Moral & Philosophical Criticism

EH 4301

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