Lc 4

Literary Criticism
Dr. Abdel-Fattah Adel
Class (4)

Class (4) Items
•Ancient Critics
• Horace
• Longinus
• Plotinus

1. Realize the importance of the critic in literary
theory and criticism.
2. Explain the main ideas of the critic.
3. Discuss some ideas of the critic.
4. Explore the application of the critic’s ideas to
literature.
5. Relate the critic’s ideas to critical practice.
6. Criticize the critic’s ideas and critical practice.
Class (4)
Objectives
By the end of this part, you will be able to:

Class (4)
Questions
1. How important is Horace in literary criticism?
2. Horace focused on the practice of literature more than the
nature of literature. Explain
3. How was Horace’s concept of Imitation different from Plato
and Aristotle?
4. Who is a “good writer” from Horace’s point of view of?
5. How important is Longinus in literary criticism?
6. What is Longinus’ concept of “the sublime”?
7. What are the elements of “the sublime” for Longinus?
8. What is a “classic” from Longinus’ point of view of?
9. Explain the elements of “the sublime” and define its
elements in a literary work.
10. How important is Plotinus in literary criticism?

Importance of Horace
• Ars Poetica (The Art of Poetry)
• Horace articulated what became the
official canon of literary taste during
the Middle Ages, the Renaissance,
and much of the Neoclassic period.
• Even such literary masters as the
eighteenth-century scholar-poet
Alexander Pope could learn the
standards of good or proper
literature.

From
Philosophy
to Practice
Horace established the practical do's and
don'ts for a writer.
Horace opted for giving the would-be writer
practical guidelines for the author's craft.
He left unattended and unchallenged many
of the philosophical concerns of Plato and
Aristotle.
He was less concerned with metaphysics than
his predecessors.

Imitation
• Horace embraced the concept of
Imitation, but in a different way
from Plato and Aristotle.
• Plato and Aristotle decreed that
poets must imitate nature.
• Horace declared that poets must
imitate other poets, particularly
those of the past and especially the
Greeks.

The work of the writer
A Good Writer
should write
about
traditional
subjects in
unique ways.
should avoid all
extremes in
subject matter,
diction (word
choice),
vocabulary, and
style.
Should read
and follow the
examples of the
classical Greek
and Roman
authors.
For example,
because authors
of antiquity
began their
epics in the
middle of
things, all epics
must begin “in
medias res”.
should avoid
appearing
ridiculous and
must aim their
sights low, not
attempting to be
a new Virgil or
Homer.

Function of Literature
dulce et utile
• To be "sweet and useful"
• The best writings both teach and delight.
• To achieve this goal, poets must understand their
audiences; the learned reader may want to be
instructed, whereas others may simply read to be
amused.
• The poet's task is to combine usefulness and delight in
the same literary work.
• A poet's greatest reward is the adulation of the public.

LONGINUS
•Pseudo-Longinus
•First Century CE?
•Greek/Rome?

Imprtance
• De sublimitate (On the Sublime)
• One of the important texts in literary criticism.
• Started to be recognized from the 18th c.
• Longinus peppered his Greek and Latin writings with Hebrew
quotations, making him the first literary critic to borrow from a
different literary tradition than his own and earning him the title
of the first comparative critic in literary history.
• He was the first critic to define a literary classic.
• His critical method foreshadows New Criticism, reader-oriented
criticism, and other schools of twentieth-century criticism.

The Sublime
"the echo of
greatest of spirit"

Key Elements of
the Sublime
(1) the power of
forming great
conceptions.
(2) vehement and
inspired passion.
(3) the due formation
of figures, such as
word order and
appropriate audience.
(4) noble diction.
(5) dignified and
elevated composition.

The Sublime and
the Reader
• Longinus contends that all readers are
innately capable of recognizing the
sublime.
"Nature has appointed us to be no base or
ignoble animals [. . .] for she implants in our
souls the unconquerable love of whatever is
elevated and more divine than we.“
• When our intellects, our emotions, and
our wills harmoniously respond to a given
work of art, we know, that we have been
touched by the sublime.

A Classic
One who must possess a great mind and a great soul.Author
A text that must be composed of dignified and elevated diction while
simultaneously disposing the reader to high thoughts.Work
The reaction of a learned audience in large part determines the value
or worth of any given text.
Reader’s
Response

Explain the elements of “the sublime” and define its elements
in this poem.
The Eagle
BY LORD TENNYSON
He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring'd with the azure world, he stands.
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.

PLOTINUS
• 204-270 CE
• Rome

Importance
• The Enneads: fifty-four treatises
• Neoplatonism: clarify misinterpretations of Plato
• Alongside Plato and Aristotle, many scholars
consider Plotinus one of the greatest philosophers
of antiquity.
• Clearly, it is the writings and teaching of Plotinus
that form much of the Western perception of
Plato and his works.

The
One
• Plato mentions “The One” only briefly in
Parmenides, also referring to parts of this
concept, such as the Good, in the Republic.
• The One is "unique and absolutely
uncomplex" but also "absolutely
transcendental."
• Both to and from The One all things flow,
and it is the complete origin of everything.
• Humanity's goal was to achieve unity with
The One through contemplation and study.

Forms of
existenace
Three forms of
existenace which are
separate from The
One but also stem
from it.
Matter (physis)
The matter is the third and lowest mode of being for it is the lowest form of
existence.
Soul (psyche)
The Soul refers to the overarching Soul that runs through not only humanity
but also the entire creation.
Intelligence (nous)
Intelligence corresponds with Plato's realm of ideas. In this mode, people
comprehend ideas and concepts through the intellect, not the senses.

Literature
• Plotinus's complex philosophy becomes pivotal to literary criticism because
of its adoption and adaptation by many scholars and philosophers throughout
the subsequent centuries.
• In the fourth century, St. Augustine, accompanied by Boethius in the fifth
century, blended Plotinus's concepts of Neoplatonism with Christianity.
• The American transcendentalists Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David
Thoreau borrow and amend some of Plotinus's key concepts, incorporating
these ideas into the key assumptions of American Romanticism.

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