Neoclassical Literary Criticism Compled by: Belachew Weldegebriel (Assistant Professor/English Literature) Jimma University CSSH Department of English Language and Literature Jimma, Ethiopia

1. Neoclassical Literary Criticism

2. Lesson Objectives
• At the end of the lesson, you will be able to:
– Point out the origin of neoclassical lit. criticism;
– Trace the influence of classical Greek and Roman
thinkers on neoclassical
– Describe neoclassical principles of literary criticism
– Mention two of the concepts central to neoclassical
literary theory and practice;
– List out the major assumptions and implications of
neoclassical literary criticism

3. • Neoclassicism refers to a broad tendency in
literature and art enduring from the early 17th C.
until around 1750.
• The Renaissance in general could be regarded as a
neoclassical period, in that ancient works were
considered the surest models for modern
greatness.
• The neoclassical period is also called the
enlightenment period due to increased reverence
of logic and disdain for superstition.

4. Neoclassicism – as a Literary Movement
• Neoclassicism (c. 1660–1798): A literary
movement, inspired by the rediscovery of classical
works of ancient Greece and Rome that
emphasized balance, restraint, and order.
• Neoclassicism roughly coincided with the
Enlightenment, which espoused reason over
passion.
• Notable neoclassical writers include Edmund
Burke, John Dryden, Samuel Johnson, Alexander
Pope, and Jonathan Swift.

5. Neoclassical. . .
• An Essay on Criticism, published anonymously
by Alexander Pope in 1711, is perhaps the
clearest statement of neoclassical principles in
any language.

6. Neoclassical . . .
• Its origins were much earlier (the Elizabethan
Ben Jonson, for example, was as indebted to the
Roman poet Horace as Alexander Pope would
later be.
• Neoclassicism dominated English literature from
the Restoration in 1660 until the end of the 18th
century, when the publication of Lyrical Ballads
(1798) by Wordsworth and Coleridge marked
the full emergence of Romanticism.

7. Neoclassical. . .
• Boileau's L'Art Poetique (1674) and Pope's "Essay
on Criticism" (1711) as critical statements of
Neoclassical principles
• These neoclassical principles embodied a group of
attitudes toward art and human existence — ideals
of order, logic, restraint, accuracy, "correctness,"
"restraint," decorum, and so on.
• the practitioners of various arts were made to
imitate or reproduce the structures and themes of
Greek or Roman originals.

8. • Neoclassicism comprised a return to the classical
models, literary styles, and values of ancient
Greek and Roman authors.

9. The Classical values:
• the neoclassicists emphasis upon the classical
values of objectivity, impersonality, rationality,
decorum, balance, harmony, proportion, and
moderation.
• Nature of Literature and Lit Composition
• the neoclassical writers reaffirmed literary
composition as a rational and rule-bound
process, requiring a great deal of craft, labor,
and study.

10. Neoclasssical
• The neoclassicists tended to insist on
– the separation of poetry and prose, the purity of each
genre, and
– the hierarchy of genres (though, unlike Aristotle, they
generally placed the epic above tragedy).
• Two of the concepts central to neoclassical literary
theory and practice were imitation and nature,
which were intimately related.
– Imitation The imitation of classical models, especially
Homer and Vergil.
– Nature the harmonious and hierarchical order of the
universe, including the various social and political
hierarchies within the world.

11. Neoclassical
• The neoclassical writers generally saw the ancients
such as Homer and Vergil as having already
discovered and expressed the fundamental laws of
nature.
• Hence, the external world, including the world of
human action, could best be expressed by modern
writers if they followed the path of imitation
already paved by the ancients.
• Invention was of course allowed, but only as a
modification of past models, not in the form of a
rupture.

12. Alexander Pope (1688–1744)
• Pope specifies two further guidelines for the critic.
• The first is to recognize the overall unity of a work,
and thereby to avoid falling into partial
assessments based on the author’s use of poetic
conceits, ornamented language, and meters, as
well as those which are biased toward either
archaic or modern styles or based on the
reputations of given writers.
• Finally, a critic needs to possess a moral sensibility,
as well as a sense of balance and proportion.

13. The Three Parts of Neoclassical Period
• The Neoclassical Period can be divided into three
relatively coherent parts:
• the Restoration Age (1660-1700), in which Milton,
Bunyan, and Dryden were the dominant influences;
• the Augustan Age (1700-1750), in which Pope was
the central poetic figure, while Defoe, Richardson,
Fielding, and Smollett were presiding over the
sophistication of the novel; and
• the Age of Johnson (1750-1798), which, was
dominated and characterized by the mind and
personality of the inimitable Dr. Samuel Johnson

14. • Among these three coherent phases, the
literature of the Augustan period conformed
to Pope's aesthetic principles (and could thus
qualify as being 'Augustan') is distinguished by
– its striving for harmony and precision,
– its urbanity/elegance, and
– its imitation of classical models such as Homer,
Cicero, Virgil, and Horace, for example in the work
of the minor poet Matthew Prior.

15. Neoclassical vs. Renaissance View of
Man
• To a certain extent Neoclassicism represented
a reaction against the optimistic, exuberant,
and enthusiastic Renaissance view of man as a
being fundamentally good and possessed of
an infinite potential for spiritual and
intellectual growth.
• Neoclassical theorists, by contrast, saw man
as an imperfect being, inherently sinful, whose
potential was limited.

16. • They replaced the Renaissance emphasis on the
imagination, on invention and experimentation,
and on mysticism with an emphasis on order and
reason, on restraint, on common sense, and on
religious, political, economic and philosophical
conservatism.
• They maintained that man himself was the most
appropriate subject of art, and saw art itself as
essentially pragmatic — as valuable because it
was somehow useful — and as something which
was properly intellectual rather than emotional.

17. • Many of the primary aesthetic tenets of
Neoclassicism, in fact have reappeared in the 20th
century
• The poetry and criticism of T. S. Eliot — as
manifestations of a reaction against Romanticism
itself: Eliot saw Neo-classicism as emphasizing
poetic form and conscious craftsmanship, and
Romanticism as a poetics of personal emotion
and "inspiration," and pointedly preferred the
former.

18. Neoclassical Assumptions and Their
Implications
• Neoclassical thinkers could use the past as a
guide for the present because they assumed that
human nature was constant--essentially the same
regardless of time and place.
• Art, they believed, should express this essential
nature: "Nothing can please many, and please
long, but just representations of general nature"
(Samuel Johnson).
• An individual character was valuable for what he
or she revealed of universal human nature.

19. Assumptions and . . .
• Of course, all great art has this sort of
significance--Johnson made his statement
about Shakespeare.
• But neoclassical artists more consciously
emphasized common human characteristics
over individual differences, as we see in the
type-named characters of Moliere.

20. Assumptions. . .
• If human nature has remained constant over
the centuries, it is unlikely that any startling
new discoveries will be made.
• Hence neoclassical artists did not strive to be
original so much as to express old truths in a
newly effective way.

21. Assumptions
• As Alexander Pope, one of their greatest
poets, wrote: "True wit is nature to advantage
dressed, / What oft was thought, but ne'er so
well expressed."
• Neoclassical writers aimed to articulate
general truth rather than unique vision, to
communicate to others more than to express
themselves.

22. Q & A
1. What was the extent of invention permitted by
neoclassical literary critics?
2. What are the two qualities a critic need to possess
according to Alexander Pope?
3. Can you describe neoclassical view of man?
4. Can you name the three parts into which neoclassical
literary criticism can be divided?
5. The most appropriate subject of art according
renaissance and neoclassical literary criticism was ___
6. Name literary critics and the essays of people who
presented critical statements of Neoclassical period.

23. Q with A. Key
1. What was the extent of invention permitted by
neoclassical literary critics?
modification of past models
2. What are the two qualities a critic need to possess
according to Alexander Pope? Imitation and
nature
3. Can you describe neoclassical view of man?
Man is an imperfect being, inherently sinful,
whose potential was limited.

24. Q with A. Key
4. Can you name the three parts into which neoclassical
literary criticism can be divided?
The restoration, the Augustan and the age of Johnson
5. The most appropriate subject of art according
renaissance and neoclassical literary criticism was
man himself.
6. Name literary critics and the essays of people who
presented critical statements of Neoclassical period.
Boileau's L'Art Poetique (1674) and Pope's "Essay on
Criticism" (1711)