Antiquity Period

1. LITERARY CRITICISM
ANTIQUITY
Mrs. Lorraine S. Almario

2. People have been telling stories and sharing responses to stories
since the beginning of time.
By reading and discussing literature, we expand our imagination ,
our sense of what is possible, and our ability to emphasize with
others.
Reading and discussing literature can enhance our ability to write.

3.  It can sharpens our critical faculties,
enabling us to assess works and better
understand why literature can have such a
powerful effect on our lives.

4. Literary texts offer us with much aesthetic, intellectual,
and emotional pleasure in that the writers often seek to
delineate their vision of human experience through a
creative, imaginative and emotive use of language.

5.  Consequently, it is through a close interaction
with the text, reaction to the text, looking
unique use of language and appreciation of
literary works can be achieved.

6.  In unravelling the possible meanings of a literary work,
one engages in an exercise to make inferences,
formulate ideas, and analyse a text closely for evidence
and all these activities contribute to sharpening one’s
critical faculty.

7. The basic reason that compels us to give criticism is for
universal human values and the values of the culture from
which they spring from literary materials contribute to our
understanding of ourselves and our relations with others.

8. Since critically analysing literary works has immense
uses, students of literature, language teachers and
advanced readers need to use literary theories and
philosophies to give critics to different kinds of oral and
written works of arts.

9. Literal interpretation of poetry, for instance is not enough
to hone the students’ capability and ability to analyze
whatever lines of poetry being studied.
The same way goes with interpreting a readable prose that
needs more than the literal interpretation of whatever they
might need for analysis and judgment.

10. It has been observed that the students who are not very
much interested with poetry are impartial to analyzing or
interpreting them so much more if they lack the ability to
read prose writings that they may not come up with a good
literary analysis or a critic of whatever prose selection they
read.

11. The teachers have an important role to instill in the minds
of our students the ability to read well and appreciate the
reading first before our students can write a good critic.

12. WHAT IS LITERARY CRITICISM?

13. It has not been a big joke teaching language and literature;
students have the responsibility to learn how to understand,
communicate and appreciate what they read for the class.
Therefore, literary criticism has something to do with the
fundamental objective or process of teaching and learning
literature.

14. This goes beyond “reading” since “to read”
is not only to comprehend but also to analyze,
evaluate, and make judgment.

15. To instill among the students the good habit of
reading is telling them that “In order for them to be
able to write, one should be a good reader first.”

16. If a teacher has accomplished the real objective of
reading literature for students, then that suffice saying that
he/she has taught well, not only as a language teacher but as
a reading teacher.

17.  Literary criticism is a theory, a trend or
approach born of excitement and
frustration.

18. WHY FRUSTRATION?
Despite the excitement of literary critics or critical
theories and practices, many students come to the study of
literature with anxieties, misgivings, boredom (especially in
interpreting poetry), yawns, and disappointments.

19. Even in the best classrooms, the literature subject is being
conducted with great effort and imagination since reading
may be considered a frustration associated with writing
about literature.

20. Even some students who love literature may feel uneasy
about it (literature prose or poetry) --- how to proceed
making a critic or an analysis dealing with what a particular
literature teacher may “really want” that may differ in
perspective from other teachers or other classmates.

21. Literary criticism is also the study of literature to discover
critical theories that can enrich literary study.
It has to do with a discipline that involves reading and
writing.

22. In short, the logic is there: how are they going to write if
they don’t read?
Literary criticism can cut across various fields such as
rhetoric, stylistic, philosophy, literature, psychology, history
and etc.

23. As a literary critic, one has to bring out the literary
treasures into the light – but certain specialist skills are
needed to do it.
One has to have knowledge of history, philosophy, as well
as language style and even the textual editing.

24. In short, and as one may need these all, the literary critic
serves as a bridge or the link between great writers and the
general reader.

25. HISTORICAL
DEVELOPMENT
OF
LITERARY CRITICISM

26. ANTIQUITY
 Throughout Antiquity, Greeks and Romans interpreted,
analysed, and evaluated the texts of poets and prose
writers.
They formulated ideas about the nature of poetry, its
effects, and its function in society.

27. They also developed theories on the effective composition
of prose texts, and they commented on the style of orators,
historians, and philosophers.
All these different activities can be summarized in the
notion of “ancient literary criticism.”

28. Literary criticism was not a separate discipline in
Antiquity.
Greek and Roman ideas on what we call “literature” (i.e.
poems as well as texts of oratory, history, and philosophy)
are found in many different kinds of texts (dialogues,
epistles, treatises, commentaries, poems) that were produced
in various intellectual contexts.

29. Four of these contexts are relevant, in particular: poetry,
philosophy, rhetoric, and scholarship.
From its beginnings in the Homeric epics, Greek poetry
reflected on its own nature, value, and function.

30. Latin poetry was concerned with similar issues: Horace’s Ars Poetica is
both a poem and one of the most influential texts of ancient criticism.
Throughout antiquity, poetry provoked all kinds of responses from
philosophers.

31. On the other hand, the relationship between poetry and
philosophy was framed in terms of a conflict between
competing traditions: Xenophanes notoriously objects to the
poets’ presentation of gods, and Plato problematizes the
mimetic nature of poetry in his Republic.

32. On the other hand, philosophers made extensive use of
poetic forms and developed theories of poetry: no critical
text from Antiquity has been so influential as Aristotle’s
Poetics.
Rhetoric is another ancient discipline that is closely
connected with literary criticism.

33. In Greek and Roman teaching, students were
continuously stimulated to read, study, and analyse the
classical texts from the past, which formed the models of
stylistic imitation and emulation.

34.  By consequence, the rhetorical treatises composed by
such teachers as Demetrius, Dionysius, and Quintilian
include numerous evaluative observations an specific
passages of classical prose and poetry.

35. Finally, there is the tradition of ancient scholarship that
came to flourish in the Hellenistic period, most famously in
Alexandria and Pergamum.
The commentaries of Alexandrian scholars contained
observations on literary aspects of classical texts, which
partly and indirectly survive in collections of scholia.

36. Although almost all of the criticism ever written dates from the
20th century, questions first posed by Plato and Aristotle are still of
prime concern, and every critic who has attempted to justify the
social value of literature has had to come to terms with the
opposing argument made by Plato in The Republic.

37.  The poet as a man and the poetry as a form of
statement both seemed untrustworthy to Plato, who
depicted the physical world as an imperfect copy of
transcendent ideas and poetry as a mere copy of the
copy.

38. Thus, literature could only mislead the seeker of truth.
Plato credited the poet with divine inspiration, but this
too, was cause for worry; a man possessed by such madness
would subvert the interests of a rational polity.

39. In his Poetics, still the most respected of all discussions of literature –
Aristotle countered Plato’s indictment by stressing what is normal and useful
about literary art.
The tragic poet is not so much divinely inspired as he is motivated by a
universal human need to imitate, and what he imitates is something like a bed
(Plato’s example) but a noble action.

40. Such imitation presumably has a civilizing value for those who
empathize with it.
Tragedy does arouse emotions of pity and terror in its audience, but
these emotions are purged in the process.
In this fashion, Aristotle succeeded in portraying literature as
satisfying and regulating human passions instead of inflaming them.

41. Although Plato and Aristotle are regarded as antagonists,
the narrowness of their disagreement is noteworthy.
Both maintain that poetry is mimetic, both treat the
arousing of emotion in the perceiver, and both feel that
poetry takes its justifications, if any, from its service to the
state.

42. It was obvious to both men that poets wielded great
power over others.
Unlike many modern critics who have tried to show that
poetry is more than a past time, Aristotle had to offer
reassurance that it was not socially explosive.

43. Aristotle’s practical contribution to criticism, as opposed
to his ethical defence of literature, lies in his inductive
treatment of the elements and kinds of poetry.
Poetic modes are identified according to their means of
imitation, the actions they imitate, the manner of imitation,
and its effects.

44. These distinctions assist the critic in judging each mode according to its
proper ends instead of regarding beauty as a fixed entity.
The ends of tragedy, as Aristotle conceived them, are best served by the
harmonious disposition of six elements: plot, character, diction, thought,
spectacle, and song.

45. Later Greek and Roman criticism offers no parallel to
Aristotle’s originality.
Much ancient criticism, such as that of Cicero, Horace,
and Quintilian in Rome, was absorbed in technical rules of
exegesis and advice to aspiring rhetoricians.

46.  Horace’s verse epistle The Art of Poetry is an urbane
amplification of Aristotle’s emphasis on the decorum or
internal propriety of each genre, now including lyric,
pastoral, satire, elegy, and epigram, as well as Aristotle’s
epic tragedy and comedy.

47. ARISTOTLE
His writings cover many subjects – including physics,
biology, zoology, metaphysics, logic, ethics, aesthetics,
poetry, theatre, music, rhetoric, linguistics, politics and
government – and constitute the first comprehensive system
of Western philosophy.

48. Shortly after Plato died, Aristotle left Athens and, at the
request of Philip II of Macedon, tutored Alexander the
Great beginning in 343 BC.

49. Teaching Alexander the Great gave Aristotle many
opportunities and an abundance of supplies.
He established a library in the Lyceum which aided in the
production of many of his hundreds of books, which were
written on papyrus scrolls.

50. GREEK AND ROMAN CRITICS

51. QUINTILIAN
– Quintilian, Latin in full Marcus Fabius Quintilianus
(born ad 35, Calagurris Nassica, Hispania Tarraconensis—
died after 96, Rome), Latin teacher and writer whose work
on rhetoric, Institutio oratoria, is a major contribution to
educational theory and literary criticism.

52. Quintilian’s great work, the Institutio oratoria, in 12
books, was published shortly before the end of his life.
He believed that the entire educational process, from
infancy onward, was relevant to his major theme of training
an orator.

53. In Book I he therefore dealt with the stages of education before a
boy entered the school of rhetoric itself, to which he came in Book
II.
These first two books contain his general observations on
educational principles and are notable for their good sense and insight
into human nature.

54. Books III to XI are basically concerned with the five traditional
“departments” of rhetoric: invention, arrangement, style, memory,
and delivery.
He also deals with the nature, value, origin, and function of rhetoric
and with the different types of oratory, giving far more attention to
forensic oratory (that used in legal proceedings) than to other types.

55. During his general discussion of invention he also considers
the successive, formal parts of a speech, including a lively
chapter on the art of arousing laughter.
Book X contains a well-known and much-praised survey of
Greek and Latin authors, recommended to the young orator for
study.

56. Sometimes Quintilian agrees with the generally held
estimate of a writer, but he is often independent in his
judgments, especially when discussing Latin authors.
The Institutio was the fruit of Quintilian’s wide practical
experience as a teacher.

57. His purpose, he wrote, was not to invent new theories of rhetoric
but to judge between existing ones, and this he did with great
thoroughness and discrimination, rejecting anything he considered
absurd and always remaining conscious of the fact that theoretical
knowledge alone is of little use without experience and good
judgment.

58. The Institutio is further distinguished by its emphasis on morality, for
Quintilian’s aim was to mold the student’s character as well as to
develop his mind.
His central idea was that a good orator must first and foremost be a
good citizen; eloquence serves the public good and must therefore be
fused with virtuous living.

59.  At the same time, he wished to produce a thoroughly professional, competent,
and successful public speaker. His own experience of the law courts gave him a
practical outlook that many other teachers lacked, and indeed he found much to
criticize in contemporary teaching, which encouraged a superficial cleverness of
style (in this connection he particularly regretted the influence of the early 1st-
century writer and statesman Seneca the Younger).

60. While admitting that stylish tricks gave an immediate effect, he felt
they were of no great help to the orator in the realities of public
advocacy at law.
He attacked the “corrupt style,” as he called it, and advocated a
return to the more severe standards and older traditions upheld by
Cicero (106–43 bc).

61. Although he praised Cicero highly, he did not recommend students
to slavishly imitate his style, recognizing that the needs of his own day
were quite different.
He did, however, appear to see a bright future for oratory, oblivious
to the fact that his ideal—the orator-statesman of old who had
influenced for good the policies of states and cities—was no longer
relevant with the demise of the old republican form of Roman
government.

62. LONGINUS (DIONYSIUS)
Longinus, also called Dionysius Longinus or Pseudo-Longinus
(flourished 1st century ad), name sometimes assigned to the
author of On the Sublime (Greek Peri Hypsous), one of the great
seminal works of literary criticism.

63. The earliest surviving manuscript, from the 10th century,
first printed in 1554, ascribes it to Dionysius Longinus.
Later it was noticed that the index to the manuscript read
“Dionysius or Longinus.”

64. The problem of authorship embroiled scholars for
centuries, attempts being made to identify him with
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Cassius Longinus, Plutarch, and
others.

65. The solution has been to name him Pseudo-Longinus.
On the Sublime apparently dates from the 1st century ad,
because it was a response to a work of that period by
Caecilius of Calacte, a Sicilian rhetorician.

66. About a third of the manuscript is lost. Longinus defines sublimity
(Greek hypsos) in literature as “the echo of greatness of spirit,” that
is, the moral and imaginative power of the writer that pervades a
work.
Thus, for the first time greatness in literature is ascribed to qualities
innate in the writer rather than in the art.

67. The author suggests that greatness of thought, if not inborn, may be
acquired by emulating great authors such as his models (chief among them
Homer, Demosthenes, and Plato).
Quotations that were chosen to illustrate the sublime and its opposite
occasionally also preserve work that would otherwise now be lost—e.g., one
of Sappho’s odes.

68. Longinus is one of the first Greeks to cite a passage from
the Bible (Genesis 1:3–9).

69. HORACE
(Full name Quintus Horatius Flaccus) - Roman satirist, lyric poet,
literary critic, and essayist.
Most well known for his Odes, Epistles, Epodes, and Satires, Horace is
thought to be one of the most accomplished lyric poets to have
written in Latin.

70. His poetry is important because it provides a glimpse of peacetime
in the Roman empire after years of civil war.
Horace's poetry is known for its wit, and his Ars Poetica became a
style manual for poets of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and
was required reading in British schools.

71. Horace was born Quintus Horatius Flaccus in southern Italy in 65
b.c., the son of a freedman. Thanks to a father who recognized his
talent early, Horace was educated in Rome, studying under Orbilius (a
grammarian), and later in Athens where he encountered the Greek
poets who profoundly influenced his work.

72. On the heels of Julius Caesar's assassination in 44 b.c., Horace
joined Brutus's forces, traveling to Asia Minor and rising to the rank
of tribune despite his humble background.
His military exploits were short-lived, however, and he returned to
Rome after Brutus's defeat at Philippi in November 42 b.c.

73. Although the move to Rome garnered him a position in the Roman
treasury, this was more importantly the time during which he began to
write poetry.
The poetry written during this period impressed Virgil and other
Roman poets, who eventually introduced Horace to Maecenas, with
whom he formed a lasting friendship.

74. Horace's life, and hence his works, cover a crucial historical period;
his poetry reflects the changing conditions and moods of those times
and their events. These works include Satires Books I and II (c. 35 and
30 b.c.), Epodes(c. 29 b.c.), Odes Book I-III and Book IV (c. 23 and 13
b.c.), Epistles Books I and II (c. 20 and 15 b.c.), the Ars Poetica (c. 19
b.c.), and Carmen Saeculare(c. 17 b.c.).

75. The Odes and Epodes are most indebted to the Greek poets,
especially those of the sixth and seventh centuries and those of the
Hellenistic period, including Archilochus, Hipponax, Alcaeus, and
Pindar. The Odes Books I-III include eighty-eight poems in Greek
meter and concern philosophy and personal relationships.

76. The Epistles, excellent examples of Horace's casual, conversational
approach, deal with the poet's concerns with respect to living a moral
life. Epistles Book I includes twenty poems and gives the reader a
window on Horace the man. One sees the change—a more
melancholy mood—that took hold of the poet after the Satires.

77. He is more concerned with finding answers to personal spiritual and
moral questions and the ethos is decidedly philosophical. Epistles Book
II, although it includes only three poems, is more intricate
than Epistles Book I. It is a montage of examples, anecdotes, and vivid
imagery that further the reader's understanding of the poet as a man.

78. The Ars Poetica is perhaps the poet's best-known work. Structured as
a conversational collection of thoughts on a number of literary
matters, it became a significant influence on a diverse group of
authors including Ben Johnson, Dante, St. Augustine, and Alexander
Pope.

79. Horace's work has gone through periods of interest and neglect.
During his lifetime his work was honored and studied at academies,
followed by a period of critical neglect and a rebirth of interest during
the Renaissance and continuing through the nineteenth century.

80. Current interest unfortunately lies primarily in the academic and
scholarly communities, a result of the decrease in Latin courses
offered in recent times.

81. Critical study of Horace has included Horace's use of Greek meter,
Horace as a man, comparisons of his work with other poets, studies
of his influence on other poets and the poets who influenced his
work, his ability to interpret the events of his times, and specific,
detailed analysis of his style and technique.

82. ARISTOTLE
 Aristotle's Poetics is the earliest surviving work of dramatic theory and first
extant philosophical treatise to focus on literary theory in the West.
 This has been the traditional view for centuries.
 However, recent work is now challenging whether Aristotle focuses on literary
theory per se (given that not one poem exists in the treatise) or whether he focuses
instead on dramatic musical theory that only has language as one of the elements.

83. In it, Aristotle offers an account of what he calls "poetry" (a term
which in Greek literally means "making" and in this context includes
drama – comedy, tragedy, and the satyr play – as well as lyric poetry
and epic poetry).

84. They are similar in the fact that they are all imitations but
different in the three ways that Aristotle describes:
• Differences in music rhythm, harmony, meter and melody.
• Difference of goodness in the characters.
• Difference in how the narrative is presented: telling a story or
acting it out.

85. In examining its "first principles", Aristotle finds two: 1) imitation
and 2) genres and other concepts by which that of truth is
applied/revealed in the poesis.
His analysis of tragedy constitutes the core of the discussion.
Although Aristotle's Poetics is universally acknowledged in the
Western critical tradition, "almost every detail about his seminal work
has aroused divergent opinions".

86. PLATO
Platonic criticism, literary criticism based on the philosophical
writings of Plato, especially his views on art expressed in Phaedrus,
Ion, and the Republic. In practice Platonic criticism is part of an
extensive approach to literature, involving an examination of the
moral, ethical, and historical effects of a work of art.

87. In modern criticism the term refers to discussions and
investigations of the work of art not in terms of its intrinsic, formal
qualities but rather in recognition of its value as shaping social
attitudes and in its vision of universal truths.

88. For Plato, the visual world was an imitation of the ideal forms,
which alone were real. Art, therefore, was no more than an imitation
of an imitation and of value only insofar as it directed the soul toward
the real—i.e., Truth, Beauty, or the Good.

89. The end 
Thank you for listening!