The principles of criticism; an introduction to the study of literature

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Table Of Contents

CHAP. PAGE

Introductory i

i. Aspects of Literature, ii. The Relation of Esthetics to Criticism.

Chapter I Plato Considers Literature As A Vehicle Of Knowledge

If we cast about for a convenient starting point from which to approach an inquiry into the nature and methods of literature, we could scarcely do better than select the famous saying of Descartes, Cogito ergo sum. But whereas originally man derived the sensations which constitute his being exclusively from the direct action of material existences, he now derives them in part from the previous sensations of other men preserved and embodied in custom, literature and art. From this point of view — that is to say, if we regard man primarily as a sentient being — literature is an element in human life which is of ever-increasing importance.

But literature bad existed for a long time, and had attained a high state of development, before it won any permanent recognition as chief among our secondary sources of sensation. The first conscious acknowledgment in literature of its own existence, as a serious contributor to the sum total of human life, marks the commencement of criticism ; and this acknowledgment naturally grew out of the reflective philosophy of Plato. In the search for truth, which he conducted through the powerful instrument of dialectic, Plato found that men derive their opinions and their rules of conduct from a knowledge of literature as well as from a knowledge of life. He recognized especially that literature is the medium by which the young are introduced to the world, and inferior minds are enabled to share the wisdom of their superiors ; and he was, therefore, compelled, in constructing a system of morals, to take account both of the subject-matter and of the forms of this source of knowledge.

It is not surprising that a criticism conceived on such a basis should be inadequate.

What Jowett has written of his work in general is true of his work in the special field of criticism. ' He is no dreamer, but a great philosophical genius struggling with the unequal conditions of light and knowledge under which he is living.' ' And so in Plato we find a remarkable, almost instinctive, comprehension of the true principles which underlie the development of art and literature, joined to a fatal misconception of the character and limitations of artistic representation, and, we must add, of the work of the Greek poets.

The contrast between Plato and Aristotle in their respective researches in the department of criticism is very significant. Plato is an idealist, and his

1 Dialogues. Pref. p. ix. 26 criticism is an examination of literature and art in the light of principles deduced from the study of the life of man. Aristotle is a realist, and his criticism is based upon a consideration of the actual literary material which lay before him. Plato appears to have regarded the productions of art and literature for critical purposes solely as a vehicle for conveying philosophic truth ; and criticism meant for him« an endeavour to ascertain how far the message of poetry and the arts agreed with the message of philosophy. The desire to reach the truth directed and controlled the whole of his vast intellectual activity, and when he applies himself to art and literature this motive is so predominant that it obscures his appreciation of the lesser elements of beauty and pleasure, and prevents him from realizing the difference between truth in art and truth in nature. Art was a vehicle by which men could be taught the truths of philosophy, and the only object of criticism, as he conceived it, was to find out to what extent it fulfilled this purpose.

Aristotle's criticism, on the other hand, was independent of any ethical motive ; under his scheme it formed a separate and distinct department of inquiry. An art, he says in the Ethics, l is the product of ' a union of a creative faculty and reason.' In the Poetics he finds that the source of the creative faculty is the primitive impulse of imitation ; and he points out that art as thus analyzed must produce

1 1 140*.

results which can be distinguished from the results of any mere effort of the understanding.

As a contribution to a specific department of human knowledge, Aristotle's account of the origin and methods of art in the Poetics shows an infinite advance upon Plato's exposure of its defects in the Republic. But Plato's, method, being in fact the method of art itself, by employing the powerful assistance of the imagination, enabled him to pierce more deeply into the heart of things, and to reveal truths of higher import and wider application than the truths disclosed by the more exact but more restricted investigations of Aristotle. And so it has come about that while the rules of Aristotle, based upon a limited area of observation, have been gradually superseded, the principles of Plato are seen to be in harmony with the modern conception of the functions of art and literature. For the time has come when art and literature are no longer the property of the few, but when in fact they are as intimately a part of the life of civilized peoples, as they were of Hellenic life in the age of Pericles ; and, therefore, the identity of their spirit with the spirit of the truest thought and the highest conduct — which Plato asserted to be the true relation between them and the life of man — seems no longer impossible of realization, but has, on the contrary, come to be regarded as the natural goal of their development.

Of Plato's general criticism it is sufficient to note that the opinions scattered throughout the Dialogu.es anticipate the artistic principles laid down by Aristotle in the Poetics in more than one important particular. For example, the doctrine that both the incidents and the characters represented by the poet should be typical, appears more than once in the Poetics in the form of a statement that, according to the method of poetry, 'an impossibility which is credible is preferable to a possibility which is incredible.' l Now in the Phaedrus, Plato not only formulates the same principle with respect to the special art, Rhetoric, which he is there discussing, but he carries the argument a step further, by showing how this principle can be reconciled to what he calls the ' first quality ' or ' condition precedent ' of good speaking — namely, ' that the mind of the speaker should know the truth of what he is about to speak.' 2 This he does by pointing out that the man who knows the truth of what he describes, knows best how to produce those resemblances which prove so persuasive. For, ' if a man does not know what the facts are in each case, he cannot possibly acquire the master's manner of gradually leading his audience from the fact to the opposite of the fact by means of resemblances or analogous instances ; nor can he see through the speech of a rival who employs the same method.' 3

Again, Aristotle repeatedly insists upon the supreme importance of the plot as an element of

Tragedy. Plato insists upon the same doctrine in his discussion of Rhetoric ; and in so doing he uses the same figure — that of an organism — which Aristotle uses to enforce his meaning in the Poetics. ' Every speech,' Plato says, ' ought to be composed like a living thing, having its own body and being deficient neither in head nor feet ; both the trunk and the extremities of the speech must be so composed as to harmonize with one another and with the whole.' ' And he adds two qualities which distinguish all correct literary construction : ' First, to group the scattered facts, drawn from many sources, in a single idea, by regarding them from one point of view . . . ; and then to be able to treat them again singly under natural divisions — hitting the joints in fact instead of breaking off portions like a bad carver.' a And he subsequently extends the principle from a speech to a tragedy ; for the art of tragedy does not consist in the composition of a number of separate speeches, but in ' the arranging of these elements in a harmonious and consistent whole.'

But these are, after all, points of minor importance. What is essential for us to know in Plato's criticism is, first, the nature of those deeper and more pregnant principles revealed by his idealistic method ; and, secondly, the manner in which he applies these principles to Greek art and poetry. The former contains what is most permanent and most remarkable in his

1 264. 2 265.

inquiries ; in the latter, the extent of his misapprehension of the method of artistic representation — and the consequent value of Aristotle's contribution to the science of criticism — appears most clearly.

The permanent element in Plato's criticism is contained in three mutually dependent principles. In literature the ' thought ' is prior to the ' form ' ; greatness in art depends upon morality in the artist ; and art and morals are mutually connected, both in the sense that the character of the artist appears in the character of his work, and in the sense that the creations of art have an influence upon the life of man which can be expressed in terms of morality.

The first of these principles is most clearly stated in the message of the Phaedrus, which is addressed to literature as a whole.

1 Go you to Lysias and say that we two have gone down to the fountain of the Nymphs and the seat of the Muses, and have held speech with them ; and that they bade us tell him and other composers of speeches, and Homer and other composers of poetry, whether set to music or not, and Solon, too, and others who have committed political compositions to writing under the name of laws, that if, in composing these various works, they knew where the truth was, and could make good their statements in case of their being called in question, and, if they maintain that they are able to prove by word of mouth much more than their writings contain — if this be so, we must tell them they have no business to be called by any of the names appropriated to these several classes of composers — orator, poet, or legislator — but that they should be called by a name which expresses the purpose on which they have really been engaged : and this purpose is the search for " wisdom," and their name is " lover of wisdom," or philosopher.' '

The principle of the interdependence of art and morals is asserted in its widest form in the third book of the Republic. Here he lays down the general standard by which the fitness of poetry and the arts for admission into the ideal commonwealth is to be tested ; and he decides that a thing is beautiful just so far as it is made to be an expression of morality.

' Then excellence of thought, and of harmony, and of form, and of rhythm, is connected with excellence of character, with good nature, that is, not in the sense of the colourless character which we euphemistically term " good nature," but in that of the disposition which is really well and nobly equipped from the point of view of character. . . .

'The qualities which are implied in this excellence of character are conspicuously present in painting and all similar arts, in weaving and embroidery and architecture, and, indeed, in the productions of all the lesser arts, and further in the constitution of bodies and of all organic growths. In all of these excellence or defectiveness of form can be discerned. And defectiveness of form and rhythm and harmony are associated with deficiencies of thought and of character, while the corresponding artistic excellences are associated with the corresponding moral excellences of self-restraint and goodness ; indeed, they are directly expressive of them.

' If this be so, we must not confine our supervision to our poets. In addition to compelling the poets to embody the

1 278. [The form of the passage has been slightly altered in translation] .

stamp of morality in their productions as a condition of their working among us, we must exercise supervision over the whole class of art-workers. We must prevent them from embodying this expression of vice or moral obliquity or meanness or bad taste either in their representations of living things or in their buildings, or in anything else which they produce. If we cannot restrain them, we must not allow them to produce among us at all, for we are bound to prevent our * guardians ' from being bred upon the images of vice, like cattle on rank grass, gathering many impressions from many sources, day by day and little by little, and feeding upon them, and so unconsciously collecting a great mass of evil in their souls. Instead of this we must look for artists who are able out of the goodness of their own natures to trace the nature of beauty and perfection, that so our young men, like persons who live in a healthy place, may be perpetually influenced for good. Every impression which they receive through eye or ear will come from embodiments of beauty, and this atmosphere, like the health-giving breeze which flows from bracing regions, will imperceptibly lead them from their earliest childhood into association and harmony with the spirit of Truth, and into love for that spirit.' 1

Such a censorship is, of course, fatal to artistic freedom in general, while in respect of poetry it excludes ' the indiscriminate realist ' ; the man ' whose cleverness makes him capable of assuming every form and reproducing every object.' To such a dramatic artist the citizens of the ideal commonwealth are merciless. His talent is freely admitted, but he is told that ' one like him neither does, nor indeed can, exist ' there. Elsewhere he may be welcome, but for their part they have profit not pleasure in view, and they will therefore require a ' more austere and less delightful poet,' who will take virtue for his model and cast his poetry into an educational mould. 1

Plato has already shown the need for this censorship by a consideration of the subject-matter of Homer and other poets. 2 In the case of Homer, he selects a number of passages which attribute various kinds of immoral conduct to the gods and heroes. He takes instances in which the characters display terror at death, sexual irregularities, cowardice, deceitfulness, insubordination, covetousness, and unmanly or immoderate emotion. Such passages he condemns, first, as 'sacrilegious and untrue,' and, secondly, 'morally hurtful to the hearers.' In addition to this, he brings against literature a general charge of immorality. ' Poets and prose-writers,' he says, * are mistaken in dealing with human life in the most important respects. 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.' 3

Thus far Plato confines himself, in the main, to a criticism of the subject-matter of poetry. All art must be an expression of morality, but poetry, he finds, so far from expressing morality, has become a vehicle for conveying immoral notions. In the tenth 1 398- * 386-391. 3 392.

book of the Republic he formulates his charges more definitely. He not only complains of the subject-matter of the poets, but condemns the form and method of the poetic representation of the facts of life.

In this fuller criticism he charges poetry with two inherent defects — unreality, and a tendency to foster the emotional element in man to the detriment of the rational.

But before considering this fuller criticism it is necessary to know how far Plato agrees with Aristotle in accepting imitation {jxi^aiq) as the basis of poetry. For this purpose we may refer to a passage in the third book of the Republic, where he roughly classifies different kinds of poetic composition by reference to the use of imitation.

' In poetry,' he says, ' whether the plot be invented or consist of traditional stories, there is one style of representation which consists solely of "imitation" — to take your examples, tragedy and comedy — and another which consists of the narrative of the poet himself — dithyrambic poetry is perhaps the best example ; while epic poetry is one of many instances of a third style which employs both dialogue and narrative.' 1

It appears, therefore, that whereas Aristotle finds in ' imitation ' the basis of all creative literature, whether dramatic or not in form, Plato calls ' imitative ' only so much of a literary composition as is written in character. In other words, the difference

'394- between the meaning respectively attached to the term by Plato and Aristotle is, broadly, the difference between ' imitative ' and ' reproductive.'

Now, in advancing his first charge — that of unreality — against poetry, Plato is influenced by the restricted and more elementary meaning which he attaches to nlfivaig. He endeavours to establish the existence of this first defect at the outset by an analysis of the nature of knowledge in harmony with his own philosophic theory of ' ideas.' Taking the commonplace example of a bed, he proceeds to distinguish three forms — the ' idea ' or archetype, the actual piece of furniture so-called, and the artistic reproduction, owing their existence respectively to God, to the upholsterer, and to the artist. l Like this last the poet is neither creator nor artificer, but merely an imitator of the latter's work, and, being such, his work is two degrees removed from the original creation of God. But Plato is not content with this theoretic proof; he proposes a practical test. If the poet really knows the truth of what he describes, and does not merely reproduce other people's knowledge, he must have given some actual demonstration of his possession of such knowledge. And so he asks the question of Homer :

" Homer, if you are not twice removed from truth in . respect of virtue (as being the producer of a representation and, therefore, an imitator as we have defined the term), but once only, and if you were therefore capable of knowing what practices make men respectively better or worse as individuals and as members of a state, can you tell us of any city which has received an improved constitution from you, in the sense in which Lacedaemon was improved by Lycurgus, and many other cities, both great and small, were improved by many other men ? What city acknowledges its indebtedness to you as a righteous lawgiver and a general benefactor ? Italy and Sicily thus acknowledge Charondas, and we Solon ; does any community acknowledge you ? ' '

Naturally Homer is compelled to admit that he has done nothing of the kind ; and he subsequently gives most satisfactory evidence towards establishing the point, that ' all poets from Homer downwards imitate phantoms of virtue and whatever else they select as their subjects, without ever coming into contact with the truth.'

But not only are the creations of poetry unreal, and therefore useless for practical purposes ; they appeal to the unreasoning and emotional part of man's nature.

In framing this second charge Plato first states with singular clearness the objects which poetry, or creative literature, especially strives to reproduce. They are ' men engaged in actions either involuntary or voluntary, attributing their good or bad fortune to these actions, and in all of them displaying either grief or joy.' 2 But the poets, he continues, in representing human action give exhibitions not of good, but of bad conduct. They are compelled to

1 599- 2 6 °3- do so by the requirements of their artistic method. In the first place, ' the irascible temperament admits of constant and varied reproduction, while the wise and quiet temperament, which scarcely ever varies, is neither easily reproduced nor, when reproduced, readily comprehended.' ' And in the next, the poet like the painter 'associates with an element of the soul which is as depraved as he, and not with its noblest element.' 2 It is the evil result of this constant exhibition of depravity which forms the culminating count of the indictment — ' for, that poetry should be capable of injuring even good men, with the exception of a very small minority, is a matter of terrible importance.' s

The manner in which this injurious effect is brought about is described in relation to that feeling of ' fear and pity,' which is produced by witnessing a representation of the disasters of the imagined persons ; and the production of which is regarded by Aristotle as the special function of tragedy, or poetry in its highest form.

' The part of the soul which is forcibly kept down in the case of our own misfortunes, and which craves to weep and bewail itself without stint and take its fill of grief, being so constituted as to find satisfaction in these emotions, is the very part which is filled and pleased by the poets ; while that which is naturally the noblest part of us, because it is not adequately disciplined by reason and habit, relaxes its guard over this emotional part, representing to itself that the suffer-

1 604. 3 605. 3 605.

ings which it contemplates are not part of itself, and that there is no shame in its praising and pitying the unseasonable grief of another who professes to be a good man. On the contrary, the pleasure which it experiences it considers to be so much gain, and it will not allow its contempt for the poem as a whole to rob it of this pleasure. For only a very few can realize that the character of our own emotions must be affected by the manner in which we participate in the emotions of others. Yet it is so, for if we let our own sense of pity grow strong by feeding upon the griefs of others, it is not easy to restrain it in the case of our own sufferings.' 1

And what applies to pity applies also to love and anger, and to all the manifestations of desire, pain, and pleasure ; for poetic imitation ' waters and cherishes the passions when they ought to wither, 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.' s

There are two considerations, however, which explain in part, though they do not justify, the severity of Plato's criticism of Greek poetry and the Greek poets.

In the first place, it is necessary to remember the importance of the function which Greek poetry in general, and the Greek drama in particular, was called upon to perform. At the time at which Plato wrote, and in the society to which he addressed himself, the poetry of Homer and Hesiod, and the representations of the dramatists, performed func-

1 606. 2 606.

tions which are to-day entrusted to agencies as

diverse as the pulpit, the press, the stage, and

literature in general. And if Plato, in asking from

poetry the high morality of the professor of religion,

the practical knowledge of the 'fourth estate,' and

the enchantments of fancy, was asking too much,

the fault lay as much in circumstances as in himself.

In the second place, he had a great love of poetry.

Like an ardent lover he not only sees keenly, but

feels bitterly, the defects in his mistress. And in

making his estimate of the qualities of poetry this

bitterness is uppermost in his mind, and makes his

criticism proportionately severe. But even thus,

when he hardens his heart and deals roughly with

her, the underlying tenderness will at times appear.

He will be glad if a reconciliation can be effected.

He is eager for some literary champion to appear,

and prove him in the wrong ; ' for the cause of

righteousness will gain much, if poetry can be made

the vehicle of duty as well as of pleasure.' '

What is really the most serious fault in this

estimate of poetry, considered as a piece of literary

criticism, is the failure to recognize and appreciate

what was good in the poets whose works were

before him : the fact that only the bad is selected, the

immoral actions of the gods, and the deceitfulness,

cowardice, and unscrupulous action of the heroes in

Homer, and the exaggeration and misrepresentation

of the appeal to the emotions in the drama. It was,

1 607. 40 perhaps, only natural that he should express no admiration for a beauty of style, and a structural perfection, which were elementary characteristics of Greek art, but how can we pardon him for giving no hint of the interpretative power of -^Eschylus' avripiOnov ysXao/xa ; or of the lyric sweetness of Sophocles' ' Love unconquered . . . ' ; or of the supreme pathos of the death of the faithful hound that raised himself in recognition of his master, Odysseus, and then lay down to die ? Why does he tell us nothing of the splendid presentation of the doctrine of retribution for sin given by the Attic tragedians, or of the portraiture of Nausicaa's innocence, and Penelope's constancy, by Homer ? Was there no moral purpose to be discerned here? Nevertheless the ideal of a literature which, in point of teaching, is indistinguishable from philosophy, embodies a loftier conception of the functions of poetry than any which is contained in the Poetics, and it is one which, as I have already remarked, is essentially in harmony with our modern aspirations. How was it, then, that Plato, having got so far, failed in his criticism of Greek poetry to discern the connection between the ' imaginative reason ' and the spiritual teachings of philosophy ? Probably because the common conception of human life prevalent in the Hellenic era was one in which man's activity was regarded as coterminous with his physical existence, and it was only a reflection of this kind of life that was expected in poetry. It was just here that his misconception of the character of artistic representation, as shown in the charge of unreality which he brings against poetry and art, was most disastrous. He assumed that poetry and art, being only imitations of material existences, could contain nothing but a reflection of this common conception of the life of man. To adopt the form of a remark of Aristotle, he first assumed that the poets' view of life was material, and then blamed them because their view, being spiritual, did not answer the tests of resemblance to material reality by which alone he measured their work. In short, Plato, in recognizing literature and art as vehicles of knowledge, assumed that their method was identical with the method of his own dialectic : it remained for Aristotle to distinguish between the method of art and the method of logic, and, in so doing, to point out in what respect a resemblance between the productions of art and the external reality upon which they were based was to be expected.

Chapter II Aristotle Considers Poetry As A Branch Of Art

Aristotle takes the subject out of the regions of morals and politics, and confines its scope by limitations which arise naturally in the course of his account of the origin and methods of art. His broadest conception of art is, however, to be found in the Ethics, 1 where he defines an art as ' a union of a productive faculty and reason.' In the Poetics he explains the nature of this dual origin. The ' imitation ' which he, in common with Plato, finds to be the basis of its manifestations, is traced to a primitive impulse which can be separated from the love of knowledge ; and he clearly distinguishes between the method of poetry and the method of history, even when they both employ the same instrument — words without metre or musical accompaniment. ' The business of the poet,' he says, ' is to tell not what has happened, but what could happen, and what is possible, either from its probability, or from its necessary connection with what has gone before. The historian and the poet do not differ in using or not using metre — for the

writings of Herodotus could be put into metre without being any the less a history, whether in metre or not — but the difference lies in this fact, that the one tells what has happened and the other what could happen. And, therefore, poetry has a wider truth and a higher aim than history ; for poetry deals rather with the universal, history with the particular.' 1 And in distinguishing between the effects of the incidents and of the dialogue in tragedy, he remarks that ' the effects produced by the incidents should be plain without argument, those produced by speech should be the work of the speaker and arise out of his speech.' These latter effects, therefore, belong more properly to the art of rhetoric. 2

Moreover, there are two passages in which it is possible to discern a direct reply to the first of the . charges — that of 'unreality' — which Plato brought against poetry. In speaking of the complaints of critics he says : ' Since the poet is an imitator just as much as a painter or any other image-maker, he must in all cases reproduce things in one of three aspects — as they were or are, as men say they are and they seem to be, or as they ought to be.' And he adds : 'It should also be remembered that the standard of correctness differs in politics and poetry as much as it does in any other art and poetry.' 3 The other passage contains the statement that, ' according to the method of poetry, an impossibility which is credible is preferable to a possibility which is incredible.' And this is supported by an illustration from the sister art of painting. The characters of Zeuxis were impossible, but their impossibility made them the more correct, ' for the type should be more perfect than the individual.' 1