M. Phil English, Bharathiar
University--Blamiers--Approaches--Unit I
The Middle Ages
The
Middle Ages
In the
closing decades of the 4th century, Roman Empire came under repeated
attacks by barbarian invaders like Goths, Huns and Vandals. Rome finally fell
to Alaric, king of the Visigoths in 410 A.D.
The
centuries between the fall of the Roman Empire and the Renaissance are called
the Dark Ages. The Middle Ages [from 12th century to the
Renaissance] constitute a part of the Dark Ages.
The Dark Ages were not wholly dark. In
between, there are visible patches of culture and civilization. King Charlemagne’s rule [from 742 to 814 A.D.]
is an example. In 800 A.D. the Pope himself crowned Charlemagne as the Emperor
of the Holy Roman Empire.
In England, the Dark Ages were marked by the
arrival of the Anglo-Saxons who brought with them their own cultural practices.
The rule of the Anglo-Saxon King Alfred was the golden period of Old English
Literature. The great epic, Beowulf,
belongs to the Old English period.
The spread of monasticism was one of the
important developments of this period. Theological studies gained importance.
Consequently, aesthetic theory was overshadowed by theological and
philosophical scholarship. We can see only one or two thinkers exerting their
influence on the formulation of aesthetic theories during the period.
1. Plotinus (205-270 A.D)
He lived
in the period when the authority of the Roman Empire was drastically declining.
His school of philosophy is known as ‘Neo-Platonism’. It expounded doctrines derived
and developed from the philosophy of Plato.
·
Plotinus
developed the distinctions between the world of appearance and reality.
·
His
image of the nature of reality is “an expanding series of concentric cycles,
each dependent on the one within it, and all produced by the spilling over of
the eternal One”. This is a hierarchy of descending
spheres of Reason, Soul, and Nature.
·
Men must
discipline themselves to reach the spiritual world of Being and Unity. They
should not follow Negation and Diversity.
His views on Art
Plotinus
does not believe in the Platonic doctrine that art is twice removed from
reality. He believed that the artist enjoyed a close participation in the
Divine Reason. The artist is sensitive to the Beauty which the natural world
reflects by imitation. He is also the one who fashions beauty, improving upon
nature itself.
·
Plotinus
compared an untreated block of stone and a finished work of sculpture. One is
untouched by art and the other has been wrought by the artist into a beautiful
statue.
·
Plotinus
observes: “The form is not in the material; it is in the designer before it
enters the stone”.
II. Augustine and Aquinas
a. Augustine (354-430)
St.
Augustine was the representative of the historical development which pushed
literary criticism out of the domain of intellectual life for several
centuries.
Augustine
wrote at a time when civilization was in a state of decay and collapse. The new
Christian faith was at war with paganism. The old literature was tied with
polytheism, with the discreditable doings of unrighteous gods. The wickedness
of gods authorized human wickedness. The vices of gods gave the readers
‘imitable examples’. Pagan literature was sharply distinguished from Christian
literature.
Augustine
was not insensitive to the appeal of literature on human emotions. He was moved
by Virgil’s description of the dead Dido. However, he believed that such
emotions are misplaced. A man must weep at his own death for want of love to
god. This belief allowed no room for the luxury of aesthetics. Everything
became a moral or theological issue.
b. St. Thomas Aquinas (1224-74)
Aquinas represents the intellectual
development which made literary criticism possible again. He re-established
what was valuable and relevant in the philosophy of Aristotle. Aquinas clearly
demarcated the realm of reason and the realm of faith.
·
He placed
the insights of pre-Christian philosophy in the realm of reason, and
·
the
doctrines of Creation and Fall, Incarnation and Redemption in the realm of
faith.
·
According
to him there is no collision between the demands of reason and the primacy of
faith.
·
He
believed that there is a perfect interplay between revealed truth and the
assumptions of reason.
Aquinas
opened the door through which a flood of healthy rational speculation entered
the realm of Christian doctrines. For him the beautiful was the object for
contemplation without attachment. The beautiful is recognized and appreciated. The
good is the object we desire.
However,
aesthetic theories were something alien to Aquinas. He never considered ‘arts’
in the sense we use it. The word was used with a broader connotation which
included fine arts as well as practical crafts.
III The Trivium
The Medieval educational curriculum was
based on the teaching of ‘Seven Liberal Arts’.
·
The seven
were divided into the Trivium [Grammar, Dialectic & Rhetoric] and
·
The Quadrivium
[Music, Arithmetic, Geometry, and Astronomy]
·
The Trivium
was studied first and it was elementary.
The Trivium
a. Grammar
·
In the second century A.D, Apollonius Dyscolus
of Alexandria had written a series of books on the parts of speech and syntax
·
One of
the great authorities of Grammar in the Middle Ages was Aelius Donatus who
wrote a commentary on Virgil. He also wrote Ars
Minor which analyses qualities and defects of style. His work was widely
used and the term ‘Donet’ came to be adopted for any instructive manual.
Donatus’s work on Virgil exerted considerable influence on grammarians like
Servius who wrote his own commentary on Virgil
·
The cult
of Virgil as a great writer of unquestionable excellence was initiated by
writers like Servius and Macrobius. Macrobius wrote a dialogue in seven books—Saturnalia.
From all
these it becomes clear that Grammar covered a wider range of subjects than we
generally attribute to the term. Grammar dealt with syntax, etymology,
explanation of allusions or textual observations and inevitably entered the
field of ‘literary criticism’.
b. Dialectic
This is
concerned with the art of argument——how to make a point, how to prove a case, and
how to disprove one. The basis of dialectic was Logic. The study of Logic, especially
of what exactly connote or denote, involves enquiry into the nature of meaning
and involves metaphysical speculation.
·
The standard
medieval text book for Logic was Isagogue——an
introduction to Aristotle by a third century scholar Porphyry (232-305).
C. Rhetoric
Only in
the study of Grammar and Rhetoric we find the ancestry of literary criticism.
Rhetoric was concerned with questions of structure and style, methods of
presentation and devices of literary embellishment. But it was never concerned
with the human interest in literature. Instead, it focused on objective
artistry and sheer eloquence.
Dr. S. Sreekumar
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