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logical question should not be confused with the analysis contemporary theory says that the use and seriousness of
of the poet’s metaphysical devices. Metaphor is latent in poetry lies in its capacity to convey knowledge. Poetry is a
much of our every day language. Poetry makes us aware of form of knowledge. Aristotle had said that poetry is more
the metaphysical character of language. philosophical than history. History relates things which have
So the distinction between literature and non-literature is happened; poetry, such as might happen. In poetry we get
confined to organization, personal expression, explanation the general as well as the particular. Othellois not about
of the medium, lack of practical purpose and fictionality. jealousy but is about Othello’s jealousy.
And we use for these distinctions terms like “unity in vari- Literature stresses the type as well as the individual or the
ety”, “disinterested contemplation”, “aesthetic distance”, generality as well as the particularity. Literature is more
“invention”, “imagination”, “creation.” Each one displays one general than biography and more particular than sociology.
aspect of the literary work. One fundamental fact emerges This idea of particularity or individuality changes from age
that a literary work is not a simple object but rather a highly to age. Characters in literature combine the type with the
complex organization with multiple meanings; it stresses individual. We recognize the type in the character books of
the aspect of unity in variety. The idea of identity of content the 17th century but the type also can be individual like
and form in literature encourages the illusion that the analysis Hamlet, the lover, the scholar, the fencer, etc. The charac-
of any element of art, technique, etc., absolves us from ter types can be flat characters whereas round character
viewing the work of art as a whole. are characters which developed in different stages of life.
THE FUNCTION OF LITERATURE The novelist can teach you more about human nature than
Whenever any instrument or a piece is replaced by a later the psychologist. We can see this in Shakespeare, Ibsen
instrument or a piece, the utility, the function of the earlier and others. They reveal the introspective life of the charac-
piece becomes obsolete. This has not happened in the case ter. We might say that the great novels are source books
of literature even though more than 2000 years have passed. for psychologists because they show generalized types.
The conception and function of literature have remained the Max Eastman, a minor poet, says that in the age of sci-
same through all the centuries. The history of aesthetics ence a literary mind cannot lay claim to the discovery of
can be summed up so far as the function of literature is truth, because it is an unspecialized immature mind. Truth
concerned, in Horace’s words, “dulce” and “utile” or “sweet- in literature is the same as truth outside literature. The imagi-
ness” and “usefulness.” Each objective separately would native writer misunderstands himself if he thinks that his
give us a misconception of the function of a poet. The view main object is knowledge. His real function is to make us
that poetry is pleasure is put against the view that poetry is perceive what we see and imagine what we already know.
instruction. The view that poetry should be propaganda is Poetry is artistic insight. It makes us see what was there
answered by the view that poetry is pure sound and emo- all the time, but we had not seen it. It wants us to under-
tion. These opposing arguments defined the basic function stand values or aesthetic qualities. One can understand
of art as discussed in art versus play. The function of litera- why the aestheticians refuse to accept truth as a poetry of
ture with regard to “dulce” or “sweetness” or “pleasure” or art. One can attribute the supreme value to art. Imaginative
“play” or “spontaneous amusement” or “purposelessness” literature is a fiction, an imitation of life as Plato has put it;
describes the function of art to do justice to the “dulce”. So the opposite of fiction is not truth but fact, and fact is stranger
the Horatian formula of “dulce” and “utile” is good enough than the probability with which literature deals. In art some-
as a helpful start remembering that precision in the use of thing may be truer than other things. That truth is literature.
critical terms is a very recent thing. The usefulness of art Truth is the province of systematic thinkers and artists are
does not necessarily lie on the enforcement of such a moral not thinkers. The whole controversy centres round the words
lesson that Homer found in the writing of the Iliad. The word ‘Knowledge,’ ‘Truth’ and ‘Wisdom.’ If all truth is concep-
useful is equivalent to “not a waste of time”, “not a form of tual, then the arts cannot be forms of truth. If all truth is
passing time”, “something deserving serious attention.” limited to what can be verified, then also arts cannot be
Can we use this sort of double standard for all types of forms of truth. So there are truths and truths. There are
literature? There are books which can be called great litera- various ways of knowing. Sciences use the discursive
ture and there are books which fall into the category of modes and arts use the presentational mode. So presenta-
good literature or sub-literature. Can this literature be called tional truth takes care of religious myths as well as poetry.
useful or instructive or amusing? But one fact emerges that After that way, it is beautiful and true. A poem is equal to
even this type of literature has its appropriate readers and it poetry and it possesses the equivalence of truth. Literature
is sweet as well as useful when a work of literature is a is the presentational method of describing truth. So truth of
successful work. The two functions of literature should not art or literature in a flash gives us the view of truth which is
only co-exist but also coalesce. The pleasure and utility more real and more vivid than the truth of science.
should be blended like a chemical compound. The plea- Some critics declare that the artist is the persuasive pur-
sure of literature is the highest type of pleasure because it veyor of truth. The term propaganda is not correctly used
is pleasure in a higher type of activity and the utility or here. The artist tries to convert the reader to his particular
seriousness becomes aesthetic seriousness. point of view because he wants to evoke in the heart of
Has literature one function or more functions? Eliot speaks readers, the same responses that he has felt for himself; in
about the variety of poetry and various functions that poetry that sense we can say that some art is propaganda but not
can do at different times. Nothing can be a substitute for great art or good art can possibly be propaganda.
poetry. Literature can help us about travel in foreign lands According to Montgomery Belgian, the literary artist is an
or about history but the basic question is: Is there a use irresponsible propagandist. The purpose of the artist is to
which literature can do better than any other art? The unique convert the readers to his particular point of view by subtly
value of literature is basic to any theory of literature. One appealing to the emotions of the reader. The responsible
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artist does not want to confuse the emotion and thinking, ment in a play as a valid document for use in the biographi-
experience and sincerity. The propaganda motive of the art- cal study. A writer need not be in a tragic mood to write a
ist must stay as much in the background as is possible. tragedy nor should he be in a comic mood to write a com-
Then there is the question of Catharsis. Catharsis is the edy. Similarly, we cannot say that a particular character of
word first used by Aristotle with reference to the function of his play gives the personal views of Shakespeare. So the
tragedy. Similarly the function of literature is to relieve the relation between the private life and the work of an author is
reader from the pressure of emotions. At the end of the not a simple relation. Some supporters of biographical
aesthetic experience the reader is left with “Calm of mind.” method will argue that in our age plenty of biographical evi-
But then, does literature relieve us of the emotions or incite dence is available regarding poets. Many have left autobio-
them? Plato is of the opinion that literature nourishes and graphical statements also; in such a case we can easily
waters our emotions. Are the emotions not wrongly dis- check the biographical approach by referring to the works
charged when they are wasted on poetic fiction? Again, of an author in this respect. The romantic poets were very
should all art be cathartic? vocal yet in poems like “The Prelude” by Wordsworth we
The question concerning the function of literature has been feel that we cannot take every statement at its face value.
discussed from the days of Plato down to the modern times. Poets are of two types: subjective and objective poets. Those
Such questions are asked by people who take a utilitarian like Keats and Hemingway are subjective and the opposite
view of arts. They are looking for special values in art; when type of a poet may not want to draw a self-portrait so as to
challenged in this way, Poets have to make a reasoned express himself.
reply. They stress the use of art rather than the delight of But even with the subjective poets the distinction between
art but from the days of romantic poets, the poet has given the statement of an autobiographical nature and the use of
one standard answer for the function of poetry. A. C. Brad- the statement for a motif in a work of art cannot be with-
ley calls it “poetry for poetry’s sake.” So using the word, we drawn. A work of art is quite different from a diary or a letter.
say poetry has many possible functions but its prime and Therefore it would be perversion of the biographical method
chief function is fidelity to its own nature. Literature, there- to use the intimate or casual documents of an author’s life
fore has a number of functions to fulfil. for the central study or to interpret the poems in the light of
LITERATURE AND BIOGRAPHY such documents. For example, Brandes criticizes Macbeth
The work of art and the author are intimately interconnected; because it is not very much related to the personality of
hence the explanation in terms of the personality and the Shakespeare. In some works there are elements which can
life of the writer has been an old, established method. Biog- be identified as biographical. But we have to remember that
raphy can be judged in the context of the light it throws on these incidents are so transformed under the imagination
the production of poetry; that is why the study of the author of the poet that they lose all their specifical personal mean-
and his mental and intellectual development has its own ing. The professedly autobiographical “Prelude” differs from
interest. Biography explains and illuminates the actual prod- Wordsworth’s actual life during that particular specific pe-
uct of poetry. The interest of biography gets reflected in the riod.
personality of the author and is also reflected in the book Even when a work of art contains biographical elements,
and biography. Biography is a material for the psychology these elements become so much transformed and inte-
of artistic creation. grated that they lose all their specific meaning. This we
Biography can be considered chronologically and logically; can see in Wordsworth’s “Prelude” in which the actual life
that becomes a sort of historical survey and can apply to and the incidents used in the book look so very different.
anybody including an author From the point of view of the The view that all art is self-expression can be proved false.
biographer the poet is a man whose mental development Even when the work of art represents author’s life it cannot
can be reconstructed with reference to standards of the be a mere copy. The biographical approach obscures the
society and the author’s works as events happen in the life proper understanding of a literary process because it tries
of a man. So publications are published in the life of an to substitute the cycle of an individual. It also ignores the
author. If we accept this view the biographer is purely a psychological facts. This is because the work of art may
historian of literary events basing his conclusions upon be a dream or a mask behind which the real person is hid-
documents, letters, statements, etc., about an author. This ing. Again experiences are not seen with a view to their use
in its turn depends upon the chronological presentation and in literature. Therefore we must not take seriously some of
discreet selection of events. the lives of authors in which the author takes every state-
How far can a biographer be justified in using the evidence ment in the poem or a novel as literal truth. This is the type
of works in the construction of a biography. How far can a of argument which has led people to say that Emily Bronte
biographer use the results of a literary biography in under- must have experienced the passion of “Heathcliff’ or that
standing the works themselves. Normally poets are highly because Shakespeare knows so much about a woman’s
subjective people and therefore abundant evidence can be heart, he must have been a woman.
found in their works or a biography. This does not mean that personality can be ruled out in
Early literature did not possess documentary evidence on literature. We know that behind the works of Dante or Tolstoy
which a writer can draw. We have only public documents there is a person behind the work. Different writings of the
like birth and death certificates etc. We can know about same author would have a family resemblance; for example
the finances of Shakespeare but we have absolutely noth- in works of Milton there is a quality which we call “Miltonic”
ing excepting doubtful anecdotes regarding the author’s life. but this quality can be deduced from the works of the au-
This has resulted in an expense of a vast amount of schol- thor and not from the life of the author.
arship. Therefore a good biography of Shakespeare is a The poet’s work can be a mask or conventionalization of
very difficult problem to handle. We cannot use a state- his own experience. This can be useful only if it is used
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carefully. It may explain allusions to works in an author’s in their writing. Some do not.
work. The biographical frame-work will help us to under- Subjective or objective writers are not necessarily single
stand the gradual maturing and possible decline of an types; there are romantic poets who are lyric poets and
author’s work. Biography also gives us data for literary his- there are narrative poets who are dramatic and epic poets.
tory such as the poet’s reading, his travels, etc. In other words, the poets are subjective writers and the
So it is dangerous to ascribe critical importance to biogra- novelists are objective writers or the poets can be called
phy because no biographical data can change critical evalu- ‘possessed’ and the novelists can be called ‘makers.’ The
ation. If we try to judge literature in terms of biographical professionally trained bards are the poets of the Renais-
truth, literary sincerity would be thoroughly false. There is sance. And the makers of the neo-classical period lay
no relation between sincerity and value of art: for example, emphasis on the mechanical side of the work of creation.
Byron’s “Fare Thee Well” is neither a better poem nor a But in the case of great writers like Shakespeare or
worse poem because it dramatizes the poet’s relations with Dostoyevsky, we find both elements of the maker and the
his wife. The poem stands on its own merit. possessed in the same writer.
LITERATURE AND PSYCHOLOGY Apollo and Dionysus are two art-gods of the Greeks. They
Among the Greeks the superior power possessed by a poet represent the art of sculpture and the art of music or dream
was explained by the theory that the poet was inspired or and specially this corresponds to the classical maker and
possessed by some god or spirit- And that is how he got the romantic possessed.
the superior power of writing. Imagination has been divided by a French psychologist into
There was a belief that some writers possessed extra sharp two parts: ‘plastic’ (shape giving) and ‘different’ (symbolic).
senses because of certain physical handicaps. It was a A symbolic poet is a writer of romantic tales who is entirely
belief that God compensated such men by giving them an subjective. Dante’s visual imagination has the same es-
advantage in other senses. Milton was blind, Pope was a sential quality of Milton’s ‘auditory imagination.’
hunchback, and Byron had a club foot. God compensated Psychologists have divided writers into three divisions
for their defect by giving them some extra sensitive power (1) ‘type sympathique’ (spontaneous)
to their senses. But this belief has no scientific or rational (2) ‘type demoniaque anarchic’ (demon-like anarchic)
base. The idea of being possessed is explained in different (3) ‘type demoniaque equilibre’ (demon-like equilibrium).
ways by saying that the writer is a neurotic but if the writer This suggests sympathetic and anarchy which ends in the
is a neurotic how his writing can be intelligible to other tensions being brought into equilibrium. There are examples
people. of Dante, Shakespeare, Dickens and others. The creative
Freud says that the writer is not quite steady. And the writer process covers all stages of a work of art from the literary
is a neurotic who, by his creative works, keeps himself origin to revisions.
from a crack-up. The artist converts a reality into a fantasy There is the distinction between the mental structure of a
in his mind and then reconverts the fantasy into a work of poem and the composition of a poem. According to Croce,
art. So the poet is a day-dreamer who publishes his fanta- an object of art creates a vivid impression on the mind of
sies. The artist’s contemplative results are alternations in the artist. Once the impression is created, the work of ar-
the outer world by readers of novelists. While the day- tistic creation stops. When a writer tries to put his impres-
dreamer forms his fantasies in his mind, the actual writer sion on paper he is expressing his impressions and that is
gives a local habitation and a name to the fantasies. Most expressionism.
of the writers do not want to be cured of their neurosis be- Can impression be induced? Can the writer become pos-
cause if they are cured, they fear, they will lose their power sessed or go into a trance with the help of objects other
of writing. As Auden says, the artist should be as neurotic than imagination? For example, Coleridge wrote ‘Kubla
as possible. Khan’ under the influence of opium. De Quincey was an
Is neurosis another name for imagination? As a child tells a opium eater but there is no true evidence that drugs help in
romantic story so an artist converts the world of reality into creative work. Others use ritualistic devices to induce the
a fantasy of hopes and fears. Some novelists like Dickens spirit of possession. ‘Mentors’ or ‘religious’ formality was
say that their characters speak to them and sometimes used for the same purpose. Schiller could write after put-
take control of the action of the stories. The artist thus ting rotten apples in his work desk. Balzac wrote dressed
retains the archaic trait of the race. He feels and sees his in the robes of a monk. Some people prefer night time for
thoughts. writing. Dr. Johnson believed that a man can write at any
Another gift assigned to the writer is synaesthesia or the time if he is determined to write.
capacity of combining sensory perceptions. A writer may Does the method of writing have any effect upon any liter-
see colour as well as the smell of an object. In fact, syna- ary style? Does it matter whether you write with pen or you
esthesia is a literary technique. According to T. S. Eliot, a use a typewriter? Actually speaking no such claim can be
poet has in his subconscious mind the race history and scientifically proved. We have only individual cases of writ-
also the memory of his childhood. The artist is thus more ers who prefer one thing to another; they cannot be used
primitive as well as more civilized than his contemporary. for general rules.
The pre-logical mentality persists in civilized men but it On the creative side, not much has been found profitable to
becomes available to us only through a poet. In other words, literary theory. Some authors write analytically about their
beneath the individual lies the collective unconscious, the art; psychologists try to find the common factor in original-
blocked off memory of our racial past. The extrovert and ity, invention, philosophical and aesthetic creation. The pro-
introvert are two types of writers who are sub-divided on the cess of creation will depend upon relative parts played by
basis of thinking, feeling, intuition and sensation. All writ- the conscious and the unconscious mind. Romantic and
ers are not necessarily introvert. Some writers reveal type expressionistic periods depend upon the unconscious........
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hat according to Dryden is the chief function of expressed. If one follows Pope's formula he is sure to get
poetry? ease in writing: "True ease in writing comes from Art, not
Dryden emphasizes delight rather than instruction as the chance."
chief end of poetry. According to Dryden, "delight is the What are the scheme and purpose of Pope's Essay on
chief, if not the only, end of poesy; instruction can be Man ?
admitted but in the second place, for poesy only instructs The first epistle of Pope's Essay on Man is concerned with
as it delights". It is true that to imitate well is a poet's work; the nature of man and his place in the universe; the second
but to affect the soul, and excite the passions, and above with man as an individual; the third with man in society;
all, to move admiration, a bare imitation will not serve. and the fourth with man and the pursuit of happiness. The
What does Dryden say, about heroic poetry in Essay purpose is to demonstrate, the essential rightness of the
on Dramatic Poesic ? world as ordered by God: man's inability to realizedered by
Dryden regards the heroic poetry or epic "the greatest work God; man's inability to realize this is the fault of limited
of human nature". He considers Epic superior to Tragedy perception.
because, according to him, its action is more extensive, its How does Dr. Johnson defend tragicomedy ?
heroes more perfect and its style more lofty and ornate. Dr. Johnson regards the tragicomedy as more representative
Due to the limited area the tragedy has to leave out many of actual life and a better source of instruction; "That the
tings and thus fails to make that deep impression which is mingled drama may convey all theinstruction of tragedy and
made by epic. comedy cannot be denied". Dr. Johnson puts forward a lib-
What view does Dryden put forward on satire in his A erating defence of Shakespeare's 'mixed' style of drama
Discourse Concerning the Origin and Progress of which does not impair the emotional effect because he
Satire ? thinks, "all pleasure consist in variety".
Dryden ragards satire as 'a species of heroic poetry' that How does Dr. Johnson defend the violation of unities
should treat of one main theme with one particular moral. by Shakespeare ?
The function is to caution the reader 'against some one Dr. Johnson believes that "the unities of Time and Place...are
particular vice or folly'. Rejecting the burlesque 8 syllabled always to be sacrificed to the nobler beauties of variety and
verse of Butler's Hudibras, Dryden champions the 10- instruction." He says, "the truth is that the spectators are
syllabled verse or heroic couplet as the ideal verse from for always in their senses and know...the stage is only a stage
writing satires. and that the players are only players." So there is no need
What does Pope say about the poet and 'Nature' in of the unity of Place. According to Dr. Johnson, "Time is...
his An Essay on Criticism ? most obsequious to the imagination". and so the unity of
The key term in Pope's Essay is 'Nature', not as the Ro- Time isnot essential for drama. Thus he defends the violation
mantics were to understand it, wild and mysterious, but of unities by Shakespeare.
something reflecting deep order, moderation and universal What are Dr. Johnson's views on the Metaphysical po-
laws; it placed due limits on men's taste and writing, dictating ets and their poetry ?
that they should avoid excesses of enthusiasm and freakish In his Life of Cowley Dr. Johnson writes."The metaphysicals
originality. Pope suggests that the critics should study the were men of learning and to show their learning was their
rules of classical thinkers because these rules are none whole endeavour." Metaphysical poetry is "great labour di-
than 'Nature methodized' ? rected by great abilities" and metaphysical poets are wits
What are Pope's views on criticism in An Essay on rather than poets because they neither limitate nature nor
Criticism ? life. It has "more propriety though less copiousness of sen-
According to Pope, an aurhor can only be a good critic. He timent" and is only "useful to those who know their value."
warns the critic against judging by parts rather than by the Why does Dr. Johnson advocage that the poet should
whole. He is against those critics who consider only the collect only good things for his poetry ?
diction, style or verse apart from the sense. He also In his Preface to Shakespeare, Dr. Johnson writes : "The
condemns judgments based on popular notions and without end of writing is to instruct : the end of poetry is to instruct
a proper understanding of the work itself. He further by pleasing...Poetry pleases by exhibiting an idea more
condemns extreme fastidiousness in criticism: "As all looks graceful to the mind than things themselves afford". it is for
yellow to the Jaundic'd eye." this reason that he suggests that the poet should select
What according to Pope, is required of the language only beautiful and good things and reject all that is ugly or
of poetry in An Essay on Criticism ? bad.
Regarding the language of poetry, Pope in An Essay on What defects of Shakespeare does Dr. Johnson point out ?
Criticism writes that the words selected should be neither According to Dr. Johnson Shakespeare "sacrifices virtue to
too old nor too new: "In words, as fashions, the same rule convenience and is so much more careful to please than to
will hold / Alike fantastic, if too new or ole," and that the instruct, that he seems to write without anh moral purpose".
expression should be according to the snese. For the beauty Further he dinds faults with the plots and ending in Shake-
of an idea or image depends on its context, and it will not spearean plays, with the comic scenes and the narratives
be effective if we take it alone outside its context. in tragedies. Dr. Johnson is so put off by Shakespeare's
What does Pope say on versification in his Essay ? puns and word-plays that he says : "A quibble was to him
Pope thinks that the poet should not rely on such devides the fatal Cleopatra for which he lost the world, and was
as equal syllables, open vowels, expletives, too much use content to lose it."..........
of monosyllables and needless Alexandrine. The correct
verse, according to him, is that which is in keeping with the
thought and it should vary to suit the different ideas
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Recuyell of the Historie of Troye(1471), (?1422-91) Game . Nymphida (1627).
and Playe of the the chesse (1475), The Dictes and Thomas Campion (1567-1620)
Sayengis of the Philosphers (1477). A Book of Ayreas (1601), Songs of Mourning (1613), Two
John Fisher (1459-1535) Books of Ayres (1612).
Tracts and sermons; The Ways to Perfect Religion. Phineas Fletcher (11582-1650)
Hugh Latimer (?1485-1555) The Purple Island, of The Isle of Man (1633).
Sermons (1562). Giles Fletcher (11588-1623)
Sir Thomas More (1478-1535) Chirst’s Victorie and Triumph (1610).
Utopia (1516); The Lyfe of John Picus (1510), The Historie Samuel Daniel (1562-1619)
of Richard III (1543). Delia (1592), The Complaynt of Rosamond (1592), The Civil
Sir Thomas Elyot (?1478-1535) Wars (1595).
The Boke named the Governour (1531), The Doctrine of William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
Princes (1534) The Rape of Lucrece (1594), Venus and Adonis (1593). A
John Capgrave (1393-1464) Collection of Sonnets, (1609), The Passionate Pilgrim
The Chronicle of English History extending to A. D. 1417. (1599).
Sir John Fortescue (?1394-?1476) DRAMA
On the Govenance of England, A Delcaration upon Certain George Peele (1558-98)
Wrytinges (1471-73). The Araygnement of Paris (1584), The Famous Chronicle
DRAMA of King Edward the first (1593), The Old Wives’ Tale
John Heywood (?1494-?1580) (159194). The Love of King David and Fair Bathsabe (1599).
The Four p’s (?1545), Play of the Wether (1533), A Play of Robert Greene (1558-92)
Love (1433). Alphonsus, King of Aragon (1587), Friar Bacon and Friar
Thomas Norton (1532-84) and T. Sackville (1536-1608) Bungay (1589), Orlando Furioso (1591), The Scottish
Gorboduc (1561). Historie of James of Fourth (1592).
Thomas Preston (1536-1608) Thomas Nashe (1567-1611)
A Lamentable Tragedy mixed full of Mirth Containing the Summer’s Last Will and Testament (1592).
life of Cambyses, King of Percia (1569). John Lyly (11554-1606)
WIlliam Stevenson Alexander and Campasye (1584); Endymission (1591),
Gammer Gurton’s Needle (1562). Midas (1592), The Woman in the Moon (1597)
Nicholas Udall (1505-56) Thomas Lodge (1558-1625)
Ralph Roister Doister (written 1553, published 1567) Henry VI (1591-92), The Woundes of Cicil War, Rosalynde,
THE ELIZABETHAN AGE (1558-1603) THE JACOBEAN Euphues Golden Legcie (A Romance) (1590), Scillaes
AGE (1603-1625) THE AGE OF SHAKESPEARE (1558- Metamorphosis (1589).
1625) Thomas Kyd (1558-94)
POETRY The Spanish Tragedy (1585), Cornelia (1593), Soliman and
George Gascoigne (?1525-77) Perseda (1588), First Part of Jernimo (1592).
Jocasta Jocasta (1566), Supposes (1566). Christopher Marlowe (1564-93)
Edmund Spenser (1552-99) Tamberlaine the Great (1587), The Second Part of
The Shepherds Calendar (1579), Mother Hubberd’s Tale Tamberlaine the Great (1588), Edward II (1591), The Jew of
(1591), The Ruins of Rome (1591), Amoretti (1595); Malta (1589, Docator Faustus (1592), The Tragedy of Dido,
Epithalamion; Colin Clout Comes Home Again (1595), Four Qween of Carthage (1593). The Massacre of Paris (1593).
Hymns (1596), Prothalamion (1596), The Faerie Queene William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
(Book I-III, 1589, IV, 1596). 1. Henry VI (1591-92) 2. Henry VI (1591-92), 3. Henry VI
John Donne (1573-1631) (1591-92), Richard III (1593), The Comedy of Errors (1593),
Satires (1590-1601), The Songs and Sonnets (1590-1601), Titus Andronicus (1594), The Taming of The Shrew (1594),
The Elegies (1590-1601), Of the Progress of the Soule (1601) Love’s Labour’s Lost (1594), Romeo and Juliet (1594), A
Holy Sonnets (1617). Midsummer Night’s Dream (1595), The Two Gentlemen of
Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-42) Verona (1595), King John (1595), Richard II (1596) The
In Tottel’s Miscellany (1557), Included in Songs and Merchant of Venice (1596), Henry IV (1598),Much Ado About
Sonnetts (1557) ed.Tottel. Nothing(1598), Henry V (1599), Julius Caesar (1599),The
Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517-47) Merry Wives of Winsor (1600), As you Like It (1600), Hamlet
Certain Bokes of Virgiles Aeneis turned into English Meter (1601), Twelfth Night (1601), Troilus and Cressida (1602),
(1557)his poems; in Tottle’s Miscellany (1557). All’s Well that Ends well (1602), Measure for Measure (1604),
Thomas Sackville (1536-1608) Othello (1604), Macbeth (1605), King Lear (1605), Antony
The Induction (1563), The Complayment of Henry, Duke and Cleopatra (1606), Coriolanus Timon of Athens (1607),
of Buckingham, (1563). Pericles (1608), Cymbeline (1609), The Winter’s Tale (1610),
George Gascoigne (1534-77) The Tempest (1611), Henry VIII (in part) (1613)...........
The Steele Glas, A Satyre (1576)
Sir Philip Sidney (1554-86)
Astrophel and Stella (1591).
Michael Drayton (1563-1631)
The Harmonie of the Church (1591), Englnad’s Heroicall
Epistles (1597), The Baron’s Wars (1603), Polyolbion (1622),
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10
ELECTIVE-III and in the writings of Plato and the sophists and, ultimately,
INDIAN WRITING IN ENGLISH AND in the most important literary critical text of Western antiq-
INDIAN LITERATURE IN ENGLISH TRANSLATION uity, the Poetics of Aristotle.
INDIAN WRITING IN ENGLISH FICTION The study of literature and literary theory-by which we mean
1. INTRODUCTION the use of rhetorical, linguistic, and structural analysis as a
Who was the first story teller ? A lonely hunter consoling means of interpreting texts-has, therefore, a long tradition
his fellows on a cold northern evening far from home ? A in Western intellectual history, one employed quite heavily
mother calming a frightened child with takes of god and during certain periods and certainly appearing during the
demigods ? A lover telling his intended of fantastic exploits, current century as a principal form of literate intellectual ac-
designed to foster his courtship ? The reader can multiply tivity.
the number of possibilities, but we shall never know the In its forms of analysis, literary theory has been defined to
answer, for the impulse to tell stories is as old as the devel- a great extent by the kinds of texts to which it has been
opment of speech, older than the invention of writing. It has applied. In the Poetics Aristotle was concerned primarily
deep psychological springs we do not fully comprehend, with discussing the epic poem and the two dominant forms of
but the need to make up characters, and to place them in drama, comedy and tragedy. For the most part, these were
worlds that are parallel to our own or are perhaps wildly at the most important forms, along with lyric poetry, written
variance with it, is part of the history of all peoples, cul- by the ancient Greek authors that Aristotle studied. The
tures, and countries; there is no-known human group that fictions about which Aristotle could have written were, there-
has not told tales. fore, composed in verse dialogue, not in prose, and the
Oral cultures are great sources for students of the theory of forms were not the prose fictional forms that dominate our
fiction. Researchers have established that in those that still time: the novel, the novella, and short story.
exist, the storyteller (or bard) is highly revered for the abil- Historinas of literature have argued at length about which
ity to relate from a memory a number of verse narratives of prose fictions might qualify as the first novels. There were
enormous length, told within the regularities of meter and certainly prominent examples of lengthy prose fictions in
conventional figures of language that aid the memory, con- the ancient world with The Golden Ass of Apuleius and
taining the stories of characters known to listeners who Petronius's Satyricon coming conspicuously to mind. But
share in a common folklore and myth. These stories, about, while these are extended narratives in prose, they do not;
familiar characters in recognizable situations, do not en- for most critics, fulfill the criteria for defining a novel for-
gage their audience in the mysteries of an unresolved plot, mally in terms of the development of plot and character.
for the listeners know that story already, have heard it told Both tales are products of the early Christian centuries and
before, and are often as familiar with its events as they are were followed by more than a millennium in which the long
with events in their own lives. Then why do they listen ? fictional forms consisted mainly of verse epics and ro-
Beyond the story itself, the audience concerns itself with mances whose subject matter was the relatively conven-
the voice and manner of the taller of the tale; the texture tional material of shared folklore and myth. Indeed, with
and density of the story's material; the fit of the characters some exceptions such as the Icelandic sagas and
with the audience's expectations about how human beings, Boccaccio's Decameron, extended prose fictions did not
gods, demigods, and mythic heroes behave in a world some- begin to flourish in England and on the European continent
thing like their own. For such people- just as for ourselves- until the sixteenth century, in the writings of Nashe and
fictions have an extraordinary explanatory power, they make Lyly in England, Rabelais in France, and Cervantes in Spain.
clear why, for instance, there are seasons, why there is an Some critics have called Cervantes' Don Quixote, published
underworld for the spirits of dead ancestors, why there is during the early years of the seventeenth century, the first
one royal line of descent and not another. European novel, and while the adventures of the man of La
We begin this collection of essays on the theory of fiction Mancha have been extraordinarily influential on later forms
with a discussion of so-called primitive origins because we of prose fiction - Lionel Trilling finds its theme of illusion and
believe that the impulse to tell takes and listen to them is reality to be the essence of the novel - Don Quixote did not
akin to the impulse in " literature" cultures to writes stories found a tradition in which those writers who came after him
and read them, and as Claude Levi- Strauses has shown self-consciously thought of themselves as writing "novels."
us in the Savage Mind (Lapensee sauvage) the science of Rather, Cervantes's book summed up and parodied the tra-
primitive peoples is as sophisticated in its own purposes dition of medieval and Renaissance romance, with all its
as the science in literate cultures; so too are the fictions. chivalric and courtly conventions. The self-conscious es-
Tribal members in oral cultures may or may not have de- tablishment of a tradition of novel writing did not come about
tailed discussions of the nature and forms of their func- with any lasting force until more than a century later, in an
tions, but clearly they do make judgements as to the ad- increasingly mercantile and industrial Europe where the
equacy of the telling of stories, and the act of judgement is, middle classes were rapidly rising. The rising literacy that
after all, an act of criticism. Questions of judgement and always accompanies trade and technology created an ex-
interpretation, in fact, inform human discourse everywhere. panded reading public hungry for stories of people like them-
While we do not claim that the theory of fiction occupies selves, in prose like that of the newspapers, journals, and
much of the attention of tribal scholars, we do claim that scientific treatises that had come to dominate the new tech-
the interpretation of works of literature, and in particulars of nology of print For the middle classes poetry was identified
fictional creation, is part of the written record of all literate with the aristocracy, except for such didactic verse as they
cultures. It has constituted an extremely large and impor- sang in church...........
tant part of literature since the times of the ancient He-
brews and Greeks, with its beginnings in Midrashic texts
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