moral & philosophical criticism eh 4301. moral criticism “the best poetry has a power of...
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Moral Criticism
“The best poetry has a power of forming, sustaining, and delighting us, as nothing else can. … More and more mankind will discover that 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.”
- Matthew Arnold, “The Study of Poetry”
Literature
An important source of moral guidance and spiritual inspiration
A worthy substitute for religionextreme position in harmony with critical tradition
Moral Criticism
Moral approach has the longest history. The importance of literature
not just its way of saying but also what it says
Moral Criticism
Critics who concentrate on the moral dimensions of literature often judge literary works by their ethical teachings
and by their effects on readers Literature that is ethically sound and encourages
virtue is praised. Literature that misguides and corrupts is
condemned.
Moral Criticism
Some modern critical theories may make us resist the idea that literature has a didactic purpose.but cannot deny many of the greatest writers
have considered themselves teachers as well as artists.
Moral Criticism
Plato acknowledged literature’s power as a teacher
by believing it capable of corrupting morals and undermining religion
Moralism Utilitarianism
Moral Criticism
Aristotle and Horace considered literature capable of fostering
virtueHorace
Literature should be “delightful and instructive”
Moral Criticism
Samuel JohnsonFunction of literature
To teach morality To probe philosophical issues
Moral Criticism
Matthew Arnold“The Study of Poetry”
Most important thing is the moral or philosophical teaching
Great literary work must possess “high seriousness”
literature (poetry) Important source of moral and spiritual inspiration
Would probably replace philosophy and religion
Moral Criticism
Matthew ArnoldCan accept his idea that there are moral and
religious significance in literature.
Moral Criticism
20th century moral evaluation Neo-Humanist
Originally American Literature as a criticism of life the study of the technique of literature is a study of
means concerned with the ends of literature
How it affects the reader
Moral Criticism
Neo-Humanist Paul Elmer More Irving Babbitt Norman Foerster Harry Hayden Clark G.R. Elliott Robert Shafer Frank Jewett Mather Gorham Munson Stuart Sherman Pratt
Moral Criticism
Neo-HumanistOpposed two literary tendencies:
Naturalism Denies man free will and responsibility
Romanticism Excessive cultivation of ego Sympathy with unrestrained expression
Moral Criticism
Irving Babbitt most influential and controversial moral critic
of the 20th century held that literature must help us recognize
the reality of evil the necessity of controlling our impulses
Moral Criticism
Babbitt “Genius and Taste” (1918)
“Truly great literature conforms to standards, to the ethical norm that sets bounds to the eagerness of the creator to express himself.” (164-165)
Literature that does not abide by such standards leads to: self-indulgence moral degeneration
Moral Criticism
BabbittRousseau and Romanticism (1919)
critical of romanticism condemns romantic morality sees Blake as “the extreme example” of dangerous
romantic rejection of limits and restraints: “He proclaims himself of the devil’s party, he glorifies a
free expansion of energy, he looks upon everything that restricts this expansion as synonymous with evil.”
Blake & other poets have contributed to a moral decline in society.
Moral Criticism
Paul Elmer More “Criticism”
It is the critic’s duty, to determine the moral tendency of literary works and to judge them on that basis.
The greatest critics are “discriminators between the false and the true, the deformed and the normal: preachers of harmony and proportion and order, prophets of the religion of taste.”
Moral Criticism
Paul Elmer More“The Praise of Dickens”
Focuses on what is “false” and what is “true” in Dickens’ works.
Values Dickens’ “divine tenderness” and “human delicacy” but also says “a strain of vulgarity” runs through his works (166).
Moral Criticism
Point of contention:Whether the moralist would or would not
acknowledge supernatural sanction for the moral standards he held up to the arts.
More Associated with institutional religion
Elliott Necessity of alliance between religion and morality
Babbitt Secular and religiously noncommittal
Moral Criticism
1940’s “Death” of Neo-Humanism Birth of Christian Humanism (Religious
Humanism) "a philosophy advocating the self- fulfillment of man within
the framework of Christian principles.“ (Webster) Most human beings have personal and social needs that can
only be met by religion T.S. Eliot Edmund Fuller Hyatt Waggoner
Moral Criticism
Edmund FullerMan in Modern Fiction: Some Minority
Opinions on Contemporary American Writing (1958)
Fuller’s definition of critic is “to appraise the validity and the implications of the image of man projected by the artist’s use of his materials.”
Moral Criticism
Fuller (like Babbitt and More) sees standards and restraints as essential for moral action.
Condemns much of modern fiction for rejecting these guides in the name of compassion. “Compassion must be based on a large and generous
view of life and a distinct set of values” (34). The compassion found in many modern novels is “a
teary slobbering over the criminal and degraded, the refusal to assign any share of responsibility to them, and a vindictive lashing out against the rest of the world” (35-37)
Moral Criticism
Tobin Siebers The Ethics of Criticism
“literary criticism is inextricably linked to ethics” (1) “…literary criticism accepts the task of examining
to what extent literature and life contribute to the nature and knowledge of each other” (42).
Moral Criticism
Attempts to extract literature from an ethical context are misguided and ultimately unsuccessful. Faults New Criticism
Christopher Clausen The Moral Imagination: Essays on Literature
and Ethics (1986) “literary works usually embody moral problems and
reflect moral attitudes, sometimes even moral theories. There is no good reason for criticism to tiptoe around one of the major reasons that literary works endure” (xi).
Moral Criticism
Moral approach has become less popular and influential during the last few decades.
Why? It could be due to
the excess of the critics the deficiencies of the approach itself the moral laxness of other critics
Moral Criticism
However, there are other critics/critical fields which promote a moral fervor in their writings: Feminist criticismMarxist criticism
Moral Criticism
Lawrence Lipking “Aristotle’s Sister: A Poetics of Abandonment” (1983)
In addition to winning critical attention for many neglected works by women writers, feminist criticism has sparked a reevaluation of many works traditionally granted high, secure places in the canon.
“Something peculiar has been happening lately to the classics; some of them now seem less heroic, and some of them less funny. Those ‘irrelevant’ scenes of cruelty to women… have changed their character.” (79)
Moral Criticism
F.R. Leavis Yvor Winters
Do not categorize themselves as “Humanists”Do express the traditional concern for the
moral ends of literature
Religious Criticism
Kenneth B. MurdockLiterature and Theology in Colonial New
England (1949) Analyzes Puritan works
Sermons to poems Notes plain style Disapproval of art that only pleased the senses Imagery: “homeliness” and “realism”
Religious Criticism
Helen GardnerReligion and Literature (1971)
Examined religious elements in secular works Hamlet
It is “a Christian tragedy in the sense that it is a tragedy of the imperatives and torments of the conscience.”
Hamlet’s discovery of all the evil and corruption in the world
Must recognize Hamlet’s attitude as fundamentally Christian
Religious Criticism
Stanley Romaine HopperSpiritual Problems in Contemporary Literature
(1952) Much modern literature is fundamentally religious Quest of the Prodigal is central theme in poetry of
Auden and Eliot Analysis of such poetry would be incomplete without
taking religious themes into account Studying such poetry can help the reader understand
vital religious issues
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