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Dr. Johnson as a Critic

Introduction:
‘Johnson’s critical writings are living literature as Dryden’s for instance, are not. Johnson’s criticism, most of it, belongs with the
living classics; it can be read afresh every year with unaffected pleasure and new stimulus. It is alive and life-giving”.
–Dr. Leavis in Scrutiny, Vol. XII.
Dr. Johnson was the grand cham of the realm of letters of his day. A critic observes. There are four great dictatorial figures in
English literature, each of whom seems to have been recognised in his age as the supreme authority in the realm of letters. In the time of
James I there was Ben Jonson reigning at the Mermaid Tavern; after the Restoration came Dryden to give his views in the coffee-house, then
followed Pope and after him arose Dr. Johnson to utter his downright judgments in tavern and drawing-room and book-shops4and at the
Literary Club.” As is clear from BosweH’s inimitable biography ”Life of Johnson), Dr. Johnson was particularly good at purposeful and witty
conversation. Indeed the last thirty years of his life he spent talking and, by talking, and by overwhelming his friends and foes alike: He
gathered around himself a galaxy of the most important literary figures of the age. The Club was organised in 1764 and from hen till his death
in 1784 Dr. Johnson completely dominated it. Moody and Lovett maintain that Johnson’s so-called dictatorship of English letters was largely
the result of his conversational supremacy in the Literary Club which included nearly all the famous writers of the time. Among these
“famous writers” were Sir Joshua Reynold the famous painter, Garrick the actor, Malone the Shakespearean scholar, Bishop Percy the
collector of ballads, Adam Smith the political economist, Gibbon the historian, Boswell, Fox, Burke the orator, and Oliver Goldsmith. “They
 met,” Boswell tells us, “at the Turk’s Head in Gerrard street, Soho, one evening in every week at seven, and generally continued their
conversation till a pretty late hour.” Dr. Johnson was the soul of his learned assembly and acted visibly as the dictator thereof.
His Equipment as a Critic:
As critic of literature Dr. Johnson was well equipped. About his classical reading there cannot be any doubt. He had an amazingly
retentive memory and could cite passage after passage from English and classical poetry without having to look at the text. He had
tremendous mental vigour as well as clarity of perception. His acuteness of observation was combined with a wonderful candour of judgment
and expression. Of all the English critics Johnson is the last to mince matters. He is very forthright, even downright. He has some central
points of view which he defends with all his bullish strength. Last but not least is his delightful style.
But he has many limitations too. He is a man of very strong likes and dislikes-the dislikes being much stronger than the likes. He
has pet prejudices which impair some of his criticism. Many have questioned his ear, and some have attacked his dogmatism and his
incapacity to appreciate what is, dubiously, called “pure poetry.”
“Preface to Shakespeare”:
The two important works of Jonson as a critic are:-
(i) Preface to Shakespeare; and
(ii) (ii) Lives of the Poets.
Let us consider the first of the two and see what idea of Johnson as a critic it gives.
Johnson’s Preface to Shakespeare appended to his edition of Shakespeare is, in the words of David Daiches, “one of the noblest
monuments of English neoclassic criticism…and an exposure of some of the weaknesses, contradictions, and unnecessary rigidities of some
widely accepted neoclassic principles…Its pungent style, emphatic clarity, and tendency to epigrammatic summing up of each argument
carried its ideas home with enormous force.” No modern editor of Shakespeare can ignore what Johnson has to say about Shakespeare–his
comments on characters, his quite illuminating notes on the meanings of words, and his general assessment of Shakespeare as a poet and
dramatist. The Preface represents effectively all the good and bad qualities of Johnson as a critic. It is, according to a critic, “certaiftly the
most masterly piece of literary criticism. All Johnson’s gifts are seen at their best in it: the lucidity, the virile energy, the individuality of his
style, the unique power of first placing himself on the level of the plain man and then lifting the plain man to his, the resolute insistence on
life and reason, not learning or ingenuity, as the standard by which books are to be judged.”
Johnson neglects the merits of other Elizabethans and pays this glowing tribute to Shakespeare: “The stream of time which is
continually washing dissoluble fabrics of other poets, passes without injury by the adamant of Shakespeare. Poetic reputations blaze up and
dwindle and the fire which heartened one generation will be but cold ashes to the next. Yet for three centuries Shakespeare’s fame has giowed
so steadily that he has come to be looked on as the supreme expression not only of the English race but of the whole world.” The basis of
Johnson’s exaltation of Shakespeare is essentially neoclassic. He does not passively accept the decision of generation after generation.
According to him “nothing can please many, and please long, but just representations of general nature”. This is the neoclassic expression of
Aristotle’s conception of imitation. Shakespeare is great because he is a poet not of freaks and whims but of general human nature which “is
still the same.” Shakespeare’s “persons act and speak by the influence of those general passions and principles by which all minds are
agitated, and the whole system of life is continued in motion.” The emphasis on general truths rather than on the investigation of details is a
basic tenet of the neoclassic school. “To generalise is to be an idiot,” said Blake; but the neoclassicists did not count the streaks of a tulip.
Johnson is, however, not a strait-jacketed neoclassicist. He admits of an occasional departure even from his pet principles. As he
puts it, “there is always an appeal open from criticism to nature.” The imitation of general nature which he insists on should, in his opinion,
be subjected to moral and didactic considerations. “The end of writing,” Johnson says, “is to instruct: the end of poetry is to instruct by
pleasing.” And this is Shakespeare’s “fault” : “He sacrificed virtue to convenience, and is so much more careful to please than to instruct, that
he seems to write without any moral purpose.” Thus, one of the reasons we praise Shakespeare for is treated by Johnson as his “defect.” This
also explains Johnson’s plea for poetic justice. He supports the happy ending of King Lear as manoeuvred by Nahum Tate and others. He
admits that a play in which the virtuous suffer and the wicked prosper “is a just representation of the common events of human life.” But even
then the playwright should preferably show “the final triumph of persecuted virtue,” as that will please the audiences more.
Johnson does not show evidence of any real grasp of Shakespeare’s-poetic powers. He feels that Shakespeare was better at comedy
than tragedy. Nor is he aware of the psychological subtleties of his characterisation. His criticism of Shakespeare’s verbal quibbling is also
indicative of his deficiency of perception. Shakespeare’s puns, truly speaking, are not always senseless. When Margaret inRichard III says :
And turns the sun to shade; alas! alas!
Witness my son, now in the shade of death,
she is not just playing on the words “sun,” “son”, and “shade.” She is in fact fulfilling a deeply compulsive psychological necessity.
Her wordplay is, in the words of Oliver Elton, “in the nature of a safety valve, with a grim kind of hiss in it, for the escape of passion.”
“The Lives of the Poets”:
 Johnson’s most mature and sustained critical work is The Lives of the Poetsoriginally published as Prefaces, Biographical and
Critical, to the Works of the English Poets, between 1779 and 1781. It was intended to be a series of introductions to the works of the English
poets from Cowley and Milton down to Johnson’s contemporaries like Akenside and Gray. As many as fifty-two poets are dealt with. It is
characteristic of the work that it deals with only the poets of the neoclassical tradition. As David Daiches says, “for the most part Johnson is
dealing with men writing in a tradition he understood and employing the kind of verse for which he had an extremely accurate ear.” Many of
the poets dealt with are read by nobody nowadays-Thomas Yalden, Edmund Smith, William King, James Hammond, and Gillbert West. Only
six of the rest-Milton, Dryden, Pope, Thomson, Collins, and Gray—are of real significance today.
In each of the LivesJohnson gives the biographical facts about the poet, his observations on his character, and then a critical
asessment of his poetry. Except in the case of the minor poets he makes little contribution to biographical facts. Anyway, his style is attractive
throughout. We may not accept The Lives of the Poetsas a guide, but, certainly, it is a good companion. Johnson’s criticism is of the “judicial”
kind. He passes a clear verdict on every poet. He defined, in hisDictionary, a critic as “a man skilled in the art of judging literature; a man
able to distinguish the faults and beauties of writing.” Obviously, the emphasis is on judgment and discrimination. His method and
conception of the function of a critic were later to be opposed by the poets and critics of the romantic school, who put emphasis not on
judicial verdict but on the “imaginative interpretation of literature.”
Dr. Johnson’s premises as a critic in this work are as essentially neoclassic as in his criticism of Shakespeare. Again, his insistence
on the function of poetry-“to instruct by pleasing”-is ubiquitous. All poetry is the work of genius, and genius is “that power which constitutes
a poet; that quality without which judgment is cold and knowledge is inert; that energy which collects, combines, amplifies, and animates.”
Invention, imagination, and judgment are included in genius. What is a poet, according to Johnson? The answer as interpreted by David
Daiches is as follows: “The poet is a man seeking to give pleasure by conveying general truths about experience with freshness and skill, the
questions to be asked of a given poet are: what kind of a man, living in what age and circumstances, was he, and being that sort of a man, with
what degree of success did he produce works capable of giving pleasure by their truth and liveliness?” The emphasis is again on “just
representations of general nature.” Any departure from this basic neoclassic prerequisite is stoutly opposed by Dr. Johnson. Of course, some
strong personal prejudices also have a free play in his criticism. Thus Milton is partly attacked on political grounds: “Milton’s republicanism
was, I am afraid, founded in an envious hatred of greatness, and a sullen desire of independence; in petulance impatient of control, and pride
disdainful of superiority.” Johnson’s contempt for Milton’s sonnets is due to his dislike of the sonnet as a poetic form. He is harsh to Swift as
he somewhat suspects his religious sincerity. Such instances of prejudiced views can easily be multiplied. We certainly agree with George
Sherburn that Johnson’s “errors are gross, open and palpable.”
However, most of Johnson’s adverse opinions spring not from his literary and non-literary prejudices but his central point of view
regarding the purpose and function of literature. This point of view is built mainly on the neoclassical premises, though with some very vital
differences. Take, for instance, his condemnation of Cowley and the entire line of metaphysical poets. His views are in strict accordance with
the spirit of his age. The chief fault of the metaphysicals, in the eyes of Johnson, is their sacrifice of the general for the particular and their
excessive love of heavy learning. He observes : “The fault of Cowley, and perhaps all the writers of the metaphysical race, is that of pursuing
his thoughts to their last ramifications, by which he loses the grandeur of generality.” This is what he has to say about metaphysical wit: “The
most heterogenous ideas are yoked by violence together; nature and art are ransacked for illustrations, comparisons, and allusions; their
learning instructs and their subtlety surprises…”
Dr. Johnson has been frequently pilloried for his condemnation of Milton’sLycidas. His condemnation was not, however, the
unthinking stricture of a fanatic, but a natural product of his fundamental attitude. The poet, as we have already pointed out, must, according
to Johnson, give representations of general nature with, to use Daiches’ words again, “truth” and “liveliness” (that is, novelty). He should
maintain a delicate balance between the two. If he adheres to truth too strictly at the cost of liveliness, the odds are that his “representation”
will become mechanical as he will usually employ highly traditional diction, idiom, and imagery. On the contrary, if he strives too much for
novelty, it is likely that he will depart considerably from truth and get bogged down in his own whimsies. The first is the fault of Milton
(in Lycidas) and the second that of the metaphysicals. Both are faults, but the latter is somewhat less serious than the former. David Daiches
observes that “in the last analysis, Johnson held that exhibitionist novelty was better than the mechanical repetition of hereditary similes.” In
condemningLycidas, Johnson still shows his sense of the beautiful poetry which Milton has been able to create even with his “schoolboy”
similes and images.
This deficiency in appreciating the strictly aesthetic merits of poetry leads Johnson to unfair criticism of Gray and Collins who are
often called the precursors of Romanticism. His disapproval of Gray is not really due to his disapproval of all romantic tendencies, but due to
his disapproval of all artificial and extravagant language, the same for which he takes Lycidas to task. Basically, Johnson was against the use
of classical mythology in modern English poetry. He maintained a vigorous independence from most neoclassical dogmas. His leniency about
the three dramatic unities and his disregard of the rigid conception of “kinds” and the rules of decorum are instances in pojnt. Further we
must remember that he made important concessions. He helped Percy over the Reliques; he appreciated //Penseroso and Grongar Hill; he
praised the Castle of Indolence; and he got over his dislike of blank verse while dealing with Milton, Thomson, and Akenside. His objection
against blank verse was not that it was not good but that good blank verse was seldom written. His aesthetic capacity might be questioned but
not his liberalism as a critic. He was not at all deaf to the newer and richer poetry which had begun to be written in his age. However, he is at
his best when dealing with the poets who write that kind of poetry with which he is effortlessly in rapport. His criticism of Dryden and Pope is
really remarkable. The famous passage in which he compares the two poets, in the words of David Daiches, “has had a permanent effect on
the history of the reputation of those two poets…”
The business of criticism, in Johnson’s own words, is to free literary judgment from “the anarchy of ignorance, the caprices of
fancy and the tyranny of prescription, and to assign values on rational grounds.” In his practice, Johnson was true to his conception. He may
be charged with neoclassic bias; but M. H. Abrams meets this charge well : “If Johnson read Milton and Donne through the spectacles of
Pope, Wordsworth and Coleridge read Pope through the spectacles of Milton, while more recent critics have read Wordsworth and Coleridge
and Milton through the spectacles of Donne.” It may be more difficult to absolve Johnson of his prejudices, but the normal sanity of his
judgment, his abundant gusto, and pointed expression cannot be overlooked. He can yet delight, if not guide, us.

Describe Johnson’s main achievement

in the field of literary criticism. What are
his limitations as a critic.
Dr. Johnson is an authentic literary voice of his time. He is called the prime minister of literature and the literary dictator of the
eighteenth century. Carlyle honoured him by calling him a ‘national hero’. He had a great deal of courage and conviction and was a man of
robust commonsense. Though he carried his criticism to extremes yet he was impartial and vigorous. He thrilled his readers with his witty
remarks.
He was a literary sensation of his time. He laid down values if not the literary laws. Though Nature could not give him by way of
handsomeness, yet he enriched the literary aesthetics with the opulence of a Sultan. He voiced middle-class aspirations. He was a beloved of
the English because he catered to their taste.
After the death of Pope in 1744, Dr. Johnson (1709-84) emerged as ‘the undisputed arbiter’ of literary taste of age. With him, says
George Watson, “English Criticism achieves greatness on a scale that any reader can instantly recognize.” F. R. Leavis rightly observes :
“Johnson’s criticism, most of it, belongs with the living classics : it can be read a fresh every year with unaffected pleasure and new stimulus.
It is alive and life-giving.” C. H. Firth regards much of criticism as one of permanent value’, and Mary Lascelles calls him “a movement on the
part of that volume of waters whose capacity for motion is inexhaustible.”
His criticism bears the weight of his massive personality and the vigour of his powerful mind. A rationalist by temperament, he refused
to pay blind homage to any critical cult. “I cannot receive my religion from any human hand,” he wrote in one of his letters. He possessed a
sanity of outlook and a catholicity of mind, rarely found in any other English critic of his age. His unflinching faith in reason and common
sense, his fundamental respect for the voice of the people, his healthy pragmatic approach to critical problems, his delightfully balanced style
are some other qualities of Dr. Johnson as a critic. He emphasized the necessity for judging a work of art as a whole, or again, the need for
taking into account historical considerations in forming literary judgement. He based his practice upon the rule derived from the ancients,
but he was no slavish follower of the rules. He was able to rise above the literary convention. He accepted rules only as a conventional check
upon licence and whenever he found them unsuitable for modern conditions as in the case of the unities of time and place he cast them aside.
He accepted truth and reason and nature as the basis of his criticism, suggested that time was a test of literary value, emphasized the
necessity of judging a work of art as a whole with its historical perspective in mind.
Johnson was pre-eminently a scholar, widely read in classical and contemporary literature. Like Bacon he could have said to have
taken all knowledge as his province. Oxford‘s honorary doctorate, compilation of such a big dictionary were no accidents. With his erudite
learning he combined an immense experience of the world and knowledge of men. His memory was astonishingly retentive. He could cite
passage after passage from English and Classical poetry without having had to look at the text. His tremendous mental vigour was combined
with his powerful expression. He could say things with great force and precision, without mincing words. He was one of the most clear-
headed persons of the Age of Reason.
 Some of the other qualities that elevate him to the rank of a great critic and lend a distinctive note to his criticism are: his humanistic
outlook on life and literature, his unflinching faith in reason and common sense, his fundamental respect for the voice of the people, his
healthy pragmatic approach to critical problems, and above all his delightfully balanced
style. T. S. Eliot describes him as “a man who had a specialized ear for verbal music.”
Estimating the general achievement of Johnson as a critic, Atkins says : “More successful in dealing with the Augustans than with
earlier or later poets, and with prose work rather than with poetry, he opened up new ground with what is in effect the history of a whole
century of English poetry; and while many of his judgements hold good today, they are presented in a style, rhetorical and antithetic it may
be, yet always clear,
forceful and often picturesque Johnson reminds us that literature, whatever else it may be, is a vehicle of rational thought and
articulate emotion that it is subject to no rigid moral requirements, but is essentially an uplifting power enabling men ‘to enjoy life or to
endure it’, thus making
a contribution to the art of living Yet it is as a master who helped in changing the current of critical ideas that he figures in critical
history. Having made use of psychological tests and having revealed incidentally the limits of the prose understanding for critical purposes,
he unconsciously prepared the way for the later triumphs of those who riade imagination or the higher reason their criterion of poetic values.
And for this and other reasons his claims to greatness as a critic admit of no dispute; even though he was one who, “attaining his full purpose,
lost himself in his own lustre.”
By temperament and practice, by the influence of the spirit of his age, by the company he kept, by the books he read, by the climate in
which he grew, he is very much a neo-classicist. There is in his critical approach a predominance of the traditional values and classical dogma,
His love of reason, rationalism, grandmanliness, finish, perfection, correction, preference of intellect to emotion, anti-romantic attitude,
emphasis on morality, urbanity and chastity of diction and style, clarity of mind, love of form, harmony and accuracy, liking for convention
and universality are some prominent features that make him a neo-classical critic. Yet he is for liberty whenever need be. He does not follow
classicism blindly. He adopts a pragmatic approach. He rebels against the set rules and canons whenever he feels the need to do. Many a time
he gives an evidence of an unresolved tension between the neoclassical conscience and the liberating impulse.
His Limitations
That he has certain weaknesses too, cannot be denied. He was preoccupied with his peculiar ‘stock-responses’ to literature. He had a
specialized ‘ear (for the ‘recurrence of settled numbers’, but he was deaf to all other subtle rhythms of the English language. His myopic vision
made him insensible to the beauties of nature. His judgement was sometimes vitiated by his preoccupation with morality. His fault was that
“he failed to distinguish between morality in the widest sense and mere didacticism.” His range of poetic taste was also narrow. He was
against all emotionalism and the higher flights of imagination. He warned the poet not to “number the streaks of the tulip” but to “rise to
general and transcendental truths.” He was against sacred poetry, as he said :”The ideas of Christian theology are too simple for eloquence,
too sacred for fiction, and too majestic for ornament; to recommend them by tropes and figures is to magnify by a concave mirror the sidereal
hemisphere.” If one were to go by Johnson’s tastes, one will have to debar a major part of English poetry from one’s definition of the ‘term’.
Some critic have fault with his ‘ear’ and ‘taste’ while others have denounced him for his rigid moral and religious attitudes. To some his
critical code is conventional and narrow, while to others he appears to be a man of inexorable partialities.
His method is nothing if not magisterial. He treats poets as schoolboys to be corrected. He takes for granted certain fixed rules and
passes sentence on every work of art accordingly. His judgment remains essentially dogmatic and traditional and we find him distributing
praise or blame to poets “with the confident assurance of a school master looking over a boy’s exercise” (John Bailey).
His critical manners and theories were limited by classical prejudices. He could not appreciate blank verse. Milton, Gray and Collins
certainly do not deserve the judgement that he passed upon them. He was singularly deficient in aesthetic sensibility. He had no ear for music
and no eye for the beauty of nature. He found the music of Lycidas harsh, and “one blade of grass” for him was “like another”. He could
appreciate only the regular, mechanical and monotonous beat of the heroic couplet, and closed his eye and ear to the beauties of the blank
verse. Poetry for him was a “cunning craft” and not an expression of the human soul, or a spontaneous over-flow of powerful feelings.
Much of Johnson’s criticism is vitiated by his extra-literary prejudices. Johnson was Tory, and Tory Prejudices coloured his literary
criticism. He could not appreciate Milton, for the poet was a Republican. His criticism of Gray and Collins is lacking in kindness. A thick veil
hides the future from his gaze, conceals the coming of Romanticism.
Conclusion
But his limitations should not make us forget that he was trained in ‘great positive tradition.’ His limitations, as F. R. Leavis has said,
“are commonly both misunderstood and overstressed.” As a practical critic he made use of the biographical, historical and comparative
methods of criticism. In the field of biographical criticism “his achievement is to turn the literary life into a vehicle of criticism.” Here is a
beginning of a method which was later developed by the nineteenth century of critics like Sainte-Beuve. In the field of historical studies also
his contribution is significant, he has rightly been called by Watson “the true father of historical criticism in English.” His use of the
comparative method of criticism is nowhere better illustrated than in his life of Pope. He was the first English critic to attempt a systematic
work, the Lives of the Poets.-Th’is work is a kind of a history of the English poetry upto his time. His work on metaphysical poets and
Shakespeare too is of very much permanent value.
Sir Joshua Reynolds remarked that no one had liked Johnson “the faculty of teaching inferior minds, the art of thinking.” He left
his subject-matter of criticism more respected and better understood. “The services Johnson rendered to Shakespeare are only second to
those he rendered to the language in which Shakespeare wrote.” His Preface to Shakespeare was pronounced by Adams, “the most manly
piece of criticism that was ever published in my country.” As mentioned by John Bailey, the world cannot show “any sixty pages about
Shakespeare exhibiting so much truth and wisdom as these.” At every step he tries the dramatist by the tests of time, nature and universality
and finds him supreme. He was the first not only to emphasize and apply historical and comparative point of view in criticism but was also
first to emphasize that it was in interrogation and not in emendation that the real duty of the critic lay. It is in a masterly way that he
penetrates the thickest of obscurities raised by Shakespeare’s language and goes straight to the heart of his meaning. He reveals himself to be
a master of the rare art of prose paraphrase of poetry. He rids himself of traditional Shakespeare worship and is bold enough to enumerate
his faults. To quote John Bailey again, “Shakespeare has had subtler and more poetical critics than Johnson; but no one has equalled the
insight, sobriety, lucidity, and finality which Johnson shows in his own field.”
“He was a poet and, no doubt, his poetieal experience assisted his criticism : but he did not write, like Dry den, as an artist
examining another artist’s methods. He wished to form his readers’ judgement, to qualify their minds to think justly about Poetry, and his
appeal is, therefore, to the hearts and minds of readers and not to the authority of books. “ (J. T. Butt).

Give your estimate of Dr. Johnson as a

literary critic.
Johnson was an intrepid critic of his time, but his criticism, though marshalled with an absolute integrity and vigour, remained
wanting because of his personal prejudices. His was an authentic literary voice, yet it gets corroded with the passage of time.
He looked at things with the coloured glasses, and much of it smacked of dogmatism which had the full weight of his personality at its back.
He was sought and adored in the literary circle of his age. His words carried weight in the sense that it overawed the readers and the sales
shot up and down at his thundering evaluation of the subject he treated. He could both malign and elevate. He damaged the reputation of
Milton, as they say, for two generations of readers but the subsequent criticism acquitted, nay uplifted the poet from the position he was
pushed to by this great literary dictator. Johnson was the moving spirit of his circle of literary friends which included the brains of the age.
Burke, Goldsmith, Garrick, Fox, Reynolds, Gibbon, Sheridan and many others. The intellectual dynamo had the ready wit, and the pen
dipped in acid to wield against the writers. He cudgled Gray. He cudgled Fielding. He cudgled Milton. They were severely bludgeoned and
they bled, but the judgement of the time ran against the dogmatism of Johnson.

The literary dictator of the Eighteenth Century was a man of relentless brutal candour, but no one could challenge’him for his courage
of conviction. He spurned an untested dogma. The lucid approach to a fact was his tendency, but the personal temperament of the man
interfered with the proper judgement. Often the political prejudices ran counter to the man he was out to evaluate. But he, no doubt, thrilled
people with his witty remarks. He was anything but impartial, at least to a degree. He was a man of robust commonsense. He loathed
extremes in everything, yet he himself carried his criticism to an extreme. It is no wonder that his verdicts, at least some of them, have been
revised since then.
Johnson was a man of classical temperament. Anything smacking of romanticism made him sniff with a distaste. He smote Gray for it.
He smote Collins for it, simply because they looked ahead of their age. Johnson loved the traditional values and simply refused to see the rise
of a new tendency. The transition left him cold and looked down upon any kind of innovation. He had an extreme dependence on the strength
of his :xperience. There is a sort of savage glow about his observations. He was much beloved of the English people, and catered to their taste
with his typical conservatism; and John Bull fed himself pleasantly at what he chose to cater. He voiced the middle-class aspirations, so much
so that Carlyje called him a ‘national hero’. His strong personality could bridge the distance between the middle-class and the aristocracy of
his time. But he remained terribly moored to his literary conservatism. “A bigoted and extreme Tory Johnson had to criticise the principles
and political actions of one who held doctrines as extreme.” How could the Prime Minister of Literature tolerate the adverse political opinion!
But it does not mean that he was not magnanimous; he was magnanimons indeed. Often he was found ‘hard to please, and easily offended,
impetuous, and irritable in temper. The humour in him was sardonic and not genial. John Bailey observes about him in the following words
:
“Samuel Johnson was in his life time a well-known figure in the streets, a popular name in the press. His popularity is certainly not
diminished by the fact that he was the complacent victim of many of our insular prejudices and exhibited a good deal of the national tendency
to a crude and self-confident Philistinism….they laugh at him and love him still.”
Mr. C. H. Firth considers his popularity as a biographer more enduring than his criticism. His criticism has been evaluated as
‘superannuated’, but it has in its womb something of permanent value, indeed. Perhaps Macaulay strikes the true note while evaluating a man
like him. “His criticisms are often excellent and even when grossly provokingly unjust well deserve to be studied.” About his criticisms he says
further, “They are the judgments of a mind tramelled by prejudice and deficient in sensibility, but vigorous and acute ………..they,
therefore, generally contain a portion of valuable truth which deserves to be separated from the alloy.”
For Johnson ‘truth’ was the basis of’excellence’, but the trouble is about the perception of the same. A truth for one may not be the
truth for other. The absolute truth might be a misnomer for Johnson. But no one can deny him the two virtues, ‘dependence’ and ‘sincerity’.
He ‘judges quite at home in judging the didactic type of poetry, and not the highly imaginative ones’. It is one reason that he could not judge
Milton properly. ‘His literary criticism is the expression not only of the man but of his age.’ He could not perhaps catch the subtle nuances of
the romantic flight of poetry though one cannot call in question his ‘broad sanity’, ‘mighty intellect’ and ‘integrity of feeling’. He had the vast
moral problems with great critical acumen; and, indubitably, most dictatorial in his pronouncement, as he was. Mr. Cazamian upholds the
position of Johnson for several reason his philosophy of experience, reflection, clear judgment, balanced mind, the ‘resolution of an energy
bound up with the supreme needs of action,’ ‘the rough vigour’, ‘the gravity’, ‘the obstinate realism’, and for his capacity to make ‘a silent
appeal to the deep instincts of the English people.’
As a critic Johnson took to the ‘sober reason’ and stated facts with a certain clarity of mind. He was most outspoken in his utterance.
Johnson himself observes about the task of a critic ” in order to make a true estimate of the abilities and merits of a writer, it is always
necessary to examine the genius of his age and the opinions of his contemporaries.’ He says further about it in the following words : ‘The
business of a critic is not to point out beauties rather than faults to hold out the light of reason, whatever it may discover.’ The criterion of
Johnson is partly correct, and partly incorrect. I suppose it is also the task, and a major one too, to discern the beauties of a work of art. He is
correct about the ‘light of reason’, but who is to judge reason, which might be fallacious in its inception. It is not only the power of intellect
but catholicity and dispassionate observation are what a critic needs while evaluating a work of art. Johnson’s power of intellect is beyond
dispute, but his catholicity can be called in question. Dispassionate he never is, his very personality rises to check this vital impulse. He is a
convicting magisterate in the realm of criticism. He ‘delivers himself with severe magisterial dignity’ though with vigorous authoriatative
brevity.’ He works himself on the high sounding general propositions. The classical dogma casts its shadow across his path of critical
approach. He has a vast capacity to perceive an intellectual fact rather than the emotional one. The Romantic disproportion would invariably
set him on fire. He has been aptly described as ‘genius irritable’ and ‘a snarler of his time’. HoweverGeorges Saintsbury adjudges him on a
sound footing when he says : ‘Johnson is quite as prejudiced; but his prejudice is not in the least insane. His critical calculus is perfectly
sound on its postulates and axioms.’

Give your own estimate of the greatness

of Coleridge as a literary critic.
Views of Critics
Coleridge is one of the greatest of literary critics, and his greatness has been almost universally recognised. He occupies, without
doubt, the first place among English literary critics. After eliminating one after another the possible contenders for title of the greatest critic,
Saintsbury concludes : “So : then there abide these three—Aristotle, Longinus, and Coleridge.”
According to Arthur Symons, Coleridge’s Biographia Literaria is {the greatest book of criticism in English,” and Rene Wellek s of the
view that Coleridge is a link “between German Transcendentalism and English romanticism.” C’azamian observes : “No one before him
in England had brought such mental breadth to the discussion of aesthetic values.” R. A. Scott-James admires him for his union of heart
and head. Herbert Read considers Coleridge “as head and shoulders above every other English critic” and sees him anticipating
existentialism and Freud. His Important Critical Writings

The important critical writings of Coleridge include Biographia Lectures on Shakespeare, The Friend, The Table Talk; his
contributions to Southey’s Omniana,his ‘Letters’ his the posthumous ‘Anima Poetae’. However, the most important of these is his Biographia
Literaria. His Practical Criticism—Father of Impressionistic analytic Criticism
A man of stupendous learning, both in philosophy and literature, ancient as well as modern, and refined sensibility and panetrating
intellect, Coleridge was eminently fitted to the task of a critic. His practical criticism consists of his evaluations of Shakespeare and other
English dramatists, and of Milton and Wordsworth. Despite the fact that there are so many digressions and repetitions, his practical criticism
is always illuminating and highly original. It is rich in suggestions of far reaching value and significance, and flashes of insight rarely to be
met with in any other critic. His greatness is well brought out if we keep in mind the state of practical criticism in England before him. The
Neo-classical critics judged on the basis of fixed rules, they were either legislative or judicial, or were carried away by their prejudices.
Coleridge does not judge on the basis of any rules. He does not pass any judgment, but gives his responses and reactions to a work of art. His
criticism is impressionistic, romantic, a new kind of criticism, criticism which dealt a knock out blow to neo-classic criticism and which
continued in vogue more or less ever since. He could discover new beauties in Shakespeare and could bring about fresh revaluation of a
number of old English masters. Similarly, his criticism of Wordsworth and his theories enable us to judge his views in the correct perspective.
His Philosophical Criticism
Coleridge is the first English critic to base his literary criticism on philosophical principles. While critics before him had been content
to turn a poem inside out and to discourse on its excellences and defects, he busied himself with the basic question of how it came to be there
at all. He was more interested in the creative process that made it what it was than in the finished product. In his own words, he endeavoured
‘to establish the principles of writing rather than to furnish rules how to pass judgement on what has been written by others’. These he sought
to discover in ‘the nature of man’—the faculty or faculties of the human soul that gave it birth. He also united philosophy and psychology with
literary criticism.
His Theory of Imagination (which revolutionised the concept ofimitation)
Coleridge’s greatest and most original contribution to literary criticism is his theory of imagination. All previous discussions of
imagination look superficial and childish when compared with Coleridge’s treatment of the subject. He is the first critic to differentiate
between Imagination and Fancy, the first literary critic to distinguish between primary and secondary Imagination. Through his theory of
imagination he revolutionised the concept of artistic imitation. Poetic imitation is neither a servile copy of nature, nor is it the creation of
something entirely new and different from nature. Poetry is not imitation b,ut creation, but it is the creation based on the sensations and
impressions received from the external world. Such impressions are shaped, ordered, modified, and opposites are reconciled and harmonised
by the imagination of the poet, and in this way poetic creation takes place.
Demonstration of the Organic Wholeness of Poetry
Further, as David Daiches points out, “it was Coleridge who, finally, for the first time, resolved the age old problem of the relation
between the form and content of poetry. Through his philosophical inquiry into the nature and value of poetry, he established that a poem is
an organic whole, and that its form is determined by its content, and is essential to that content. Thus metre and rhyme, he showed, are not
merely, “pleasure superadded”, nor merely something superfluous which can be dispensed with, nor mere decoration, but essential to that
pleasure which is the true poetic pleasure. This demonstration of the organic wholeness of a poem is one of his major contributions to literary
theory.
“Willing Suspension of Disbelief
Similarly his theory of “Willing Suspension of Disbelief marks a significant advance over earlier theories on the subject. His view that
during the perusal of a poem or the witnessing of a play there is neither belief nor disbelief, but a mere suspension of disbelief, is now
universally accepted as correct, and the controversy on the subject has been finally set at rest. His Belated Recognition and
Influence : Its Causes
However, it may be mentioned in the end that Coleridge’s views are too philosophical, he is a critic not easy to understand. Often it is
fragmentary and unsystematic. Victorians, in general, could not appreciate him and his appeal was confined to the few. As a descriptive critic
his achievement is brilliant, but sporadic, and he offers no single example worthy to be advanced as a model. The list of his detractors is
equally impressive. Some great modern critics of our times, such as T. S. Eliot, F. R. Leavis, F. L. Lucas, Allen Tate, and Ranson have been
repelled by his romanticism.
According to Richard Harter Fogle, “Designing objective certainty and precision, and unalterably opposed to romantic monism and
transcendentalism, they have taxed him with over-philosophizing, sentimentalizing, confusing, and in general muddying in the waters of
criticism and taste,” To Lucas, Coleridge’s statements about imagination are “obscure and contorted,” his classifications barren, his
judgements nonsensical, his theories windy, cloudy, mysterious. T. S. Eliot pokes fun at Coleridge’s “metaphysical hare-and-hounds.” Alien
Tate thinks that Coleridge has bequeathed to later generations “fatal legacy” of indecision. But these demerits do not belittle his greatness.
His criticism survives not by virtue of what it demonstrates but by what it abundantly suggests, for no English critic has so excelled at
providing profit, able points of departure for twentieth century critics.” It is only in the 20th century that his literary criticism has been truly
understood and recognition and appreciation have followed. To-day his reputation stands very high and many go to him for inspiration and
illumination.

"I write in metre, because I am about to

use a language different from that of
prose." (Coleridge). Examine critically
Coleridge’s view of "Metrical
composition."
In opposition to Wordsworth, Coleridge believes that metre is not something superadded but an organic part of poetry. In chapter
XVIII of the Biographia Literaria, he discusses in a very subtle manner the origin and effect of metre and its legitimate place in poetry. So far
as the powers of metre and the source of that power are concerned, he has nothing to dispute with Wordsworth, but he regrets that
Wordsworth has not given an independent and elaborate treatment to this subject. He, therefore, examines and corrects Wordsworth’s views
and gives them a more philosophical and perspicuous treatment.
Coleridge begins by emphasizing the difference between prose and poetry. “A poem contains the same elements as a prose
composition.” Both use words. The difference between a poem and a prose composition cannot, then, lie in the medium, for each employs the
same medium, words. It must, therefore, “consist in a different combination of them; in consequence of a different object being proposed.” A
poem combines words differently, because it is seeking to do something different. “Of course, all it may be seeking to do may be to facilitate
memory. You may take a piece of prose and cast it into rhymed and metrical form in order to remember it better.” And rhyming tags of that
kind, with their recurring, “sounds and quantities,” yield a particular pleasure too, though not of a very high order. If one wants to give the
name of poem to composition of this kind, there is no reason why one should not. “But we should not think that, though such rhyming tags
have the charm of metre and rhyme, metre and rhyme have been “superadded.” They do not rise from the nature of the content but have been
imposed on it in order to make it more easily memorized.
Since the main function of poetry is to give pleasure, the composition in rrietre can provide more natural pleasure than a non-metrical
one. He say;, “you cannot derive true and permanent pleasure out of any feature of a work which does not arise naturally from the total
nature of that work”. If metre be superadded, all other parts must be made consonant with it. Rhyme and metre involve an exact
correspondent recurrence of accent and sound. “A poem, therefore, must be an organic unity in the sense that, while we note and appreciate
each part, to which regular recurrence of accent and sound draw attention, our pleasure in the whole develops cumulatively out of such
appreciation, which is at the same time pleasurable in itself and conducive to an awareness of the total pattern of the complete poem.” In a
poem the parts mutually support and explain each other, all in their proportion harmonizing with, and supporting, the purpose and known
influences of metrical arrangement. In other words, in a metrical composition there must be a perfect union of ‘an interpenetration of passion
and of will, of spontaneous impulse and of voluntary purpose.’ And this union can be best manifested in a language which is picturesque and
vivifying, based on a frequent use of forms and figures of speech.
Now, the effects of metre, Coleridge believes that since metre is an organic part of poetry, it is vitally connected with its effects also.
Metre in itself tends to increase the vivacity and susceptibility of the reader’s mind by producing continual excitement of surprise. For poetic
purposes, “metre resembles yeast, worthless or disagreeable by itself, but giving vivacity and spirit to the liquor with which it is
proportionately combined.” It has the power to liven the language and render it pleasurable. But the pleasure of metre itself is conditional. It
is dependent on “the appropriateness of the thoughts and expressions, to which the metrical form is superadded.” “Where, therefore,
correspondent food and appropriate matter are not provided for the attention and feelings thus roused, there must needs be a
disappointment felt; like that of leaping in the dark from the last step of a staircase, when we had prepared our muscles for a leap of three or
four…… Neither can 1 conceive any other answer that can be rationally given, short of this; 1 write in metre, because I am about to use a
language different from that of prose. Besides where the language is not such, how interesting so ever the reflections are, that are capable of
being drawn by a philosophic mind from the thoughts of incident of the poem the metre itself must often become feeble. Here Coleridge’s
views appear to be somewhat inconsistent. He argues that in itself metre is only an accessory and therefore metrical composition must be
accompanied by a rich thought content and poetic diction. But later he pleads that metre is ‘the proper form of poetry,’ and that poetry is’
imperfect and defective without metre.’
In order to justify metre as an essential part of poetic composition, Coleridge, like Wordsworth, refers to the harmonious adjustment of
similar and dissimilar elements into an organic unity. “This and the preceding arguments,'” he says, “may be strengthened by the reflection,
that the composition of a poem is among the imitative arts; and that imitation, as opposed to copying, consists either in interfusion of the
SAME throughout the radically DIFFERENT, or of the different throughout a base radically the same.”
And finally, in his zeal to disprove Wordsworth’s contention that “there neither is, nor can be, any essential difference between the
language of prose and metrical composition.” Coleridge appeals to the authority of the best poets of all countries in all ages, who have written
in metre to give sanction to his view that ‘there may, there is, and ought to be, an essential difference between the language of prose and
metrical composition.’ Language of poetry differs from prose in the same way as the language of conversation differs from prose. Words in
prose and poetry may be the same but their arrangement is different. This arrangement is different because poetry uses metre. Hence there is
bound to be an essential difference between the language of poetry and prose.
To conclude, metre is essential to a poem to make it different from a prose piece, to heighten the effect, to enliven pleasure and to help
us in memorizing a poem; metre also balances the spontaneous overflow of passion in the poet’s mind; metrical language better conveys
excitement than prose. Since passion is the property of poetry, metre is organic to poetry. Then anything related to metre is actually related to
the spirit of poetry. The metrical pattern tends to increase the vivacity and susceptibility both of the general feelings and of the attention. The
effect which it produces is that of the continued excitement of surprise, metre also gives us the sense of musical delight.

WordsWorth romantic criticism

mportant works on criticism: Preface to the Lyrical Ballads, 1800, 1802, 1815.
Main ideas of his criticism:
1. The chief aim in the composition of poems in the Lyrical Ballads has been to choose
‘incidents and situations from common life’ and to relate them in a selection of language really
used by men, and at the same time throw over them a colouring of imagination, whereby the
ordinary things would be presented to the mind in an unusual aspect. WW insists that if the
subject is properly chosen, it will naturally lead the poet to feelings whose appropriate
expression will have dignity, beauty and metaphorical vitality.
2. He has chosen ‘incidents and situations from common life’ as subjects of his poetryfor the
following reasons: in humble and rustic life feelings are freely and frankly expressed for these
are simple, the manners of the rustics are not sophisticated and hence are more conducive to an
understanding of human nature, in rustic life, human passions are connected to nature and so
they are more noble and permanent.
He has used the language of the rustics because such men hourly communicate with the best
objects of nature from which the best part of language is derived, and because of their low rank
in society, they are less under the influence of social vanity. They convey their feelings in a
simple and unelaborated language. Such language is far more philosophical than the arbitrary
language used by the poets of the day.
3. The theme which dominates most of Wordsworth’s criticism, and which he pursues most
consistently is his argument against poetic diction. The immediate object of his attack was the
‘gaudiness and inane phraseology’ and the ‘vague, glossy and unfeeling language’ of
contemporary poets. Wordsworth is arguing against the idea of ‘poetic diction’ current
throughout the 18th c, the idea that some modes of diction were best avoided in poetry, but that
other modes were especially suitable. He argues that to separate poetry from ordinary speech is
to separate it from human life. Poets confer honour neither on themselves or their works by using
a sophisticated diction. In fact it alienates human sympathy. Simple rural people are less
restrained and artificial in their feelings and their utterance, and those feelings are at one with
their environment. Expanding his apologia for his rejection of poetic diction, he says that there
neither is, nor be any essential difference between the language of prose and metrical
composition, and repeats that the language of poetry should as far as possible be ‘a selection of
the language really spoken by men’. If true taste and feeling are applied to the process of
selection then what results will be firmly distinguished from the ‘vulgarity and meanness of
ordinary life’ and if meter is ‘superadded’ then it will be even better.
Acc to WW, metre is not essential to poetry, but it is an additional source of pleasure.
4. What is a poet? Acc to WW, a poet is a man speaking to men. He is endowed with
a) more lively sensibility
b) has greater knowledge of human nature
c) a more comprehensive soul
d) greater zest for life,
f) greater powers of communication
A poet communicates not only personally felt emotions but also emotions he has not directly
experienced.
5. Role of Poetry: Poetry is not a matter of mere amusement and idle pleasure; it is a much noble
and higher pleasure. It is the most philosophic of all writings: its object is truth, not individual
and local, but general and operative. It is the image of man and nature. For Ww, the poet’s
specialty is the interaction between man and his environment, the complexities of pleasures and
pain that arise therefrom, and the deep sympathies by which they are interrelated. Poetry is the
breath and finer spirit of all knowledge…
It is by virtue of this sublime concept of the poet that WW decries verbal artifices and vague
ornamentation in poetic expressions.
6. Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings recollected in tranquility. In WW’s
poems, feelings are more important than action and situation.
7. Views on metre: WW justifies the use of meter. Metre is regular and uniform, while poetic
diction is arbitrary and capricious. The rules of metre are fixed, while there are no rules for
poetic diction. WW has used metre for the following reasons: it is an additional source of
pleasure, in using metre he has followed tradition, metre has restraining and tempering effect on
the flow of emotion and passion, it softens the painful and pathetic, it has a distancing effect, it
imparts grace and dignity to the lighter emotions, provides an element of contrast, and the
perception of similarity in dissimilarity.
8. Poetic process; four stages through which poetic composition takes place a) observation, b)
recollection, c) contemplation, d) imaginative excitement of the emotions which were
experienced earlier.
Criticism of WW’s ideas by Coleridge
Language so selected and purified will no longer be rustic language
WW permits the use of metre, and this means a particular order and arrangement of words. If
metre is to be used in poetry it will be not same as the language of prose.
The use of metre is as artificial as poetic diction, if one is allowed why not the other?
Coleridge objects to the use of the word ‘real’- every man’s language differs according to his
individuality and the class to which he belongs. In that case can one language be less real than
the other.
As man advances from the primitive stage, his thoughts and expressions have also advanced, he
has acquired new ideas and concepts, these cannot be adequately expressed in rustic language.
Theory and criticism: Aristotle
Aristotle’s view on imitation in poetry
According to Aristotle poetic imitation is not a mere act of servile copying, but it is an act of
imaginative creation by which the poet, drawing his material from the phenomenal world, makes
something new out of it. Poetry shifts and orders its material, disregards the non essential, the
purely accidental, and thus gives us the universal. In this way, it achieves a higher reality, even
higher than nature.
Imitation: The Common Basis of All the Arts
In Aristotle’s view it is the principle of imitation which unites poetry with the other fine arts.
While Plato had equated poetry with painting, Aristotle equates it with music. It no longer
remains a mere servile representation of the appearance of things, but in his theory it becomes a
representation of the passions, and emotions of men, which are also imitated by music. Thus
Aristotle by his theory enlarged the scope of imitation. The poet imitates not the surface of things
but the higher reality embedded within. As the emotions are also the objects of imitation of
music, poetry has close affinities with music. It is a mistake to compare poetry with painting as
Plato did, it is more akin to music.
Imitation: Medium and Manner
In the very first chapter of the Poetics, Aristotle says, “Epic poetry and Tragedy, Comedy,
also and Dithyrambic poetry, as also the music of the flute and the lyre in most of their forms,
are in their general conception modes of imitation. They differ, however, from one another in
three respects—their medium, the objects, and the manner or mode of imitation, being in each
case distinct.” Thus the medium of the poet and the painter are different. The one imitates
through forms and colour, and the other through language, rhythm and harmony. The musician
imitates through rhythm and harmony. In this way, poetry is nearer to music than painting.
Further, the manner of a poet may be purely narrative as in the Epic, or representation through
action, as in drama. Thus different kinds of poetry differ from each other in their manner of
imitation. Even dramatic poetry is differentiated into tragedy and comedy, accordingly as it
imitates men as better or worse.
Poetic Imitation: Its Objects
As regards the objects of imitation, Aristotle says that the objects of poetic imitation are
“men of action,” The poet may imitate “men as they were or are, or as they ought to be.” In other
words, he may represent men either as better than in real life or worse or as they are. This means
that according to Aristotle’s theory, imitation is not a mere photographic representation of the
surface of things, but is a creative process. The poet selects and orders his material and in this
way re-creates reality. He can represent men better than in real life. Thus he gives us a truth of an
ideal or universal kind; he tells us not what men are but what they can be or what they ought to
be. His mind is not tied to reality: “It is not function of the poet to relate what has happened but
what may happen—according to the laws of probability or necessity.” History tells us what
actually happened, poetry what may happen. Poetry tends to express the universal, history the
particular. In this way, he demonstrates the superiority of poetry over history. The poet freed
from the tyranny of facts, takes a larger or generalized view of things, represents the universal in
and through the particular and so shares the philosopher’s quest for ultimate truth. There is a
universal element in great poetry, and hence its permanent appeal. He thus equates poetry with
philosophy and shows that both are means to a higher truth, both contribute to a better
understanding of man and his life.
Scope of Imitation
The object of the poet’s imitation are “men in action”, or the actions of men. The action may
be external or may be internal. It may be the action within the soul caused by all that befalls a
man. In this way, he brings human experiences, emotions and passions—alt that happens or is
likely to happen to man—within the scope of poetic imitation.
Tragedy and epic represent men on a heroic scale, better than they are, and comedy
represents men of a lower type, worse than they are. Aristotle does not discuss the third
possibility. It means that poetry does not aim at photographic realism.
Comparison with Plato’s view
Aristotle by his theory of imitation answers the charge of Plato that poetry is an imitation of
“shadow of shadows”, thrice removed from truth and that the poet beguiles us with lies. Plato
condemned poetry on the ground that in the very nature of things poets can have no idea of truth.
The phenomenal world is not the reality, but a copy of the reality in the mind of the Supreme.
The poet imitates this copy, the object and phenomena of the world, which are shadowy and
unreal. Hence, Plato concluded that poetry is thrice removed from reality, it being a mere,
‘shadow or shadow of shadows.’ The poets have no knowledge of truth, they are liars, and
deceive us with the lies which they tell in their poetry. Poetry, therefore, is “the mother of lies.”
Aristotle, on the contrary, tells us that art imitates not the mere show of things, but the ‘ideal
reality,’ embodied in every object of the world. The process of nature is a ‘creative process’;
everywhere in, ‘nature there is a ceaseless and upward progress’, everything in nature is
constantly growing and moving up, and the poet imitates this upward movement of nature. Art
reproduces the original not as it is, but it appears to the senses, i.e., it is reproduced
imaginatively. Art moves in a world of images, and reproduces the external, according to the
idea or image in his mind. Thus the poet does not copy the external world, but creates according
to his ‘idea’ of it. Thus even an ugly object well-imitated becomes a source of pleasure. We are
told in the Poetics, “objects which in themselves we view with pain, we delight to contemplate
when reproduced with minute fidelity: such as the forms of the most ignoble animals and dead
bodies.” This is so because of the imaginative coloring of reality in the process of poetic
imitation.
Tragedy: Aristotle’s definition of Tragedy- is an imitation of an action, serious complete and
of a certain magnitude, in a language beautified in different parts with different kinds of
embellishment, through action and not narration and through scenes of pity and fear bringing
about the ‘catharsis’ of these emotions.
Characteristics of an Aristotelian Plot: 1) Tragedy is a representation of action and action
consists of incidents and events. Aristotle differentiates between plot and story, and says that it is
better for the poet to choose a traditional story taken from history, mythology and legends for
such stories are familiar and easy to understand. After selecting the story, the artist must then go
on to the process of selection and ordering, when only relevant incidents and situations are to be
selected and arranged such that they seem to follow each other logically. This is the plot of the
story.
2) Next, the tragic plot must be a complete whole that is it must have a beginning, middle and an
end. By beginning, Aristotle meant that the incident must not flow from a previous situation, and
if it does, that situation must be made known to the audience through the chorus, soliloquy etc.
Middle is everything that follows from the beginning and it is followed by the catastrophe. The
End is consequent upon a given situation and is not followed by any further incident. Thus,
wholeness implies the linking of the various incidents and situations that form the plot.
3) By magnitude, Aristotle meant the size of the plot, which should be neither too long
(beginning will be forgotten by the audience), nor too short (the different parts will not be clearly
distinguishable from each other). It should be long enough to allow the process of change from
happiness to misery initiated by the beginning to be developed. It means that the plot should
have order, logic and symmetry.
4) It follows that the plot should be an organic whole, such that there must be only one tragic
action, and every incident must be connected to the rest of the action, so that there is no incident
that is irrelevant. There may be episodes, but they must be properly integrated to the plot such
that it is not possible to remove them without causing injury to the plot.
5) Next, Aristotle couples organic unity of a plot with probability and necessity, that is, the
action of the tragedy must be possible acc to laws of probability and necessity. The plot is not
tied to what has actually happened but what is possible under the given circumstances. Next, the
words and actions must be the necessary outcome of the character of a dramatic personage. And,
also, the tragic action must be convincing and credible.
6) The Three Unities: Unity of action-the plot should be an organic whole, such that there must
be only one tragic action, and every incident must be connected to the rest of the action, so that
there is no incident that is irrelevant. There may be episodes, but they must be properly
integrated to the plot such that it is not possible to remove them without causing injury to the
plot. Aristotle was against the introduction of a sub plot, similarly he is against a double ending,
e.g. a tragic comedy and the introduction of comic relief. Acc to him such plurality of action and
double ends distract attention and weaken the tragic effect. Unity of Time- Although Aristotle
mentions nothing about the Unity of time, it does seem to be derived from him. Aristotle said
that the action of the tragedy, as far as possible should remain within one revolution of the sun.
Neo classic critics explained this as that the spectators would not believe in the reality of an
action that compressed several days into a three hour drama. Neo classicists also believed that for
verisimilitude there should be an exact correspondence between the time of the dramatic action
and the time of the events being imitated, so that a play lasting three hours would depict events
that took only three hours to work themselves out. Unity of Place too does not find any explicit
mention in Aristotle, although when comparing Epic to Tragedy, he says that the epic may
narrate several actions taking place simultaneously at several places, but this is not possible in
tragedy which does not narrate but represents through action. Unity of Place and Unity of Time
are of no importance and with Dr Johnson’s criticism, they have died out.
7) Kinds of plots: Simple plots are those in which the action moves forward but
withoutperipeteia (reversal of fortune) and Anagnorisis (recognition of truth). Complex plots are
those where the change of fortune is accompanied by peripeteia or anagnorisis or both.
The peripeteia and anagnorisis must arise from the arrangement of the plot so that it appears
necessary or probable.
8) Elements of a plot:
Peripeteia: or reversal of fortune takes place when the course of events take an opposite turn than
intended, the change being also probable or necessary. (eg: when a man tells Oedipus about his
mother)
Recognition: a change from ignorance to knowledge tending either to affection or to enmity. The
best sort of recognition is accompanied by peripeteia, as seen in Oedipus. Recognition may be
caused by a) visible signs, eg, birthmarks, b) those manufactured by the poet, by not what the
plot demands, c)is by the means of memory, that is when awareness is roused by seeing
something, d) is recognition on the basis of reasoning, e) that arises from actions alone with the
surprise developing through a series of likelihood.
Pathos: an act involving destruction or pain, eg death on the stage, or physical agonies and
wounding etc.

Characterization: With respect to character, there are four things that a poet must aim at: a) the
character must be morally good, that is the he makes a moral choice, b) The characters
represented should be suitable, i.e., if the character represented is brave it is not suitable for a
woman to be brave in this way, c) the characters should be life like, that is they must be true to
life and have the same likes and dislikes, weakness and virtues, joys and sorrows like average
humanity. Only such likeness will arouse pity, d) the characters should be consistent.
Since tragedy is an imitation of people better than are found in the world, the poet ought to make
the characters life like but at the same time represent them as better than they are. Even if the
characters are irascible, lazy and morally deficient in some ways, they must nevertheless be
good.
The Ideal Tragic Hero: The function of tragedy is to evoke emotions of pity and fear, and from
this Aristotle deduces the qualities of his tragic hero. He says that the tragic hero should not be
too good or perfect, for the fall of a perfectly good man from happiness to misery would only
shock and disgust. Similarly, the fall of a wicked person would not evoke tragic
feelings. Therefore, a tragic hero must be a man not pre-eminently virtuous and just, whose
misfortune is brought upon him not by vice or depravity but by some error in judgment.
The misfortune of the tragic hero is brought about by some fault of his own, which is
called hamartia or some error in judgment that he commits. Hamartia may arise from any of the
following ways: it may arise from ignorance of the facts, or it may arise out of error from hasty
and careless decisions, or third, it may be voluntary, though not deliberate, as acts committed in
anger or passion.
Another trait of the tragic hero is that he must be a person who occupies a position of eminence
in society.
Function of tragedy
Aristotle writes that the function of tragedy is to arouse emotions of pity and fear in the audience
and through this affect the catharsis of these emotions. In Greek, catharsis has three meanings:
purgation, purification and clarification.