The Old Orthodoxy

The old Orthodoxy, as stated in the first lecture, extends from Plato to the 1960s, the end
of the Anglo-American New Criticism. It includes, in addition to Plato himself, most of the
major critics such as Aristotle, Horace, Longinus, Sidney, Dryden, Johnson, Wordsworth,
and the New Critics. In spite of their differences, they share a lot of common
denominators. These common denominators constitute what is called the Old
Orthodoxy. What are they? (The answer is in this lecture. Look for it!)

The Old orthodoxy defines literature as an ARTIST who sends a WORK OF ART
to the AUDIENCE about the UNIVERSE. This definition, as you see, consists of FOUR
elements. The problem is that they do not mean what we think they mean. They have a
special signification. For instance, the Old Orthodoxy uses the term ARTIST not AUTHOR
or WRITER. The justification is that the artist is not an ordinary person. He is not someone
who borrows ideas, or copies concepts or takes from others. He is a unique individual
with a unique capacity and unique imagination. He creates, invents and initiates. He is a
creator, a maker, initiator, a reformer, a savior, and almost a vates. What he creates is
his own, with his own voice, his own style, his own vision and his own poetics. He is a
man above men. He can teach. He can preach and he can entertain. For example,
Aristotle considers the artist not only as a plot maker but as therapeutist. He does not
write about what happened but about what might happen. For Sidney, the artist is a moral
teacher and a creator of an alternative golden world. Even for Plato before them, the poet
is an inspired person.

This is why what the artist creates is called a WORK OF ART, NOT A TEXT OR
an ordinary piece of writing. It is a superior work by a superior maker. It is different and
unique. It is masterpiece or a classic. There is a lot of art, a lot of craft and industry in it.
To study a work of art is to study its specificity, its distinction and its uniqueness and its
purity. Purity means originality. Everything in it is new. Nothing is deja vu.

It is obvious that that the two terms above have similar connotations: The
individuality of the artist means the individuality of the work of art. The superiority of the
artist necessitates the superiority of the work of art. More importantly, the specificity of
the maker engenders the specificity of what he or she makes. (We must remember that
these ideas belong to the Old Orthodoxy and not to the New Orthodoxy.)

No wonder, if the artist and his work are superior, the target is going to be inferior.
The Old Orthodoxy calls the addressees the “AUDIENCE” not the READERS. They are
mere receivers. They do not negotiate, criticize or evaluate. Their role is only to take what
is given to them. The artist is the SUBJECT and the audience are the OBJECT. He
teaches them, instructs them and entertains them. This is why the “audience” are usually
mentioned in the passive voice. They are there to be instructed, to be taught and to be
entertained. (This hierarchy, higher and lower, is to be completely reversed in the New
Orthodoxy.)

The last element in the definition is the UNIVERSE. Literature in the Old Orthodoxy
is by and large extrinsic not intrinsic and transitive not intransitive. It is not autonomous.
It is usually about something. The Old Orthodoxy relegates literature to a second-class
status. It does not have its value from something inside it but from something outside it.
The centre of the circle, so to speak, is outside the circle not inside it. Plato judges
literature in terms of its impact on the people in his Republic. Sidney confirms that poetry
is a moral teacher. Dryden, as you know, defines the play as an image of human nature
and so on. It is not an autonomous, self-contained image. It is an image of something.
The context is more important than the text. (This concept will also categorically change
in the New Orthodoxy.)

CHRONOLOGY (OR THE TIMELINE) OF LITERARY CRITICISM

As mentioned above, the definition literature in the Old Orthodoxy consists of

FOUR elements which give birth to FOUR critical approaches. The focus on each one of
them engenders a special kind of criticism. The focus on the ARTIST creates
EXPRESSIVE criticism. The focus on the WORK OF ART is called OBJECTIVE criticism.
The orientation towards the AUDIENCE generates PRAGMATIC criticism. Finally,
prioritizing the UNIVERSE is the genesis of MIMETIC criticism.

However, the above order is rather misleading because in reality or the timeline is
different. The earliest or the oldest among the four approaches is MIMETIC criticism. In
other words, the first criticism was mimetic. According to this school, literature is
considered a process of imitation, reflection or mirroring. It is simply a recording,
replication or registering reality. It is the literature of “what is” or what “was”. The problem
is that most Old Orthodoxy critics use the term IMITATION or MIMESIS but not in the
same way. It is the same concept but with different conceptualization. For example,
Aristotle’s imitation is exactly the opposite of Plato’s imitation. More importantly, the use
of the same term by Sidney is categorically different from both of them. (What are the
differences? (As you know, you must find the answer on your own.)

The second orientation, chronologically speaking, is the PRAGMATIC approach,

which is usually summarized by the two functions: To instruct and to entertain. This
pragmatism is reiterated by Horace, Longinus, Sidney, Dryden and others. But students
of literature do not take this for granted. They ask questions which problematize
pragmatism. Who is going to do the teaching? Whom is he going to teach? Which lessons
are to be taught? Who is going to benefit from this teaching and preaching? Cui Bono?
This is the seismic question which unmasks the hidden agendas and the covert
ideologies. Nothing is innocent. Teaching and preaching are always political.

Pragmatic literature is didactic. The message is more important than the language.
The content is more essential then the form. The subject overrides the style and the
matter outweighs the manner. The artist is homo seriosus NOT homo rhetoricus. The
impact on art itself is devastating. The work of art must look almost artless. The message
must seem almost languageless so that the meaning or the content will become easily
accessible, readable and comprehensible. (There is a great difference between the
languageless message and the messageless language. What is this difference? The
answer is yours.)

The third orientation in the timeline is the EXPRESSIVE criticism. The focus here
is on the artist himself. The poem is the poet and the poet is the poem. Some critics go
further and say it is the poet and the poem. The best way to understand this is to not to
write EXPRESS but to write EX-press. The second form means to press something from
the inside to the outside. To ex-press the feelings, the emotions and the sentiments. Put
differently, poetry is now an externalization of the internal. This kind of literature is based
on the “I” not the “EYE”. The latter, “the eye”, is realistic. The former, the “I”, is romantic.
Indeed, Expressive criticism is about ROMANTIC poetry. In the previous lecture,
Wordsworth defines poetry as ‘the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.” In other
words, poetry, as M.H. Abrams says, is not any more a MIRROR reflecting the outside
world. It is now a LMAP shedding light from the inside unto the outside.

The last critical orientation in the Old Orthodoxy is the OBJECTIVE criticism, which
is the corollary of focusing on the WORK OF ART. The work is an OBJECT and the focus
on it is called OBJECTIVE. The crux of this approach is the AUTONMY and the
ANATOMY of the work of art. As you will see, in New Criticism (always with capital letters),
the work of art becomes independent of the author, the reader and the universe. They
say that talking about the author is INTENTIONAL FALLACY and paying attention to the
reader is AFFECTIVE FALLACY. They add that everything the work of art needs is
already in it and anything not in it is not needed by the work of art. As the Poet Archibald
Macleish says, “A poem should not mean/ But be.” These two lines summarize the theory
of New Criticism. Imagine this as an answer to the ONTOLOGICAL OBJECTION by Plato
against poetry.

It is obvious that the end of the Old Orthodoxy is the end of New Criticism, in the
1960s when the New Orthodoxy begins. The four elements will not only change but they
will become five. The ARTIST will become the AUTHOR or the WRITER. The WORK OF
ART will be transformed into the TEXT. The AUDIENCE will be rebaptized as the
READER. The UNIVERSE will be called REALITY. More importantly, a fifth element not
mentioned in the Old Orthodoxy will become the most important factor in the New
Orthodoxy. It is LANGUAGE. What happens is not only a change of terminology but a
categorical metalepsis of concepts as well. This turning point will be the core of Modern
Literary Theory in the fourth year.
Ahmad Al-Issa