From Plato to The End of the 19th

Century, A Summary of Literary

Criticism

Literary Criticism
Contents
Classical Literary Criticism and Rhetoric

Chapter 1 Classical Literary Criticism 3

Chapter 2 The Traditions of Rhetoric 6

Chapter 3 Greek and Latin Criticism During the 8

Roman Empire
Chapter 4 The Early Middle Ages 10

Chapter 5 The Later Middle Ages 12

Chapter 6 The Early Modern Period 15

Chapter 7 Neoclassical Literary Criticism 18

Chapter 8 The Enlightenment 20

Chapter 9 The Aesthetics of Kant and Hegel 23

Chapter 10 Romanticism 25

Chapter 11 Realism, Naturalism, Symbolism, 28

and Aestheticism

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Chapter 12 The Heterological Thinkers 31

Chapter 1

Classical Literary Criticism

2
Introduction to the Classical Period

Western literary criticisms story began in ancient Greece where great figures such as Homer,
Hesiod, Euripides, and Aeschylus began to write their magnificent works. The classical period
starts around 500 BC. The three early figures to whom Western philosophy owes its existence
are Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.

It was in this period that Athens established the discipline of rhetoric and the democratic
political system. Then we have the Hellenistic Period in which Greek culture is diffused. Many
poets and philosophers laid down many of the basic terms that shaped the literary criticism over
several centuries after the conquest of the Roman empire. Literary criticism owes its existence
to this period since, at this time, many fundamental literary concepts were laid down that evolved
all the way through our own century.

Plato

Plato, an excellent philosopher, and mathematician laid the foundations for Western
philosophy by asking the most fundamental questions still being discussed. Most of the
philosophy of Plato is available in the dialog and letters. According to him, only the
representation of an ideal eternal universe, that is, the quality the physical objects derive from
the ideal forms is the reality we experience in our senses. Indeed, the world of objects is a real-
world shadow.

Poetry contrasts in his view with justice and is a threat to his ideal city. Poetry that emphasizes
individualistic feelings is false and corruptive. Furthermore, Plato defined justice as a
circumstance wherein each person must be socially responsible based on his talents.
Nevertheless, poetry invites us to "imitate" and do other things, and poetry does not know its
position, which unlimitedly spreads its influence.

Aristotle

Aristotle gives Plato counterarguments. He acknowledges that poetry is a type of imitation,

but it's an innovative one for him, not just imitation. Plato found poets untrustworthy, dishonest
men. However, Aristotle argued that poets are not liars as honesty and factuality vary from that
of nature in poetry. He agrees with Plato that poetry influences the audience emotionally, but he
finds this effect constructive and propitious.

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Aristotle's view of tragedy

According to Aristotle, tragedy consists of imitating a series of serious actions that the
protagonist does as well as what happens to him. This action is morally serious and presents unity
that is complete. Therefore, tragedy rather than narrative is dramatic. When the tragedy is well
built, it will lead to relief or catharsis, which will affect the viewer through the emotions of fear
and empathy. Aristotle presents the plot as the first principle and sets the most attribute to unity.
The plot unity is founded upon the notion of causality.

There are two aspects of the action, the complication, and the denouement. Complication
involves all of the events until fortune changes. The denouement continues from the fortune shift
through to the end of the play. It is important to remember that feelings play a significant part in
tragedy as well. Among these feelings, empathy and fear are the most significant.

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 Chapter 2

The Traditions of Rhetoric

5
 Rhetoric refers to the practice of speaking to the public, which is convincing in various ways.
The classic rhetoric originated from Greece and consisted of five parts which are: Invention
(speech content), arrangement (introduction, narration, proof, and refutation of objections and
conclusion), style (structure and diction), memory (for oral performance) and delivery (control of
voice and gestures). The style was evaluated based on accuracy, simplicity, ornamentation, and
suitability.

Ancient Greece's politics is dominated by rhetoric. Hence a community of scholars, referred

to be the "sophists," taught rhetoric and became the core component of Greek education under
their influence. The sophists who educated their students to argue on many sides of the case
were accused of sacrificing truth for themselves. The rhetorical critique of Plato claims that
rhetoric contributes to convictions without teaching people about the right and the wrong, and
in the context of truth, it is meaningless.
Unlike Plato, Aristotle urges rhetoric to be useful as it may serve the causes of truth and
justice. The probability of Aristoteles is more significant than the chance. He says a possible
impossibility is superior to an impossible one. Aristotle sees rhetoric as an offshoot of dialectics
and ethics. It requires a comprehensive mastery of Syllogism, scientific understanding of
character and virtue, and a sense of every emotion and how it is inspired to master various
evidence. According to Aristotle, there are three genres of rhetoric:
1) Deliberative: It's forward-looking. Its province is governance, where the state will be
responsible for future acts.
2) Forensic: It's geared to the past. It's about courts of law. It attempts to justify a case, convincing
an authority that someone is innocent or not innocent.
3) Epideictic or display: This focuses on the present and, in its attempt to display nobility, includes
praise and denigration.

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 Chapter 3

Greek and Latin Criticism

During the Roman Empire

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Horace

Horace lived contemporary with another great poet, Virgil, several decades prior to the
advent of Christianity. He has had much influence on literal criticism in his work, Ars Poetica. His
verse book represents those who want to be a poet, a perfect hands-on guide. After that time,
several other critics have imitated his work.

Horace's text focuses on four main issues. The First one is a writer's connection to his work,
conventional knowledge, and his own abilities. The second one is the moral and social role of
poetry and the pleasure of it. The third one is the audience's contribution to poetry composition,
and the last one is awareness and historical change in language and genre of literary history.
Horace embraced imitation. Traditions and conventions were significant to him. His rejection of
originality, on the other hand.

According to Horace, too much originality could be dangerous and could lead to a poet's
mockery. Wisdom is also a significant concept to be taken into account by a poet. Horace
considers poetry a source of religious and social knowledge and states that one of poetry 's tasks
is to express wisdom. He advises the poets not to publish their work immediately but to retain it
for almost nine years because the words of the poet can not be recovered once a poem is
published.

Longinus

The major rhetorical treatise of the early Roman Empire was written in Greek: Peri bupsous
or on the Longinus' sublime. These people primarily seek to reconcile Plato 's views on poetry
with Greek poetry 's poetic practice. The critics of modern times were drawn to this treatise
because they viewed the sublime as a quality of the soul or spirit rather than mere technique.
Longinus provides an initial description of the sublime that makes the poet not only convince but
to mesmerize and enchant the reader. He believes it is better than that which inspires wonder.
Our reasonings may be controlled, but what sublime could do to us can not be resisted. He
believes that the real sublime has a permanent influence on the reader.

According to Longinus, there are five genuine sources of the sublime. The first one is the
command of full-blooded or strong concepts; that is, a sublime work should mark good ideas.
The next one is vehement emotion inspiration. The third one is the right creation of figures —
thought figures, as well as expression figures. The fourth one is the phrase nobility that involves
diction and metaphor use, and the last one is the overall impact of dignity and elevation that
includes the four previous components. He argues that all components should be united in favor
of an artistic organism in one, albeit different and diverse. The concept of sublimity is associated
with the encounter between the finite and the infinite of what is limited and what is limitless.

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 Chapter 4

The Early Middle Ages

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 The Middle Ages, which were considered to be a period of chaos, ignorance, and superstition,
were unscrupulously ignored because of the rapturous wish of the thinkers of the following
century to honor their period and differentiate it from their predecessors. This intentional
underestimation is reminiscent of the term "Middle Ages," created by the Italian Renaissance-
era humanist. Indeed, much of glorifications in the Renaissance were due to the Middle Ages,
which were by no means ignorant of the traditional Greek and Roman traditions. Throughout all
of human history, the middle ages were a significant era. The period has lasted about a thousand
years and has undergone many historical events that lay on the ground for the coming ages.
Christianity was the critical force for medieval civilization's growth.

Feudalism

The Germanic tribes, with their primitive way of life, revolted against the Roman Empire,
merged with an administrative legacy of Roman Empire and established a feudal structure that
included contractual responsibilities between rulers and subjects, lords and vassals, revolved
around values such as bravery, honor, loyalty, security, and obedience.

Intellectual and Theological Currents

The legacy of conservative thought and the growth of Christian theology are the two cardinal
forces that form the early middle-aged intellectual currents and divide them into two
fundamental patterns, Neo-Platonism and the closely related Christian tradition of allegorical
interpretation. The church tended to make art and literature subordinate. While the church
frowned in Greece and Rome on the pagan roots of art, there was a second approach to
continuing to take on the Christian classical rhetoric and philosophy. Hopefully, there were some
thinkers who were rationalized and who were trying to reconcile ancient Greek thinking with
Christianity's principles. Literature and art became acceptable following the attempts of such
thinkers. Again, the church has long displeased with the drama.

St. Augustine

St. Augustine is an early Christian scholar from North Africa. In the previously pagan Roman
Empire, he played a major role in making Christianity one of the most important early figures in
West Christianity 's development. His ideas had immense influence both on the Catholic Roman
and Protestant thought. The spiritual life is divided into the spiritual city of self-love and the city
of heaven, which rests on the love of God. Interestingly, he did not deny human free will, but
rather was a determinist, believing that those of the heavenly city, the elect, would achieve
salvation. His advice on pagan knowledge is another main point to remember about Augustine.
He, like many thinkers of that time, opts for a more moderating prospect that pagan knowledge
should, if helpful, be suitable for Christian use.

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 Chapter 5

The Later Middle Ages

11
Historical Background

The Church in the early middle ages was responsible for maintaining social and spiritual unity.
However, substantial progress on different rates was made in the later middle ages. The feudal
structure must be taken into account in order to explain what is mentioned here. During this
period, feudalism stabilized and ruptured between the two classes of the population. On the one
hand, a landed aristocracy and clergy, and a small middle class of tradesmen and craftsmen, on
the other. However, this changed as large urban areas expanded to create the third class of
society by the later middle ages.

Intellectual Currents of the Later Middle Ages

The main intellectual strata, many of which were supported by the education developments,
were humanism, Neo-Platonism, allegorical criticism, and scholasticism. Liberal arts, one of the
major faculties of the universities, were composed of seven arts. The first three, known as the
trivium, to be kept in sequence throughout the Middle Ages, were grammar, rhetoric, and
dialectic. The four remaining mathematical arts, known as quadrivium, included arithmetic,
geometry, music, and astronomy. Grammar was the most extensively studied art that influenced
both language analysis and literary interpretation.

Surprisingly, inspired by Muslim thinkers and again by scholastic thinkers attempting to

reconcile classical philosophy with Christian philosophies, Aristotle again found his place among
the most influential philosophers; in return, the importance of grammar and rhetoric and, of
course, literature were diminished. Yet literature, which is considered a grammar subcategory,
was part of the field of logic in the hands of scholastic thinkers.

The dominance of allegorical interpretations

As already mentioned, an essential intellectual source was the allegorical interpretation,

which was the foundation of medieval criticism. The medieval thinkers found the trick in making
the study of such works possible, because the classical literary works opposed Christian faith and
religion, and provided that these important masterpieces could not forever be rejected nor
ignored.

Hugh of St. victor's view of allegory

He proposed three approaches to interpreting the scriptures from which the reader could
obtain a deeper understanding of meaning, namely history, allegory, and tropology. As he said,
history was a literal sense, allegory a spiritual or mystical sense, and tropology was relevant to a
moral level of understanding.

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Dante

Dante's book Divine Comedy, whose most celebrated work is allegorical, has been appointed
four allegory senses: literal, allegory, moral, and anagogical. While allegorical meanings contain
several layers, Dante stressed that literal meaning should prevail.

Boccaccio

Boccaccio, one of poetry's supporters against theologians of the narrow mind, believes poetry
is aimed mainly at teaching and enjoyment, and so has a greater purpose than proclaiming. He
added that poetry expressed philosophical and theological ideas. Nevertheless, because it has its
own province, it is incorrect to classify it as a subcategory of rhetoric.

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 Chapter 6

The Early Modern Period

14
Historical Background

A word developed by Italian humanists. Modern times known as the Renaissance, refer to the
restoration or exploration of principles, ethics, and classical styles. These humanists aimed at
restoring existing humanist traditions, which had been meant to be destroyed by superstition
and lack of knowledge during the dark ages and middle ages. Nevertheless, many scholars now
conclude that Renaissance developments have altered the medieval arrangements. This time has
numerous characteristics, of which humanism is the most significant. Humanism is not a religious
inspiration but a view that focuses on human ability and achievement. This sets principles around
the human instead of the spiritual.

The most significant development of this era is the fall of feudalism and the Pope's absolute
authority. The Holy Roman Empire and the feudal guild structure of trade were also destroyed.
Cities rise, economic development, the emergence of the middle class, and the birth of the state's
new secular conception all contribute to the decrease of feudalism. These developments
influenced the literature and criticism of the time. The development of literature, which
concentrated primarily on natural laws and was without theological explanations, was an
essential achievement of humanists.

Humanism

Humanism was one of the principal facets of the Renaissance. In the 19th century, the word
was coined, mainly focusing on the new conception of the individual as a single entity. Humanism
was a more moral and worldly ideology that encourages human beings to be more dignified and
civilized. This new emphasis on humanity's potentials was a direct break from the past period
where the divine source attributed everything. Humanistic attitudes towards classics from the
medieval era so as to focus on a detailed understanding of classical languages, not only Latin but
Greek.

Another significant development of humanists was the production of prose in narratives,

epistles, and dialogues. More rational and free of philosophical explications was also
historiography and political prose. Characters and incidents have become more detailed and
realistic.

Reformation

In light of their newly revised Bible views, the people started to doubt the fatuous view of the
faith of the Church instead of blindly pursuing them. The new spirit was created in which they
learned the spiritual ideal of Christ. This led to the gradual transition from the Church of Rome to
the emergence of new theologies and theological viewpoints from the open-minded generation.
When medieval learning and, by implication, medieval Christianity were rejected, the Roman
Catholic Church was eventually recognized as being totally corrupted. Nevertheless, the Church
did nothing to alter this view.

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Literary Criticism

This period's literary criticism reflects civic values, a sense of national identity, and a sense of
history. Technology development in this era played an important role in changing the reading
situation, promoting the editing process, and expanding the public reading field. In this time,
much criticism is directed against the allegations of immorality, triviality, and irrelevance to
political and practical life. The writers are divided into three categories during this time. The first
category is made up of every Italian who wanted the connection with the tradition to be
reformulated. The second category belongs to English and French writers who have tried to
defend poetry and the vernacular application. The third category Gascoigne and Puttenham,
whose goal is to define poetry based on rhetorical traditions.

The Vernacular Languages

The interest in vernacular languages is connected to nationalism in Europe. We remember,

Latin was the Catholic Church 's language, but many people constantly entered Protestantism
because of the Protestant Reformation. The Bible translations have contributed to their success
in vernacular languages. National feelings have been the foundation of the development of
vernacular languages. Through the use of resources and archetypes of classical languages, Du
Bellay seeks to defend French poetry and make French a vernacular language. The consequence
of Renaissance poetics was a war of esthetics to free itself from the constraints of the philosophy
of mortality and history.

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 Chapter 7

Neoclassical Literary Criticism

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Neoclassical Literary Criticism

Neoclassical literature refers to a broad phenomenon from 1660 to 1750. It generally applies
to the beginning of the 17th century. The Renaissance followed it, and the romantic period
began. The new version of classical times is, as the name suggests. The Renaissance humanists
were regarded in part as heirs to the Neoclassicists. There are, however, significant variations.
Neoclassicism is also a sharp reaction to the Renaissance stylistic excess.

The Neoclassicism shows the return of classic forms, the literary styles, and the ideals of
ancient Greek and Roman writers. It seems to us to be, in some ways, the heir to the humanist
of the Renaissance (Aristotelian ideology). Still, they opposed the very concept of innovation,
imagination, and mixing genre, which was explored during the renaissance period.

The imitation and nature were two main concepts of this period. Although many poets of the
Renaissance recognized the value of creativity, writers of this time were more loyal to their boring
principles than creativity. They found poetry to be mastered through labor and hard work.
Thereafter, imitation was no longer considered the central custom of the period in which the
principles of objectivity and impersonality were reaffirmed. Another fundamental component of
Neoclassicism is nature, closely related to the notion of imitation. Nature has a variety of senses
that are somewhat different from Romantics' interpretation of this term. Nature applies both to
the natural world and to human nature. Neoclassicism and the Enlightenment are intricately
related and overlap to some degree. One of their key common grounds, for example, is the
reason. Nevertheless, we need to note here that Neo-classicists have different motives than the
authors of Enlightenment.

Ultimately, Neoclassicism's general propensity, which led to numerous attempts to control

the vocabulary and definitions of the words, is to order, clarify, and standardization. An example
of this tendency is Samuel Johnson's Dictionary. The general principle was that "clear and
distinct" concepts were employed, and figurative language was avoided.

John Dryden

According to Samuel Johnson, John Dryden (1631- 1700) is regarded as the English
criticism father. He has comprehensive critical works of various kinds, including epic, tragedy,
comedy, satire, and the essence of poetry and translation. His essay " Dramatic Poesy " is written
as a collection of dramatic debates that stress the significance of these three units and
differentiate specifically between various genres like tragedy and comedy. He seeks to impose a
different tradition of English drama, by rejecting neo-classical values of the French drama and
underlining the values of English drama. Dryden's text is considered a transition from
Neoclassicism to Romance because wit, innovation, and imagination are equally important.

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 Chapter 8

The Enlightenment

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 The Enlightenment, also known as the Age of Reason, began around 1680 and lasted at the
end of the 18th century. Enlightenment thinkers can not be grouped together in a unified
category because of their different perspectives. However, they all took part in the formation of
an era of humanitarian, intellectual, and social progress. In the period of Enlightenment or the
age of reason, humanitarian, intellectual, and social change is being introduced in order to
subjugate nature and the human spirit. The growing power of rationality. This was intended to
eliminate the irrational bias and superstition of human ideas and institutions and free society
from feudalism and political absolutism, where people understand their capacity by reasonable
steps. It was the hierarchy, loyalty, and the high rank of authority that was of great importance.
Nonetheless, Enlightenment modified this view, concentrating instead on individual potency,
efficiency, and usefulness.

The Enlightenment thinkers considered reason to be the primary faculty through which we
could gain knowledge. They believed that as long as any person succumbs to sheer knowledge
and logic, he/she does not have to rely on any authority, whether it is the authority of the Church
or the State. The main movements of Enlightenment include rationalism, empiricism,
pragmatism, and utilitarianism. Thinkers of this period often assumed that the universe is made
up of distinct components that are different from each other. Similarly, human society is often
made up of independent, autonomous individuals. As a result, individualism is gaining more
importance in this period.

Enlightenment Literary Criticism: Language, Taste, and Imagination

The numerous theories of the eighteenth century's language have a very close relationship
between Enlightenment philosophy and literary criticism. John Locke's theory is the most
important. In an attempt to undermine the neoclassical conception, Locke has given careful
attention to sensory detail, scientific description, and particularity, that poetry speaks a universal
language and expresses general truths. In his view, the language is used as a knowledge
instrument, and the figurative language is one of the language violations. Each word should be
free of its metaphor. Hence due to him, language is not referential. Poetry has been concluded
not to be a universal reality, but to seek to express human psychology and record an association
of thoughts.

Addison, who developed the essay, claimed that people's behavior was directed at the public
good, as a type of utilitarianism. According to Vico, human understanding and insight have
developed from senses (poetry) to discoveries through reason (philosophy). The poetic insight
has two historical functions; it was focused on first-men religious and civic institutions and
provided the foundation for further learning. Burke gave other points of view on the Sublime,
which anticipated Kant 's theories. He believed that something that inspires ideas of pain, danger,
and fear is the root of the sublime. The sublime, he believed, is the strongest emotion that the
mind can feel far stronger than pleasure emotions.

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 Wollstonecraft was an Enlightenment philosopher who advocated reason at all times,
rejected inheritance rights, and the whole system of feudalism. She felt that knowledge and
morality should be founded on reason and that women's rights should be included in the process.
She thought that the revolutionary restructuring of the social and social order in all depends on
women's equality, and that true morality can not be built on disregard and blind obedience.

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 Chapter 9

The Aesthetics of Kant and Hegel

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 Although most thinkers from Plato to the eighteenth century claimed that art and poetry had
a significant moral, religious or social aspect, Kant presented a very different theory, which
presented that art was independent and autonomous and without meaning outside of itself. Kant
wished to define the limits and the safe foundation of human rationality and knowledge. While
understanding was assumed to come from experience and could not be based on any required
legislation, Kant's metaphysics was based on a philosophy that was independent and essential.
Kant separates phenomena from noumena.

Phenomena refers to the universe of things we are witnessing; noumena refers to only
reflective things and beyond our potential experience. Kant's phenomenal real can not be
extended to the noumenal world linked to the field of morality and faith. He introduces the
concept of purposive, referring to the fact that the world of phenomena must be harmonized,
and thus we are pleased with it. The decision concerns not the quality of the object 's form. In
our aesthetic judgment, Kant thinks that imagination plays an important role. The imagination is
adaptive and supports awareness in our daily knowledge of things. Whereas creativity helps to
appreciate the works of art.

The Sublime

The only link between sublime and beautiful Kant finds is to seek enjoyment instead of
knowledge. There are, however, substantial variations. Beauty is about material form, and
sublime objects are formless. Beauty is followed by a sense of beauty and sublime reverence and
admiration. When in everything we find harmony, we see it as beautiful. Yet to our cognitive
ability, sublime poses a challenge. So sublime is in us an everlasting force.

The aesthetics of Hegel are closely linked to his history philosophy. He finds art to be one of
the ways in which spirit is embodied, such as religion and philosophy. Art is part of the realm of
meaning, sentiment, intuition, and imagination. This must be an accurate model of
communicating universal truths instead of serving the ends of religion and philosophy. Art brings
together the realms of sense and intelligence, nature and thought, external and internal realms.

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Chapter 10

Romanticism

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 Romanticism was a kind of reaction to the rigid and rational environment of the preceding
period, a cathartic response. It was primarily concerned with the breach of old social norms and
traditions. Romanticism was a protest against a society so bent on manipulating and restricting
little detail. Romanticism was in some ways like communism, without being catastrophic or evil.

England

Thomas Gray, Oliver Goldsmith, and Robert Burns are the first romantical figures to stand up
for the French Revolution like their European counterparts and follow the revolutionary objective
of the literary works.

The most significant figures of Romanticism include William Blake, who found the universe to
be a place full of contradictions that poets harmonized, William Wordsworth, who regarded
nature as an expression of a universal spirit, Samuel Coleridge, who was more concerned with
poetry, John Keats, and Percy Shelly, who focused on the superiority of imagination over reason.

William Wordsworth

The poet of nature was Wordsworth. In his poetry, nature had a dominant place, and, yes, he
adored it. It was fascinating to know that he regarded nature as a living person with a beating
heart and a listening soul. He urged people strongly to recognize and respect its divinity in the
spiritual relationship between the outer material world and the holy realm of nature.
Wordsworth's popular definition of poetry, which contributes to romantic poetry, is the
spontaneous flow of powerful feelings into any good poetry. But his classical point of view, which
runs counter to this assertion, says poetry maintains human unity.

However, the fact that Wordsworth believes that our sensations are altered and guided by
our thoughts is neglected. What a poet expresses is, therefore, a synthesis of neither thought nor
feeling alone. A man's thoughts can shape his sensations, so a poet expresses both thoughts and
emotions while reciting his poetry.

Samuel Tylor Coleridge

Coleridge put a lot of emphasis on the imagination like any romantic poet. But he always
believed rationality and reason to be the dominant power, unlike most of them. Besides,
Coleridge 's literary criticisms of Shakespeare and Milton, in particular, are known and
appreciated as a genius. Coleridge has distinguished both primary and secondary imagination.
Primary imagination is one faculty through which the world around us is perceived. What's
primary imagination is the ability to get perceptions of the foreign world through our senses and
turn it into unifying images so that we can grasp and appreciate the surrounding world.

However, secondary imagination, like Kant 's productive or spontaneous imagination, is

creative and poetic. Although the primary imagination is universal, and everyone possesses it,

25
secondary imagination belongs only to those who possess poetic aptitudes. This poetic
imagination, however, works on what primary imagination perceives. It can't create out of
anything, but primary creativity provides the raw materials. He also differentiated between fancy
and imagination. While imagination is creative, fancy is simply a mechanical process, which puts
elementary images together without altering them. It is a sort of memory that arbitrarily creates
images without fusion or unification.

American Romantics

Later than in Europe, Romanticism rose in America. It can date back to the eighteenth century.
From 1820 till the end of the civil war and the rise of realism, it was dominated by the literary
scene.

America struggled for a national identity on political, cultural, and religious grounds after its
independence from the English. As a result, famous American romantic artists, including Ralph
Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Herman
Melville, were also emerging. Bear in mind that Emerson was the founder of American
Romanticism, and Wordsworth and Coleridge employed most of his ideas on nature and
imagination.

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 Chapter 11

Realism, Naturalism, Symbolism,

and Aestheticism

27
 Having shattered romanticism ideals and unifying the structure of thinkers like Hegel,
utilitarianism, positivism, and social Darwinism were the main movements of the later 19th
century. Science and the development of technology that effectively displaced religion and
theology had mainly influenced these movements. The natural sciences have thus become the
arbitrator of other fields. A positive view of the tendency towards science is the positive outcome
of thinking philosophy like Auguste Comte and Emile Durkheim in France, and Herbert Spencer
in England.

The thinkers dismissed all conclusions that were not scientifically reasonable and could not
be confirmed empirically. Positivism was indeed a reaction, as some spiritual agency or absolute
thought had achieved, against the principles of Hegelian unity and totality. In other words, an
effort was made to affirm the world's reality and property as they were. The two literary
expressions of positivism, Realism, and naturalism, are discussed in the following paragraphs.

Realism

The works of significant figures such as Flaubert and Balzak in France, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky
in Russia and George Élioth, and Charles Dickens in England, included Realism from the beginning
of the 1840s. Realism is, in general, an attempt to truthfully, accurately, and objectively reflect
the subject matter.

These authors adopted a number of strategies, including detailed use, the avoidance of
imaginary and mythic things, contemporary life, colloquial idioms, and daily talk. Therefore, this
faithful depiction of reality was a significant reaction toward idealization, the hindsight of history,
and romanticism imagination.

Naturalism

The extreme version of Realism is naturalism. This is a word for physics or nature studies. The
principle of causality, determinism, interpretation, and experimentation is a big part of this
movement. Naturalism encompasses science and principles, such as Darwin's theory of
evolution, instinct, and fiction. Authors in this movement wrote stories in which people comply
with the animals' impulses and drives in the natural environment. The tone is mainly objective
and distant.

Symbolism

Charles Baudelaire, French poet, essayist, and art critic, reacted against Realism and
naturalism, just as all beginners of any movement, suggested alternative questions about
language, poetics, and evoking mental states and ideal worlds. The Romans have been partially
responsible for these concerns. The followers of Charles Baudelaire reacted to Realism and
naturalism. Such reactions include aestheticism, symbolism, and impressionism.

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 In the 1850s, France was the source of the symbolism in literature. It was a change from
Realism to modernism. It aimed to transmit very personal and dreamlike consciousness states
that relate to metaphorical language. Such literary principles produced reactions that embraced
logic, objectivity, and scientific method against the supremacy of positivism.

The work of many significant figures, including Theophile Gautier, who adopted art ethics for
art and Mallarme, whose dividing is an essential statement of symbolic aesthetics, reflects this
antirealist mode of thinking. He dismissed the true assertion of a referential term. He thought
language is an interpretation from a certain point of view.

Aestheticism

It began with Gautier and was developed in France by Baudelaire. A philosopher named Victor
Cousin came up with a phrase in the symmetrical year of 1818. He invented the phrase l'art pour
l'art, which implies art for art's sake. This phrase gave rise to a very radical belief in aestheticism.
The doctrine states that for its own sake, art exists. That means that there is no art that pleases
or provokes anybody. For its own sake, it exists. It should not be bound or defined, judged, or
censored, and it must exist because it wants to exist.

This doctrine has revived and affected many people throughout the ages. The esthetics of
Kant, of many Romantics, Pre Raphaelites, Parnassians, the symbolists, the decadents, and the
formalists' critical programs of the 20th century, were influenced.

Oscar Wilde

He is another significant aesthetic vein figure. He based his estheticism on beauty and
pleasure. He was one of the most rebellious thoughtful, and author of the time. His life and works
reflexively and contradictory reflect his views. In his famous novel, The Image of Dorian Gray
Wilde incorporates a manifesto of aestheticism.

He also opposes morals and claims that nothing like a moral or immoral book exists. In a
further attempt to redefine the function of art, he says that "all art is useless" and then says, "It
is the spectator and not life, that art really mirrors." Later, he says that criticism is an art in itself,
and the critic must express his own impressions and not see the object as it is.

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 Chapter 12

The Heterological Thinkers

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Matthew Arnold

He was a critic, poet, educator, and school inspector who wanted to give high-quality
education to middle and working-class students. His father, Thomas Arnold, was the Rugby
School's famous headmaster, and he was born into an influential academic family. He is
considered to be one of the pioneers of modern English critique because we still have classic
questions about the function of literature. He was very influenced by them when he has studied
many classical works of Greek and Roman literature.

In a world full of divine providence, his poems, including the beach of Dover, convey isolation
and despair, which is indicative of the melancholic and bleak essence of his poetry. His critique
also deals so much with religious and educational matters that he considered Literature and
Dogma his most important prose work. He concentrated his criticism of living in late industrial
society adequately.

In his essay, "the function of bourgeoisie" he criticizes the British Bourgeois philistines, who
were only interested in practicality, utility, and reason. He called them narrow-minded moralists
of his time the Philistines. In this essay, he also refers to the crucial problem of how to see the
object as it really is in all areas of knowledge. He called for lack of interest in criticism. He thought
that these criteria were lacking in the French Revolution. Although this was the most magnificent
historical occurrence, it was marked by a catastrophic exaltation. Basically, he argues that we can
not transport ideas abruptly into the world of politics while we need to appreciate ideas. He
believes that abstract ideas simply can not be imposed on the constitution or method of life of a
people.

According to Arnold, cultural goals are similar to religious goals. The cultivation of inwardness
is also what they have in common. As religion claims that God's Kingdom is within you, culture
believes that you are perfect. But Arnold suggests that culture is beyond religion because it
harmonizes all the forces that give human nature beauty and worth. In contrast, religion
considers spirituality rather than aesthetics to be more important.

Arnold is one of the most influential writings in literary humanism for his essay "The Study of
Poetry" (1880). In this essay, he tries to defend literature in terms of its social and cultural
functions and how it relates to morals. Arnold 's aim was to save literature and religion at a time
of hysteria with science and their relentless obsession with facts. He tried to make the case that
anything can not be categorized as fact or false, since it is not all clear and lifeless, including
religion and literature, that is, their part can be broken down. Since finding poetics to be critical
and sacred, Arnold makes it important for good poetry and bad poetry to be separated. To
recommend a benchmark to ensure that our poetry is not based on historical or personal factors,
which means it is real and true.

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