Literary Criticism: Nature and function of poetry according to Coleridge

It is without a doubt that “Biographia Literaria” of S.T. Coleridge is one of the finest books on literary criticism in English literature. Coleridge’s personal life was very tragic, but he had great knowledge of literature and there are few critics equally talented in the history of English literature. There is a history behind the creation of “Biographia Literaria” which we should know if we are to discuss it. In fact, “Biographia Literaria” was written in answer to the famous essay “Preface to the Lyrical Ballads”. In 1798, Wordsworth and Coleridge jointly published Lyrical Ballads. This book started the Romantic era in the history of English literature. At that time, two friends shared different opinions on different matters of poetry. 

In his essay, Wordsworth said some important things about poetry. His first major statement was that there was not much difference between poetry and prose. We might think that they are same. Wordsworth emphasized that there is not much difference between the language of prose and the language of poetry and they are quite close. Coleridge did not agree with this statement and he clearly mentioned it in his essay “Biographia Literaria”. Hence, it is important when we will discuss about Coleridge’s view on nature and function of poetry.

Before Romantic era, there was neo-classical era in English literature. Poets, writers and critics of this era considered works of the Greek and Roman poets as standard and followed their rules. Many famous Greek and Roman poets and philosophers including Aristotle believed that the main function of poetry is to depict the truth but Coleridge did not support this view. He believed that the main function of poetry is to entertain the reader.  A reader should find pleasure or joy upon reading poetry. This matter is very important and while discussing about the function of poetry of Coleridge, we should keep it in mind as well about Neo-classical idea.

Coleridge said that poetry and prose are entirely different subjects. At first, the two may appear close for both of them actually work with words. We use words while writing prose and poetry. However, the sequence of words in poetry is different from that of prose. According to Coleridge, the function of poetry is different from that of prose. The main function of prose is to present the truth but that is not the same with poetry.

Coleridge believed that the main function of poetry is to provide pleasure to its reader not to present the truth. Poetry may represent the truth but that is not very important. Coleridge serious discussed on this issue in his essay “Biographia Literaria”. Coleridge said that if we look into scientific prose then we would see that they only present what happened but imagination has a major role in poetry. The main difference between poetry and prose lies in the use of imagination in these two forms. Except novel, there is not much use of imagination in prose. During the time of Coleridge, novel became very popular but many considered poetry equally important.

Coleridge emphasized on the presence of beauty and joy in poetry. Through he tried to say that poetry is an entirely different matter. Wordsworth’s definition of poetry is different from that of Coleridge. There difference in opinion surprises us for they were the pioneers of the Romantic Movement in England.

Literary Criticism: Do you also think that epics and novels can only represent the whole truth in literature?

‘Tragedy and the Whole Truth’ by Aldous Huxley is an important text in the literary criticism of English literature. The text discusses two very important issues: one is ‘tragedy’ and the other is ‘whole truth’. We all know more or less about tragedy and many tragic plays and tragic dramas have become world famous. We can take Oedipus as an example. Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Hamlet could also come to our mind. Whole truth, on the other hand, can be said to be a fairly new concept because before Huxley, very few people mentioned about this issue.

So, first of all, we need to know what Huxley tires to mean by introducing the term ‘whole truth’. By ‘whole truth’, he implies a kind of truth which is ‘super truth’. It is not ‘two and two makes four’ or ‘the earth travels around the sun’ type of truth or fact. Rather, in respect to literature, expressing every detail means whole truth. We may feel that giving every detail of everything in literature is a modern idea, but it has existed since ancient times. Besides portraying every detail, whole truth also brings forward the reality. Huxley finds such an example of whole truth in a description taken from Homer’s Odyssey. One day, Odysseus and his companions saw a monster swallowing six of their companions alive. Having seen that, other terrified companions moved to a safe place. After reaching ashore, they first looked for a safe place for themselves, instead of crying for their lost companions; and once they got a secured place, they first cooked food and filled their stomach and then started shedding tears for their friends before their exhausted bodies succumbed to sleep. This is a good example of whole truth. Many of us may think that what was the need of showing it and how could they eat food without crying when they saw that the demon chewed and devoured their companions. But Homer was realistic and knew that first they would need food and the question of crying would come later.

Over the ages, authors wrote about the concept of whole truth and Huxley tried to show that. However, whole truth cannot be manifested in tragedy because in tragedy, we shed all the lights on a fragmented part or sorrows and pains of life. So, there is a difference between tragedy and whole truth. Whole truth has been largely popular at present age. As a result, whole truth is perfect for novel.

Two types of literature could gain popularity in portraying whole truth. Epic should come first and here we can consider Homer as the best example. The advantage with epic is that it is, by nature, very long in size and so easier to depict whole truth. If it is a 200-page epic, the author can reveal every detail. Portraying whole truth does not only mean expressing all the details, but manifesting the reality as well. In respect to epic, an incident can be portrayed from each and every angle and all the related elements can be shown perfectly.

Another literary form can successfully show the whole truth and that is novel. Same thing can be said about novel. Novel is very long and most of the novels are around 100 pages. So, an author can beautifully present each and every detail in a novel. Another notable characteristic of novel is that the large span of life can be extensively illustrated in this form of literature. So, novel is ideal for whole truth.

Looking at other literary forms other than epic and novel, we can find drama. Even though drama, especially tragic drama, is long, whole truth can be successfully portrayed because tragedy is built on a serious setting and its sole objective is to direct it towards the end. So, the serious mood of tragedy can be diluted at the introduction of light-hearted materials. If that happens, then perhaps many audiences would not like tragedy that much. I do not see many instances of portraying whole truth in tragedy.

Poem is a very popular form of literature. Depicting whole truth in poem is fairly hard too. The problem in relation to poem is that in poetry, emotion is presented through a few lines or stanzas and there is little scope of portraying every detail in poem. Poets often try to present universal or timeless ideas. To do that or present something serious, it becomes tough to focus on whole truth in poetry. Long poems are often written in epic form and I already mentioned that epics are perfect for beautifully depicting whole truth. However, irrespective of literary forms, be it epic or tragedy or novel, the focus of the author is the most important thing. If he or she wants to put emphasis on whole truth, only then it will become possible to portray whole truth. On the other hand, if the whole truth is not given importance then whole truth cannot be shown even in novel.

Literary Criticism: Definition of poem and poetry and the explanation of the poetic process by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

‘Biographia Literaria’ is a book where Samuel Taylor Coleridge illustrates his ideas about poetry. Mainly, it was Coleridge’s response to William Wordsworth’s ‘Preface to the Lyrical Ballads’. Coleridge and Wordsworth had differences in their poetic principles, even though they were close friends. They laid the foundation of the Romantic age of English literature together, but their ideas about poetry were not quite similar. We can see more of these differences in the book ‘Biographia Literaria’.

In his book ‘Preface to the Lyrical Ballads’, William Wordsworth puts forth a number of new ideas which provoked thoughts among the contemporary litterateurs. Wordsworth wanted to say that poetry should be written in such a language that would be comprehensible to the general people and its subject matters should represent the daily life of common men. He also states that nature should be considered with sheer importance while writing poem and a poet should describe nature in his or her poetry. Besides, Wordsworth also provides his own theory on how a poet should write poetry or poetic process.

Coleridge reflected on some of the issues quite differently and it is perhaps down to the fact that Coleridge was one of the best philosophers of that age. So, not only was he a renowned poet, but at the same time, he was a philosopher and his philosophical ideologies influenced in different European countries. In Biographia Literaria, we can see that Coleridge mixes philosophy with literature. That is the reason he puts so much emphasis on ‘imagination’ and tries to signify imagination in everything.

Coleridge sees poem and poetry differently and the primary difference between the two is not apparent in Biographia Literaria. By poem, we can understand a particular poem, while poetry, in general, means collection of all poems. Coleridge also defines these two terms somewhat similarly. However, he associates a poet’s thoughts, feelings and imagination with poetry. That means, poetry represents the overall identity of a poet, while poem is just an individual poem.

To Coleridge, poetic genius is the most important thing when it comes to poetic process. A poet must utilize his poetic genius and imagination. Coleridge comes up with two different imaginations- primary and secondary imaginations. With the use of imagination, poets can come up with different new ideas and poetry gets elevated as well.

Both Wordsworth and Coleridge had immense contribution to the popularity of Romantic age or Romantic Movement. Coleridge delicately introduced the influence of imagination. Looking at his poetry and the subject matter of his poetry, we can understand the importance of imagination. Coleridge was a poet of great caliber and his Biographia Literaria not only did establish him as a poet, but also introduced his identity as a great literary critic of English literature.

Literary Criticism: What are “chemically pure” and “chemically impure” in literature?

Aldous Huxley’s Tragedy and the Whole Truth is a very important text in literary criticism as he has created a new window for the readers with this piece of writing. An idea has existed from the ancient time that tragedy or tragic drama is the best form of literature. So, we always consider Sophocles' Oedipus or Shakespeare’s Hamlet or Macbeth as some of the best pieces of literature and it is also thought that people’s emotions can be best revealed through tragedy. Huxley refers to this kind of idea or thought as chemically pure. That means, many people consider non-tragedies as of low quality. However, Huxley, through his essays, tries to imply that what is chemically impure can represent whole truth.

First of all, we need to know what chemically pure means. By introducing this term, Huxley does not intend to relate it with chemistry. Rather, he stresses on portraying the best thoughts, best feelings of human minds in literature. We can see that tragedy dramas are of very serious mood and incorporate serious dialogues or interactions among the characters, thoughts and feelings of very serious nature. We can also feel the seriousness in the presentation of the drama and as a result, small, irrelevant matters are not given much importance. This seriousness in presentation and the high standard is what Huxley calls chemically pure.

On the other hand, by saying chemically impure, Huxley denotes the representation of every detail of a story or set of stories, though not of so serious mood as of tragedy. In his regard, Huxley takes an example from the novel Tom Jones by Henry Fielding where the female protagonist, Sophia Western, falls on the ground while attempting to ride on a Western horse. The incident creates some humors and the way Fielding describes the incident is also very humorous. In tragic dramas, we cannot see a scene like this because it is chemically impure.

A lot of debates and arguments were going on about truth. Truth is obviously portrayed in tragedy and to establish the truth is one of the objectives of tragedy. In Macbeth, we can see that greed brings destruction and in Oedipus, we can see that arrogance causes downfall. Establishing this kind of higher truth is the objective of most of the tragedies. So, chemically pure literature is viewed by many with sheer importance and there are many who do not want to see chemically impure literature as of high standard. However, Huxley is against this idea and he thinks that higher truth is undoubtedly established in tragedy, but literature being chemically pure could also represent whole truth and it definitely has some importance. Huxley has taken the idea of whole truth with great importance and talked about the term in a recurring manner throughout the essay. Huxley wants to say that whole truth, by no means, diminish the standard of literature. Rather, whole truth could help increase the standard of literature.

Huxley attempts to answer whether chemically impure literature represents whole truth by introducing the example of heroine’s falling down from horseback, an incident taken from Tom Jones by Fielding, which sets up a humorous scene. We may find this humorous incident in our everyday lives and portraying every detail of this kind of incidents from our daily lives is actually whole truth. Huxley thinks that in literature, chemically pure is not a problem in establishing whole truth. So, Huxley opines that chemically impure literature can and must represent the whole truth.

Huxley also says that we have reached an age where the importance and popularity of whole truth is increasing and to establish whole truth, we need chemically impure elements. If we look at our daily lives, we can realize that our lives are full of all kinds of incidents.  Here, as we find sorrow, pain, despair, we also find delight, joy and happiness. We also find comic elements in life as well. So, in the current-day literature, we can see more emphasis given on illustrating the whole truth and it has a connection with the growing importance of novel. Novel is long in size and it is easier to represent whole truth in novel. So, this is the age of chemically impure literature. At last, I would like to say that there is no alternative of chemically impure elements for displaying whole truth in literature.

Literary Criticism: Compare Tragedy and Whole Truth

How does Aldous Huxley compare tragedy and whole truth in literature?

Tragedy and the Whole Truth is a major work in the field of literary criticism of English literature. Aldous Huxley presented a beautiful analysis of tragedy and whole truth and showed us a new way of thinking. Prior to Huxley, many people believed that tragedy is the best form of literature and only tragedy will survive not whole truth for it is not a good thing. However, Huxley showed that great writers did not neglect whole truth and even while writing tragedy, they presented whole truth.

First we need to know what tragedy and whole truth actually means. By tragedy we mean something sad. In literature, tragedy means tragedy play. Many famous drama of world literature is tragic drama. There are many famous Greek tragedy plays. William Shakespeare, the famous English dramatist, also wrote tragic dramas such as Macbeth and Hamlet, which became very popular. These tragedy plays survived for centuries and provided food for thought to people.

By “whole truth” Aldous Huxley referred to the ordinary matters of our daily lives and presenting them properly. As the instance of whole truth, he mentioned Homer’s Odyssey. Odyssey tells the story of the journey of Odysseus to Ithaca, his homeland. During this journey, he and his companions faced great dangers. Once, a monster ate six of his companions. After reaching to a shelter in the island, Odysseus’ companions, instead of crying, first searched for food and then mourned for them and fell asleep crying.

Tragedy is higher and chemically pure. Because the author presents only one idea meaning, we only see sufferings, losses, pain in tragedy and all these are present in human nature. Hence, any good tragedy has great effect on us and it has a power called “Catharsis” which lightens up the sorrow of human heart. The better the tragedy, the powerful the Catharsis becomes. Catharsis helps us to overcome sorrows. Hence, tragedy is given great importance in all the countries.

On the other hand, whole truth is chemically impure because it contains many more ingredients than tragedy, but Aldous Huxley does not think less of it than tragedy. In his regard, Huxley takes an example from the novel Tom Jones by Henry Fielding where the female protagonist, Sophia Western, falls on the ground while attempting to ride on a Western horse. The incident creates some humors and the way Fielding describes the incident is also very humorous. In tragic dramas, we cannot see a scene like this because it is chemically impure. At the same time, we also understand that whole truth suits novel very well; the main genre of current-day literature. Hence, we cannot neglect whole truth and it is no less inferior to tragedy. What Huxley tried to say is that if whole truth is used properly then it would become richer than tragedy. At the same time, the author can also utilize the artistic features of tragedy.

Huxley wrote this essay at a time when novel became a very popular genre and drama and poem were losing their charm. Cinema has become very popular and by “reading books” people started referring to reading novels.  If we look at our lives we would see that we do not read or watch drama that much and very few people these days read poetry or enjoy reading it. Most of the time, we study novels. From time to time, we watch tragic plays in theatres or on television but they are not so popular. But Aldous Huxley thinks that both tragic play and novel have great importance and very much necessary for human beings.

The absence of these two elements will destroy the balance of the world and a major damage will happen to human through process. Hence, the writers of tragic plays should pay attention to whole truth and writers of novels should learn from tragic plays. 

Literary Criticism: Evaluation of English poetry from Chaucer to Burns

In his famous essay “The Study of Poetry”, Matthew Arnold said that good time is coming for literature and poem and they will exercise greater influence on human beings. According to him, literature is very important in human life and a time will come when literature will take over philosophy and religion. However, it is not applicable to literature as a whole. Good literary pieces will have great influence on human beings. In this regard, Arnold discussed about major poets starting from Chaucer to Burns.

Image Source

First comes Chaucer who is considered to be the father of English literature. There were few literary works before Chaucer but Chaucer was the first major poet in English literature. Arnold spoke highly of Chaucer and said that his writing was better compared to his contemporary French poets and one cannot deny Chaucer’s contribution in English literature. At the same time, Arnold criticized Chaucer. He said that Chaucer’s works cannot be considered as classics. Compared to poets like Homer or Sophocles, Chaucer is not that great. We can say that Homer and Sophocles were far better poets than Chaucer. Arnold said that Chaucer’s poem lacked high seriousness.

Arnold also spoke highly of Shakespeare for he is one of the most popular and celebrated poet and dramatist in English literature. It is not possible to neglect or entirely forget Shakespeare. Arnold talked highly of Shakespeare. Shakespeare’s writing is very good and he provided some examples. His only criticism against Shakespeare was that not all his writings are of high quality. Some writings were poor quality.

Arnold praised John Milton, another major poet of English literature. His “Paradise Lost” is the best epic poem in English literature. Milton was an immensely talented writer. He wrote poems and prose.

Arnold said many things about Dryden and Pope. However, they were more successful in prose than composing high class literary pieces. Arnold praised Dryden and said that English prose started with Dryden. There was also no doubt that Pope was a scholar and he wrote great prose. The problem with Dryden and Pope was that they could not produce great sentence like those of Shakespeare and Milton.

Arnold said that Thomas Gray was the best poet of the 19th century. Though Dryden composed few poems but Arnold thought that they were of high quality. We can consider Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” as one of his great works. It is a very good poem and without a doubt can be considered to be a classic of English literature.

Burns is another poet whom Arnold analyzed very closely. He believes that Burns was talented but his poems were not such high quality. His Scottish poems were better. Arnold believes that one should study the Scottish poems of Burns to better understand his talent as a poet.

Arnold analyzed works of poets starting from Chaucer to Burns. His analysis was also influenced by his thoughts and ideals to certain extent. The interesting thing is that he did not say much about major Romantic poets like Coleridge, Shelley and Byron. The Romantic age is considered to be the best age for English poetry and Arnold came after the Romantic age. So it is a bit frustrating. 

Literary Criticism: Glorification of poetry by Matthew Arnold

The Study of Poetry by Matthew Arnold is the best writing of literary criticism. It can also be referred as the best literary criticism of the Victorian era. There are some reasons behind writing this essay but the most important of them all is the glorification of poetry. We all know that novels were more popular than poetry in Victorian era which led many people to think that poetry was losing its prominence. Moreover, poetry was increasingly being attacked by the critics. 

Image Source

Victorian era of English literature follows the Romantic era and five of the most prominent poets of the Romantic age are- Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Keats, and Byron. After these poets, there were no prominent poets during Victorian era. Moreover, the supporters of utilitarianism believed that poetry is not necessary for the society for it does not have any direct impact on human beings. Their idea was that Science is necessary for human beings and commerce enables people to earn money but poetry is just a waste of time. Arnold started writing for poetry at such a critical period and he strongly showed that the necessity of poetry will never end in human civilization. He also believed that ordinary poem is of no use. The poet must follow classical poets because their appeal will never perish.

During Victorian era, people started to lose faith in religion. Many became suspicious about the truth of the Bible after Charles Darwin’s “Theory of Evolution” came out. At the same time, philosophy started to lose its value. In such a condition, Arnold believed that poetry’s future was the brightest because poetry would take over the place of religion and philosophy.

Arnold did not entirely go against the supporters of science but he believed that without poetry science will remain incomplete. The reason is, science presents partial truth in front of human beings contrary to the higher truth presented by poetry. Poetry can influence human beings and give him new ideas or thoughts which other fields of science cannot do. Hence, Arnold thinks that poetry is not only important for human beings but more important.

According to Arnold, poetry is the reflection of human life and criticism of life at the same time. These two features of poetry allow it to represent the true condition of human life and provide them guidance regarding how to make their lives beautiful. This is why, there are very few things that are as important as poetry and those believe that poetry is unnecessary they are actually putting the society in jeopardy.

However, Arnold did not talk about ordinary poem to show the greatness of poetry. Rather, he referred to classical poems. He mentioned names of many famous poets, including Chaucer, Milton, Shakespeare, Dryden etc. Arnold suggested that people should read poems of those poets who wrote high standard classical poems for we would be able to learn many new things from them. We should follow their direction for it would enrich our lives. We should appreciate classical poems and poets. Arnold believed that by doing so we would nourish our lives.

In conclusion, we can say that Arnold believed that poetry is the best of literature and a very important field of science. No human being should neglect it rather they should read good poems whenever they get time.