Assignment Code: MEG-05/2021-22

Course Code: MEG-05

Assignment Name: Literary Criticism & Theory

Year: 2021-2022 (July 2021 and January 2022)

Verification Status: Verified by Professor

This assignment is for students planning to write their Term End Exams in June 2022 and December 2022.

Q1. Bring out the salient features of Plato's attack on poetry'.

Ans) After the death of Socrates and political unrest after war, education was in sorry state and there were only Homer’s poetry was the traditional Greek mode of education for young when achieved maturity. Homer’s epics were essential part of educational curriculum. This curriculum was one of the basic reasons for Plato’s attack on poetry which he discussed in his Book II of the Republic. The golden era of Greek art was over and creative impulse had died away. The contemporary literature was immoral and of no quality which made Plato to criticize it for improvements. Due to this sorry state philosophers and orators were preferred to poets.

Plato’s attack on poetry

Plato attacked poetry on many grounds which include intellectual ground, emotional ground, ethical ground, influence of existing curriculum, lack of reality, and illogical and irrational nature of poetry. Let us discuss on by one in more detail.

Intellectual Ground

On intellectual grounds, Plato’s views were very strong. He said that poets have no knowledge of truth but they just imitate only appearance. He placed work of art into third place from the truth. He compared a poet with a painter who imitates reality.

Emotional Ground

In Book X of Republic, Plato describes that poetry feeds and flourishes desires and passions instead of removing them. Plato says that such emotions put us in an illusion and one suffers himself to experiences the emotions which he will never like in real life. Plato calls such imaginary passions and emotions bastard and illegitimate; they encourage weakness and do not reconcile with the exhortations of philosophy. Plato asked, how poetry can be right which creates sorrow and woes which no one likes in his real life.

Ethical Ground

The Plato’s ethical objection to poetry is that it tells lies about the gods and many of the stories told by poets are immoral. Therefore he is against Homer and Hesiod’ poetry. He is also against allegorical interpretations that how a child can differentiate a allegorical and literal text. The mythological poetry of that time was full with lust and treacherous tales which was immoral for young. He was also against those tales for children which make frighten causing them making coward in real life. According to him, drama is equally detrimental to the morals of the public and encourages licentiousness and lawlessness. Similarly, in his views, drama appeals to love that is known as sensational.

Influence of Existing Curriculum

Plato was against the curriculum which was taught to the young learners. Most of the syllabus was based on poetry of Homer including his epics and Hesiod’s poetry. He was against poetry which, according to him, was immoral and based on fake stories on gods. He focused on moralistic syllabus and based on reality rather than imitation of fiction. He preferred philosophy on poetry for the curriculum.

Lack of Reality

Plato’s views on poetry are like painting which is resemblance to a real object. He says that painting imitates by colors and on the other hand poetry imitates by words but function is same: that is imitation. He blames poetry for lack of reality and truth in it. Most of the literature on gods is fabricated and immoral that is far away from reality and truth. Most of the characters in epics are treacherous and false that are illegitimate.

Q 2. Write short notes on the following:

Q2. a) Aristotle's theory of tragedy

Ans) Aristotle provides enough knowledge into tragedy in his epochal work poetics to be deemed authoritative. He has given tragedy a higher priority, which necessitates special care. He was a major fan of Sophocles, Euripides, and Aeschelus, among other Greek tragedians. This group promoted the art of theatre, elevating tragedy to a high status in the process, which helped Aristotle formulate his theory of classical theatre. Tragedie, according to Aristotle, is "an imitation of a serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude in a language that is beautified in different parts with different kinds of embellishment," expressed through actions rather than narration, and through feelings of pity and fear that result in catharsis of these emotions." Aristotle emphasises the essence of tragedy rather than its aim or function in his definition of tragedy. Humour and tragedy differ fundamentally in that the former concerns with humans gaining heroic stature, whilst comedy is limited to small aspects of human nature, presenting people who are worse than they are in real life. Another difference between tragedy and comedy is that tragedy requires serious action, whereas comedy features a lot of hideous action. Tragic fiction is also more serious than comedic fiction. Aristotle is not suggesting that items be recreated or recreated in a creative way; rather, he is suggesting that objects be recreated or recreated in a creative way.

As a result, in plays, Aristotle emphasises the narrative or action while putting the character in the background. A tragedy's action must be thorough, and it must follow a logical sequence of events. There must be an introduction, a middle section, and a conclusion. The beginning is not something that happens after something else, but rather something that happens after something else happens. What Aristotle is attempting to express is that a play should have a compelling reason for beginning and ending where it does. A brief period of slack water before the tide shifts might be equated to the start of an activity. Even if the ghost had not appeared at the outset of Hamlet, events in Denmark would have come to a halt by the play's conclusion. The centre, on the other hand, is described as something that comes after something else and leads to something else. The phrase "end" refers to something that comes after something else but isn't followed by anything else. A haunting apparition will menace Denmark, particularly the court, laying the groundwork for a quake that would sweep throughout the entire nation under its control.

Q2. b) Poet as "a man speaking to men"

Ans) Wordsworth lists three important criteria of a poet. 'Endued with more than vivid sensibility, greater enthusiasm and love... and a more extensive soul than are considered to be common among humans,' he says. This allows him to not only feel what happens to him personally, but also to experience what may happen to others vicariously. Second, he is "a man speaking to men," implying that poetry is more than just a form of self-indulgence and that the poet is a social entity with responsibilities. A great poet should correct men's feelings, provide them with fresh emotional compositions, and make their feelings more sane, pure, and permanent. 'Every great poet is a teacher,' Wordsworth eventually turned this into a doctrine. 'I want to be thought of as a teacher or as nothing.' This isn't a crass didacticism; rather, it's a method of defining poetry's humanising effect. Third, the poet is endowed with a powerful imagination, allowing him to be touched by things that are not there as if they were. Wordsworth had such a vivid imagination that the beautiful things he had once seen were always there in his mind's eye, causing suitable sensations and states of mind. Wordsworth regards the poet as a guy with a higher level of organic perception who has also thought long and hard. A good poet must be able to combine the traits of cognition and feeling. The one cannot function without the other. The poet differs from other persons not in the kind of talents he possesses, but in the magnitude of those qualities.

Q2. c) The woman as the 'second sex'.

Ans) The Second Sex, I believe, is directed specifically at women and men who have inherited a predominantly anti-feminist Western European tradition of thought, either directly or indirectly through their education. This tradition has a variety of origins. Plato and Aristotle are the representatives of Hellenism. The Church Fathers, particularly Thomas Aquinas and Augustine, represent Christianity. The Second Sex, as stated, addresses this audience at a vulnerable time, when its great tradition has been revealed to be flawed and frail by World War I. In some ways, its supporters are at least a generation older than Virginia Woolf's generation in terms of feminism's evolution. For the time being, women are empowered not only by education and the right to vote, but also by their ability to work. Women now split their time between family and work. In some ways, the early struggle for productive job outside the home, which was one of the difficulties before Wollstonecraft and Woolf, is thus over. However, this is a mixed blessing. For one thing, as the translator points out, the new occupation has brought with it its own set of issues, such as competitiveness between single working women and employed housewives, both of whom may yearn for the life of the other on occasion.

Q2. d) Base-superstructure relationship in Marxist criticism.

Ans) Marx just briefly articulated his opinion on the base-superstructure relationship while remarking on it in general. In fact, Marx described the relationship between the base and the superstructure in plain, straightforward words in order for these two aspects of social reality to be grasped in theory, in abstraction. He wanted to make sure that social scientists and activists understood the importance of having a foundation. Marx's concept of the base demonstrated that utopian thinkers who were prone to irrational fantasies were mistaken in believing that social reality was a kind of clay that humans could mould as they pleased. Marx could not emphasise the necessity of social change at the level of the mode of production without portraying the base as a vital and challenging factor. I'll restate Marx's essential premise: "The world has been interpreted by philosophers thus far. However, the idea is to make a shift." This meant removing social reality from the domain of philosophers and placing it in the hands of the real producers, the proletariat. Nothing significant would happen until someone did it. The notion of base was designed to be completely functional.

Q2. e) Patriarchy.

Ans) We can speculate on how patriarchy influenced a corpus of works over time. It could be argued that only texts with an arbitrarily set value, such as grandeur or length, should be included. As a result, certain genres, such as the epic, with its emphasis on public action and great cultural value, would be included, while others, such as the short storey, with its emphasis on private space and domesticity, would be excluded. Now consider what this exclusion entails. Women have traditionally relied on the short narrative, which takes only a brief break from work and a (relatively) less formal or 'classical' education, which is often all they can afford. The canon's absence of a genre in which women have historically outperformed males is just one example of how patriarchy is reinforced. I Now is the time to consider other options. Only texts of I confirmed 'greatness' may be required in a syllabus, with women's writing included as an optional paper that may be omitted. You and I are fortunate to have a 'well-established' romantic like Wordsworth in this course, as well as Wollstonecraft, who was saved from obscurity by feminist theorists and almost forcibly pushed to the attention of the academia. Feminist theories attempt to 'take over' the canon and rescue it from patriarchy by assisting readers in scanning texts, genres, or movements in order to make the components of gender and gender-bias in the academy, which had previously been hidden, evident.

Q3. How are myths and archetypes examined to grasp the significance of twentieth century English writing? Explain.

Ans) The storey encapsulates all of Greek literature, including poetry, drama, narrative, prose, and lyric poetry. Mythos is a Greek word that simply means "storey." However, by the fifth century B.C., the types of stories that had been passed down from generation to generation of Greek culture's racial and collective memory had become separated from the lives of ordinary Greeks. Legends and stories that have been preserved in racial memory through depictions in sculpture, pottery, temples, special inscriptions, shields, vases, sacred items, and other types of artefacts, such as toys, as well as depictions in sculpture, pottery, temples, special inscriptions, shields, vases, sacred items, and other types of artefacts, such as toys.

Archetypal critique is a broad term that refers to a variety of fields. Every step of a book's interpretation is based on "a specific form of academic organisation," and multiple experts contribute to the process at every stage. An editor is needed to “clean up” the text; a rhetorician looks at the pace of the storey; a philologist looks at the meaning of words; and a literary social historian looks at the evolution of mythology and rituals. The efforts of all of these experts are brought together under the aegis of archetypal critique to analyse a single book. A literary anthropologist's work is significant in the field of archetypal critique. An anthropologist connects the origins of Hamlet to the Hamlet storey reported by Saxo, a thirteenth-century Danish historian, in his work Danes, Gesta Danorum, which translates as Danes, Gesta Danorum in English. His study also led him to conclude that the play was inspired by nature tales, which were popular at the period of the Norman Conquest. An anthropologist performs a rudimentary research into the origins of Hamlet as a result of archetypal critique.

The Four Phases of the Myth are as follows:

Every myth appears to have a central theme, and the storey focuses on a character who could be a deity or a demi-god, a superhuman creature, or a legendary figure of some sort. The central character or core importance, according to Frazer and Jung, is the most important factor in the construction of a myth, and this is a stance supported by a significant number of authors.

Frye categorises myths into four categories, as follows:

Dawn, spring, and conception are the three phases of the day. There are stories of a hero's birth, resuscitation, and resurrection, as well as the triumph over the forces of darkness and death, among other things. Subordinate figures such as the father and mother are first introduced in this storey. These stories are the forerunners of romance, rhapsodic poetry, and lyric poetry.

The cycle includes the zenith, summer, and marriage or victory phases. This period is connected with legends of apotheosis (the act of being elevated to the rank of a deity), holy marriage, and entering Paradise. In these stories, the partner and the bride are the two characters that function as subordinates. Among other things, such stories are precedents for humour, pastoralism, and the idyll.

The third and final phases are sunset, fall, and death. These are the tales of a hero's fall from grace, the death of a deity, violent death, sacrifice, and the hero's banishment from society. Characters who function as subordinates include the traitor and the siren. Tragic and elegiac myths are, respectively, prototypes of tragedy and elegy.

The fourth phase is marked by darkness, cold, and desolation. There are legends surrounding this armies' triumph. Flooding myths, the return of chaos, and the demise of the hero, for example, are all examples of this period. In this storey, the beast and the witches are secondary characters, and these tales serve as models for satirical storytelling.

These are the four sorts of myths defined by Frye, and they can be found in a wide range of works written by a wide range of authors. They do, in fact, serve as the foundation for a profusion of exceptional literary works.

Northrop Frye discusses a quest myth, which was thought to have evolved from the four types of myths listed above, in relation to the four types of myths outlined above. The quest-myth is a form of myth in which the hero is on a quest for truth or anything else, and it can be found in any religion. The Messiah storey is revealed to be a quest myth seeking the Holy Grail in the final portion of The Waste Land (a Christian myth). Archetypal critics must thoroughly examine the myths contained within the sacred books of all faiths in order to arrive at an appropriate reading of texts. From an analysis of mythic archetypes, a critic might proceed to a study of genres, and from the study of genres, he can proceed even farther to a mythological interpretation of a work. This type of disagreement in critique is referred to as the deductive technique of analysis. In other words, in a work of writing, the critic moves from a general truth (a myth) to an explanation of a specific truth (the truth of why a character acts a certain way). A critic can use this method to trace the evolution of a play, a song, or an epic back to its mythological roots. Furthermore, according to Frye, the quest-myth is the source of practically all literary genres. An archetypal critic's job is to deconstruct myths and identify the meaning and message of a work of art.

Q4. What is Structuralism? How is it helpful in grasping the appeal and intent of a literary text?

Ans) A movement of thought in the humanities, widespread in anthropology, linguistics, and literary theory, and influential in the 1950s and ’60s. Based primarily on the linguistic theories of Ferdinand de Saussure, structuralism considered language as a system of signs and signification, the elements of which are understandable only in relation to each other and to the system. In literary theory, structuralism challenged the belief that a work of literature reflected a given reality; instead, a text was constituted of linguistic conventions and situated among other texts. Structuralist critics analyzed material by examining underlying structures, such as characterization or plot, and attempted to show how these patterns were universal and could thus be used to develop general conclusions about both individual works and the systems from which they emerged. The anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss was an important champion of structuralism, as was Roman Jakobsen. Northrop Frye’s attempts to categorize Western literature by archetype had some basis in structuralist thought. Structuralism regarded language as a closed, stable system, and by the late 1960s it had given way to poststructuralism.

Roughly speaking Structuralism derives from two terms: structure and ism. The Oxford English Dictionary defines "structure" as " manner in which a complete whole is constructed, or a whole of the essential parts of something." Look at the pen you use. It is a structure made up of smaller units: the body, the refill, the spring, etc. So, when we speak of a structure we refer to a whole with certain essential constituents. "Ism" is a suffix, \khich suggests a system, or principle based on the word / concept to which it is appended. So, Marxism suggests a system or body of princip16s deriving primarily from the writings of Marx. Thus, Structuralism would refer to a system or body of principles deriving from the belief that any phenomenon is a structure, that is, a whole with certain essential constituents. It would attempt to investigate the nature of the structure and the general laws by which it works.

Linguistics and Literary Structuralism

Interpreting literature as language is in practice a complex process. Literary Structuralism does borrow its approach from linguistics but these approaches are varied. Jonathan Culler outlines three distinct ways in which linguistics has influenced literary structuralism:

A. As a scientific discipline, linguistics suggested to critics that a rigorous and I systematic study did not necessarily mean looking for causal i explanations-that is, linking elements in the text to objective cultural/ personal facts through cause and effect. An element in a literary text, like an element in a linguistic system, could be explained by its place in a network of relations rather than in a chain of cause and effect. It therefore justified the desire to abandon historical and biographical criticism.

B. Linguistics provided a number of concepts, which could be applied arbitrarily in discussing literary works. Some common examples already encountered, are signifier, signified; langue, parole; diachronic, synchronic 1 etc. These concepts can be employed skilfully or ineptly on the literary text but they do not by virtue of their linguistic origin produce valid insights. However, the use of such terms may help one identify relations of various kinds in a text, which are responsible for the production of meaning.

C. Linguistics provides structuralists with a model of how one should go about studying systems of signs. In this case, linguistic concepts are not used arbitrarily but as constituents of a model. This is a stronger claim about the relevance of linguistics and in Cu11Q's opinion characterizes Structuralism proper.

Q5. Postmodernism lays special emphasis on identity and difference. Discuss.

Ans) The western bourgeois world has entered a postmodernist phase, with audio-visual media being used to question the basic conceptions of inequality, deprivation, and injustice, which are essentially terms that have meaning only when used in conjunction with equality, availability, and justice, respectively. The latter set, according to postmodernism, is vulnerable to being questioned because it does not correspond to any widely accepted standard of judgement. This is the logic of the deconstructionist, who constantly questions everything in order to proclaim illogicity and anarchy as the sole acceptable mode of thought. The essence of truth, according to postmodernists and deconstructionists, is found in a person's perspective of a reality that may mean something completely different to another person. When there is no theoretical relationship between two persons, it is difficult to decode or interpret any general message in a text or speech structure.

On the one hand, the term 'postmodernism' refers to whatever that happened after modernism as an unavoidable result of it, but on the other, it alludes to modernism's mere appearance as a negative and illogical category. Influential thinkers and literary characters In most circumstances, lying in the 1980s and 1990s was too language aware, and words were used to convey more than they were intended to denote. Consider the phrase 'postmodernism,' which means more than "after" or "after," more than just the "next phase" of a previously existing trend. Despite the fact that it was the topic of lengthy and vigorous debates in the eighteenth century, the term "modern" became widely accepted in the early twentieth century, according to what we've discovered. When it comes to things and events, postmodernism prefers to concentrate on the exterior picture rather than inferring or presenting hidden meanings from the inside of the items or events. It was also a derogatory epithet at the time, with associations to a newly developing bourgeoisie's behaviour style. The aristocracy was connected with traditional values and established standards, whereas "modern" was associated with something new, rootless, unreliable, erratic, and unpredictable. The early twentieth century gave modern a pleasing tinge of current, actual, and present, which resounded in the sphere of reality. As a result, the phrase encompassed the entire existentialist movement, as well as its forerunners, which were oriented to the real and tangible.

One of the most difficult things to undertake when dealing with postmodernism is to distinguish it from modernism. Contemporary modernism was defined as both a wide trend that spanned several decades and a worldview that saw abstract notions of behaviour expressed in specific situations. Modernism was a philosophical movement. From the late 1970s onwards, cultural-academic institutions in the Western bourgeois world began to be wary of the term'modernism,' because it represented a theory, no matter how nuanced or imprecise, that permitted interpretation to gain entry into a phenomenon.

It can be accepted, contested, or rejected if it is regarded a doctrine. The debate paved the way for a new paradigm that is more logical, coherent, and grounded in reality than the one that existed prior to this debate. In structuralist-poststructuralist words, modernism as a 'ism' provided a perceptible critique of the Cold War, competitiveness, and technology-centered approaches, and became increasingly difficult or unpleasant for a system that relied on cynical pursuit of consumption and crass profiteering.