CHAPTER 1

PRELIMINARY

A. Background
Literary theory is a reference material to be used as a basis for research or study
activities. The description in this paper is made to compile a framework of thought
about the explanation of the literature that has been described in the previous
chapter.Therefore here the speaker tries to explain the theory of literature in this
paper

B. Formulation of the problem

1. What is the definition of literary?
2. What is the meaning of Mimetic Theory?
3. What is the meaning of Pragmantics Theory?
4. What is the meaning Objective Theory ?
5. What is the meaning of Expressive theory
 CHAPTER II

DISCUSSION

A. Definition of literary
According to Mario Clarer (2004 ; 1) In etymologically, the Latin word “litteratura” is
derived from “littera” (letter), which is the smallest element of alphabetical writing.1
Literature is referred to as written expression, with the limitation that not every writing can
be categorized as literature, because it must meet several criteria in the more precise
meaning of the word. Therefore, to be called a literary work an article must have an
"aesthetic" contained in it or "artistic", to distinguish literary works from ordinary texts or
writings such as telephone books, newspapers, legal documents, and scientific writings.
So the notion of literature is a source of information that can contain writings or films
that meet the ladder as a reference or reference that has aesthetic and artistic value that is
appropriate for the source of information in educational references. Literature is also a
reading that is used for various activities both intellectually and recreation. The difference
between literature and regular reading or writing is on what is contained in the material or
content contained in the literature has adequate proportions and quality as a source of
information that contains knowledge

B. Mimetic Theory
The term of mimetic comes from the Greek word mimesis which means "to imitate",
"imitation", or "embodiment". In general, mimetic can be interpreted as an approach that
sees satra's work as an imitation and imagination of real life2. According to authors :

a) "Literature or art is only a mimetic imitation or reflection of reality." - Plato.

b) "Mimetic is not just an imitation, it is not just a portrait and reality. It has been through
the personal inner awareness of an author." – Aristotele
c) "Mimetic can be interpreted as an approach that examines literary works with reality." –
Ravertz
d) "Mimetic is an approach to literary study that emphasizes his study of the relationship of
literary works with reality outside the work of satra." – Abrams
So,i can conclude that mimetic is theory of literary that a theory which in its method
forms a literary work based on the social life experienced and developed into a literary work.

Mimetic theory to which it states social reality

Cerpen AKU...

YANUSHA NUGROHO

1
Mario Klarer, An Introduction to Literary Studies, (London and New york: Routledge, 2004) second edition page: 1
2
Luxemburg,van dkk.1989.Pengantar Ilmu Sastra.Jakarta :gramedia.p.15
 Home address?"

"Kampung Sawah, RT 03 RW 11, Number 43."

"Here it says 45?"

"Mistyping, sir."

"Who's typing?"

"kelurahan employe, sir."

"Why not protest?"

"I did."

"The proof is still wrong."

"Village, right, always like that."

"Do not blame others, if you are improved, you will improve it."

"Yes, sir. But it's still wrong. "

"You don't argue all the time!"

"No sir. That is reality, sir. "

"Do you want to win alone?"

"No sir."

"How come, are you insistent?"

"..."

From the dialogue snippet above, we can see the fact that at the Kelurahan level there
are still many intentional mistakes made by Kelurahan employees. Although the figure has
protested, but it is still not corrected. Despite this, the author tries to illustrate another
reality, namely the fact that the interrogation officer does that harshly and wants to win
himself. The fact that the officer was always right was evident during the New Order.
Because according to Luxemburg (1986: 17) that literature and art not only recreate sensory
reality, but also create charts (modules) about reality.

C. Pragmantics Theory
The central tendency of the pragmatic critic is to conceive a poem as something made in
order to effect requisite responses in its readers. Achieving persuasion in an audience, and
 most theorists agreed with Cicero that in order to perruade, the orator must conciliate,
inform, and move the minds of his auditors." The great classical exemplar of the application
of the rhetorical point of view to poetry was, of course, the Ars Poetica of Horace. As
Richard McKeon points out, 'Horace's criticism is directed in the main to instruct the poet
how to keep his audience in their seats until the end, how to induce cheers and applause,
how to please a Roman audi- ence, and by the same token, how to please all audiences and
win immortality."
Looking upon a poem as a 'making,' a contrivance for affecting an audi- ence, the typical
pragmatic critic is engrossed with formulating the methods -the 'skill, or Crafte of making' as
Ben Jonson called it-for achieving the effects desired. These methods, traditionally
comprehended under the term poesis, or 'art' (in phrases such as 'the art of poetry'), are
formulated as precepts and rules whose warrant consists either in their being derived from
the qualities of works wbose success and long survival have proved their adaptation to
human nature, or else in their being grounded directly on the paychological laws governing
the responses of men in general. The rules, therefore, are inherent in the qualities of each
excellent work of art, and when excerpted and codified these rules serve equally to guide the
artist in making and the critics in judging any future product. 'Dryden,' said Dr. Johnson,
'may be properly considered as the father of English criticism, as the writer who first taught
us to determine upon principles the merit of come.3
The meaning of the theory explanation above is theories of this mode highlight the
reader’s relation to the work. It continued the observer tradition of grounding knowledge on
practice and stressing the inductive actions of experimental science. Psychological
pragmatism is the one practiced by early aestheticians like Baumgartner and Kant, who
wrote about the "aesthetic emotions." Pragmatic criticism is concerned, first andforemost,
with the ethical impact any literary text has upon an audience. Regardless of art's other
merits or failings, the primaryresponsibility or function of art is social in nature. Assessing,
fulfilling, and shaping the needs, wants, and desires of an audience should be the first task of
an artist. They theorized about the effects of poetic language on the mind, as does Krieger
today. Aside from moral and psychological pragmatism, there is ideological or political
pragmatism: cultural studies-oriented critics focus on gender, race, and class issues. They
inquire into the extent to which works support or undermine particular ideologies. This is
moral criticism with a political bent.
Emphasis on the rules and maxims of an art is native to all criticism that grounds itscelf
in the demands of an audience, and it survives today in the magazines and manuals devoted
to teaching fledgling authors 'how to write stories that sell.' But rulebooks based on the
lowest common denominator of the modern buying public are only gross caricatures of the
complex and subtly rationalized neo-classic ideals of literary craftsmanship. Through the
carly part of the eighteenth century, the poet could rely confidently on the trained taste and

3
M.H. Abrams.20010. The Mirror and thee Lamp: Romantic Theory And Critical Tradition. London:Oxford
University Press. Page 15
 expert connoisseurship of a limited circle of readers, whether these were Horace's Roman
contemporaries under Emperor Augustus, or Vida's at the papal court of Leo X, or Sidney's
fellow-courtiers under Elizabeth, or the London audience of Dryden and Pope; while, in
thcory, the voices even of the best contemporary judges were subordinated to the voice of
the ages. Some neo-classic critics were also certain that the rules of art, though empirically
derived, were ultimately validated by con- forming to that objective structure of norms
whose existence guaranteed the rational order and harmony of the universe. In a strict sense,
as John Dennis made explicit what was often implied, Nature 'is nothing but that Rule and
Order, and Harmony, which we find in the visible Creation'; so 'Poetry, which is an imitation
of Nature,' must demonstrate the same properties.4
In his book The Mirror and The Lamp (1971), Abrams presents his Universe theory.
Through the theory of the Universe, we know that: first, there is a literary work (a work of
art); second, there are creators (authors) of literary works; third, there is a universe (nature)
that underlies the birth of literary works; and fourth, there are connoisseurs of literary works
(readers).
Accordingly, Johnon discriminates those elements in Shakespeare's plays which were
introduced to appeal to the local and passing tastes of the rather barbarour audience of his
own time ('He knew, said Johnson, 'how he should most please)," from those elements
which are proportioned to the tastes of the common readers of all time. And since in works
'appealing wholly to observation and experience, no other test can be applied than length of
duration and continuance of esteem,' Shakespeare's long survival as a poet 'read without any
other reason than the desire for pleasure' is the best evidence for his artistic excellence. The
reason for this survival Johnson explains on the subaidiary principle that 'nothing can please
many, and please long, but just representations of general nature. 5
Pragmatically, aside from being a means of entertainment, the moral messages presented
by art can be used by the audience as contemplation. If literature (art), for example a novel,
is considered as a "model" of human life, no matter how illusory, we can see models or
patterns of life that are good-bad, polite, abusive, immoral, invigorating, annoying or the
like.
Through most of the eighteenth century, the poet's invention and imagination were made
thoroughly dependent for their materials their ideas and 'images-on the external universe and
the literary models the poet had to imitate; while the persistent stress laid on his need for
judgment and art- the mental surrogates, in effect, of the requirements of a cultivated
audience -held the poet strictly responsible to the audience for whose pleasure he exerted his
creative ability. Gradually, however, the stress was shifted more and more to the poet's
natural genius, creative imagination, and emotional spontancity, at the expense of the
opposing attributes of judgment, learning. and artful restraints. As a result the audience

4
M.H. Abrams.20010. The Mirror and thee Lamp: Romantic Theory And Critical Tradition. London:Oxford
University Press. Page 17
5
Ibid.Page 20
 gradually receded into the back- ground, giving place to the poet himself, and his own
mental powers and emotional nceds, as the predominant cause and even the end and test of
art. By this time other developments, which we shall have occasion to talk about later, were
also helping to shift the focus of critical interest from audience to artist and thus to introduce
a new orientation into the theory of art.6
Models of life in both categories can be adopted and developed in us living in a society,
nation and state; on the contrary, we must leave behind the bad things. As a model of life,
novels almost always offer a model of a good life confronted with the ugly, evil.
Towards the end of 19th century, pragmatism became the furthermost vital school of
thought with in American philosophy. It continued the observer tradition of grounding
knowledge on practice and stressing the inductive actions of experimental science. The
Mirror and The Lamp (1971), Abrams. Pragmatic aspects that can be picked from these
works of art are good deeds that will eventually produce good results too, bad deeds will
bear unfavorability, discomfort, and good deeds will defeat evil deeds. Pragmatics connects
the reader with his work.

D. Objective Theory
The fourth coordinate highlights the integrity and ontologically sound status of the work
itself, without immediate reference to audience, poet, or external reality. Formalists practice
this type of criticism.
A term used to describe a kind of criticism that views the aesthetic object as self-ruling
and self-contained. Because a work of art contains its purpose within itself (is, in Eliot's
phrase, autotelic), analysis and assessment of it can take place only with reference to certain
intrinsic standards -- form, coherence, organic unity (the interdependence of parts and
whole)
Objective study of literature appreciates “the work of art in isolation from all external
points of reference, analyzes it as a self-sufficient entity constituted by its parts in their
internal relations, and sets out to judge it solely by criteria intrinsic to its own mode of
being” (Abrams, 1979). This theories assay to hinder from ‘the personal heresy’, ‘the
intentional fallacy’, and ‘the affective fallacy’. Its doctrine in criticizing is ‘art for art’s sake’
(Abrams, 1979).
The objective approach to literary work begins with a full description of it, if it is in the
ground of poetry, it concerns thephysical elements or technical properties. The reader should
try to elucidate the author's methods and meaning in an entirely objective way. It begins
with the presentation of the physical elements of its literary work, about the length, the form,
and etc. which become the basic information of it and proceeds to more complex
information, in this case, the elements of content of the literary work, such as theme, setting,
plot, characters, point of view, and etc.

6
M.H. Abrams.20010. The Mirror and thee Lamp: Romantic Theory And Critical Tradition. London:Oxford
University Press. Page 21
 Culler says that a literary work plays in different modes and has different content than its
literal. A literary work is the creation and organization of signs which produces a human
world charged with meaning (Culler, 1975: 189). This also signifies that readers always find
the meaning of a literary work by comparing it to the real world in order to get the meaning.
This perhaps sounds confusing, but it is the truth. A literary work, or in a broad sense a text,
cannot be separated totally from ‘the property of our conceptual system’ about the reality.
Interpreting therefore tends to be subjective. Thus, this is the importance of literature theory.
Its aim is to make a convention of procedures for every reading so the result of it, the
interpretation, becomes as objective as possible (Teeuw, 1983)
The view of literary works objectively states that literary works (art) are an autonomous
world, which can be released from the creator and the socio-cultural environment of his day.
In this case, literary works can be observed based on their structure.

E. Expressive Theory
Expressive theory is a study of litterature that focuses on the expression of feelings, ideas,
thoughts, dreams and experiencess of the author (Abrams, 1971 : 21-22)7

In my opinion expressive theory which are concerned with the text author relationship.

Meyer (Mike) Howard Abrams (born July 23, 1912) is an American literary critic, known
for works on Romanticism, in particular his book The Mirror and the Lamp. Contribution of
him in the postmodern literary criticism cannot be avoided. As Abrams demonstrates in the
"Orientation of Critical Theories" chapter of his book The Mirror and the Lamp. From Plato
until the late 18th century the artist was thought to play a back-seat role in the creation of
art. At 1800, we begin to see "the displacement of mimetic and pragmatic by the expressive
view of art," a phenomenon due in part to the writings of Longinus, Bacon, Wordsworth,
and, later, the radical Romantics of the 1830s. With this new "expressive view" of art, the
primary duty of the artist was no longer to serve as a mirror reflecting outer things, but
instead to externalize the internal, and make one's "inner life" the primary subject of art. It is
around this time in the early 19th century that the "mirror", which had hitherto been the
conventional symbol for the artist, becomes the "lamp.

This expressive approach places literary works as an outpouring, speech, and projection
of the thoughts and feelings of the author. this approach seeks facts about the special
character and experiences of writers who consciously or unconsciously opened themselves
in this work. Thus conceptually and methodologically it can be seen that the expressive
approach places literary works as:
1. The expression of the author,

7
Abrams M.H, The Mirror and the Lamp, (Oxford University Press: USA, 1971), P 21-22.
 2. The product of the imagination of the author who works with his perceptions, thoughts and
feelings,
3. The product of the author's and social worldview by considering the relations of the text of
his literary work with his biographical data.8

8
Abrams M.H, The Mirror and the Lamp, (Oxford University Press: USA, 1971), P 21-26
 CHAPTER III

CONCLUTION

Literary theory” is the body of ideas and methods we use in the practical reading of
literature. By literary theory we refer not to the meaning of a work of literature but to the theories
that reveal what literature can mean. Literary theory is a description of the underlying principles,
one might say the tools, by which we attempt to understand literature. All literary interpretation
draws on a basis in theory but can serve as a justification for very different kinds of critical
activity. It is literary theory that formulates the relationship between author and work; literary
theory develops the significance of race, class, and gender for literary study, both from the
standpoint of the biography of the author and an analysis of their thematic presence within texts.
Literary theory offers varying approaches for understanding the role of historical context in
interpretation as well as the relevance of linguistic and unconscious elements of the text. Literary
theorists trace the history and evolution of the different genres—narrative, dramatic, lyric—in
addition to the more recent emergence of the novel and the short story, while also investigating
the importance of formal elements of literary structure. Lastly, literary theory in recent years has
sought to explain the degree to which the text is more the product of a culture than an individual
author and in turn how those texts help to create the culture.
 PREFERENCES

Abrams, M.H. 1971. The Mirror on the Lamp. USA: Oxford University Press.

Klarer, Mario. 2004. An Introduction to Literary Studies. London and New Tork : Routledge.

Luxemburg,Van. 1989. Pengantar Sastra. Jakarta: Gramedia