mimetic criticism, pragmatic criticism, expressive criticism, objective criticism

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Paper Name : literary theory and criticism

Assignment Topic: mimetic criticism, pragmatic criticism, expressive criticism, objective criticism

Sem : 1

Name: Solanki Pintu V

Roll No : 35

Enrollment No: PG15101037

Email: solankipintu1991@gmail.com

Submitted to :

       M.K. BHAVNAGAR UNIVERSITY

           Department Of English  

  v Mimetic Theory of Literary Criticism

The word mimetic

            The word "mimetic" comes from the Greek word "mimesis," the act of imitation. The mimetic theory of literary criticism places main importance on how well a literary work imitates life. In practice, mimetic critical theory often asks how well the literary work conveys universal truths and teaches the reader positive moral values and modes of personal conduct. While few would argue with positive moral values, the theory can be misused, such as moderating violence against those in difference.

Mimetic criticism

     The first theoretical coordinate is the mimetic concern. How does the poem relate to a model of external reality? Terms that fit within this approach are imitation, representation, mimesis, and mirror. Pay attention to metaphors -- the term "mirror" is the subject of Meyer Abrams' The Mirror and the Lamp. See also Hamlet's speech about art ---art "holds the mirror up to nature."

     Painting is another common mimetic term. Realism is also a mimetic theory, but it sometimes insists that art conveys universal truths, as opposed to merely temporal and particular truth. Dreiser and Hemingway may or may not render their own times and circumstances accurately, but Freud's reading of Oedipus Rex (and Ernest Jones' reading of Hamlet) claims insight into something universal about the human psyche.

     Samuel Johnson makes the same sort of claim when he argues that Shakespeare portrays universal character traits and moral values. Aristotle's take on mimetic is sophisticated-he argues that the universal can be found in the concrete. Sidney values art as an accurate representation of moral ideals and excellence. Plato, by contrast, says that poetry fails on mimetic terms-it has no access to the world of forms.

  v PragmaticTheory of Literary Criticism 

  Ø The word Pragmatic: 

       This second coordinate deals with the relationship between text and audience. The concern for the moral effects of art is often drawn from mimetic theory. Plato invokes the flawed mimetic capacity of poetry as the source of its moral contagiousness. "Psychological" critics like Wordsworth and Aristotle are pragmatists; they lay great stress on art's supposed therapeutic value.

  Ø The pragmatic criticism:

      The theories of this mode highlight the reader’s relation to the work. Towards the end of 19th century, pragmatism became the furthermost vital school of thought with in American philosophy. It continued the observer tradition of grounding knowledge on practice and stressing the inductive actions of experimental science.            

     Freud does the same. Another version of this psychological pragmatism is the one practiced by early aestheticians like Baumgartner and Kant, who wrote about the "aesthetic emotions."

      Pragmatic criticism is concerned, first andforemost, with the ethical impact any literary text has upon an audience. Regardless of art's other merits or failings, the primaryresponsibility or function of art is social in nature. Assessing, fulfilling, and shaping the needs, wants, and desires of an audience should be the first task of an artist.

      They theorized about the effects of poetic language on the mind, as does Krieger today. Aside from moral and psychological pragmatism, there is ideological or political pragmatism: cultural studies-oriented critics focus on gender, race, and class issues. They inquire into the extent to which works support or undermine particular ideologies. This is moral criticism with a political bent. One might ask, for example, what the effects of the portrayal of African-Americans were in "Gone with the Wind."

   v ExpressiveTheory of Literary Criticism  

  Ø The word Expressive:

     “Perhaps what one notices first about poetry is its sense of wonderment” (Wordsworth).Expressive criticism focuses on the artists emotion. It is well known among poets, for poetry is based on emotion. Expressive criticism describes poetry as an expression, as an over-flow of a poet’s feelings

  Ø Expressive criticism:

       This third coordinate has to do with the relationship between poet and work. Expressive theory would be the appropriate title here. Biographical criticism is expressive, as is romanticism and Freudian analysis. (See Ernest Jones on Hamlet's Oedipal feelings, which turn out to be none other than Shakespeare's own repressed Oedipal conflicts -- he attempts, says Jones, to deal with these conflicts by creating Hamlet.)

       Expressive theorists believe that individuality is something that must be conveyed in literary work. They believe in going above and beyond the objective theorists idea that a poet’s job as a poet is to stray away from personality. Objective theorists believe that criticism should focus on the poem and not the poet. What those critics don’t understand is that the poetics the poem.One of the big names associated with expressivecriticism is William Wordsworth. Wordsworth defines poetry as “emotion recollected in tranquility”. He says, “a poem is inner made outer”. Wordsworth was a naturalist. In any poem of his, that known fact becomes clear. He, himself, always plays a major role in his own poetry.

       Expressive writing has really developed since it wasfirst created. It is not only the main writing style of poetry, but it is now used in treatments, to help clients better understand their own emotions. The reason for this, is when something is expressive, it cannot be judged as fiercely as somewhat that is factual. Critics cannot have an influential opinion about how somebody feels.

      Other criticisms be likely to to restrain the status of the author while critiquing his or her work. Expressive criticism directs its focus onthe author. While expressive criticism is more likely to be used with poetry it is also valuable when critiquing novels and essays. Most people tend to focus on word choices and different styles, and mistakes that have been made, rather than why the author wrote the essay or novel, or even a short story. By focusing on the author, readers may better understand what they are reading.

  v   Objective Theory of Literary Criticism:

  Ø Definition of objective:

     objective criticism is constructive response based on balanced thoughts and facts rather than emotion and personal preference. The opposite of objective criticism is subjective criticism.

  Ø Objective criticism

 The fourth coordinate highlights the integrity and ontologically sound status of the work itself, without immediate reference to audience, poet, or external reality. Formalists practice this type of criticism.

            A term used to describe a kind of criticism that views the aesthetic object as self-ruling and self-contained. Because a work of art contains its purpose within itself (is, in Eliot's phrase, autotelic), analysis and assessment of it can take place only with reference to certain intrinsic standards -- form, coherence, organic unity (the interdependence of parts and whole)

                                   Objective study of literature appreciates “the work of art in isolation from all external points of reference, analyzes it as a self-sufficient entity constituted by its parts in their internal relations, and sets out to judge it solely by criteria intrinsic to its own mode of being” (Abrams, 1979). This theories assay to hinder from ‘the personal heresy’, ‘the intentional fallacy’, and ‘the affective fallacy’. Its doctrine in criticizing is ‘art for art’s sake’ (Abrams, 1979).

   The objective approach to literary work begins with a full description of it, if it is in the ground of poetry, it concerns thephysical elements or technical properties. The reader should try to elucidate the author's methods and meaning in an entirely objective way. It begins with the presentation of the physical elements of its literary work, about the length, the form, and etc. which become the basic information of it and proceeds to more complex information, in this case, the elements of content of the literary work, such as theme, setting, plot, characters,  point of view, and etc.

  v To sum up;

      Culler says that a literary work plays in different modes and has different content than its literal. A literary work is the creation and organization of signs which produces a human world charged with meaning (Culler, 1975: 189). This also signifies that readers always find the meaning of a literary work by comparing it to the real world in order to get the meaning. This perhaps sounds confusing, but it is the truth. A literary work, or in a broad sense a text, cannot be separated totally from ‘the property of our conceptual system’ about the reality. Interpreting therefore tends to be subjective. Thus, this is the importance of literature theory. Its aim is to make a convention of procedures for every reading so the result of it, the interpretation, becomes as objective as possible (Teeuw, 1983)

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