cls2133 literary appreciation

8/12/2019 CLS2133 Literary Appreciation

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CLS2133Literary

Appreciation

Lecture 1

Miss Na-Thinamalar

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IntroductionI like thinking about literature as doing something, rather than just being something; it helps me understand literature

as part of a larger world we live in, andLiterary Theory is a tool or, better, a set oftools which enables us to examine howthat happens.

(Mary Klages, 2006)

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Literary Theory points to sets of ideas thathave greatly influenced the way we havethought about, and taught.Big umbrella term that covers a variety ofapproaches to texts ; if these approaches

have anything in common, examine howa text is written and how we are able toread it. Literary Theory comes from all kinds ofdiscipline; linguistics, psychology,

anthropology, philosophy, history,economics, gender studies and politicalscience.

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HumanismLiterature & art in general, what we callthe humanities, makes us better humanbeings, puts us in touch with humanvalues and dilemmas, helps us u/standthe human condition.

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In the broadest sense, humanism is theworld-view that posits human values, asthe central focus of life and thought.Because humanist thought displaced theidea of God as the absolute center of theuniverse, replacing it with the idea of thehuman mind as a supreme power ofknowledge and creation, it is sometimesreferred to as scholar humanism .

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Debates on whether its good or a badthing.It is important to look at the ideas whichform the basic of humanist thought.There is a need to look at the WesternAnglo-European history and culture.

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Ancient Greek- PlatoAncient Greek literature epic, dramaticpoetry, comedy and tragedy, and otherforms of story telling.

These forms were presented orally, throughcharacters who acted out human situations.These forms were seen as models for humanbehaviour and interaction.

In ancient Greece, cultural knowledge waspassed on via a tradition of presentation, orrepresentation. (story-telling)

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Plato Born: 428 B.C.E. Family: Aristocratic/political Dies: 348-347 B.C.E.

Plato is one of the most important Greekphilosophers. He founded the Academyin Athens, an institution devoted toresearch and instruction in philosophy andthe sciences. His works on philosophy,politics and mathematics were veryinfluencial and laid the foundations forEuclid's systematic approach tomathematics.

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Plato established a philosophic tradition;the human capacity for rationalethought, became the highest and mostdesirable form of thought, and preferablemeans for conveying cultural knowledge.

Reason was a process of logicaldeduction as demonstrated in his Socraticdialogues; stories, poetry and drama,because they appealed to theiraudiences emotions more than to theirrational minds, became inferior methodsfor passing on cultural values anddemonstrating the best ways of being.

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For Plato Art is aroused by emotions could never betrue in the way that reasoned argumentcould be true.Truth could only be apprehended through

rationale thought. (like math or geometry)

Reason Vs. Emotion (truths of humanfeeling)

Reason is eternal and unchangingEmotion is chaotic and ever-shifting

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Philosophers use logic and reason todiscover truth.Artist evoke emotions by makingrepresentations of the world through oursenses(words, colours, poetry or painting)which Plato called nature .Artist work only stimulate emotion,irrational with madness.Plato fear that art and artist will threatenthe social order because the people aredistracted from the eternal truth.

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Plato worries that literary art (poetry &drama) tells lies and influences theaudiences in irrational ways.In Book X of the Republic Plato firmlybanishes all poets from this ideal society.

Moral criticism focuses solely on thecontent of a work of literature, onlyanalyzing the good or bad rather thanpaying attention to its artistic values.

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Platos firm ideas: The material world we perceive through our body andour senses is not the real world, but an imperfect copyof an ideal world.Art, in whatever form or medium, works to reproduceor represent perceivable material world.World is organized in binary opposites: rationale/irrational, good/evil, male/female.Literature is important, and needs to be regulated orsupervised, because it has powerful effect on itsreaders.The content of literature, what it says and represents, ismore important than the form it comes in.

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Aristotle (384-322 BCE)Aristotle (384 BC 322 BC)[1] was a Greekphilosopher and polymath, a student ofPlato and teacher of Alexander theGreat. His writings cover many subjects,including physics, metaphysics, poetry,theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics,politics, government, ethics, biology, and

zoology

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In contrast, Aristotle was less interested inthe content of literature than in its form.Art is a process of putting the events ofnature into a medium; words or paint thatimproves or completes nature.Art doesnt lie but reveals truth in adifferent way than rational deduction. Reality does not reside in a static eternalworld of perfect ideal forms, in relation towhich the material world is a flawedimitation; rather, reality is the ever-changing world of appearances andperceptions.

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Plato founds the tradition of moralcriticism by worrying about what a work ofpoetry does to its audience, Aristotlefounds the tradition of genre criticism byinvestigating what a particular work is,rather than what it does.

For Aristotle, the artist does not imitatenature, or copy it, as Plato argued, butrather takes something from nature andputs it into a different medium that itdoesnt inhabit in its natural state. (E.g.cherry tree- idea of re-presenting)

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Artists are important, to Aristotle, because artimposes order on what might otherwise be a

disordered and chaotic natural order.

Literature in particular imposes a particularkind of narrative order on events, so that whatis described in words has a beginning, amiddle, and an end.

Art & literature complete a process that thenatural world leaves incomplete; naturemerely presents us with events, phenomena,sensory experiences (like sight of a cherry tree

in bloom), while art, by creating an order inwhich to understand those events andexperiences, provides us with their meaning.

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PlatoThe concern withthe content andeffect of a work ofart.This is called asmoral criticism.

AristotleThe concern withthe form and unityof a work of art.This is called asaesthetic criticism.

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ReflectionAsk yourself these questions:

How is literature taught to youso far?

What do think of the two

philosophers ideology?

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The END!

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cls2133 literary appreciation

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