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Feb. 7, 2006 An interesting letter, Ashish, having some bearing on what we were chatting about some days ago. What is art? Where does it come from? What is its use? How can we make a judgement about individual works of art? Literary Criticism is itself in a muddle about this, putting forward several mutually exclusive ways of describing imaginative works. Originally, the idea of the "Great Tradition" in English Lit., was established by F.R. Leavis and his acolytes at Cambridge University. These critics emphasised textual criticism as the most important way of judging a literary work, and the historical aspect was often neglected. Their idea was that a great work of literature goes beyond time and place and that the study of such great works can make the reader a better person. In other words there was a timeless moral dimension that went beyond a work's historicity. Since the nineteen-sixties this view of literary criticism has come in for a lot of flak. The very idea of a "Great Tradition" has seemed elitist to some, and the Leavisites' insistence on viewing works largely without reference to their historical setting has been seen as wrong-headed by many. These doubts have expressed themselves in many forms of "new" criticism, such as "Structuralism", "Post-Structuralism", "Marxist criticism", "Feminism" and, more recently "Post-Colonial criticism". Structuralism and Post-Structuralism, both of which were derived from linguistic thory, emphasised the fact that the reader was not a passive receiver of information but that he/she actually participated actively in the creation of the overall artistic experience. There were innumerable ways in which a given group of words could be interpreted and both writer and reader were involved in the final production of meaning. This kind of criticism tended not to make value judgements about groups of words formed together: it merely tried to extrapolate the various and often conflicting levels of meaning and significance in a text. A laundry list might do just as well as a sonnet! The Welsh critic, Raymond Williams is really the father of modern Leftist criticism and his "Culture and Society, 1780-1950" is still a seminal text for Marxist literary criticism. Williams, like his most famous follower Terry Eagleton, stresses the historicity of imaginative texts: the society they come from, the intended readership, the influence of patronage, the economic and political reality underpinning them, etc. For these critics, a "good" work would be one that was in some way progressive and contributing to underlying change. All imaginative works were class based: conservative works supported Conservative political forces, while leftist works were conducive to socialist change. The recent feminist and post-colonial movements (with figures like Edward Said and Homi K. Bhabha in the vanguard)took over much of the historical emphasis from the Marxists, but insisted that issues such as racism and gender politics should be dealt with separately and in their own right rather than as an appendage of leftist political activity. So where does all this leave us? Are we any nearer to answering the questions I originally posed? Not really! There are several entrenched positions and no-one really wants to give any ground. In the end, common sense dictates that a work of art is written in a particular society for a specific group of readers with a unique purpose in mind. To this extent it will inevitably have an historical dimension. However, writing is a craft like any other and practice really does make perfect. The old joke about writing being 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration still holds good. The practical criticism tools bequeathed us by the Leavisites are still a good point to start when assessing a literary work--a poem, for example. How is the content dealt with? How good is the scansion. How commanding is the control of language? How well does the writer explicate his/her theme? The consideration of all these points remain very important--but we don't need to follow the Leavisites into the dead end of anti-historicism. It is clear that every work of art, however universal it might seem, has its own context in place and time. A comedy by the Athenian Aristophanes, about the war with Sparta, is not the same as a tragedy by Englishman William Shakespeare on the theme of Kingship--though they might both be excellent works of art and share much in common. In the final analysis, we must be ready to keep a steady heart and critical mind in deciding the worth of a literary piece. Many crucial factors shape and form the work and all of these must be taken fully into consideration before a final assessment can be made. ------------ About the author Jon Aristides: Read, 'The Black Scarab of Amun-Ra'. Visit www.jon-aristides.net Email: aristidesjon2001@yahoo.com Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com. Please link to this article rather than copying and pasting it onto your site (which would be unauthorized and illegal). |
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