Orientation of Critical Theories – M.H.

Abrams (lecture notes)--Criticism & Theory

Introduction

This is the first chapter of the book, The Mirror and the Lamp, by Abrams. Abrams explains the title of the
book thus: “ The title of the book identifies two common and antithetical metaphors of the mind”. One of
the metaphors compares the mind to a reflector (mirror). The other (lamp) is a radiant projector, which
gives light to others. From Plato to the 18th century, creative writers considered mind as a mere reflector
of external realities. But during the Romantic period this idea changed and mind is considered as
something that illuminates and gives a new appearance to external realities. The principal object of
Abram’s study is the suppression of the first idea by the second. The first chapter also gives a brief survey
of criticism. Thus the essay is a very good introduction to modern criticism.

Abrams says that today art is considered in relation to the artist. Its relation to external nature or to the
audience is not given much importance. The field of aesthetic studies is very confusing. I.A. Richards gave
the heading “The Chaos of Critical Theories” to the first chapter of his book, Principles of Literary Criticism.
A good deal of the confusion is caused because of the belief that criticism is a physical or psychological
science. The aim of criticism is not to establish correlations between facts. On the other hand it aims to
establish principles that will help us to explain, interpret and evaluate the aesthetic facts. Aesthetic facts
are different from reality. They are not true in the strict scientific sense.

I. Some Coordinates of Art Criticism. In all theories of art criticism there are 4 elements –

i. The work or the artistic product (this is a human product). ii. The artist, iii. The subject – (people and
their actions, ideas and feelings, material things and events, nature etc). The more comprehensive term
universe is better, and iv. Audience – listeners, spectators, or readers to whom the work is addressed.

Almost all theories of criticism show an orientation towards one of these elements only. The critic derives
his ideas about categorizing, defining and analyzing a work from one of these terms only. Three of these
elements – universe, artist and audience explain the work in relation to another thing. The fourth – work
– considers it in isolation as an autonomous whole whose importance or value is decided without
reference to anything beyond itself. These 4 are variables. They differ in significance according to the
theory in which they occur. Take for example the element universe. 1. It may be the moral elements of
the universe. 2.It may be any element of nature the artist is imitating. 3. The artist’s world may be one of
imagination or of commonsense. 4. It may include (or may not include) gods, witches, chimeras, and
Platonic ideas.

Abrams now speaks about 4 different types of theories. They are: -

Mimetic Theories

Pragmatic Theories

Expressive Theories

Objective theories.
Mimetic Theories.

i. (The views of Plato and Socrates)

This theory views art as an imitation of various aspects of the universe. This is the oldest aesthetic theory.
This concept makes its first appearance in the dialogues of Plato. The arts of painting, poetry, music,
dancing, and sculpture, Socrates says, are all imitations.

Imitation in the dialogues of Plato operates with three categories.

a) The first category is the eternal unchanging Ideas

b) The second reflects this. It is the world of sense, natural or artificial.

c) The third category reflects the second. It comprises of such things as shadows, images in water or
mirrors, and the fine arts.

Socrates expounds these ideas further. According to him, in the nature of art there are three beds.

The Idea is the essence of the bed and it is made by God.

Then, there is the bed made by the carpenter.

Lastly, there is the bed found in a painting.

Ø Since art imitates the world of appearance and not of essence, it follows that works of art have a lowly
status. Art is at second remove from the truth. It is equally remote from the beautiful and the good.

Ø All things including art are to be judged by their relation to the Ideas. So the poet becomes the
competitor of the artisan, the lawmaker and the moralist.

Ø Plato confirms the poor opinion of poetry when he points out that its effect on the auditors are bad
because it represents appearances than truth, and nourishes feelings rather than truth.

ii. The views of Aristotle

Aristotle in the Poetics also defines poetry as imitation. “Epic poetry, and tragedy, as also comedy….
and most flute playing and lyre playing are all, viewed as a whole, modes of imitation” and “the objects
the imitator represents are actions”.

In Plato and in Aristotle, the work of art is seen as an imitation. It is constructed according to prior models.
However Aristotle removed the other world of pure Ideas. He also treated imitation as something specific
to the arts. He also introduced supplementary distinctions according to the objects imitated, the medium
of imitation and the manner (dramatic, narrative or mixed) in which the imitation is done. Aristotle also
distinguished poetry from other kinds of art, and then differentiated the various poetic genres – such as
epic and drama, tragedy and comedy. Focusing on tragedy, he differentiates the various elements in it –
plot, character, thought and so on.

Imitation continued to be a prominent term for a long time after Aristotle – all the way to 18th century,
in fact. The importance given to the term differed from critic to critic. There was a tendency to replace
the term ‘action’ as the object of imitation with such elements as human character, or thought, or even
inanimate things. Some critics replaced the term imitation itself with such terms like ‘reflection’,
‘representation’, ‘feigning’, ‘copy’, or ‘image’.

iii. Some 18th century discussions of the term imitation

Abrams gives some examples of 18th century discussions of imitation that is of special interest.

a. Charles Batteux. His book - The Arts Reduced to a Single Principle -- was very popular in France and
Germany. He wanted to reduce the rules of art to one single principle. He said that imitation is not that of
crude everyday reality, but of ‘la belle nature’, that is a model having all perfections. From this stage,
Batteux goes on to extract one by one the rules of taste – general rules for poetry and painting and
detailed rules for the genres.

b. Lessing. His book, Laokoon, was published in 1776. He tried to remove the confusion in the relation
of poetry with the other graphic and plastic arts. Lessing concludes that poetry, like painting, is imitation.
The diversity between poetry and other arts is in the medium. Poetry consists of a number of sounds
articulated in time whereas painting is forms and colours fixed in space.

The concept that art is imitation played an important part in neo-classical aesthetics. Art is seen mostly as
an imitation that is instrumental in producing effects in an audience. The focus of attention has shifted
not from work to universe but from work to audience.

III. Pragmatic Theories

Sidney said that the aim of poetry is to ‘teach and delight’. To Sidney poetry has a purpose – to achieve
certain effects in an audience. It imitates with the purpose of pleasing and pleases with the ultimate aim
of teaching. This is the gist of the arguments of Sidney in Apologie for Poetry. The poet is elevated from
the moral philosopher and the historian by his capacity to move the audience to virtue.

Ø Criticism like Sidney’s can be called pragmatic theory. It looks at the practical aspects of a work of art.
The central tendency of the pragmatic critic is to conceive a poem as something made to create a
particular response in the minds of the readers.

The perspective and much of the basic vocabulary of pragmatism originated from the classical theory of
rhetoric. Rhetoric is universally accepted as a way to move men everywhere. The best example for the
application of the theories of rhetoric to poetry is Ars Poetica by Horace. As Richard Mckeon points out,
‘Horace’s criticism is directed in the main to instruct the poet how to keep his audience in their seats until
the end, how to induce cheers and applause, how to please a Roman audience, and by the same token,
how to please all audiences and win immortality.’

Horace

Ø Horace advised that the poet’s aim is either to profit or to please, or to blend in one the delightful and
the useful. Horace held pleasure to the chief purpose of poetry. To teach and to delight and to move
(another term taken from rhetoric) summarized the total aesthetic effect on the reader.

For a number of critics of the Renaissance, the moral effect was the terminal aim, to which delight and
emotion were added. From the time of Dryden, pleasure tended to become the ultimate end though
poetry without profit was considered trivial. Dryden considered the imitation of nature as the means for
pleasure. He also stressed the importance of rules.
Dr. Johnson

The great pragmatist of neo-classicism was Dr. Johnson. Abrams takes for consideration “that great
monument of neoclassic criticism” – Preface to Shakespeare.

Johnson undertakes in his preface to establish the rank of Shakespeare among poets. To find out the
power and excellences of Shakespeare, Johnson addresses himself to a general examination of
Shakespeare’s dramas. In this attempt he again and again speaks of mimesis or imitation. Repeatedly, he
maintains that Shakespeare’s drama “is the mirror of life. But Johnson also claims, “the end of writing is
to is to instruct by pleasing”. If a poem fails to please, as a work of art it is nothing. Johnson was also a
moralist and insisted that a work must please without violating the standards of truth and virtue. It is
Shakespeare’s defect ‘that he writes without any moral purpose’.

The pragmatic orientation was important through out the 18th century. But the seeds of destruction were
inherent in pragmatic criticism. Ancient rhetoric had also paid detailed attention to the speaker himself-
his nature or innate powers of genius. In the course of the 18th century, increasing attention was given
to the mental constitution of the poet. The focus thus gradually shifted to the poet’s natural genius,
creative imagination, and emotional spontaneity of the poet. As a result the audience gradually
disappeared into the background, giving place to the poet himself. Poet’s mental powers, emotional needs
became the important cause and even the end of art.

IV. EXPRESSIVE THEORIES

“Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings”, Wordsworth announced in his Preface to the
Lyrical Ballads. He thought the formulation to be so important that he repeated the statement twice in
one essay. Poetry is the overflow, the utterance, or the projection of the thought and feelings of the poet.
This way of thinking in which the artist becomes the major element is the expressive theory of art.

Ø The central ideas of the expressive theory can be summarized in this way. 1. A work of art is the internal
made the external. 2. The primary source and subject matter of a poem is the poet’s mind. 3. If aspects of
external world are the subject, then these are converted from fact to poetry by the feelings and operations
of the poet’s mind. 4. The primary cause of poetry is the impulse within the poet of feelings and desires
seeking expression. 5. A work is not considered as a mirror to reflect nature. Abrams writes, ‘the mirror
held up to nature becomes transparent and yields the reader insight into the mind and heart of the
poet himself’.

John Stuart Mill

Mill wrote two essays of literary criticism in 1833. They are ‘What is poetry’? and ‘The two kinds of
Poetry’. These two essays show the changes that have taken place in expressive theories. Mill’s primary
proposition is this: - Poetry is ‘the expression or uttering forth of feeling’. Exploration of this aesthetic idea
takes Mill to a drastic altering of the critical commonplaces.

1. The poetic kinds.

Mill inverts the classical ranking of poetic kinds. He says that lyric poetry is more poetic than other forms
because it expresses emotions better. Aristotle considered tragedy as the greatest form of poetry. In
tragedy the plot is given the utmost role. But Mill considers plot as a necessary evil. He says that an epic
poem is not poem at all.
 2. Spontaneity as criterion.

Mill says that a man’s emotional status is innate but his knowledge and skill are acquired. On this basis
he divides poets into two kinds: poets who are born and poets who are made. Shelley represents the poet
who is born and Wordsworth is the poet who is made. With unconscious irony Mill turns Wordsworth’s
definition of poetry against Wordsworth himself. “Wordsworth’s poetry has little of the appearance of
spontaneousness: the well is never so full that it overflows”.

3 The external world.

Reference to external world disappears from Mill’s theory. He says that poetry is not in the object but in
the mind itself. An object provides an occasion for generation of poetry. Mill gives much importance to
symbols in poetry. This influenced the Symbolists of the 20th century.

4. The audience.

Mill reduced the poet’s audience into a single member, consisting of the poet himself. He says that all
poetry is in the form of a soliloquy. Thus Mill reduced the importance of audience. Keats said, “I never
wrote one single line of poetry with the least shadow of public thought.” Shelley said that the poet is “like
a nightingale who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds; his auditors are
as men entranced by the melody of an unseen musician…” Carlyle believed that the poet replaced the
audience as the generator of aesthetic norms.

Ø This completes an evolution. In mimetic theory the poet was very passive. His work was to hold the
mirror up to nature. The pragmatic poet, whatever his abilities are, has to satisfy his audience. Carlyle’s
poet is the hero, the chosen one, who need not care for his audience.

V. OBJECTIVE THEORIES

These theories consider the work of art in isolation from all points of external reference. It is seen as a
self-sufficient entity. It is judged on the basis of its own intrinsic nature.

This theory has been rare in literary criticism. As an all-inclusive approach to poetry, it began to evolve in
the late 18th and 19th centuries. A poem is considered as a heterocosm, a world of its own, independent
of the world into which we are born. Its aim is not to instruct or please but simply to exist. A poem, as Poe
expressed it, is ‘a poem ‘per se’… written solely for the poem’s sake’. “Art for Art’s sake”. T.S.Eliot wrote,
“When we are considering poetry we must consider it primarily as poetry and not another thing”. This is
joined with MacLeish’s aphorism “A poem should not mean But be.” J.C. Ransom called for recognition of
‘the autonomy of the work itself as existing for its own sake”. In their influential book, Theory of Literature,
Wellek and Warren wrote against ‘intentional fallacy’ and ‘affective fallacy’. In America the objective form
of criticism has replaced the other forms of criticism.

To give an overview of the evolution of Western aesthetics up to this point, Abrams provides the following
rough timeline. In the age of Plato and Aristotle, poets were mimetic poets, and their personal roles and
intrusions were kept to a minimum. In the Hellenistic and Roman eras, poets were pragmatic, and they
sought to satisfy the public, abide by the rules of decorum, and apply techniques borrowed from rhetoric.
From 1800 to 1900, poets, specifically those of England and Germany, were triumphant and self-affirming
figures whose task was to express to the world their inner genius. Finally, from the early 1900s through
the present, the objective theories, such as those expounded by T.S. Eliot, the New Critics and others,
have been most prominent. (Abram's last point, however, seems debatable given the fact of the New
Critics' decline in the second half of the 20th century.)