LIT 501

Contemporary Literary
Theories and Critical
Approaches
Judith S. Fetalver – Master of Arts in English
Major in Language and Literature
Topics Covered:

1 Dante Alighieri: A Letter to Can Grande Della Scala

2 Introduction to Neoclassicism

3 Sir Philip Sydney: An Apology for Poesy

 Dante
Alighieri: A
Letter to
Can Grande
Della Scala
 He first wrote in the common language at the
time (modern day Italian)
 He is regarded as the Father of the Italian
Language
 His work invited accessibility to a much
broader audience, as prior to this; all other
scholarly works were only ever written and read
in Latin or Greek.
 The Divine Comedy marks the endpoint of the
Middle Ages and the bridging into the beginning
of The Renaissance.
 He was also the first person to give an
interpretation about the afterlife.
 Dante was also one of the first poets to ever
write about love.
 A Letter to Can Grande Della Scala is a literary that serves as the introducti
on or preface of his Paradiso. It also explains how to read his works. The core of
the letter explains that his work (and any work of literature in reality) can be read
through four lenses:
 LITERAL – What it is?
 ALLEGORICAL – What the text means, cultural context?
 MORAL – What can we get out of reading it?
 ANAGOGICAL – What can we get in a spiritual sense?
Dante begins by stating that his host is magnificent, awesome, and great. He
then follows up by calling him “his friend”, and by justifying this label. Dante
justifies the friendship between him and the cardinal by saying that superior
and inferiors can be friends, the cardinal is awesome and Dante less so, and the
example is God and men, and kings and honest men of lesser station. Dante
says that the friendship is awesome and would like to praise della Scala by
giving him a copy of Paradiso.
Dante states that “the truth about a thing, which consists in truth as in t
he subject, is the perfect image of the thing as it is. Of those things wh
ich are, there are some which are absolute within themselves; there ar
e some which are dependent on something else through some relation
ship”

He then says about relationships that “if the concept of half is not known,
never will double be known, and the same with the others.” However, thi
s may also be applied to other things.

Dante explains that “there are six things to be looked at at the beginning
of any doctrinal work, viz. subject, actor, form, purpose, title, and the t
ype of philosophy. Of these there are three in which this part, which I
meant to dedicate to you, is different from the whole, that is, the subje
ct, the form, and the title; in the others it does not differ, as is obvious
to anyone who looks; and therefore, in the consideration of the whole,
these three ought to be looked at separately: this having been accompl
ished, the way will be open for the introduction of the part.”
Dante says his work is “polysemantic, that is, of many senses; the f
irst sense is that which comes from the letter, the second is that of t
hat which is signified by the letter. And the first is called the literal,
the second allegorical or moral or anagogical.”

He follows up by stating that “and therefore it is to be determined

about the subject of this work when it is taken literally, then about
the subject when it is understood allegorically. The subject of the
whole work, taken only from a literal standpoint, is simply the stat
us of the soul after death, taken simply. The movement of the whol
e work turns from it and around it. If the work is taken allegoricall
y, however, the subject is man, either gaining or losing merit throug
h his freedom of will, subject to the justice of being rewarded or pu
nished.”
He says that “the purpose of the whole as well as the part is to remove those living
in this life from the state of misery and to lead them to the state of bliss.”

He talks about form, saying that “the exposition of the letter is nothing but the revela
tion of the form of the work.”

The last interesting thing he says is that “rhetors often tell ahead of time what they ar
e going to say, so that they may make the mind of the listener receptive. But poets
not only do this, but also make some kind of invocation after this.”
Introduction
to
Neoclassicis
m
NEOCLASSICAL
 “neo” (new) + classical
 “period of Enlightenment”
 “age of reason”
 “era of logic”

 Literature of the age is concerned with “nature “ human nature, Supremacy

of reason.
 Unity in the works of all writes.
 The age is known as classical age.
 The period is marked by the rise of Deism, intellectual backlash against
earlier Puritanism and American’s revolution against England.
 Neoclassical literature is characterized by order, accuracy, and structure.
 Some popular types of literature included: parody, essays, satire, letters,
fables, melodrama, and rhyming with couplets.
The Neoclassical era in literature brought a sense of
decorum and stability to writers. There were rules to be
carefully followed, and there was structure to be upheld.
People praised wit and parody, as well. It was a time of
careful moral appearances, though appearances were
more valued than honesty.

THREE STAGES OF NEOCLASSICISM

The Neoclassical period of literature can be divided into three
distinct stages: the Restoration Period, the Augustan Peri
od, and the Age of Johnson.
Restoration Period (1660 – 1700)
 This period marks the British king’s restoration to the throne after a
long period of Puritan domination in England. Its symptoms include
the dominance of French and Classical influences on poetry and dr
ama.
 Restoration literature continued to appeal to heroic ideals of love an
d honor, particularly on stage, in heroic tragedy.

• Famous writers are John Dryden, John Milton, Sir William Temple, John L
ocke,
Jean Racine, Jean-Baptiste Poquelin(Moliere).
• Famous compositions are All for love and A Prologue and an Epilogue
by John Dryden.
Augustan Period (1700 – 1750)
 It is called Augustan because King George I wanted people to think
he was like Augustus Caesar.
 This period is marked by the imitation of Virgil and Horace’s literatu
re in English letters.

• Famous writers are Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift, Joseph Addison, Fran
cois-Marie Arouet de Voltaire.
• Famous compositions are Gulliver’s Travel by Jonathan Swift and Rape of
Locke
by Alexander Pope
Age of Johnson (1750– 1790)
 This period marks the transition toward the upcoming Romanticism
through the period is still largely Neoclassical. Much was happening around
the world politically, such as both the American and French Revolutions.
This time marked a transition in English literature from the structure and
formality of the Neoclassical writers to the emotional, ungoverned writings
of the Romantics.

• Famous writers are Samuel Johnson, Edward Gibbon, George Crabbe, Rob
ert Burns, William Cowper, Thomas Gray, Thomas Paine, Thomas, Jefferso
n, and Benjamin Franklin.
Famous compositions are Lives of Poets by Samuel Johnson, The Decline and Fall of
the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon, and Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard b
y Thomas Gray.
Sydney:
An
Apology
Stephen Gosson is best known for his attack on plays, poetry, and other arts
in The School of Abuse (1579), which evoked in reply a defense from Thomas
Lodge and Sir Philip Sidney's Apology for Poetry.

Stephen Gosson makes charges on poetry which Sidney answers.

The charges are:
1. Poetry is the waste of time.
2. Poetry is mother of lies.
3. It is nurse of abuse.
4. Plato had rightly banished the poets from his ideal world.
Sidney’s 'Apology for Poetry' is a work of genius, a rare and valuable critical docu
ment. Among the manifold achievements of Sidney as a critic one of the most import
ant is the introduction of Aristotelianism into England. Says Spingarn, “The introdu
ction of Aristotelianism into England was the direct result of the influence of the Itali
an critics; and the agent in bringing this new influence into English letters was Sir P
hilip Sidney.” His Defense of Poesy, "is a veritable epitome of the literary criticism
of the Italian Renaissance; and so thoroughly is it imbued with this spirit, that no oth
er work, Italian, French, or English, can be said to give so complete and noble a con
ception of the temper and the principles of Renaissance criticism." Without any deci
ded novelty of ideas, or even of expression, it can lay claim to distinct originality in it
s unity of feeling, its ideal and noble temper, and its adaptation to circumstance. Sid
ney is the Harold of Neo-classicism in England, but his treatise is also a piece of cre
ative literature romantic to the core.
Sidney's Defense of Poetry is the earliest attempt to deal with the poetic
art, practically and not theoretically. His judgments are based on contempor
ary literature and show ample of good sense and sound scholarship. It is not
merely empty, abstract theorizing: apart from the unities, and his dislike of
tragi-comedy, his judgments are not governed, to any great extent, by rules
and theories. His ultimate test is of practical kind like the power of poetry
to move to virtuous action. "The first sign of literary appreciation is to feel;
and not the least of Sidney's achievement as a critic was the early recogniti
on of that fact"—(Atkins). He has thus contributed to the appreciation of
literature in the concrete. His treatise is the key to an understanding of
Elizabethan poetry and poetic theory.'
Poetry is the source of knowledge and a civilizing force, for Sidney. Gossoon a
ttacks on poetry saying that it corrupts the people and it is the waste of time,
but Sidney says that no learning is so good as that which teaches and moves t
o virtue and that nothing can both teach and amuse so much as poetry does. I
n essay societies, poetry was the main source of education. He remembers anc
ient Greek society that respected poets. The poets are always to be looked up.
So, poetry is not wasted of time.

To the second charge, Sidney answers that poet does not lie because he never
affirms that his fiction is true and can never lie. The poetic truths are ideal a
nd universal. Therefore, poetry cannot be a mother of lies.
Sidney rejects that poetry is the source of abuses. To him, it is people who abus
es poetry, not the vice- versa. Abuses are more nursed by philosophy and histor
y than by poetry, by describing battles, bloodshed, violence etc. On the contrar
y, poetry helps to maintain morality and peace by avoiding such violence and bl
oodsheds. Moreover, it brings light to knowledge.
Sidney views that Plato in his Republic wanted to banish the abuse of poetry n
ot the poets. He himself was not free from poeticality, which we can find in his
dialogues. Plato never says that all poets should be banished. He called for bani
shing only those poets who are inferior and unable to instruct the children.
For Sidney, art is the imitation of nature but it is not slavish imitation as Plato views. Rather
it is creative imitation. Nature is dull, incomplete and ugly. It is artists who turn dull nature i
n to golden color. He employs his creative faculty, imagination and style of presentation to de
corate the raw materials of nature. For Sidney, art is a speaking picture having spatiotemporal
dimension. For Aristotle human action is more important but for Sidney nature is important.
Artists are to create arts considering the level of readers. The only purpose of art is to teach a
nd delight like the whole tendency of Renaissance. Sidney favors poetic justice that is possibl
e in poet's world where good are rewarded and wicked people are punished.

Plato's philosophy on ' virtue' is worthless at the battlefield but poet teaches men how to beh
ave under all circumstances. Moral philosophy teaches virtues through abstract examples and
history teaches virtues through concrete examples but both are defective. Poetry teaches virtue
by example as well as by percept (blend of abstract + concrete). The poet creates his own wor
ld where he gives only the inspiring things and thus poetry holds its superior position to that
of philosophy and history.
In the poet's golden world, heroes are ideally presented and evils
are corrupt. Didactic effect of a poem depends up on the poet's po
wer to move. It depends up on the affective quality of poetry. Am
ong the different forms of poetry like lyric, elegy, satire, comedy e
tc. epic is the best form as it portrays heroic deeds and inspires h
eroic deeds and inspires people to become courageous and patriot
ic.
In this way, Sidney defines all the charges against poetry and st
ands for the sake of universal and timeless quality of poetry mak
ing us know why the poets are universal genius.
References
http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/neoclassicalliterature-definition-characteristics-
movement.html#lesson
http://www.ruthnestvold.com/Augustan.htm
http://www.crossref-it.info/articles/398/An-introduction-to-Augustan-literature
http://neoenglishsystem.blogspot.com/2010/12/restorationperiod-1660-1700.html
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-the-age-ofjohnson.
http://neoenglishsystem.blogspot.com/2010/12/age-of-johnson-1744-1784.html
http://wwnorton.com/college/english/nael9/section/volC/overview.aspx