Literary Criticism: An Introduction

Second Term, Third Year, 2020

There are two criticism courses at the English Department: The first is in the third year
and the second is in the fourth year. This is why it is important to divide the syllabus into
two parts. The third-year course is for Literary Criticism. The fourth year is for Modern
Literary Theory. Another way is to divide them chronologically: The first is from the
beginning (Plato) to the end of 1960s (the end of Anglo-American New Criticism – always
in capital letters). The second extends from 1960s to the present. The first is called the
Old Orthodoxy. The second is known as the New Orthodoxy. The third-year course is for
the Old Orthodoxy only.

The timeline of the course begins with Plato. Aristotle follows Plato. The first
creates a dilemma and the second offers a solution for that dilemma. The first is the
antagonist of literature and the second is a protagonist of literature. Plato is the one who
accuses literature of being an imperfect imitation of an imperfect imitation of the
truth. He has several objections against literature, the most challenging is the
ontological objection. In addition to their theories, there will be a special lecture for the
dialogue between them. Instead of inventing new terms or new concepts, Aristotle argues
against Plato’s objections FROM WITHIN THE LANGUAGE OF PLATO. What does he
do? How does he do it? You have to answer these questions by yourselves. On the other
hand, Aristotle is the one who says that a probable impossibility has more truth than
an improbable possibility.

Richard Dutton believes that Plato’s attack against literature is good for literature.
He says, “Plato did imaginative literature and literary criticism a favour by being so
antagonistic in The Republic”. How can a disfavour be a favour and how does something
so negative become so positive? The answers are yours, not mine.
After the Greek critics, the course focuses on the first British critic, Sir Philip
Sidney. Like Aristotle, he embarks on a historic defence of literature against the enemies
of literature at the time, the Puritans, especially the attack by Stephen Gosson. Gosson
has a lot of objections almost similar to Plato’s objections. The process of Sidney’s
defence is similar to Aristotle’s. FROM WITHIN THE LANGUAGE OF THE Puritans,
Sidney makes a powerful argument for the necessity of art. Again, what does he do? How
does he do it? You have to find answers for these questions. Sidney is the one who says
that the poet is a moral teacher and the poet never lies because he never confirms
anything. His most famous term is “poetic justice.” What does it mean? I leave the
answer to you.
After Sidney comes John Dryden. His definition of the play applies to all literature.
“A play is a just and lively image of human nature.” This play has a very important
function. What is it? Some people call Dryden a neo-classicist. Why? You have to answer
these questions. Dryden is the one who says that if you want A to look exactly like B,
A must be different from B. Difference is sameness, dissimilarity is similarity and
heterogeneity is homogeneity. How? Again, I leave the question to you.

Dryden will be followed by Samuel Johnson. He wrote a preface to the works of

Shakespeare. That preface became a very important literary theory. Johnson introduces
the concept of generality. He argues that generality is reality. This is, as you can see,
very problematic? How can the particular be general? How can the local, the regional,
and the national become non-local, non-regional and universal? What does the writer do
to perform delocalization, deregionalization, denationalization and dehistoricization? This
transformation from the finite to the infinite, from the temporal to the timeless is the crux
and the gist of Johnson’s argument. Of course, Johnson is the one who shocks the
readers by saying that Shakespeare has no heroes. Is this possible? What does he
mean? The answer is yours, not mine.

Now we go to the great reversal, the major breakthrough in the history of English
literature. Of course, we are talking about William Wordsworth. With him, there is a
categorical shift from royalty to rusticity, from sophistication to simplicity, from the head
to the heart, from fact to feeling, from nurture to nature, from the temporal to the timeless
and most importantly from schematization to spontaneity. This canonization of rusticity,
and poeticization of prose are turning points in literature. They problematize the ABC of
poetics. How can schematization be spontaneous? How can the least representative be
the most representative? The answers, of course, are yours not mine. Wordsworth is the
one who says that poetry is “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.” Although
these feelings are “powerful,” they take their origin from emotions “recollected in
tranquility.” I leave this contronymic, antonymous, paradoxical language to you.

The last three epithets, contronymic, antonymous and paradoxical, take us straight
to the last critical approach in the course: New Criticism (always with capital letters).
Sometimes it is called Anglo-American New Criticism, Practical Criticism, Objective
Criticism or the Words-on-the Page Criticism. The ambiguity of these definitions highlights
the most important element of New Criticism which is ambiguity itself. The more
ambiguous a poem is, the more poetic it is. Clarity in poetry is the death of poetry. (What
a transformation from the simplicity and rusticity of Wordsworth’s theory!) New criticism
started in 1920s and continued until the 1960s.

To understand New Criticism properly, one must understand the moment of its genesis. The
raison d’etre of this school is an attempt to defend poetry against the savage attack of 19th century
science. What the New Critics do is similar to what Aristotle and Sidney have done before them. From
within the language of the antagonist, they justify the necessity of poetry. They use the language of
science against science. How do they do it? The answer is yours, not mine.
 You will come across several critics in this school: I. A. Richards, Cleanth Brooks,
T.S. Eliot, William Wimsatt and Monroe Beardsley. You will also come across several terms such
as Tension, the Objective Correlative, the Language of Paradox, Organic Unity, the Intentional Fallacy
and the Affective (not effective) Fallacy. The great challenge is to establish, in the poem, harmony at
the heart of disharmony and unity at the heart of disunity. There is no pleasure like the pleasure of
concretizing the abstract and particularizing the general. There is no greater discovery than the
discovery of the deep single meaning, the truth, behind the chaos, and confusion on the surface of the
text. Poetry, after all, s yoking together by force, things that do not go together.

When we take any critic or any school, we have to find out whether the approach is intrinsic
or extrinsic, transitive or intransitive, descriptive or prescriptive, artistic or didactic and whether the
artist is homo rhetoricus or homo seriousus, a maker or a vates.

The textbooks:

1. Daiches, David. Critical Approaches to Literature. Second edition. Harlow; Longman,

1981.
2. Dutton, Richard. An introduction to Literary Criticism. Harlow: Longman, 1984.

Dr. Ahmad Al-Issa