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Literary Criticism and Theories
Notes
8 LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY
11. Aristotle’s theories are based exclusively on Greek poetry and drama with which he was familiar.
Many of his views have grown outdated and unfit for universal application.
Its Many Merits: A Great World Book
Despite these defects, the Poetics is an epoch-making work, a work which is a storehouse of literary
theories, one of the great, “world-books”, a book whose influence has been continuous and universal.
Some of the more important reasons of its greatness are :
1. Aristotle discards the earlier, ‘oracular’ method, in which critical pronouncements were supposed
to be the result of some prophetic insight. He also discards Plato’s dialectic method (use of
dialogue) as inadequate for arriving at a positive and coherent statement of truth.
2. The Greek Philosopher starts from concrete facts, i.e. existing Greek poetry, and through
analysis of facts arrives at his principles and generalisations for which, like a scientist, he
claims no finality. His methods are exploratory and tentative. It is an attempt to arrive at the truth,
rather than an assertion of some preconceived notions. As Gilbert Murray points out, “it is a first
attempt made by a man of astounding genuis to build up in the region of creative art a
rational order, like that he had already established in the region of the physical sciences.”
3. Throughout, he studies poetry in relation to man. He traces it back to the fundamental instincts
of human nature, i.e. the instinct of limitation and the instinct of harmony. Thus his method of
inquiry is psychological. It is the first psycological study of the poetic process. Tragedy he
justifies by its emotional effects.
4. In ‘The Poetics’, Aristotle also originates the historical method of inquiry. He notes different phases
in the evolution of Greek poetry, and thus his work becomes a starting point for subsequent
literary histories. He was the first to apply such methods to literary problems.
5. Though Aristotle never claimed any finality, for his principles, yet, says Atkins, “the miracle
of ‘the Poetics’ is that it contains so much that is of permanent and universal interest. And this is so
because the literature on which it was based was no artificial product of a sophisticated
society, but the natural expression of a race guided solely by what was elemental in human
nature.”
6. The work is full of ideas that are as true today as they were when it was written, though there are
mingled with them certain other ideas which are limited in their application, misleading or
even definitely wrong.
7. Aristotle’s greatness lies in the fact that he raised the essential problems, though he was not
always successful in providing solutions. ‘The Poetics’ is thought-provoking ; it is a great irritant
to thought. Aristotle asks the right type of questions, and literary theory has grown and
advanced by seeking answers to Aristotle’s questions.
1.3 “The Poetics”: Its Universal Significance
Despite its obvious shortcomings, the Poetics is an important landmark in the history of literary
criticism. It is the most significant thing for the study of literature that has come down to us from
Greek civilization. First of all, it represents the final judgment of the Greeks themselves upon two,
and perhaps the leading two, Hellenic inventions : Epic Poetry and Tragic Drama. Though ample
evidence is wanting as to the existence of other strictly scientific investigations into the nature of
poetry, before Aristotle or contemporary with him, we may assume that here, as elsewhere in the
field of knowledge, he is far from being an isolated scholar ; but he systematizes and completes the
work of his predecessors, with an eye to the best thought and practice of his own time—and yet,
unquestionably, with great independence of judgment.
The brief treatise is important, secondly, because directly or indirectly, it has commanded more
attention than any other book of literary criticism, so that the course of literary history after it is
not intelligible without an acquaintance with the Poetics, at first hand whether in the original or
through a translation.