An Introduction to Liberal Humanism

Liberal humanism can be defined as a philosophical and literary movement in

which man and his capabilities are the central concern. It can also be defined as a
system of historically changing views that recognizes the value of the human
being as an individual and his right to liberty and happiness.

Liberal humanism has its roots at the beginning of English studies in the early
1800’s and became fully articulated between 1930 and 1950. It was attacked by
theories such as Marxism and Feminism beginning in the 1960’s. In 1840, F.D.
Maurice argued that the study of English literature connects readers to what is
“fixed and enduring” in their own national identity. Liberal humanism inspired a
scientific, rational world view that placed the knowing individual at the center of
history, and viewed that history as the progress of Western thought. It served as
the catalyst for the modern world’s reliance on individualism and belief in a
common human nature, scientific rationality, and the search for truth as universal
knowledge and certainty in the world. The study of Liberal Humanism finds
meaning within the text itself, without elaborate processes of placing it in
contexts. It detaches itself from its context and age; in isolation without any prior
knowledge, prejudice or ideological ideas about the text.

There are some aspects to liberal humanism that have been made into what is
called the ‘ten tenets’. They are invisible guidelines literary critics use when
reading a text. It is said that “ they can only be brought to the surface by a
conscious effort of will.” (Peter Barry).

read 2nd book!!!

The ten tenets of liberal humanism are:
Good literature is timeless, transcendent and speaks to what is constant in human
nature
Literary text contains its own meaning (not in subordinate reference to a
sociopolitical, literary-historical, or autobiographical context)
Text therefore studied in isolation without ideological assumptions or political
conditions—goal of close verbal analysis to ‘see the object as in itself it really is’
(Matthew Arnold pace Kant)
Human nature unchanging—continuity valued over innovation
Individuality as essence securely possessed by each ‘transcendent subject’ distinct
from forces of society, experience, and language
Purpose of literature to enhance life in a non-programmatic (non-propagandistic)
way
Form and content fused organically in literature
‘Sincerity’ resides within the language of literature, noted by avoidance of cliché
or inflated style so that the distance/difference between words and things is
abolished
‘Showing’ valued over ‘telling’—concrete enactment better than expository
explanation
Criticism should interpret the text unencumbered by theorizing, by preconceived
ideas—must trust instead to direct, empirical, sensory encounter text (Lockean
legacy)
poetics defence of poetry preface
The key critics in history of criticism: Aristotle, Sidney, Johnson, Wordsworth,
Coleridge, Keats and Shelley. Shelley anticipates Russian formalists’ emphasis on
‘defamiliarization’; for Shelley, poetry “strips the veil of familiarity from the
world” his criticism also anticipates Freudian notion of mind made up of conscious
and unconscious elements. Works of George Eliot, Matthew Arnold, Henry James
also played major roles. Arnold feared with decline of common belief in religion
that society needed literature to enable the middle classes debased by
materialism and philistinism to recognize “the best that has been known and
thought in the world” via canon of great works—goal to attain pure, disinterested
knowledge, and employ past touchstones to evaluate present works. Eliot’s idea
of poetic ‘impersonality’ expressed in “Tradition and the Individual Talent”—anti-
Romantic sense of tradition speaking through and transmitted by the poet.
Recurrent ideas in critical theory:
1. Many notions that we habitually regard as fixed and reliable essences
(gender identity, individual self-hood, literature itself) are fluid, unstable,
socially constructed, contingent, provisional categories upon which no
overarching absolute truths can be established.

2. All thinking affected and largely determined by ideological commitments—

no mode of inquiry is disinterested, not even one’s own (Barry notes that
this premise introduces risk of relativism that may undercut one’s
argument).

itself
3. Language conditions and limits what we see and all reality is a
linguistic/textual construct
Any claim to offer definitive[final] reading would be futile. Meanings in literary text are never fixed but always shifting and
ambiguous. Establishing fixed meaning in literature is not possible.

4. All texts are webs of contradiction with no final court of appeals to render
judgment

5. Distrust of grand, totalizing theories/notions, including notion of “great

books” that are somehow identifiably great regardless of a particular
sociopolitical context; likewise, concept of a “human nature” that
distrusted too.
transcends race, gender , class is untenable, and can be shown to have the
effect of marginalizing other categories of identification/affiliation when
some general “human nature” is invoked, appealed to.

Finally, one can conclude that:

Politics is pervasive,
Language is constitutive,
Truth is provisional,
Meaning is contingent,
Human nature is a myth.