Victorian Criticism

PPT made by Dr Kalyani Vallath

 Matthew Arnold: Introduction
• First modern critic; “critics’ critic”
• Founder of the sociological school of criticism
• Introduced a methodology of objective literary criticism through Essays in Criticism
• Attributed a high value to poetry and talks about judgement and evaluation of poetry in “The Study of Poetry”
• In reaction to the commercialisation and materialism of the industrialised Victorian society, he places poetry in a
position higher than religion, science, politics. In that society, man seemed to be leading a fractured and incomplete
existence. He critiqued the utilitarianism, scientism, positivism and rationalism of the bourgeois society (Philistines)
and stressed spiritual and moral values instead.
• Aristocracy—Barbarians; Middle class—Philistines; Working class—Populace
• He believed that poetry (being a mode of interiority) serves a special function in society and serves to give it moral
values (Art for Life’s sake). This constituted a move from the exteriority of bourgeois life to the interiority of selfhood.
• Through literary criticism, propagated “the best that was known and thought in the world”
• Moved on from literary criticism to a general critique of the spirit of his age.

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 Matthew Arnold: Introduction
• Touchstone method introduced scientific objectivity to criticism
• Criticism—2 types
• Socio-ethnic criticism—Culture and Anarchy
• Literary criticism—2 types
• Theoretical criticism—Function of Criticism
• Practical criticism—Consists of his estimates of English & contemporary poets

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 Influences
• Classical learning from father
• Works represent classical resistance to romanticism
• Influence of his profound reading
• Influenced by the German poet Goethe & French critics Taine & Sainte Beuve

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 Intro to The Study of Poetry
• The essay was originally published as the introduction to T. H. Ward’s
anthology, The English Poets (1880). It appeared later in Essays in Criticism, Second
Series.
• The essay addresses the general middle class reader with an interest in poetry
• It is not meant for the critics and academics
• This is a very influential text of literary humanism
• It insists on the social and cultural functions of literature, its ability to civilise and to
cultivate morality, against the mechanistic excesses of modern civilization
• Sets down rules for judgement and evaluate good poetry

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 A Critical Summary
• “The Future of poetry is immense, because in poetry, our race, as time goes on, will
find an ever surer and surer stay. There is not a creed which is not shaken…But for
poetry the idea is everything; the rest is a world of illusion, of divine illusion. Poetry
attaches its emotion to the idea; the idea is the fact. The strongest part of our
religion to-day is its unconscious poetry.”
• The status of religion has been increasingly threatened by science, by the
ideology of the “fact”
• Philosophy is also powerless since it is entrenched in unresolved questions and
problems.

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 The Study of Poetry
• We have to turn to poetry to interpret life for us, to console us, to sustain us.
Without poetry, our science will appear incomplete; and most of what now passes
with us for religion and philosophy will be replaced by poetry. Science is incomplete
without poetry.
• In the occasion of Victorian dilemma, when religion and philosophy have failed, it
is to poetry we must turn, not only for spiritual and emotional support and
consolation, but to interpret life for us.

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 The Study of Poetry
• After giving this importance to poetry, he moves ahead to define the canon for
good poetry. “But if we conceive thus highly of the destinies of poetry, we must also
set our standard for poetry high, since poetry, to be capable of fulfilling such high
destinies, must be poetry of a high order of excellence.”
• If poetry is to be capable of such higher uses, we should be able to distinguish
good poetry from bad poetry
• This relates to the notions of the classic and tradition, which he will discuss later,
and which was also further developed by modernists like FR Leavis and TS Eliot

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 The Study of Poetry
• Poetry is capable of higher uses—helps to interpret life for us, to console us & to
sustain us.
• Only best poetry is capable of performing this task. Poetry is the criticism of life.
• Readers should recognize & discover the highest qualities which produce the best
poetry.

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 Charlatanism
• For Arnold there is no place for charlatanism in poetry. To him “poetry is the criticism of life,
governed by the laws of poetic truth and poetic beauty”. It is in the criticism of life that the
spirit of our race will find its stay (shelter) and consolation. The extent to which the spirit of
mankind finds its stay and consolation is proportional to the power of a poem’s criticism of
life, and the power of the criticism of life is in direct proportion to the extent to which the
poem is genuine and free from charlatanism.
• Charlatanism is for confusing or obliterating the distinctions between excellent and
inferior, sound and unsound or only half-sound, true and untrue or only half-true.
• Religion, Philosophy and Politics are the realms of charlatanism (goodness is corrupted by
what is fake, pretentious and harmful, the distinction between right and wrong is blurred)
• Thus he is of the view that, “the best poetry is what we want; the best poetry will be found to
have a power of forming, sustaining, and delighting us, as nothing else can”.

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 Historical and Personal Fallacies
• He also cautions the critic that in forming a genuine and disinterested estimate of the
poet under consideration he should not be influenced by historical or personal
judgments, historical judgments being fallacious because we regard ancient poets with
excessive veneration, and personal judgments being fallacious when we are biased
towards a contemporary poet.
• The historic estimate is likely in especial to affect our judgment and our language when
we are dealing with ancient poets; the personal estimate when we are dealing with
poets our contemporaries, or at any rate modern.
• Arnold asserts that we should be sure that our estimate of poetry is “real” rather than
historical or personal. Many scholars fall into the trap of making historical (rather than
critical) estimates of an author. However, what matters is not the historical importance
of an author, but the position of his works as classics. Chaucer is one such writer.
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 Classic
• Everything depends on the reality of a poet’s classic character.
• If a poet is a 'dubious classic, let us sift him
• If he is a false classic, let us explode him
• But if he is a real classic, if his work belongs to the class of the very best . . . enjoy his
work
• Arnold cites abuses of criticism in comparing Caedmon to Milton, or the eminent
French critic, M. Vitet’s estimation of the early French epic poem Chanson de
Roland, which is not a classic, but Homer definitely is. He quotes lines to illustrate
this.

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 Touchstone Method
• How do we make a real estimate of a classic? Arnold’s solution is to use touchstones.
• Indeed there can be no more useful help for discovering what poetry belongs to the class of the
truly excellent, and can therefore do us most good, than to have always in one’s mind lines and
expressions of the great masters, and to apply them as a touchstone to other poetry…. Short
passages, even single lines, will serve our turn quite sufficiently.
• Even when critics fail to define great poetry, in the presence of great lines of verse, we are
“thoroughly penetrated by their power”. Arnold cites lines from great poets in various languages
to prove this.
• Touchstone Method—To assess the relative merit of a work by comparing it with excerpts from
the work of classical writers such as Homer & Dante, as well as from Milton & Shakespeare.
• Against his earlier concept that it is the total impression that counts
• Comparative method

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 Touchstones
• Arnold quotes several touchstone passages that have one thing in common—the possession of the very
highest poetical quality
• Helen mentions her brothers: “So said she; they long since in Earth’s soft arms were reposing, / There, in
their own dear land, their fatherland, Lacedaemon”—Iliad
• The address of Zeus to the horses of Peleus: “Ah, unhappy pair, why gave we you to King Peleus, to a
mortal? but ye are without old age, and immortal. Was it that with men born to misery ye might have
sorrow?”—Iliad
• The words of Achilles to Priam: “Nay, and thou too, old man, in former days wast, as we hear, happy.”—
Iliad
• Ugolino’s words: “I wailed not, so of stone grew I within; / they wailed.—Inferno
• Beatrice to Virgil: “Of such sort hath God, thanked be His mercy, made me, / That your misery toucheth
me not, / Neither doth the flame of this fire strike me.”—Inferno
• “In His will is our peace.”—Paradiso

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 Touchstones
• Henry the Fourth’s expostulation with sleep:
“Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast
Seal up the ship-boy’s eyes, and rock his brains
In cradle of the rude imperious surge . . .”
• Hamlet’s dying request to Horatio—
“If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart,
Absent thee from felicity awhile,
And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain
To tell my story . . .”
• Miltonic passages
Darken’d so, yet shone
Above them all the archangel; but his face
Deep scars of thunder had intrench’d, and care
Sat on his faded cheek . . .
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 Touchstones
• Satan’s speech
And courage never to submit or yield
And what is else not to be overcome . . .
• About Ceres’ loss of Prosperpine in Book IV of Paradise Lost
. . . which cost Ceres all that pain
To seek her through the world.”

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 Attributes of Best Poetry
• So to judge good poetry wherein our estimate is not affected by fallacies, we should
look for following attributes in the poetry:
• 1. The matter and substance of the poetry, and its manner and style. Both of these,
the substance and matter on the one hand, the style and manner on the other, have
a mark, an accent, of high beauty, worth, and power.
• 2. Only one thing we may add as to the substance and matter of poetry, guiding
ourselves by Aristotle’s profound observation that the superiority of poetry over
history consists in its possessing a higher truth and a higher seriousness . Let us
add, therefore, to what we have said, this: that the substances and matter of the
best poetry acquire their special character from possessing, in an eminent degree,
truth and seriousness.

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 Truth & High Seriousness
• Excellence of poetry lies both in its matter or substance & in its manner & style. If
matter has truth & high seriousness, manner & diction will also acquire the accent
of superiority.
• Thus, the superior character of truth and seriousness, in the matter and substance
of the best poetry, is inseparable from the superiority of diction and movement
marking its style and manner.
• So, a poet’s criticism of life may have such truth and power that it triumphs over its
world and delights us.

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 Estimate of Chaucer
• Then Arnold charts out the tradition and development of poetry
• In the 12th and 13th centuries, French romance-poetry, like that of Christian of
Troyes, was held in high regard. By historical estimate, he seems great.
• In the 14th century came Chaucer who was nourished on the French tradition.
Chaucer’s power of fascinating his readers is enduring; his poetical importance
does not need the assistance of the historic estimate; it is real.
• He is a genuine source of joy and strength, which is flowing still for us and will flow
always. He will be read, as time goes on, far more generally than he is read now. His
language is a cause of difficulty for us; but so also, and I think in quite as great a
degree, is the language of Burns. In Chaucer’s case, as in that of Burns (because it is
Scots dialect), it is a difficulty to be unhesitatingly accepted and overcome.

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 Estimate of Chaucer
• Chaucer’s superiority is both in the substance of his poetry and in the style of his
poetry.
• Chaucer has gained the power to survey the world from a central, a truly human point
of view. Arnold recalls Dryden’s comments: “It is sufficient to say, according to the
proverb, that here is God’s plenty.” And again: “He is a perpetual fountain of good
sense.” Chaucer’s poetry has truth of substance, divine liquidness of diction, divine
fluidity of movement.
• Chaucer is the father of our splendid English poetry; he is our “well of English
undefiled” (quote from Spenser), because by the lovely charm of his diction, the lovely
charm of his movement, he makes an epoch and founds a tradition. In Spenser,
Shakespeare, Milton, Keats, we can follow the tradition of the liquid diction, the fluid
movement of Chaucer
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 Estimate of Chaucer
• Arnold quotes from Chaucer’s Prioress’s Tale:
• O martyr souded in virginitee! [“The French soudé; soldered, fixed fast.”]—a line which has a
virtue of manner and movement
• Again from The Prioress’ Tale, the story of the Christian child murdered in a Jewry—
• My throte is cut unto my nekke-bone
Saidè this child, and as by way of kinde
I should have deyd, yea, longè time agone;
But Jesus Christ, as ye in bookès finde,
Will that his glory last and be in minde,
And for the worship of his mother dere
Yet may I sing O Alma loud and clere.”
• Wordsworth has modernised this Tale, but it then lost its charm of fluidity

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 Criticism of Chaucer
• And yet Chaucer is not one of the great classics. His poetry transcends and effaces, easily
and without effort, all the romance-poetry of Catholic Christendom; it transcends and
effaces all the English poetry contemporary with it.
• He lacks the accent of classics like Dante
• What is lacking in Chaucer is the spoudaiotes, the high and excellent seriousness, which
Aristotle assigns as one of the grand virtues of poetry. The substance of Chaucer’s
poetry, his view of things and his criticism of life, has largeness, freedom, shrewdness,
benignity; but it has not this high seriousness. Homer’s criticism of life has it, Dante’s has
it, Shakespeare’s has it.
• He has poetic truth of substance, though he has not high poetic seriousness, and
corresponding to his truth of substance he has an exquisite virtue of style and manner.
With him is born our real poetry.

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 Dryden’s Age
• Arnold does not dwell on Elizabethan poetry or Milton
• Are Dryden and Pope poetical classics? Arnold begins with cordial praise and says they are
masters in letters, two men of admirable talent
• Arnold says we find the Elizabethan translator Chapman’s prose intolerable, Milton’s prose as
grand but obsolete, and Dryden’s as true English prose
• Arnold says, the needful qualities for a fit prose are regularity, uniformity, precision, balance. But
an almost exclusive attention to these qualities involves some repression and silencing of poetry.
• We are to regard Dryden as the puissant and glorious founder, Pope as the splendid high priest,
of our age of prose and reason, of our excellent and indispensable eighteenth century.
• Arnold quotes from both poets to prove that though they may write in verse, though they may in
a certain sense be masters of the art of versification, Dryden and Pope are not classics of our
poetry, they are classics of our prose.

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 Estimate of Gray & Burns
• Gray is our poetical classic of that literature and age; the position of Gray is singular, and
demands a word of notice here. He has not the volume or the power of poets who, coming
in times more favourable, have attained to an independent criticism of life. But he lived
with the great poets, he lived, above all, with the Greeks, through perpetually studying and
enjoying them; and he caught their poetic point of view for regarding life, caught their
poetic manner….He is the scantiest and frailest of classics in our poetry, but he is a classic.
• In the 18th century, there is another great name—Burns. The real Burns is of course in this
Scotch poems, which are very personal. Arnold quotes from Burns to show the grand,
genuine verses which constitute a criticism of life, and involve a high seriousness which
comes from absolute sincerity. Arnold concludes that Burns has truth of matter and truth
of manner, but not the accent or the poetic virtue of the highest masters. He is very
different from Chaucer

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 Burns and Chaucer
• The freedom of Chaucer is heightened, in Burns, by a fiery, reckless energy; the
benignity of Chaucer deepens, in Burns, into an over-whelming sense of the pathos
of things;—of the pathos of human nature, the pathos, also, of non-human nature.
Instead of the fluidity of Chaucer’s manner, the manner of Burns has spring,
boundless swiftness. Burns is by far the greater force, though he has perhaps less
charm. The world of Chaucer is fairer, richer, more significant than that of Burns;
but when the largeness and freedom of Burns get full sweep, as in Tam o’ Shanter,
or still more in that puissant and splendid production, The Jolly Beggars, his world
may be what it will, his poetic genius triumphs over it.

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 The Estimation of Poets
• Chaucer’s poetry—wanting in high seriousness; surveys the world from a truly
human point of view
• Shakespeare & Milton—great poetical classics
• Dryden & Pope—not poetical classics (“are classics of our prose”)
• Dryden’s & Pope’s poetry is “conceived & composed in their wits, genuine poetry is
conceived & composed in the soul”
• The most singular & unique poet of the age of Pope & Dryden—Gray
• The poetry of Burns has truth of matter & manner, but not the accent of the poetic
virtue of the highest masters
• Good literature will never lose its currency
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 The Ending
• Even if good literature entirely lost currency with the world, it would still be
abundantly worth while to continue to enjoy it by oneself. But it never will lose
currency with the world, in spite of monetary appearances; it never will lose
supremacy. Currency and supremacy are insured to it, not indeed by the world’s
deliberate and conscious choice, but by something far deeper,—by the instinct of
self-preservation in humanity.

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 Arnold’s Estimation of Wordsworth
• In Essays in Criticism, Arnold made an evaluation of Wordsworth
• Wordsworth was at the height of popularity between 1830 and 40 at Cambridge
• But after his death he was not well-received in Europe
• Arnold asserts that Wordsworth’s name should stand beside Shakespeare and Milton
• “His poetry is the reality, his philosophy … is the illusion.”
• Arnold’s views in a nutshell
• Wordsworth deserves to be among the greatest poets
• His best poems are his dozen short poems
• He deals with life in a powerful, inspired manner
• However, he relied too much on inspiration and nature

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 Arnold’s Estimation of Keats
• No one except Shakespeare has such “fascinating felicity”, such “perfection of
loveliness”, such “indescribable gusto in the voice” as Keats
• Keats had humbly said, “I think I shall be among the English poets after my death”.
Arnold asserts, “He is, he is, with Shakespeare”
• However, Keats did not have Shakespeare’s power of moral interpretation which is
as beautiful and powerful as his naturalistic interpretation
• He did not possess the “architectonics of poetry” or the power of evolution
• His Endymion is a failure; his Hyperion, fine as it is, is not a success
• But in shorter poems, where mature moral interpretation and architectonics go with
complete poetic development, “he is perfect”

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The Function of Criticism at the Present Time
• Criticism is lower in rank to creation. For great creation, “the power of the man &
the power of the moment must concur” but this will not always occur.
• Even the tremendous natural power of the romantic poets was partially crippled by
the lack in the English society of the 19th century. Criticism alone can help to
remedy.

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The Function of Criticism at the Present Time
• Criticism has the power to make the best ideas prevail.
• Criticism must essentially be the exercise of curiosity & the critic must pursue his
course with the greatest sincerity.
• Criticism must also be disinterested. It must keep aloof from the practical view of
things. In England criticism is being stifled by practical considerations.

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The Function of Criticism at the Present Time
• The function of criticism is to keep men from self-satisfaction. It must lead men to
perfection. But in English it has grown too controversial & practical.
• Criticism is to be directed not only upon the work of art but also upon life in
general.
• A critic must resist the temptation to indulge in false estimates.

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The Function of Criticism at the Present Time
• Literary criticism should be the exercise of disinterested curiosity, the desire to learn
& propagate the best.
• Advocates a European confederation, bound to joint action & working for a
common result & whose members have, for their proper outfit, a knowledge of
Greek, Roman & Eastern antiquity.
• Criticism which is sincere, simple & ardent gives a joyful sense of creative activity.

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 Preface to the Poems, 1853
• Classicism—Love of Hellenic culture, art & literature is reflected everywhere in his
critical workings
• Stress on ‘Action’
• Poetry of the highest order requires a suitable action, sufficiently serious &
worthy
• Poetry, all art, is dedicated to joy & this joy results from the magnificence of its
action
• He criticised his own poem Empedocles on Etna for being too depressing and not
leading to suitable action. He had included this poem in his collection Poems 1852,
but he removed it from the collection Poems 1853, for this reason.

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 Preface to the Poems, 1853
• Subject of Poetry
• Must impart high pleasure
• Character of the subject chosen is important
• Modern poets should not choose modern subjects
• Modern poets must go to the ancients for themes
• Classical literature has pathos, moral profundity and noble simplicity
• Modern themes arise from spiritual weakness; suitable only for lighter forms of
poetry

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 Preface to the Poems, 1853
• Manner & Style
• Highest pleasure results from the whole, & not from separate parts
• Expression cannot take the place of action
• Subject or action should be excellent & the treatment of it should be severe &
simple as it is in the classics
• Considers ancients as safe models

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 Preface to the Poems, 1853
• Grand Style
• Arnold’s concept of grand style is the same as the sublime of Longinus
• Grand style ennobles poetry & life
• For grand style there must be
• Nobility of soul
• Serious action or subject
• Treatment—severe and simple
• Poetically gifted style
• 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
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 Preface to the Poems, 1853
• Poetry—criticism of life
• Noble & profound application of ideas to life
• Makes men noble, better & moral
• The critic must be disinterested in the sense that he should pursue only the ends of
cultural perfection & should remain uninfluenced by the coarser appeals of
Philistines (a racial stereotype that calls for deconstructive reading)

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 Arnold’s Exalted Conception
• Critic
• Discovers the ideas
• Propagates them
• Literary genius—walks in & undertakes the grand work of “synthesis & exposition”
• Fertilizes the soil & waters the young plant
• Rouses men out of their self-satisfaction & complacency
• A critic must be a man of stupendous knowledge & understanding. He must have a
missionary zeal to make the best ideas prevail
• Critic must free himself from certain false standards of judgement. The historical
and personal estimates are fallacious & misleading
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 Culture and Anarchy
• Defines culture as High Culture, as “the study of perfection”
• He is against Anarchy, the prevalent mood of England's then new democracy, which
lacks standards and a sense of direction
• Hellenism and Hebraism
• Hellenism is the values of ancient Greece—paganism, love of life and beauty,
freedom (spontaneity of consciousness)
• Hebraism is the values of Christianity—austere monotheism (one God only),
conforming to rules (strictness of consciousness)

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 Limitations of Arnold’s Criticism
• No analytical study of even a single poem. Only critical survey of the course of
English poetry or general studies of particular poets
• Criticism is prejudiced by his classical & moral bias
• Dislike of the romantic poets is largely moral; not from an impartial appraisal of
literary merit
• Judges a poet on the basis of his preconceived theories & not with an open mind
• Fails to appreciate the greatness of Dryden & Pope
• He values only ‘tragic poems’ & looks down upon comedies as “contemporary
trifles”

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 Arnold as 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 Hamlet-like 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.

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 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.

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 Return to Classical values
• 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 don't
possess the loftiness to support epic or heroic poetry.

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 Return to Classical values
• 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.

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 Walter Pater (1839-94)
• Subjectivist and impressionistic critic associated with Aestheticism and the Pre-Raphaelites
• Educated at Oxford; deeply affected by renaissance paintings in Italy
• Ideologically against John Ruskin and insisted artistic autonomy
• Introduced the doctrine of “art for art’s sake”
• This is a feature of Decadence, which marked a resigned withdrawal from socio-political
concerns, disillusionment with religion and a rejection of bourgeois culture
• Gave up the intention to enter the church due to his interest in classical studies. His early works
reflect his classical studies, coloured by a highly individual view of Christian devotion and his
extremely refined artistic sensations
• In his later critical writings Pater continued to focus on the innate qualities of works of art, in
contrast to the prevailing tendency to evaluate them on the basis of their moral and educational
value.
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Studies in the History of the Renaissance (The Renaissance, 1873)

• Essays on Leonardo da Vinci, Sandro Botticelli, Pico della Mirandola, Michelangelo, etc
• Changed the Victorian conception of art
• Art is concerned with its own sensuous ingredients (form, color, balance, and tone) more than anything else
• Imposition of morals is against the integrity of art
• Art as a vehicle for the expression of uplifting sentiments or edifying ideals
• The genuine critic analyses the impression that a painting or a poem communicates and then traces that
impression to the structural elements of the work
• The notorious conclusion of The Renaissance
• Art is a means of enhancing, expanding, and enlarging the faculties of sensuous apprehension
• Art exists for the sake of its beauty alone, and that it requires neither moral standards nor utilitarian
functions as its purpose of being
• Controversial for it seemed to endorse amorality and "hedonism"

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 Other Works
• Pater’s ideal of an aesthetic and religious life is elaborately discussed in his novel Marius the Epicurean
• Imaginary Portraits (1887)
• Short pieces of philosophical fiction
• Pater invented the genre of imaginary portrait as a kind of short story
• Each portrait focuses on an individual who is deeply solitary, and enigmatic, who stands as a
representative of cultural transition
• Appreciations (1889)
• Critical essays on English subjects
• Contains a Postscript and Essay on Style
• Plato and Platonism (1893)
• A literary view of Plato and neglecting the logical and dialectical side of his philosophy
• Other posthumous works

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 Postscript
• Distinguishes between the words “Romantic” and “Classic”, which were being used very loosely and
vaguely
• “Classic” normally means what is conventional and traditional
• “Romantic” means something unusual, something new
• According to Pater
• The distinction between these two terms is not necessarily between reason and emotions, or past
and present
• Rather it is the difference between two universal principles that co-exist in art—the distinction
between form and idea, between authority and liberty
• The classic, like a tale, can be told over and over again and gives the tranquil charm of familiarity.
• The Romantic spirit is an ever-present, enduring principle and is the addition of strangeness to the
beauty of art.

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 Style
• Had a distinctive prose style
• He used to keep little squares of paper, each filled with its ideas, and then shuffled
them to form a pattern and sequence.
• He always wrote on ruled paper and kept each alternate line blank. Then he
prepared a fair copy of it and sometimes even got it printed to judge its effect.
• At the height of Pater’s career, he discussed broadly his style and principles of
composition in the essay ‘Style’, published in 1888.
• His style was perfectly attuned to his philosophy with its depth, richness and
sensuous rhythms.

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 Views on Style
• Echoes Longinus
• The writer should present the subject in three ways
• Diction (“a vocabulary faithful to the colouring of his own spirit”—use current
words in their finer meaning, exercising economy)
• Design (combination of words into a unified whole, like an architectural design)
• Personality (soul in style—the mind brings about a unity of design, a unity of tone
or atmosphere)

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 Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
• Aesthete, major figure of Decadence, dazzling wit, flamboyant conversationalist,
dandy
• His social comedies took the London stage by storm; wrote poetry, novels, criticism
• The famous Preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray is a manifesto of his aestheticism
• Rejected the notion of art as imitation, art as expressing reality or ideality; rejected
connection art with truth or morality
• States “the artist is the creator of beautiful things”
• There is “no such thing as a moral or immoral book”
• “Beautiful things mean only Beauty” and “Art is quite useless”

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 “The Critic as Artist”
• Most important views on art and criticism
• In the form of a dialogue between Ernest (who values art over criticism) and Gilbert (who voices
Wilde’s notions of the superiority of criticism)
• Reinterprets Plato and Aristotle in the light of aestheticism
• Plato attempted to connect beauty, truth and morality, and will be remembered as a “critic of
Beauty
• Aristotle’s kartharsis (purification of emotions) is an aesthetic (rather than moral) notion
• Whatever “is modern in our life we owe to the Greeks. Whatever is anachronism is due to
medievalism.”
• The antithesis between art and criticism is arbitrary. Without criticism, there is no art, because
art is not just an outpouring of emotion, but is “self-conscious and deliberate”. “Criticism is itself
an art.” The highest criticism is more creative than creation, the record of one’s own soul.
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 John Ruskin (1819-1900)
• Born into the commercial class; introduced the commercial classes to the possibility of enjoying and
collecting art
• Victorian Sage writer, or Prophet: a writer of polemical prose who sought to bring about cultural and
social change
• Painter, prose stylist, critic of art, architecture and society, characterised by religious intensity and
appreciation for Romanticism; became Slade Professor of Fine Arts at Oxford later
• Critic who had a major impact on art evaluation of the 19th century
• Romantically idealised the Middle Ages; his medievalist enthusiasm led Ruskin to support the PRB
• Promoted Venetian painting, the English artist JMW Turner (1775-1851), the Pre-Raphaelites, and
Gothic architecture; condemned Baroque art as insincere
• Believed in the dignity of labour and the importance of craftsmanship
• Later influenced William Morris (1834-96) and the English Arts and Crafts movement

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 Modern Painters (1843)
• Took 17 years to write; subsequently in 5 volumes
• Praised the “truth” of the depiction of Nature in Turner’s landscape paintings
(Neoclassical critics criticised Turner for his failure to represent the “general truth”
that had been an essential criterion of painting in the age of Sir Joshua Reynolds.
True to the Romantic spirit, Ruskin shifted from general to particular truths and
highlighted Turner’s “truth of tone,” “truth of colour,” “truth of space,” “truth of
skies,” “truth of earth,” “truth of water,” and “truth of vegetation”
• Discussed Pathetic fallacy (the attribution of human feelings and responses to
inanimate things or animals)
• Advocated Art for Life’s Sake: an ethical conception of art as distinct from the
Aesthetic, undidactic, or art-for-art’s-sake definition

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 Other Works of Art Criticism
• The Seven Lamps of Architecture (1849)
• Written during the European revolutions of 1848
• Describes seven moral principles (or ‘Lamps’) to guide architectural practice
• One of these is The Lamp of Memory” which expresses respect for the original style of old
buildings. This inspired William Morris and the conservation movement of the 20th century
• Stones of Venice (1853)
• Venice has fallen from its medieval glory through the impiety and arrogance (as Ruskin saw
it) of the Renaissance, to its modern condition of political impotence and social frivolity
• Celebrated the Italian Gothic which encouraged the use of foreign models in English
Gothic Revival architecture

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 Cultural Criticism
• Influenced by his friendship with Thomas Carlyle
• “The Work of Iron in Nature, Art and Policy” (published in The Two Paths, 1859)
• Contrasts the exquisite sculptured iron grilles of medieval Verona with the mass-
produced metal security railings with which modern citizens protect their houses
• Two works on political economy
• Unto This Last and Munera Pulveris (1862 and 1872)
• First appeared as magazine articles
• Attack on the classical economics of Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill

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 Cultural Criticism
• Sesame and Lilies (1865)
• Statement on the natures and duties of men and women
• Two parts: “Of Kings' Treasuries” (critiques Victorian manhood) and “Of Queens'
Gardens” (counsels women to take their places as the moral guides of men and
urges the parents of girls to educate them to this end)
• The second part became notorious in the late 20th century as an example of
Victorian male chauvinism (as against John Stuart Mill's more progressive
“Subjection of Women”)
• Ruskin advocated the conventional image of the feminine as pacific, altruistic, and
uncompetitive, to support his anticapitalist social model.

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 Cultural Criticism
• The Crown of Wild Olive (1866, enlarged in 1873)
• Three essays: “Work,” “Traffic,” “War”
• Lectures meant for workers, traders and soldiers
• “The Mystery of Life and Its Arts”
• About the mystery of life and its reaction to the arts and labour
• The Queen of the Air (1869)
• About the divine power of Nature at a time when the faith in Christianity is changing
• Fors Clavigera: Letters to the Workmen and Labourers of Great Britain, a one-man monthly
magazine that presented his cultural ideas
• His autobiography Praeterita (1885–89) presents a history of the development of his thought

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 John Stuart Mill (1806-73)
• Advocate of the empirical tradition and Utilitarianism; great apostle of political liberalism, a true
follower of John Locke
• Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy (1865)
• His theory of knowledge is discussed
• A combination of the doctrines of Berkeley and Hume
• Presented his denial of the a priori element in knowledge
• A System of Logic (1843)
• Subtitled “The Principles of Evidence and the Methods of Scientific Investigation”
• Presents his chief theoretical ideas
• Enormously influential, especially the section called “On the Logic of the Moral Sciences”
• Distinguished between deduction and induction
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 Other Works
• Utilitarianism (1861)
• Advocates moral self-development of the individual
• The Greatest Good Principle (the greatest happiness of the greatest number)— Asserted that actions
that lead to people's happiness are right and that those that lead to suffering are wrong. By happiness
he means intended pleasure, and the absence of pain
• It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a
fool satisfied.
• On Liberty (1859)
• Argued in favour of the freedom of the individual against “the tyranny of the majority,” presented strong
arguments in favour of complete freedom of thought and discussion, and argued that no state or society
has the right to prevent the free development of human individuality
• Considerations on Representative Government (1861)
• A classic defense for the principle of representative democracy

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 Other Works
• Subjection of Women (1869)
• Inspired by, and perhaps written in collaboration with Harriet Taylor Mill
• Argues in favour of legal and social equality between men and women
• Asserts that ‘the legal subordination of one sex to the other’ is ‘wrong in itself,
and now one of the chief hindrances to human improvement’

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 Mill’s Major Ideas
• The tyranny of the majority (or tyranny of the masses) is an inherent weakness of the
majority rule in which the majority (of an electorate) pursues only its own objectives at
the expense of those of the minority factions.
• The Harm Principle is a central tenet of the political philosophy known as liberalism
and was first proposed by English philosopher John Stuart Mill.Mill wrote what is known
as the 'harm principle' as an expression of the idea that the right to self-determination is
not unlimited. An action which results in doing harm to another is not only wrong, but
wrong enough that the state can intervene to prevent that harm from occurring.
• Individualism according to JS Mill related to happiness. Happiness is defined as
becoming whatever the individual wanted to be. Mill called this “individuality.” Also, Mill
believed that social phenomena can be reduced to, or explained with reference to,
individual behaviour

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 Henry James (1843-1916)
• Novelist, short story writer and critic; representative of a transatlantic culture
• Novels on the theme of the innocence and exuberance of the New World in clash
with the corruption and wisdom of the Old
• Younger brother of the pragmatist philosopher William James
• Influenced by European and American Romantics; acquainted with realist and
naturalist writers
• From these writers he acquired the idea of critical disinterestedness

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 “The Art of Fiction” (1884)
• Written in response to a lecture / essay titled “Fiction as One of the Fine Arts,” by
Walter Besant
• Published in Longman's Magazine
• Succinct expression of his critical ideas; a manifesto of literary realism that argued
against rigid prescriptions on the novelist's choice of subject and method of treatment
• Chief arguments
• Asserts the importance of the novel as a genuine art form
• Rules cannot be prescribed for fiction (The novelist and the novel must be free)
• Against the puritanical criticism that attacked art as amoral; James asserts that novel is
free from moral and educational constraints

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 “The Art of Fiction” (1884)
• The novel represents life; produces the complex “illusion of life” (it is not passive imitation and cannot be
contained within a formula)
• The novel is “a personal, a direct impression of life”
• “as the picture is reality, so the novel is history” (The novel is analogous with philosophy and history)
• The novelist’s task is analogous to that of the painter
• He wrote in “The Future of the Novel”: “The novel is of all pictures the most comprehensive and the
most elastic. It will stretch anywhere—it will take in absolutely anything. All it needs is a subject and
a painter. But for its subject, magnificently, it has the whole human consciousness.”
• To write from experience is not a simple thing; it is deeply personal and complex (it is defined like
Coleridge’s imagination)
• Experience is never limited and never complete; it is an immense sensibility, a kind of huge spiderweb
of the finest silken threads suspended in the chamber of consciousness.... It is the very atmosphere of
the mind”

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 “The Art of Fiction” (1884)
• Because reality and experience are so complex, the novelist cannot be taught how
to represent them; the novelist should have the freedom to experiment
• Art cannot have moral or other obligations
• If art has a purpose, that purpose is artistic: it must aim at perfection
• “Remember that your first duty is to be as complete as possible-to make as perfect a
work.”
• James employed in his novels
• Unreliable narrator
• Narrator as centre-of-consciousness

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 Percy Lubbock (1879-65)
• The Craft of Fiction (1921)
• Writers seem to prefer either the restricted scenic vision or the broader panoramic vision (though they use
both)
• Panoramic vision (Fielding, Balzac, George Eliot, Thackeray)
• A broad impression of people and places; crowded with life
• Vanity Fair, Pendennis, The Newcomes, Henry Esmond—"Thackeray saw them as broad expanses,
stretches of territory, to be surveyed from edge to edge with a sweeping glance; he saw them as great
general, typical impressions of life, populated by a swarm of people whose manners and adventures
crowded into his memory. The landscape lay before him, his imagination wandered freely across it,
backwards and forwards. The whole of it was in view at once, a single prospect…”
• Scenic vision (Dostoevsky or Tolstoy)
• Focus on one man’s consciousness, one hour, one scene
• Illustrates with Emma

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