ARISTOTLE (384-322 BC) Aristotle was born in 384 BC at Stagirus.

His father Nichomachus was court physician to the Macedonian king, and from this began Aristotles long association with the Macedonian court, which considerably influenced his life. At the age of 17 he was sent to Athens, the intellectual centre of the world, to complete his education. He joined the Academy and studied under Plato, attending his lectures for a period of twenty years. In the later years of his association with Plato and the Academy he began to lecture on his own account, especially on the subject of rhetoric. At the death of Plato in 347, the pre-eminent ability of Aristotle would seem to have designated him to succeed to the leadership of the Academy. But his divergence from Platos teaching was too great to make this possible, and Platos nephew was chosen instead. Later, he became the tutor of his 13 year old Alexander (later world conqueror). When Alexander succeeded to the kingship Aristotle returned to Athens, which he had not visited since the death of Plato. He found the Platonic school flourishing under Xenocrates, and Platonism the dominant philosophy of Athens. He thus set up his own school at a place called the Lyceum. When teaching at the Lyceum, Aristotle had a habit of walking about as he discoursed. It was in connection with this that his followers became known in later years as the peripatetics, meaning to walk about. He is said to have given two kinds of lectures: the more detailed discussions in the morning for an inner circle of advanced students, and the popular discourses in the evening for the general body of lovers of knowledge. At the sudden death of Alexander in 323 BC, the proMacedonian government in Athens was overthrown, and a general reaction occurred against anything Macedonian. To escape prosecution Aristotle fled to another city, Chalcis, so that, as Aristotle himself said, The Athenians might not have another opportunity of sinning against philosophy as they had already done in the person of Socrates. In the first year of his residence at Chalcis, in 322 BC, he died of a stomach illness. The Poetics Aristotle is the first scientific critic and his literary criticism is largely embodied in The Poetics. The Poetics is a short treatise of 26 chapters, neither comprehensive nor exhaustive. The Poetics can be divided into six parts: 1. Chapters 1-5introductory remarks on poetry, classification of poetry into different kinds. 2. Chapters 6-19discussion of Tragedy 3. Chapters 20-22discussion of poetic diction, style, vocabulary, etc. 4. Chapter 23discussion of Narrative Poetry and Tragedy 5. Chapters 24 & 26discussion of Epic and comparison with Tragedy 6. Chapter 25objections of critics against poetry and Aristotles reply. JOHN DRYDEN John Dryden (1631-1700) was a versatile and voluminous writer who left no branch of literature untouched and produced works of outstanding merit in each filed. Dr. Johnson called him, the father of English criticism. The only formal work of criticism that he has left behind him is his Essay on Dramatic Poesy. With the exception of the Essay on Dramatic Poesy, Drydens criticism is embodied in the innumerable prefaces, epilogues and letters of dedication which he prefixed to his poetic and dramatic works all through his long literary career. They are valuable pieces of practical criticism, for they contain extended analyses of the works which they introduce. Essay on Dramatic Poesy (1668) Drydens manifold critical gifts are fully brought out only by his Essay on Dramatic Poesy. In his address, To the Reader prefixed to the Essay, Dryden says that his aim was, to vindicate the honour of our English writers, from the censure of those who unjustly prefer the French before them. However, the real aims of Dryden are much wider. The essay is also an attempt to evolve the principles which ought to guide us in judging a play, as well as an effort to discover the rules which

could help a dramatist in writing a good play. The play is also a contribution to two current controversies: (1) regarding the comparative superiority of the ancient and the moderns. Dryden demonstrates the superiority of the moderns over the ancients, as also the superiority of contemporary (Restoration) English dramatists over the dramatists of the last generation, i.e. the Elizabethans, and (2) the comparative merits and demerits of blank verse and rhyme for dramatic purposes. Dryden upholds the superiority of rhymed verse. Its Plan Thus, in the main, five critical questions are handled in The Essay: The relative merits of ancient and modern poets. Whether the existing French school of drama is superior or inferior to the English. Whether the Elizabethan dramatists were in all points superior to those of Drydens own time. Whether plays are more perfect in proportion as they conform to the dramatic rules laid down by the ancients. 5. Whether the substitution of rhyme for blank verse in serious plays is an improvement. 1. 2. 3. 4. Occasion The immediate occasion for the essay was provided by contemporary events. It so happened that in the year 1663 a Frenchman named Samuel Sorbiere visited England on some diplomatic mission and on returning to France did the undiplomatic thing of publishing an account of his Voyage in which he made some unfavourable remarks about English science and English stage. Sorbiere succeeded in provoking one reply, both on scientific and literary grounds, from the historian of the English Royal Society, Thomas Sprat. And it was not long after the incident that John Dryden, courtly poet and dramatist wrote the present Essay. The Setting: Its Dramatic Nature There are four speakers or interlocutors and the setting is dramatic. Taking advantage of one of the most notable international relations of the day, the naval battle fought in the Channel between the British and the Dutch on June 3, 1665, Dryden imagines the four gentlemanly and witty interlocutors of his dialogue as drifting in a barge softly down the Thames. The literary discussion in which they are soon involved comes up through some chance remarks about certain extravagant poems which have recently appeared in celebration of public events. The Four Characters: Their Views; Their Symbolic Significance The speaker who first develops his view at length, Crites (standing perhaps for Drydens brother-in-law Sir Robert Howard), expounds the extreme classical view, that the Greeks and Romans fully discovered and illustrated those reasonable and perennial rules to which the modern drama must conform. In the really minor issue between the last age and the present in England, he maintains the superiority of the last age in making plays. The second person to speak at length, Eugenius (perhaps Drydens friend Charles Sackville, Lord Buckburst), takes the negative position that the ancient poets failed badly in their illustration of the rules prescribed by their critics. The implication is that the moderns have actually best illustrated the rules. Then thirdly, Lisideius (or Sir Charles Sedley, a younger wit of the day), accepting the same premises as Crites and Eugenius, that the classical rules for the imitation of nature are indeed the fundamentals of correct dramatic creation, advances the argument that perfect realization of the rules is not to be found in the contemporary English drama, but in the French. Thus Dryden gives expression to three leading kinds of classicism through these characters, letting them talk themselves out, and it is not until this late point in the Essay that the main pivot of the argument occurswith the entrance of Neander (the new man, Dryden himself). He upholds the superiority of the English drama over the French, and of rhyme over blank verse. The four speakers hardly agree to anything, and having reached their destination part with mutual courtesy. The readers are left to draw their own conclusions. WORDSWORTHS THEORY OF POETRY Wordsworths theory of poetry, if there is onehas to be extracted from three documents: 1) the Advertisement to Lyrical Ballads 2) the preface to Lyrical Ballads and 3) the Appendix on poetic

diction. Wordsworth was not much of a deliberate theorist. He was wretchedly ill-read on literary criticism as on all other subjects. He was incapable of sustained cogitation. He was blind to logical flaws and contradictions. Wordsworth holds that by the very act of writing a poet undertakes 1) to fulfill the expectations of his readers. These expectations vary from age to age. At times, as a result of conscious effort, it is possible for the poet to alter them. This precisely is what he and Coleridge have attempted to do in Lyrical Ballads. Lyrical Ballads attempts to bring about a revolution in the areas of both content and form. The content of the poems in rooted in the everyday life of ordinary people. The form is a selection of the language of common social intercourse. Wordsworth holds, and this conviction lies at the core of Wordsworthian poetic theory, that this is how it should be in the case of all true poetry. But by just fulfilling these two conditions a piece of verse cannot become good poetry. The Poet has to ensure that strong emotions are associated with the subjects of his poems and he can do that only through long habits of meditation. At the same time the piece should not be artificially composed, it should be an inspired creation. Thus poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings that take its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility. It evokes in the reader the original emotions of the poet. The use of metre distinguishes poetry from prose. But beyond that Wordsworth is unable to identify any basic difference. The objectives of verse and prose are identical; they use the very same medium; emotion and passion are the life-blood of both. A poet, according to Wordsworth, is a man speaking to men. He is very much a common man who thinks and feels like all other common men. But he is endowed with a more than common power of imagination and articulation. He speaks to other men and also for other men. The language and situation of his poetry should go together. The aim of poetry is universal truth. It should represent nature and man with the conviction of truth. The poet must endeavour to give immediate pleasure to the reader by appealing to the humanity within him. The poets obligation to give pleasure is an affirmation of the value and validity of human life Wordsworth declares that genuine passion is always the ultimate source of true poetry. In all cultures and languages classical poets worked under the influence of genuine passion generated by real life events. Being stimulated by genuine passion their language was highly metaphorical and daringly innovative. In succeeding ages even, when not genuinely moved, the same figurative language came to be employed. Thus a poetic diction was produced which took the language of poetry away from the real language of men turning the poetry into life less verbiage. At such points in history a special, conscious effort is required to take the language of poetry back to the people. This is what Lyrical Ballads has attempted to do. However, as Coleridge points out in Biographia Literaria, some of Wordsworths pieces are those which speak of uncommon experiences in a language far more subtle and sophisticated than that used by common men. A good example is Tintern Abbey generally accepted as one of Wordsworths masterpieces. Neither its mystic philosophy nor its highly inspired language as anything everyday about it. MATTHEW ARNOLD Introduction Matthew Arnold, the Victorian poet and critic, was the first modern critic [1], and could be called the critics critic, being a champion not only of great poetry, but of literary criticism itself. The purpose of literary criticism, in his view, was to know the best that is known and thought in the world, and by in its turn making this known, to create a current of true and fresh ideas, and he has influenced a whole school of critics including new critics such as T. S. Eliot, F. R. Leavis, and Allen Tate. He was the founder of the sociological school of criticism, and through his touchstone method introduced scientific objectivity to critical evaluation by providing comparison and analysis as the two primary tools of criticism. Arnolds evaluations of the Romantic poets such as Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley, and Keats are landmarks in descriptive criticism, and as a poet-critic he occupies an eminent position in the rich galaxy of poet-critics of English literature. T. S. Eliot praised Arnolds objective approach to critical evaluation, particularly his tools of comparison and analysis, and Allen Tate in his essay Tension in Poetry imitates Arnolds touchstone

method to discover tension, or the proper balance between connotation and denotation, in poetry. These new critics have come a long way from the Romantic approach to poetry, and this change in attitude could be attributed to Arnold, who comes midway between the two schools. The social role of poetry and criticism To Arnold a critic is a social benefactor. In his view the creative artist, no matter how much of a genius, would cut a sorry figure without the critic to come to his aid. Before Arnold a literary critic cared only for the beauties and defects of works of art, but Arnold the critic chose to be the educator and guardian of public opinion and propagator of the best ideas. Cultural and critical values seem to be synonymous for Arnold. Scott James, comparing him to Aristotle, says that where Aristotle analyses the work of art, Arnold analyses the role of the critic. The one gives us the principles which govern the making of a poem, the other the principles by which the best poems should be selected and made known. Aristotles critic owes allegiance to the artist, but Arnolds critic has a duty to society. To Arnold poetry itself was the criticism of life: The criticism of life under the conditions fixed for such criticism by the laws of poetic truth and poetic beauty, and in his seminal essay The Study of Poetry 1888) he says that poetry alone can be our sustenance and stay in an era where religious beliefs are fast losing their hold. He claims that poetry is superior to philosophy, science, and religion. Religion attaches its emotion to supposed facts, and the supposed facts are failing it, but poetry attaches its emotion to ideas and ideas are infallible. And science, in his view is incomplete without poetry. He endorses Wordsworths view that poetry is the impassioned expression which is in the countenance of all Science, adding What is a countenance without its expression? and calls poetry the breath and finer spirit of knowledge. A moralist As a critic Arnold is essentially a moralist, and has very definite ideas about what poetry should and should not be. A poetry of revolt against moral ideas, he says, is a poetry of revolt against life, and a poetry of indifference to moral ideas is a poetry of indifference to life. Arnold even censored his own collection on moral grounds. He omitted the poem Empedocles on Etna from his volume of 1853, whereas he had included it in his collection of 1852. The reason he advances, in the Preface to his Poems of 1853 is not that the poem is too subjective, with its Hamletlike introspection, or that it was a deviation from his classical ideals, but that the poem is too depressing in its subject matter, and would leave the reader hopeless and crushed. There is nothing in it in the way of hope or optimism, and such a poem could prove to be neither instructive nor of any delight to the reader. Aristotle says that poetry is superior to History since it bears the stamp of high seriousness and truth. If truth and seriousness are wanting in the subject matter of a poem, so will the true poetic stamp of diction and movement be found wanting in its style and manner. Hence the two, the nobility of subject matter, and the superiority of style and manner, are proportional and cannot occur independently. Arnold took up Aristotles view, asserting that true greatness in poetry is given by the truth and seriousness of its subject matter, and by the high diction and movement in its style and manner, and although indebted to Joshua Reynolds for the expression grand style, Arnold gave it a new meaning when he used it in his lecture On Translating Homer (1861): I think it will be found that that the grand style arises in poetry when a noble nature, poetically gifted, treats with simplicity or with a severity a serious subject. According to Arnold, Homer is the best model of a simple grand style, while Milton is the best model of severe grand style. Dante, however, is an example of both. Even Chaucer, in Arnolds view, in spite of his virtues such as benignity, largeness, and spontaneity, lacks seriousness. Burns too lacks sufficient seriousness, because he was hypocritical in that while he adopted a moral stance in some of his poems, in his private life he flouted morality. Return to Classical values Arnold believed that a modern writer should be aware that contemporary literature is built on the foundations of the past, and should contribute to the future by continuing a firm tradition. Quoting

Goethe and Niebuhr in support of his view, he asserts that his age suffers from spiritual weakness because it thrives on self-interest and scientific materialism, and therefore cannot provide noble characters such as those found in Classical literature. He urged modern poets to look to the ancients and their great characters and themes for guidance and inspiration. Classical literature, in his view, possess pathos, moral profundity and noble simplicity, while modern themes, arising from an age of spiritual weakness, are suitable for only comic and lighter kinds of poetry, and dont possess the loftiness to support epic or heroic poetry. Arnold turns his back on the prevailing Romantic view of poetry and seeks to revive the Classical values of objectivity, urbanity, and architectonics. He denounces the Romantics for ignoring the Classical writers for the sake of novelty, and for their allusive (Arnold uses the word suggestive) writing which defies easy comprehension.