HISTORY OF

LITERARY
THEORY AND
CRITICISM:
THE ANCIENT WORLD
AND THE MEDIEVAL
TIMES
Nikola Novaković, Ph.D.
 PLATO – THE FIRST LITERARY THEORIST

• Lived between fifth and fourth centuries BCE

• Marks the beginning of the Western philosophical tradition
• Author of (Socratic) dialogues:
• The Republic (c. 375 BCE)
• Ion (c. 380 BCE)
• Phaedrus (c. 370 BCE)
• …and many others
• Topics: government, education, friendship, religion… poetry, art, representation
 THE REPUBLIC

• Ideas about an ideal society

• Led by philosopher kings, benevolent and educated; common good of all
• Children raised communally
• Ideal education: physical education + music and poetry; Homer's Iliad, Odyssey
• Poetry can corrupt the minds of youths – provides untrue ideas about world or true
ideas that prevent them from becoming ideal citizens
• Poetry might lure listeners away from philosophy
• What do you think? Should literature be censored for young readers?
 THE REPUBLIC

• Mistrust of poetry > mistrust of representation

• Plato's idealism > universal ideals
• Example of a couch > it is like the idea of the couch, but not the real thing
• Who is the author of the idea, of "couchness" > divinely created
• Every category in the world > divinely created ideal form: Platonic ideal
• No human creation can reach the ideal > only philosophic contemplation
• A picture: imitation of an imitation of the ideal > two steps away, twice removed
• Mimesis: Greek, representation, imitation
• Allegory of the cave; education through philosophy; The Matrix (1999)
• Speech > more important than writing
 ARISTOTLE: POETICS

• Student of Plato
• Poetics – most influential work of literary criticism (medieval theology, Renaissance, 20th, 21st ct.)
• Poetry: comedy, tragedy, epic
• Six parts of tragedy: mythos (plot), ethos (characters), dianoia (theme), lexis (speech, language),
melos (music), opsis (visual aspects)
• Story structure:
• Beginning (central event, conflict; exposition)
• Middle (peripeteia – reversal; anagnorisis - recognition)
• End (brings closure to central event)
 ARISTOTLE: POETICS

• Unity of dramatic work: if any part is removed, the whole is disturbed

• Plato – mistrusts representation
• Aristotle – representation (mimesis) is natural to human beings; beneficial to society
• Tragedy: catharsis – cleansing of negative emotions; pity, fear, fate of tragic hero

• Impossible occurrences in a believable way

• Better than possible occurrences in an unbelievable way
 ARISTOTLE: RHETORIC

• Influenced literary theorists

• Rhetoric: study of language as a means of persuasion
• Political speech, visual rhetoric, advertising…
• Three ways orator can make appeals to audience:
• Ethos (character) – credibility; fame
• Logos (logic) – content of speech; facts, organization; convincing?
• Pathos (emotion) – appeal to the emotions of the audience
 HORACE, QUINTILIAN, LONGINUS

• Ancient literary criticism – handbooks for poets, orators

• Horace – celebrated Roman poet; epistles (letters), satires; together with Juvenal, founder of satire
• Ars Poetica (The Art of Poetry)
• Best poetry – unified, consistent; clear and simple; delight and instruct
• Quintilian – Institutio Oratoria (The Orator's Education) – guide for orators; figures of speech,
metaphor, metonymy, irony
• Longinus – On the Sublime; influential in 17th & 18th ct.
• A work that is sublime produces feeling of wonder, astonishment, ecstasy
• Sources of sublime: grand conceptions; strong emotion; well-chosen figures of speech, good diction,
elevated word arrangement
 THE MIDDLE AGES

• Medieval religious scholars helped shape literary criticism

• > developed methods and terminology for interpreting the Bible
• > established a canon; the New Testament of the Bible
• St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430), North African bishop
• How to identify texts that were truly the word of God > canon
• Apocryphal books > not official part of the Bible
• Canon > non-religious set of texts accepted as important or as classics
 SCHOLASTICISM

• 11th & 12th ct., monasteries, universities

• Christian intellectual movement
• Philosophical methods; studied the Bible, theological issues…
• St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-74), most famous scholastic philosopher
• Modeled on Aristotle, applied to Christian topics
• Summa Theologica (1265-74)
• Major issue: contradictions Old vs. New Testament (e.g. an eye for an eye vs. turn the other cheek)
• Solution: the Bible as polysemous
• > the four levels of interpretation: literal or historical; allegorical; moral; spiritual
• > but: interpretation is for trained monks and priests