ARISTOTLE, Bharathiar University--M.Phil English

A HISTORY OF LITERARY CRITICISM—HARRY BLAMIERS

UNIT I (Bharathiar University--M.Phil English)

S. Sreekumar

This is a part of the summary of the first chapter of the book by Harry Blamiers. The rest of the summary will be published later.  

1. THE CLASSICAL AGE——PLATO, ARISTOTLE, HORACE, LONGINUS

ARISTOTLE

Introduction

Aristotle was the student of Plato and the teacher of Alexander the Great. He established his academy, the Lyceum in Athens. His method of lecture walking up and down earned his school the title, ‘peripatetie’.

“If Plato was the first thinker... (noted) for his commentary on the human influence of imaginative literature, Aristotle was the first thinker to produce a work of literary criticism, the Poetics ...”

The Poetics has influenced literary criticism for more than two thousand years.

Plato & Aristotle

·        Plato believed in Universal Forms. He gave importance to the eternal. He believed that the natural is a reflection/copy of the eternal.

·        Aristotle thought about the reality in individual things. He saw in them matter and form coming together.

·        Plato’s thinking is poetic. It is close to mysticism.

·        Aristotle is scientific. He valued natural phenomena more than the eternal .

·        Plato was concerned about the theory of education and “the curricular impact of imaginative literature on young minds.

·        Aristotle was “concerned to analyze the nature of imaginative literature in itself, and not as an educational tool”.

Poetics

Poetics defines poetry and drama as ‘modes of imitation’. Imitation may be of good or bad elements in a character. In Comedy the ridiculous aspects are imitated and Aristotle defines what he means by ridiculous thus: ‘a mistake or deformity not productive of pain or harm to others’. Even the description of what is unpleasant, a putrefying corpse, for example, may give pleasure to the reader.

Three modes of literary representation

a. The blend of narrative and dialogue (Homer),

b. The sustained utterance by the single voice of the poet,

c. All utterances through the voice of characters.

Tragedy
Aristotle undertakes a systematic study of Tragedy in Poetics.

A tragedy...is the imitation of an action that is serious and also, as having magnitude, complete in itself, in language with pleasurable accessories...in a dramatic, not in a narrative form; with incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish the catharsis of such emotions.

Six formative elements of tragedy (according to their order of importance).

·        Plot (combination of incidents),

·        Character (personalities of the dramatic personae),

·        Thought (the reasoning and motivation which determine actions),

·        Diction (the verse/language characters speak),

·        Melody (the chanting of the verse) and

·        Spectacle (the appearance of the actors)

Of these elements, Aristotle considers Plot as the most important. Characters exist for the sake of action.

Plot

Plot must have a beginning, a middle and an end. There must be ‘cogency’ and ‘naturalness’ in the placing and sequence (‘sequaciousness’—De Quincey) .

Aristotle further adds:

The story...must represent one action, a complete whole, with its several incidents so closely connected that the transposal or withdrawal of any one of them will disjoin and dislocate the whole.

Peripety & Discovery

“The incidents in a tragedy must arouse ‘pity’ and ‘fear’, and they will do so most effectively when there is a combination in them of what is unexpected and yet occurs in the logical sequence of things. The reversal of fortune (Peripety) and the change from ignorance to knowledge (discovery) generate maximum tragic intensity.

Tragic Hero  

Aristotle considers the tragic hero as ‘a man not preeminently virtuous and jut, whose misfortune, however, is brought upon him not by vice or depravity but by some error of judgment’. Aristotle insists that three types of plots are to be avoided:

·        A good man must not be shown as passing from happiness to misery, (odious)

·        A bad man from misery to happiness,(untragic)

·        An extremely bad man from happiness into misery (produces neither pity nor terror)

Mimesis and Catharsis

These two terms of Aristotle deserve our special attention.

Mimesis means imitation. Aristotle does not mean ‘literal’ or ‘photographic’ imitation. Materials taken from life have to be selected carefully and organized.

Catharsis (purgation) is regarded as the beneficial result of tragedy. Tragedies arouse feelings of pity and terror in the spectator. When these feelings are aroused and expressed, they are cleaned from the minds of the spectator. This experience leaves him in a balanced and disciplined state.

Conclusion

·        Later Aristotelian critics attributed several things to Aristotle which he never expressed in precise terms. The case of the ‘dramatic unities’ is one example.

·        A good deal of his statements in Poetics is based on common sense. These he might have derived from his first hand experience of the Athenian theatre of Sophocles etc.

Dr. S. Sreekumar