of plot. He believes that the language should be artistic and appropriate throughout the play. He places special emphasis on the use of metaphors. Aristotle then reminds us that tragedy is meant to be enacted on stage and hence emphasis should be on action rather than narration.

According to Aristotle, the function of a tragedy is to arouse the emotion of pity and fear, and in this way to affect the ‘Catharsis’ of these emotions. ‘Catharsis’ is on Greek means purgation. Thus the emotions of pity and fear are purged and the audience gains emotional health. So, the purpose of imitation is to bring out the purgation of excess emotions of us.

CONSTITUENT PARTS OF TRAGEDY:

Having examined a complete definition of tragedy, Aristotle shows its formative or constitutional parts, which are as under

•      Plot

•      Character

•      Thought

•      Diction

•      Melody, music, song

•      Spectacle

PLOT:

According to Aristotle, The first essential, the life and soul, so to speak of tragedy, Is plot. He defines it as,  The combination of the incidents or things done in the story. Aristotle says that plot is superior to all other parts. Aristotle insists on the magnitude of the plot. In a good plot the action must be shown convincing and credible. According to Aristotle there are three kinds of plot Episodic, simple and complex. And he considers complex plot as the best for tragedy.

CHARACTER:

As regarding to the character Aristotle lays down on four essential qualities. The character must be good but not thoroughly good or not thoroughly bad. The character must be appropriate to the action and the story of tragedy. The character must have life- likeness. The character must have consistency.

THOUGHT:

Thought is the intellectual want in a tragedy. It is expressed through the speech of character. Tragic dramatists present his views on life through the mouth of tragic character. In this way thought conveys the character’s error and mental development.

DICTION:

According to Aristotle,

It is diction, which distinguishes a good writer from the ordinary writer.

Diction should be embellished and of the higher level, the poet should use artistic ornaments, such as symbols, metaphors, images, and figures of speeches etc. Moreover it should be simple without being cheap and grand without being complex.

SONG AND MELODY:

It is the musical aspect of tragedy. He values ‘spectacle’ very low for which David Daiches points out the reason,

“Because Aristotle is concerned with essential meaning and value of a play not with techniques of getting that meaning and value across to an audience.”

CONCEPT OF TRAGIC HERO:

The emotions of pity and fear is possible only when the tragic hero is an appropriate person. Aristotle says, Pity is occasioned by undeserved misfortune and fear by that of one like ourselves. According to Aristotle, a tragic hero should not be a virtuous man who is lowered from prosperity to bad fortune. He should not be an impious man who is punished for his wickedness. The real tragedy which arouses the emotions of pity and fear in the spectator is possible when the hero is not exceedingly pious. However, the hero should not posses any vice or depravity. He comes to disaster because of some minor fault of his own. This fault is called ‘hamartia’ or ‘tragic flow’.

CONCLUSION:

Therefore, for Aristotle, the father of Western principles of literary criticism the grand type of all arts and imitation is not something which is false and by which the poets cheats us. It is something more than reality and the poet is a creator, not a culprit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Plato

 

 

INTRODUCTION:

Plato, the celebrated disciple of Socrates, lived between 427-347 B.C. Plato’s works are the earliest example of literary criticism. His writings began the arguments for and against the merits of poetry. Plato was not a professed critic of literature and his critical observations are not embodied in any single work. His interest was philosophical investigation, which forms the subject of his great work ‘Dialogues’. His utterances on literature which occur during the course of philosophic al discussion in several of his dialogues particularly in ‘Ion’, ‘Cratylus’, ‘Laws’, Philebus’, ‘Republic’ etc. They are no more than scattered references in a bigger context, the profundity of their thoughts makes them a very important contribution, the first of its kind to the art of criticism. Atkins has rightly said,

“In the suggestive and stimulating quality of his writings he remains unsurpassed.”

REASONS FOR PLATO’S OBJECTION AGAINST POETRY:

Plato is the rationalist devoted to the proposition that reason must be followed whatever it leads. Thus the care of Plato’s philosophy, resting upon a foundation of external Ideas or Forms, is a rationalistic ethics.

In his Republic Plato expresses his distrust for poetry. He was primarily concerned to construct an ideal state and ideal citizens who would be a part of this state. In order to create a good society, he makes everything including are subservient to morality. He examines the effect of literature on public life and tries to analyze the role it would play in moulding the life of the citizens of his ideal state. His analysis leads him to the conclusion that the guardians of the Republiic Inspic should send the poets and poetry to permanent exile. He criticized poetry on four grounds.

1.     Poetic Inspiration

2.     It does not deal with reality

3.     It is immoral

4.     The emotional appeal of poetry

 

PLATO’S CHARGES AGAINST POETRY

 

 

POETIC INSPIRATION:

Plato disapproves of poetry because according to him the poet writes not because he has thought over what he has to say but because he is inspired. The Muse suddenly fills him and makes him sing. And such a sudden outpouring of the soul can not be a reliable substitute for truths based on reason. Guided chiefly by the impluse of the moment instead of cool deliberation, like philosophy, it can not be relied upon to make the individual a better citizen and the state a better organization. So Plato says,

“….Hyms to the god, panegyrics on famous men are the only poetry which ought to admitted in our state.”

IT DOES NOT DEAL WITH REALITY

Plato, the philosopher disapproves of poetry because it is based on falsehood. He believes that all arts make an attempt at emulating the ultimate reality. In the ‘Republic’ Plato says that ideas are the ultimate reality. Things are conceived as ideas before they take practical shape as tings. The idea of everything therefore, is its original pattern, and the thing itself its copy. As the copy ever falls short of the original, it is once removed from the reality. Now art- literature, painting, sculpture- reproduces but things, the first in words, the next in color, and the last in stone. So it merely copies a copy, it is twice removed from reality.

Plato gives the theory of mimesis. According to this theory poetry is twice removed from truth.To explain it he gives very famous example of carpenter’s chair. In ‘The Republic’ Plato says that “ideas are the ultimate reality”. Carpenter first gets an idea to make a chair, then he shapes a chair(it is imitation of idea), then a painter draws that chair(it is imitation of imitation), then a poet with his idea writes a poem on the painting.

 

Like the example of carpenter's chair there is another example of mimesis.                                       That first God imagined nature and the universe in his mind(ultimate reality), Then he created it(imitation of an idea), then what a poet does? he writes a poem on nature which becomes imitation of an imitation. According to Plato when such imitation takes place something is lost from original. And then Plato says:

        "The imitator or maker of the image knows nothing of true existence ; he knows appearance only...The imitative art is an inferior who marries an inferior and has inferior offspring."

Plato was not willing to accommodate anything but the ultimate truth in his ideal Republic. So, according to him the production of art take men away from reality rather then towards it.

IT IS IMMORAL:

Plato indicts poetry for its lack of concern with morality. In the treatment of life it  treats both virtue and vice alike, sometimes making the one and sometimes the other triumph indifferently, without regard for moral consideration. It pained Plato to see virtue often coming to grief in the literature, esteemed in his day- the epics of Homer, the narrative verse of Heroid, the odes of Pinder and the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. In his words from the Republic.

“They give us to understand that many evil livers are happy and many righteous men unhappy: and that wrong-doing, if it be undetected, is profitable, while honest dealing is beneficial to one’s neighbour, but damaging to one’s self.”

However he found that poetry showed God to be lustful and revengeful and it painted a hero like Achilles as vengeful and bad tempered. The poets who portrayed the very icons whom the people emulate as degraded and corrupt were not accepted to Plato. Homer and other tragedians and comedians taught immorality and imitated unworthy objects and were therefore not fit to live in his ideal republic.

THE EMOTIONAL APPEAL OF POETRY

Plato’s last charge against poetry arises from its appeal to the emotions. Being a product of inspiration, it affects the emotions rather than reason, the heart rather than the intellectual. Plato illustrates this with reference to the tragic poetry of his age, in which weeping and wailing were indulged to the full to move the hearts of the spectators.

In the Republic he says that,

“If we let our own sense of pity grow strong by feeding upon the grieves of others, it is not easy to restrain it in the case of our own sufferings.”

So Plato believes that poetry makes one weak by placing emphasis on emotions rather than reason. Reason is the best guide as we act with cool and logically when under the influence of reason. According to Plato.

“Poetry feeds and waters the passion instead of drying them up and lets them rule instead of ruling them.”

CONCLUSION:

Atkins has rightly said about Plato,

“It is as a pioneer in literary theory that he figures mainly in the critical development; with him begins the larger and more philosophical criticism which aimed at viewing literature, in relation to life and at arriving , if possible, at the innermost laws of its being.”

 

So, Plato has given us some important startling points which can be listed as follows,

He has shown us that arts are imitative and that the poet imitates life. He told that this imitation gives pleasure.

He made an important contribution by suggesting that the art of a poet or a painter is less than reality. He thereby prepared a ground for Aristotle to prove that it was also something more than reality.

He understood this hidden links between the different forms of art. He understood that all arts are based on life, are mimetic and offer pleasure even though the medium of expression differs.

Plato’s contribution to the critical art, thus, is considerable. Scattered in fragments though it might be, all together read like a systematic tratise on the art of writing. Atkins has correctly gives credit to him by saying

“With him literary theory really begins, he set men thinking…it was in this way he made later criticism possible.”