literary criticism

literary criticism, the reasoned consideration of literary works and issues. It applies, as a
term, to any argumentation about literature, whether or not specific works are
analyzed. Platos cautions against the risky consequences of poetic inspiration in general in
his Republic are thus often taken as the earliest important example of literary criticism. More
strictly construed, the term coers only what has been called !practical criticism," the
interpretation of meaning and the #udgment of quality. $riticism in this narrow sense can be
distinguished not only from aesthetics %the philosophy of artistic alue& but also from other
matters that may concern the student of literature' biographical questions, bibliography,
historical knowledge, sources and influences, and problems of method. (hus, especially in
academic studies, !criticism" is often considered to be separate from !scholarship." In
practice, howeer, this distinction often proes artificial, and een the most single)minded
concentration on a text may be informed by outside knowledge, while many notable works of
criticism combine discussion of texts with broad arguments about the nature of literature and
the principles of assessing it.
$riticism will here be taken to coer all phases of literary understanding, though the
emphasis will be on the ealuation of literary works and of their authors places in literary
history. *or another particular aspect of literary criticism, see textual criticism.
Functions
(he functions of literary criticism ary widely, ranging from the reiewing of books as they
are published to systematic theoretical discussion. (hough reiews may sometimes determine
whether a gien book will be widely sold, many works succeed commercially despite
negatie reiews, and many classic works, including +erman Melilles Moby Dick%,-.,&,
hae acquired appreciatie publics long after being unfaourably reiewed and at first
neglected. /ne of criticisms principal functions is to express the shifts in sensibility that
make such realuations possible. (he minimal condition for such a new appraisal is, of
course, that the original text surie. (he literary critic is sometimes cast in the role of
scholarly detectie, unearthing, authenticating, and editing unknown manuscripts. (hus, een
rarefied scholarly skills may be put to criticisms most elementary use, the bringing of literary
works to a publics attention.
(he ariety of criticisms functions is reflected in the range of publications in which it
appears. $riticism in the daily press rarely displays sustained acts of analysis and may
sometimes do little more than summarize a publishers claims for a books interest. 0eekly
and biweekly magazines sere to introduce new books but are often more discriminating in
their #udgments, and some of these magazines, such as The %1ondon&Times Literary
Supplement and The New York Review of Books, are far from indulgent toward popular
works. 2ustained criticism can also be found in monthlies and quarterlies with a broad
circulation, in !little magazines" for specialized audiences, and in scholarly #ournals and
books.
3ecause critics often try to be lawgiers, declaring which works desere respect and
presuming to say what they are !really" about, criticism is a perennial target of resentment.
Misguided or malicious critics can discourage an author who has been feeling his way toward
a new mode that offends receied taste. Pedantic critics can obstruct a serious engagement
with literature by deflecting attention toward inessential matters. 4s the *rench philosopher)
critic 5ean)Paul 2artre obsered, the critic may announce that *rench thought is a perpetual
colloquy between Pascal and Montaigne not in order to make those thinkers more alie but to
make thinkers of his own time more dead. $riticism can antagonize authors een when it
performs its function well. 4uthors who regard literature as needing no adocates or
inestigators are less than grateful when told that their works possess unintended meaning or
are imitatie or incomplete.
0hat such authors may tend to forget is that their works, once published, belong to them only
in a legal sense. (he true owner of their works is the public, which will appropriate them for
its own concerns regardless of the critic. (he critics responsibility is not to the authors self)
esteem but to the public and to his own standards of #udgment, which are usually more
exacting than the publics. 5ustification for his role rests on the premise that literary works are
not in fact self)explanatory. 4 critic is socially useful to the extent that society wants, and
receies, a fuller understanding of literature than it could hae achieed without him. In
filling this appetite, the critic whets it further, helping to create a public that cares about
artistic quality. 0ithout sensing the presence of such a public, an author may either prostitute
his talent or squander it in sterile acts of defiance. In this sense, the critic is not a parasite but,
potentially, someone who is responsible in part for the existence of good writing in his own
time and afterward.
4lthough some critics beliee that literature should be discussed in isolation from other
matters, criticism usually seems to be openly or coertly inoled with social and political
debate. 2ince literature itself is often partisan, is always rooted to some degree in local
circumstances, and has a way of calling forth affirmations of ultimate alues, it is not
surprising that the finest critics hae neer paid much attention to the alleged boundaries
between criticism and other types of discourse. 6specially in modern 6urope, literary
criticism has occupied a central place in debate about cultural and political issues. 2artres
own What s Literature! %,789& is typical in its wide)ranging attempt to prescribe the literary
intellectuals ideal relation to the deelopment of his society and to literature as a
manifestation of human freedom. 2imilarly, some prominent 4merican critics,
including4lfred :azin, 1ionel (rilling, :enneth 3urke, Philip ;ah, and Iring +owe, began
as political radicals in the ,7<=s and sharpened their concern for literature on the dilemmas
and disillusionments of that era. (rillings influential The Liberal ma"ination %,7.=& is
simultaneously a collection of literary essays and an attempt to reconcile the claims of
politics and art.
2uch a reconciliation is bound to be tentatie and problematic if the critic beliees, as (rilling
does, that literature possesses an independent alue and a deeper faithfulness to reality than is
contained in any political formula. In Marxist states, howeer, literature has usually been
considered a means to social ends and, therefore, criticism has been cast in forthrightly
partisan terms. >ialectical materialism does not necessarily turn the critic into a mere
guardian of party doctrine, but it does forbid him to treat literature as a cause in itself, apart
from the working classs needs as interpreted by the party. 0here this utilitarian iew
preails, the function of criticism is taken to be continuous with that of the state itself,
namely, furtherance of the social reolution. (he critics main obligation is not to his texts but
rather to the masses of people whose consciousness must be adanced in the designated
direction. In periods of seere orthodoxy, the practice of literary criticism has not always
been distinguishable from that of censorship.
#istorical $evelopment
Antiquity
4lthough almost all of the criticism eer written dates from the ?=th century, questions first
posed by Plato and 4ristotle are still of prime concern, and eery critic who has attempted to
#ustify the social alue of literature has had to come to terms with the opposing argument
made by Plato in The Republic. (he poet as a man and poetry as a form of statement both
seemed untrustworthy to Plato, who depicted the physical world as an imperfect copy of
transcendent ideas and poetry as a mere copy of the copy. (hus, literature could only mislead
the seeker of truth. Plato credited the poet with diine inspiration, but this, too, was cause for
worry@ a man possessed by such madness would subert the interests of a rational polity.
Poets were therefore to be banished from the hypothetical republic.
In his %oeticsAstill the most respected of all discussions of literatureA4ristotle countered
Platos indictment by stressing what is normal and useful about literary art. (he tragic poet is
not so much diinely inspired as he is motiated by a uniersal human need to imitate, and
what he imitates is not something like a bed %Platos example& but a noble action. 2uch
imitation presumably has a ciilizing alue for those who empathize with it. (ragedydoes
arouse emotions of pity and terror in its audience, but these emotions are purged in the
process %katharsis&. In this fashion 4ristotle succeeded in portraying literature as satisfying
and regulating human passions instead of inflaming them.
4lthough Plato and 4ristotle are regarded as antagonists, the narrowness of their
disagreement is noteworthy. 3oth maintain that poetry is mimetic, both treat the arousing of
emotion in the perceier, and both feel that poetry takes its #ustification, if any, from its
serice to the state. It was obious to both men that poets wielded great power oer others.
Bnlike many modern critics who hae tried to show that poetry is more than a pastime,
4ristotle had to offer reassurance that it was not socially explosie.
4ristotles practical contribution to criticism, as opposed to his ethical defense of literature,
lies in his inductie treatment of the elements and kinds of poetry. Poetic modes are identified
according to their means of imitation, the actions they imitate, the manner of imitation, and
its effects. (hese distinctions assist the critic in #udging each mode according to its proper
ends instead of regarding beauty as a fixed entity. (he ends oftragedy, as 4ristotle conceied
them, are best sered by the harmonious disposition of six elements' plot, character, diction,
thought, spectacle, and song. (hanks to 4ristotles insight into uniersal aspects of audience
psychology, many of his dicta hae proed to be adaptable to genres deeloped long after his
time.
1ater Creek and ;oman criticism offers no parallel to 4ristotles originality. Much ancient
criticism, such as that of $icero, +orace, and Duintilian in ;ome, was absorbed in technical
rules of exegesis and adice to aspiring rhetoricians. +oraces erse epistle The &rt of
%oetry is an urbane amplification of 4ristotles emphasis on the decorum or internal propriety
of each genre, now including lyric, pastoral, satire, elegy, and epigram, as well as 4ristotles
epic, tragedy, and comedy. (his work was later to be prized by Eeoclassicists of the ,9th
century not only for its rules but also for its humour, common sense, and appeal to educated
taste. 'n the Sublime, by the ;oman)Creek known as !1onginus," was to become influential
in the ,-th century but for a contrary reason' when decorum began to lose its sway
encouragement could be found in 1onginus for arousing eleated and ecstatic feeling in the
reader. +orace and 1onginus deeloped, respectiely, the rhetorical and the affectie sides of
4ristotles thought, but 1onginus effectiely reersed the 4ristotelian concern with regulation
of the passions.