TRADITIONAL
APPROACHES IN
LITERARY CRITICISM
HISTORICAL – BIOGRAPHICAL CRITICISM
MORAL – PHILOSOPHICAL CRITICISM TEXTUAL CRITICISM
Literary studies in the first part of the 20th century were dominated by what are now called «traditional
approaches».
American New Critics call «extrinsic»
approaches to literature.
They focus on understanding literary works by bringing external information to bear on them rather than by close and careful consideration of what is already expressed in the work itself.
To certain extent all approaches to literature are by definition extrinsic because a reader must have certain basic information at hand to read a literary work at all.
At the vey least, a reader must know the language in which the work is written
and must possess a certain basic amount of cultural knowledge.
A reader must have at least a minimal understanding of the conventions of literature to process the content of a literary work in a coherent way.
We might compare the use of
external information to aid in the interpretation of a literary text to the activities of a scientist who
interprets a workings of nature. For instance, the beauty of the stars
can be appreciated without being an expert in astronomy, but even the most seemingly naive
appreciation of the beauty of
nature involves a complex process
More scholarly traditional approaches include
a) biographical studies, in which a work is illuminated through a discussion of the experiences and opinions of its author
b) philosohical studies, in which the ideas expressed in a literary text are compared to well-known philosophical concepts – and often judged in relation to the critic’s own moral or philosophical strance
c) textual studies, in which the historical
record is carefully sifted in an attempt to determine the precisely correct rendering of scale mechanical printing of literary
texts.
In traditional approach the work of art frequently appears to be a source that illustrates background.
Such an approach often leads to the study of literature as essentially
biography, history, or some other
branch of learning, rather than as art.
According to those of the older school, literature provides primarily an
opportunity for exercising what they
perceive to be really relevant scholarly
and cultural disciplines such as history,
linguistics, biography and philosophy.
Historical-Biographical Approach
• Its focus is on the life, times, and
environment of the author, and this approach deals with the effects of these factors on the work of art.
• Most of literary works can be
analysed in the light of historical- biographical method.
• A reader/a critic studies the work in accordance with the period in
which the work is produced. Thus,
the values and perception of the
reader’s own age are put aside.
•
Historical-Biographical approach establishes a bridge between the reader and the world’s of the
author.
•
The life of the author, the
historical events and the values of his age help us understand the
work, and in a similar way the
literary work gives information of
the author and his own period.
In his book History of English
Literature, French critic Hippolyte A. Taine (1823-1893) suggests
the phrase «race, millue, et moment»
a)
Race stands for “culture and history”
b)
Millue is “place”
c)
Moment is “time”
This approach sees a literary work chiefly as a reflection of its author’s life and times or the characters in the work.
Taine compared the work of
literature to the fossil of a leaf which tells the world of a previous age.
John Milton's sonnet “On the Late
Massacre in Piedmont” illustrates the topical quality that great literature
may and often does possess. This
poem commemorates the slaughter in 1655 of the Waldenses, members of a Protestant sect living in the valleys of northern Italy. A knowledge of this
background clarifies at least one rather factual reference and two allusions in the poem.
However, novels may lend themselves somewhat more
readily than lyric poems to this particular interpretive approach;
they usually treat a broader range of experience than poems do and thus are affected more by
extrinsic factors.
It is a mistake, however, to think that poets do not concern themselves with social themes or that good poetry cannot be written about such themes. Actually, poets have from earliest
times been the historians, the interpreters of contemporary culture, and the prophets of their people.
For example, Blake's “London” is an outcry against the oppression of human beings by society: he lashes out against child labour in his day and the church's indifference to it, against the government's indifference to the indigent soldier who has served his country faithfully, and against the horrible and
unnatural consequences of a social code that represses sexuality.
Moral-Philosophical Approach
or Moral/Thematic Criticism
• The moral-philosophical approach is as old as classical Greek and Roman critics.
Plato, for example, emphasized moralism and utilitarianism; Horace stressed that literature should be delightful and
instructive. Among its most famous
exemplars are the commentators of the age of neoclassicism in English literature (1660-1800), particularly Samuel
Johnson.
The basic position of such critics is that the larger function of literature is to
teach morality and to probe
philosophical issues. They would
interpret literature within a context of the philosophical thought of a period or group.
This approach focuses on what is being taught. It asks the question: «What kind of truth does this work reveal to us?»
Roman critic Horace states in his Ars
Poetica (The Art of Poetry) that literature should be «dulce et utile» or «sweet and useful», it means literature should be
both entertaining and enlightening.
Sir Philip Sidney adopts the same view in literary criticism in his The Defence of
Poesy: «right poets» «imitate to teach and delight, and to imitate borrow
nothing of what is, hath been or shall be, but range, only reined with learned
discretion, into the divine consideration of what may be and should be».
Matthew Arnold, the Victorian critic,
adopted a related attitude; he insisted that a great literary work must possess
«high seriousness» (Because he felt
that Chaucer lacked it, Arnold refused to rank him among the very greatest English poets). In each instance critics working from a moral bent are not
unaware of form, figurative language, and other purely aesthetic
considerations, but they consider them
to be secondary.
The important thing is the moral or
philosophical teaching. On its highest plane this is not superficially didactic, though it may at first seem so.
In the larger sense, all great literature
teaches. The critic who employs the
moral-philosophical approach insists
on ascertaining and stating what is
taught. If the work is in any degree
significant or intelligible, this meaning
will be there.
TEXTUAL STUDIES or TEXTUAL SCHOLARSHIP
This approach can be
considered as the beginning of New Critisim.
In this criticism the text is
analysed in terms of «the work of the author», in other words the critic studies what urges the author to write such a
work, what influences him, and
what kind of historical motives
Textual criticism has as its ideal the establishment of an authentic text, or the «text which the author intended».
There are countless ways in which a
literary text may be corrupted from what the author intended. The author’s own manuscript may contain omissions and errors in spelling and mechanics; these mistakes may be preserved by the text copyists, be they scribes, or
compositors, or scanners, who may add a few of their own.
Applying Traditional Approaches on a Text
Shakespeare’s Hamlet is the quintessence of traditional criticism.
Some of the critics think that
Shakespeare draws attention to the potential problem of succession
after the death of Queen Elizabeth.
Elizabeth’s advanced age and poor
health may have led the playwright
Polonius is considered to be related to Burghley (Lord Treasurer), one of the
important politicians of Elizabethan Time.
Burghley possessed most of the
shortcomings Shakespeare gave to
Polonius; he was boring, meddling, and given to wise old adages and truisms.
Moreover, he had an elaborate spy system that kept him informed about
both friend and foe. In the play Polonius assignes Reynaldo to spy his son Laertes in Paris.
Shakespeare creates such a character to criticise Burgley, and he protrays the lord after his death in 1598.
Apart from the historical events or
figures, Shakespeare’s own thoughts are reflected, as well. As a dramatist, he
criticises the dramatic activity of the period and the attitudes of the players because the private theatre employed children and constituted a rival for the
adult companies of the public theater, for which Shakespeare wrote. That’s why
Hamlet attacks the players because of their repertoire.
Moreover, Shakespeare portrays some courtiers as stock
characters (Osric, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern) in the play to show that they are weak
characters who could not make
their own decisions, instead just
puppets in hand of the authority.
The Danish court of the period could be studied in terms of
traditional criticism, as well. The question in the play is succession, so one should focus on how the
Danish court solves such a problem.
And the critic should learn what he needs to know about
Elizabethan England to
The critic should not miss that Hamlet does not succeed to throne after the death of his father even though he is the only son.
In Hamlet’s day the Danish throne was an elective one. The royal council,
composed of the most powerful nobles
in the land, named the next king. The
custom of the throne’s descending to
the oldest son of the late monarch had
not yet crystallized into law.
In the light of traditional criticism, also the moral and philosophical aspects of the play should be
analysed.
The play emphasises that some
humans are so ambitious for a crown that they are willing to murder for it and that others are so highly sexed that they will violate not only the
laws of decorum but also the civil and ecclesiastical laws against
incest.
Another point is that as an
intellectual, Hamlet is in search of revenge. It is obvious that his
philosophical knowledge and
Christian religion should hinder him and he must realise that
revenge is wrong. However,
Hamlet never gives up the idea of taking revenge because he is a
transitional figure between his
“feudal son” identity and
Conclusion
Traditional approaches analyse a work of art as the mirror of the
author and the society of the period in which it is written.
Studying the historical events of the period, getting information about
the author’s life and experiences
could help us understand what the
text explains and what the author
intends.
A reader who stays more or less on the surface of a piece of literature has at
least understood part of what it is about.
Ones who intend to employ the
traditional approaches to a literary work will almost certainly employ them
simultaneously. That is, they will bring to bear on a poem, for instance, all the
information and insights these
respective disciplines can give in seeing just what the poem means and does.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Booker, Keith M. A Practical
Introduction to Literary Theory and Criticism. London: Longman Publishers, 1995.
