A Brief History of Criticism

Aristotle is considered as the founder of literary criticism. But we can not ignore the role of three eminent Greek writers before him who had more or less fully examined the principle of composition: Plato, Isocrates and Aristophanes. The comedy of "The Frogs "by Aristophanes is the first example of hostile literary criticism dedicated to the ridicule of Euripides ' plays. In Plato and Isocrates ' cases, criticism primarily aimed at examining the diction and other compositional techniques. Aristotle, whose politics and rhetoric are among the best and most valuable treaties on which is laid the foundation of which all criticism, we have today. has been raised.




Since we are discussing criticism’s background so its very necessary to know the dimension of this genre in Roman times as well. One thing is for sure that in Roman literature criticism never took a very prominent position. Three names fell into this category i.e, the rhetoric work of Cicero, Horace “Art of Poetry”, Seneca and Quintilian. Quintilian “institutes of Oratory” can be described as the most intelligent application of criticism to literature which the Latin world produced, and one which places the name of Quintilian not below those of Aristotle and Longinus. After him, Latin criticism focused merely upon the rhetoric and grammar.




The modern poetical criticism takes its first step with the publication of the “De Vulgari Cloquio”, generally attributed to Dante. The book, unfortunately, could not be adequately followed; during this time criticism was mainly indirect and accidental. Boccaccio, surely, is the main noticeable, figure among Dante and Erasmus. Coming back towards England, the earlier literary critic of importance was Thomas Wilson, whose “Art of Rhetoric “ was printed in 1553. A new era, however, began throughout in Europe when Malherbe, Boileau, Jesuit, Le Bossu, and Boubours, worked together to bring about the anti-romantic school of poetry, which later on called neo-classical school of thought. Their influence can be traced in the writing of Dryden, Addison and Rymer. In the 18th century when Neo-Classical creed was universally accepted, Pope, Blair, Kames Goldsmith and Samuel Johnson were its most distinguished exponents in England, while Voltaire, Buffon ( to whom we owe the phrase “ the style is man”), Marmontel, and Suard were amongst those who stood prominently in France during this time.




At the end of the 18th century, Romantic criticism had been heralded in Germany by the writings of Lessing and in France by Diderot. In England, Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats and pre-eminently S.T.Coleridge, who was one of the most penetrative, original and prominent critics that have ever lived. Tolstoi’s “What is Art?” is considered as one of the most revolutionary and challenging books of criticism in the last quarter of the 19th century. Till this time, literary criticism had become an established genre. Darwin,Marx and Freud theories directly or indirectly contributed to the development of literary criticism. It is under the influence of such critical approaches to literature that we find T.S.Eliot, declaring himself to be “a classicist in literature, an Anglo-Catholic in religion, and a royalist in politics”. His famous essay “Tradition and the Individual Talent”, describes many of his views, which were to be evolved later both in his poems and in articles of Criticism. It is he who introduced a modern trend in criticism by revolting against the set norms of romanticism and the liberal historical criticism of the 19th century. That's the very reason that we take him as the father figure of modern literary criticism. But it may be more accurate to think of him as the last major figure in the line of poets critics (Jonson, Dryden, Johnson Coleridge, Arnold) for whom poetry and criticism have been complementary routes.




In the period from, around, 1925 to 1960 different methodologies rose in direct reaction to the demands of teaching criticism, therefore a new school of thought emerged who looked to Eliot as a guiding spirit. But the torch-bearer of this era was I.A.Richard, whose book “ The Principles of Literary Criticism”(1924) and “Practical Criticism”(1929) have had a profound effect on the teaching of literature. This book sets the standards for later New Critical Thinking. The critics of this school of thought laid much stress on the element of disengagement while analysing a piece of literature. They believed that text in isolation was all that Matters, and the role of the critic is to have a detailed interpretation of the words on the printed page. While dissecting a piece of poetry, they also looked for certain qualities in literature such as a fusion of passion and intelligence, sensuous particularity in the use of language, and a sense of tradition. The credit, however, goes to the American critics who described New Criticism as a full-fledged theoretical system. Cleanth Brooks and Robert Pen Warren edited an anthology “Understanding Poetry” (1938) in which they stressed that poetry should be taught as poetry, not as proof of some historical, biographical or didactic truth. Rene Wellek and Austin Wellek in “Theory of Literature” (1949) blended many of the basic theories of new criticism. It doesn't require any fundamental substance to be learnt about authors, influences, historical movements or genres before getting down to business. Everyone with the text had equal opportunity to have a detailed comparison of one critical performance to another. Dictionary was only weapons required for all the warriors in the field. No doubt, this school of thought largely contributed positively to one important question: what is the significance of the Literature? but at the same time, we observe that it fails to provide the necessary answer to the other question which focuses on the value of literature. In short, nothing stays new forever. In the previous 30 years, there have been various attempts to break out this tradition and opt for something new in approach and it would certainly happen one day.