Humanist literary theory
This essay is a mixture of both the text as well as class room understandings in a simple way. Hope it will be of a great help.
Humanism in broad philosophical terms, is a world view that rejects anything supernatural as an explanation for existing phenomenon i.e., world is not governed by god, divine spirit but that which can be observed with our senses and can be explained by human investigation and thoughts.
Therefore observation and deduction are sufficient means for understanding, without reference to any kind of divine or extra-human power about how the world works and how things happen.
Humanist belief questions the ideals and works to understand where these ideals have come from. They have human values and concerns as the central focus of life and thought. And because they replace idea of god to idea of human mind they are sometimes called as ‘secular humanism.’
There are innumerable debates and arguments on to what humanism is?, whether it is good or bad.... let us see some of the arguments in light of PLATO and ARISTOTLE.
Why and what is literature in general?
For Plato (427-347 BCE) treats literature as the ways through which cultural knowledge was passed on from generation to generation. And hence having no distinction between types of stories be it history, fiction etc.
But Aristotle identifies characteristics of various forms of literature and then develops systematic categories through which to classify these forms, like if drama is a form of literature, properties in that can be tragedy, comedy, or sentimental comedy so on.
To pass on the cultural knowledge, Plato says human capacity-reason-is the most desirable and superior form of thought, the preferable means. Therefore emotions are considered as the inferior ways of conveying culture to Plato. Quite like wise truth is preferred over art because art evokes emotions which are inferior.
But Aristotle says it is not necessarily an inferior reproduction where as it is a process of putting the events of nature into medium that improves on or completes nature.
Is literature a form of escapism or helping us to understand more and to move towards the perfect world from imperfect world or vice versa?
Should literature be scrutinized as it attempts to fade line b/w fiction and reality and hence giving bad and wrong values?
Plato insisted that reality/ truth resided in forms that were eternal and unchanging, rather than in the chaotic and ever-shifting material world where human beings lived.
The world we perceive with our physical senses-the material world- is a copy of the ideal world which is more perfect, and never change and hence their static condition makes it eternal. Therefore it is considered as source of all things that exist in our human material world. Because they are copies of ideal world, they are necessarily less perfect than their originals. Art represents material perceivable world, which Plato called ‘nature’. And hence artistic world becomes copies of the copy and so away from the truth. Therefore artists are also twice removed from the world of truth to Plato.
For Aristotle, truth/ reality doesn’t reside in a static eternal world of perfect ideal forms, reality is the ever changing world of appearances and perception.
Art is not necessarily an imitation or reproduction of nature for Aristotle. So it is not inferior reproduction but a process of putting the events of nature into a medium to complete the nature. Art doesn’t lie, according to Aristotle but tells the truth in a different way than rational deduction. Art is not necessarily the binary opposite of reason, and thus threatening to logic and rationality.
For Aristotle, a form exists only in the concrete examples of that form, not in some external ideal abstraction. Things we perceive in this world exist according to ordered principles which we can discover (just as scientific observations and rules). Truth resides in discovering the rules and principles that govern how things work and take on meaning in our material world (by using those things we know more about them). Literature imposes a particular kind of narrative order on events, so that what is described in words has a beginning, a middle, and a end. They give a meaning to nature.
Should literature be encourage or discouraged?
And hence for Plato, artists evoke emotions which are potentially dangerous and disruptive to the process of logic and rationality. Art is a double threat to the world since it is a copy of a copy and also evokes emotions. So Plato worried that art and artists might threaten social order, because they might distract citizens from the pursuit of the eternal truths which were the only unfailing source of goodness. Literature is important but needs to be regulated or supervised, because it has a powerful effect on its readers or audience.
He says all forms of art are ruinous, unless as an antidote they possess the knowledge of the true nature of the originals. Therefore art, literary art like poetry etc tells lies, influence in irrational ways.
For Aristotle, art and literature are positive social forces; evokes emotions to reason the piece of work. It creates order and system, and helps people to find pleasure in the representation of an understandable and meaningful reality.
He also says, art doesn’t lie but approaches truth in a different way. Artists do not imitate or copy nature. An artist recreates it. This ability to create gives artists a more important role in Aristotelian world unlike dangerous in platonic world. Through this process it is easy to find similarities and differences (important aspect which we discussed earlier, we can differentiate b/w things like different animals, trees etc).
Which understanding of literature is the right way?
Plato s concern with the content of literature begins a tradition in literary theory and criticism and theory which focuses on the effect of it on its readers or audience. Moral or didactic criticism focuses solely on the content of the literature, asking whether its effect is good or bad, rather than paying attention on its values, and forms it comes in. Moral criticism argues that literature is so powerful a medium for arousing emotions that can be dangerous to ‘weak minded’ people- women and children.
Aristotle, in contrast, is less interested in content but in forms (because different forms or uses reveal the truth about the thing). This gave rise to another genre of criticism namely aesthetic criticism, focusing largely on the form and unity of a work of art. It identifies the internal structure of a piece of work done.
Critics in 20th -21st centuries, follow one of the strands above. Structuralism and Post-structuralism are influenced by Plato’s ideas and Formalism by Aristotle’s ideas on large.
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