Literary Criticism Introduction to Ancient Greek Criticism, Plato & Aristotle
Introduction to Ancient Greek Criticism
English Criticism has its root in the ancient Greek period; the word criticism derives from a Greek word, krites, meaning to judge. Criticism doesn’t follow creation; it goes simultaneously with creation. Poet chooses to and not to write in a particular way, with selected words, etc.
The process of creating is critical in itself. So, criticism cannot simply be reduced to be a task of dwelling on an already existing text—however, that is also a criticism. In ancient Greece, the art of ‘rhapsode’ involved an element of interpretation: a rhapsode would perform a song which he himself hadn’t composed but his performance would be highly self-conscious and interpretative one.
In Shakespeare’s play, Othello, the character of Iago is very cunning and villainous in our eyes but the same character can be performed in a way where we find his gestures to be justified up to the extent where we pity him.
Every reading and redoing of a particular text is an interpretation and every interpretation is a criticism. In this way, literary criticism dates back to the time of first creation, which is to say roughly about 800 years before the birth of Christ. This is the time of epic poets like Homer and Hesoid.
Following this, came the period of great dramatist Euripides, Aeschylus, and Sophocles and the philosophers Socrates, Pluto, Aristotle. After the death of Alexander (323 BC), the library of Alexandria in the city of Alexandria, Egypt became the hub of scholarship and knowledge.
The library hosted such renowned poets and grammarians as Callimachus, Apollonius Rhodius, Aristarchus, and Zenodotus. We know of these figures partly through the work of Suetonius (ca. 69–140 AD), who wrote the first histories of literature and criticism.
During, roughly, around thousand years poets, philosophers, rhetoricians, grammarians, and critics laid down many basic terms and concepts regarding literary criticism and these concepts would shape the future of literary criticism.
These include the concept of “mimesis” or imitation; the concept of beauty and its connection with truth and goodness; the ideal of the organic unity of a literary work; the social, political, and moral functions of literature; the connection between literature, philosophy, and rhetoric; the nature and status of language; the impact of literary performance on an audience; the definition of figures of speech such as metaphor, metonymy, and symbol; the notion of a “canon” of the most important literary works; and the development of various genres such as epic, tragedy, comedy, lyric poetry, and song.
Plato
A.N Whitehead, a mathematician, and a philosopher claimed that Western philosophy is a series of footnotes to Plato. It is mostly accepted that Greek philosopher, Plato, laid the foundations of Western philosophy.
What is the connection between soul and body? What is the ideal political state? Of what use are literature and the arts? However, his answers to these questions are highly disputed till today.
Plato was born in Athens in 428 BC to an aristocratic family. Like many other young man, he also fell under the spell of the controversial thinker, Socrates. The influence on Plato was so profound that he left his political ambitions and devoted his time to philosophy.
Socrates was declared, as written in a story found in Plato’s Apology, “the wisest man alive” by the Oracle at Delphi. Socrates was against Athenian democracy and also undermined the conventional views of goodness and truth.
He was hanged on the charge of impiety in 399 BC. After the death of his teacher, Plato left Athens, travelled to Sicily, Italy, and Egypt, he came back and founded an academy.
It is hardly believable that a person who wrote dramatic dialogues with a rare literary skill would be against poetry. Plato attacked poetry on three basic grounds: education, philosophy and moral point of view. Plato believed that poetry is form of mimemis.
According to Plato, art deals with imitation of imitation; that is to say, poetry is twice removed from reality. He says that the ideal or perfect reality lies elsewhere, what we see is an imitation of ideal reality and that imitation is not perfect; hence, it is removed from reality.
And, art is the imitation of what we see (which is removed from perfect reality) and, therefore, is twice removed from reality. His theory of reality made him believe that art is nothing but illusion and artists deal with what is not real.
He considered philosophy to be better than art because philosophy deals with the questions of truth. He believed that most of art must be banned because it is not important for an ideal society.
Plato believed that art imparts vices in students, and the characters in the epics of Homer are not ideal because they are greedy, lusty, cunning, etc. He believed that poetry doesn’t teach good habits but corrupts the mind of the children.
Plato believed that the soul a man is divided into two: higher and lower, higher is the reason that brings us closer to the ultimate truth while lower consists of emotions and sentiments.
Poetry provides pleasure to sentiments and emotions and takes us away from reason and anything that is devoid of rationality takes away from the ultimate truth. Plato was staunchly against poetry; he found no advantage of poetry but believed it to be poisonous for an ideal state.
Aristotle
Even after having been under the tutelage of Plato, Aristotle grows to be anti-Plato. Unlike Plato, Aristotle believes the state doesn’t only have the function of providing good material lives, but, also, have a function of making an individual virtuous and give him/her a dignified life.
He denied Plato’s concept of reality existing outside the physical world and was rational enough to believe that reality can be found in the physical world itself. He also didn’t agree with Plato’s idea of reason solely being able to find the truth; on the contrary, argued that sensory organs are the source of knowledge.
Even after seeing his disagreement with Plato’s conservative ideas, one can’t say that Aristotle was completely democratic because his philosophy of state consists of the same amount of censorship that it did in Plato’s. While Plato suggested banning poetry, Aristotle could only agree with a kind of poetry that has a moral function; one that would help educate the masses.
Like Plato Aristotle also agreed that poetry is a form imitation but unlike Plato—who believed that that imitative nature of poetry makes it denigrative as it has been twice removed from reality—Aristotle believed this imitative nature to be a characteristic of every human being, and suggested that from childhood humans have an ‘instinct’ to imitate; in this way, he claims an imitation is an act of learning.
He further adds that every human finds pleasure in learning; hence, imitation helps us learn and, also, provides pleasure.
The most famous definition of the tragedy until now, by Aristotle, reads:
Tragedy is, then, an imitation of an action that is serious, complete and of a certain magnitude – by means of language enriched with all kinds of ornament, each used separately in the different parts of the play: it represents men in action and does not use narrative, and through pity and fear it affects relief to these and similar emotions. (Poetics, VI.2–3)
Aristotle’s Poetics
The action here doesn’t mean a particular isolated action, but the entire course of action, not only what the protagonist does but also what happens to him through the story. Also, there is a significant emphasis on the word serious for, like comedy, tragedy, for Aristotle, can’t have comic elements.
The main purpose of tragedy is to evoke pity and fear to have an effect of catharsis which can’t be done having non-serious instances in the story. Literary criticism by Aristotle is based on one point: to have a purpose and a function. Even his definition of good tragedy has catharsis as the most important aim of the tragedy.
The concept of action via which the can be evoked to perform a moral function also has a significant place in Aristotle’s understanding of tragedy. The action includes plot, character, diction, thought, spectacle, and song. Other than that Aristotle also requires completeness of action, the unity of time and emotional impact.
Aristotle believed plot to be the most important part of the tragedy, and he calls plot the ‘soul of tragedy’. Unlike Roman theatre, having playwrights such as Seneca, which was character-based, Aristotelian theatre is supposed to be plot based.
The plot is the central element that leads to reaching the purpose of the tragedy. He reasons: tragedy is not a representation of men or of character; rather, it represents a sphere “of action, of life, of happiness and unhappiness, which come under the head of the action” (Poetics, VI.12).
The character has a secondary place in tragedy. The character has to be a nobleman; not entirely good or bad, but a mixture of both, whose fall causes tragedy. Aristotle believes that if the character is above-ordinary people, the tragic effect will be stronger.
And that the fall of such character would evoke strong emotions of pity and fear leading to catharsis which would make us cautious of our own life and actions.
The thought is related to what the characters speak. Aristotle wants thoughts and actions to have an appropriate relationship. Diction is how words are spoken and the situation is represented. It refers to expressing meaning in words.
Spectacle means the scene and props used on the stage. The point of having scenes and props on stage is to create a strong emotional effect and relationship with the audience. It accentuates the emotional importance of the events taking place in the story.
Songs have an important place in Aristotle’s theory of tragedy. They are mostly sung by the group of singers called a chorus. The songs are not meant to entertain the audience, but to provide a commentary on and an analysis of the events taking place. The chorus acts as a middle man between the audience and the actions on the stage.
