Copyright "by Frederick Beatty Batr.s'berry 195:-? THE IRONY OF OBJECTIVITY IK SEE NEW CRITICISM By FREDERICK BEATTY BAINSBIRRY A THESIS Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies of Michigan State College of Agriculture and applied Science in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of English 1952 THE IRONY OF OBJECTIVITY III THE NEW CRITICISM By Frederick B. Radns'berry A N ABSTRACT Submitted to tlie School of* Graduate Studies of Michigan State College of Agriculture and Applied Science in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of English Year 1952 r Ap p r o v e d 3T. B. Rainsberry ABSOBACT 01 UHE IROHY OP OBJECTIVITY III THE HE W CRITICISM A nev/ criticism 1ms arisen during the past twenty years which challenges traditional literary theory* Whereas the literary criticism previous to this generation had emphasized historical, "biographical, or Marxist theories as a "basis for aesthetic Judgment, the new criti­ cism would return the critic’s attention to the poem qua work of art a.s the proper centre of literary interpretation* Hie aim of this work is an exaninr-tion of the Hew Cxltics who have employed a metaphysical tra.ci.tion in theix' search for objectivity in :->oetrym The examination reveals that in their attempt to sharpen and to systematize their principles of criticism, they have ironically e-bsorbed the defects as well e-s the most dynamic qualities of meta­ physical idealism. The most living sources of this tradition have been Coleridge's Biogra-jhia Literrria and other philosopliical essays, Hegel's Phenonenolog:/ of M i n d , end Croce's Philosophy of the Spirit* To maintain the same spirit of objectivity in evaluation vhich the new criticism has sought in the study of poetry, an exegeticel method of paralleling the critical and philo sopliical texts has been employed* By Juxtaposition with the living tradition of idealism, the author reveals in his examination of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Crowe Hanson, Allen Tate, Cleanth Brooks, Kenneth Burke, and the Chicago Cri­ tics, persistent problems vAiich the metaphysical idealist must face in his search for objectivity* F. B. Rainsberry 2 The examination of J o h n Orowe Hansom reveals a basic irony in the search for system. The poetic object as well as the poet* s creative will are lost in the self-consistency of "the world's body". Ransom's symbol of ontological unity. As he tries to reaffirm his belief in the existence of a world of real things, his account of the creative will becomes simply naturalistic and the poetic object becomes materi­ alistic. Samuel Taylor Coleridge vigorously asserts the priority of the poet's creative will and deserts unhappy metaphysics when he recognizes that a system of thought will absorb the existence of the creative yjIII a s well as of the poetic object. Both A llen Tate and Clcanth Brooks show the some fear of system as did Coleridge. Instead of emphasizing Coleridge's voluntaristic theme of the poetic imperative, physical unity. they try to get along without a basic mete~ They place their emphasis on the reciprocal dynamic process between the poet anc. the poetic object. The strength and weals- ness of Tate's doctrine of tension anc. dramatic imagination is dis­ cussed along with Broolcs's more linguistic analysis of ’..it, paradox and irony. Kenneth B u r k e 's "dramatism" is a device employed to eliminate the dangers of monism. lu is shown how Burlre tries to relate G-. K. Head's dynamic social behaviorism to the dynamic phenomenology of idealism. In the end his enthusiasm for system turns from process to categories, from social behaviorism to dialectical materialism and both the poetic self and its object are lost in the same monistic unity. F. B. Rednsberry 3 In their interpretation of Aristotle, the llev Critics as idealists fail completely to comprehend the relation of The Poetics to Aristotle*s metaphysical system. of Aristotle, To illustrate the more consistent interpretation the doctrines of imitation an d of leather sis are restated. The Chicago Critics as Aristoteliens pre examined as the contem­ porary opponents of idealism in the nev; criticism. of their metaphysical and aesthetic positions, •■ranting. After a full analysis their theories are found ‘ I hey have selected Aristotle* s method -dthout his Metaphysics as a basis for their theories and their rationalism has in the end lodged them in the same epis temol o£ica-l difficulties vnlch confront the new criticism. In conclusion, the e:t-id.nption shows that <:ny strictly rational philosophical system \ 1 1 1 not £ive an account o_ poetic objectivity. The apprehension ox the poem as object is ultimately intuitive and any attempt to explain its existence by rational n :shods wrill result in the loss of both the poetic creator and his poem. ACKITOULEDGEIfEUTS The author is nuch indebted to Professor Arth/Ur James Marshall Smith of the ^Department of English at College under whoce direction this work was undertn.ken# Sta.te Kis penetrating analysis of the work during its progress, his en— thusiasm for the subject under discussion, his spirit of fellow­ ship and cooperation, provided springe of confidence and con­ stant inspiration# To m y friend, Bruce PI etcher At triage, I owe a deep per­ sonal debt for the care with which he read the manuscript# This work owes much to his genuine sensitivity for the experience of poetry, to his penetrating hut imaginative insights in criti­ cism, and to his sincere and thoughtful evaluation# From Professor Herbert Marshall McLuhan of St# Michael*a College in the University of Toronto, I hr.ve derived many cri­ tical insights during our fellowship in the summer of 1952# I am also privileged to quote from one of his unpublished essays on the nature of metaphor# I rindebted to my friend, Grant Murray Paul in who first stimulated my interest ir. the philosophy of George Herbert Mead me who gave valuable resistance in the conception of the chap­ ter on Kenneth Burke# E R R A T U I! throughout the footnotes, r e r d I~bld.« TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE I1TOSODUCTION 1 J O H N C R O W E R A N SOM: THE POETIC OBJECT 117 T H E W E B OF 11T E X T U R E M 11 C O L E R I D G E A N D TEE IRONY OF THE POETIC IMPERATIVE ^9 A L L E N TATE A N D CLEA17TH BROOKS: THE IRONY O F O BJECTIVITY W I T H O U T A METAPHYSIC 88 1* A l l e n Tate 2* Cleanth Br o oks K E N N E T H BURKE: T H E IRONY OF SYNECDOCHE 1. F o r m anc. A c t i o n in the Poetic Process 2* Burke's Debt to Mead's Social Behavior!sm 3. The Death of the Self in Burke's Dranati sn km L a n c u a ^ e as Social and Aesthetic Control 5. The I r ony of Synecdoche 88 110 128 123 135 160 178 T H E N E W CRITICISM A N D THE INTERPRETATION OF ARISTOTLE 199 T H E CHICAGO CRITICS A N D THE F A I L U R E OF R A T I O N A L FORK A S A PRINCIPLE OF OBJECTIVITY 218 1« The Bo.slc A t t a c k of the Chicago Critics on the "Nev/ Criticism" 2* R i c h a r d M c K e o n and the Misconception of Analogy 3* Elder Olson: The Failure of Rational F o r m as a Principle of Objectivity, h. Elder Olson: The Failure of Rational Fo r m as a Principle of Poetic C omrruni cati on 5m A l l e n Tr.te and Elder Olson: A contrast i n the Technique of Criticism 6 . Sym'oolism Versus Metaphor in Olson's Poetic Theory 7m Summary — Tie ^v.mdary of Idealism 218 230 2/:3 251 257 266 277 C INCLUSION - THE CIRCLING SPHERE 230 BI B L I O G R A P H Y 29^ P R E F A C E The a i m of this worlc is an. exsnin&tion of a ^ r o u p of critics who ■rve e m p l o y e d a meta p h y s i c a l tradition i n their search for objectivity n poetry. The e x a m i n a t i o n r e v e r l s -nd to systematize their principles that in their attempt to shrrpen of criticism, b s o r b e d the defects o f m e t a p h y s i c a l idealism. At they have Ironically the sane tine their sensitive intuitions h a v e p r o v i ded f r esh critical insights vciich hr.ve “cstored the status of the p o e m as an. aesthetic experience in literature, A l t h o u p h J o h n Crovre R a n s o m fc.ils to realise the ironic implications >f his nets physical .n iiis poetry. system, he does express a deep a n d sensitive irony The m e t a p h y s i c a l incompleteness of A l l e n lade's account >f tension as the instrument of dramatic imagination is fulfilled in the sritice .1 i n terpretation of his ovm Ode to the Confederate Pea.d,^- B y means }f his sensitive i n t u i t i o n h e excites an rv.’areness of the creative ex­ perience i n Ills poem. I f Glernth Broo’cn has p r o v i d e d no philosophical basis for his theme of p a r a d o x an d irony, he ins m a d e the reading of prose an d p o e t r y a significant experience. A l t h o u g h Kenneth Bur’:e' s "dr m a t ion" may tend to over-schemetize the poetic process, force u p o n the reader tained philosophical the experience of action i n poetry. he does The sus­ specula.tion of the Chicago Critics does not p r e ­ clude relevant a n d significant poetic insiyhts. 1 Tate, Allen, O n the L l m l t » ot P o e t n r. Selected Essays: 1 928-19^-8, lJev: Yorlr, Svrallov I'orrov:, 194-8, cf. ‘T a r c i s s u s as larcissus" pp. 14-8-262. The tone of metaphysical discussion is o f t e n p r o u d and exclusive* i the sense of system develops I n the m i n d the spirit of intolerance ■ows with threatening zeal. (o confidently, But if the stream of conviction flows the flood is quickly thwarted b y a n undertow which would .thdraw the prize of truth at the moment of possession. To temper this ithusiasn for absolute Judgment, an exegetical m e t h o d of paralleling ;xts has been employed. The vital element in this n e w criticism is >ntinunlly Illuminated by its Juxtnposi ti on with the living tradition ' idealism, dynamically expressed b y Coleridge In his poetic imperative , r Hegel in his phenomenology, and by Croce in his expressionistic esthetic. In the search for fairness and objectivity in this enterprise, ?.e can do no better than recall the significant h u m ility of one great etaphyslcisn who vzrote concerning his own much greater metaphysical ssay: f,It is difficult again for a man not to think: too much of his own pursxtit. The metaphysician cannot perhaps be too much in earnest with metaphysics, a n d he cannot, as the phrase runs, take himself too seriously. But the same thing holds g o o d with every other posi­ tive function of the u n i v e r s e . A n d tloe metaphysician, like other men, is prone to forget this truth. He forgets the narrow limita­ tion of his own special province, and, filled, b y his own uoor Inspiration, he ascribes to it an Importance not its due."^ 'o strive for the spirit if not the genius of such humility vrould be n enterprise worthy of the search. 2 Bradley, Francis Herbert, Ap'oearance and Reality, a. Metaphysical ssay. London, George A l len and Unvdn, Ltd., 1920, Preface, p.xiv. Stringer: O heavens, shall they easily persuade us that absol ute being is devoid of mot i o n a n d life a n d soul a n d intelli­ gence? That it neither lives nor thinks, hut abides in awful sanctity, mindless, motionless, fixed? Ph.ea.et etna: That w o uld be a terrible admission, Plato* Stranger* The Sophist* "Acting disturbs the peace of the substance, a n d awakens the essential Being; a n d b y so doing its simple u n i t y is divided into parts, a nd opened u p in the mani­ fold w o r l d of natural powers a n d ethical forces* The a c t is the violation of the peaceful earth; it is the trench which, v i v i fied by the blood of the living, calls f o r t h the spirits of the departed, who are thirs­ ting for li f e and who receive it in the act i o n of self— consci ousness* M Hegel: Pheno m e n o l o g y of M i n d "Being has no coming-into-being a n d no destruc­ tion, for it is whole of limb, without motion, a n d without end* A n d it never Was, nor Will Be, because it Is now, a Whole altogether, One, continuous; for \jhat cre a t i o n of it will y o u l o o k f o r ? " P armenides of ELea 1 CHAPTER I I17TROUUO TI Oil The h is t o r y of the N e w C r i t i c i s m has still to he written. A s yet, no lar with the c o m p r e h e n s i o n of the tradi t i o n a n d wit h e n thusiasm for n e w pectives on the h i s t o r y of E n g l i s h L i t e r a t u r e has appeared. M a n y modern lrrs "believe that the N e w C r i t i c i s m arose as a re.' ction sgf.inst the ethical iiisn of Pr.ul Elmer M o r e a n a Irving Babbitt. not the historical, biographical Others see it es a reaction or m a r x i s t thebries of l i t e r a t u r e "but recognis e that its r o ots are deep in the h i s t o r y of our culture. Those nents who h a v e a t t e m p t e d to discover the sources of the N e w Criticism ; p r o v i d e d answers w h i c h are too simple. .physical R o n a l d S. Crane'*' a-ttributes the source of the N e w Criticism to Coleridge. There ic 1 ‘ ttle doubt !oleridge*s influence "but it will he part of the hurden of this essay to i that the errors of the N e w Criticism as well rs their creative conoribu— is arise from the total scheme of metaphysical idealism as i t has developed "i P l a t o to the present dry. Crane and his g r o u p do the N e w Criticism a d d e r r ole injustice b y oversirr lifying the ontology of the N e w Critics p oint where they are made to appear rr pale shadows of Coleridge. to 2 1 Crane, R.S., ”C l e anth Broobs; or, the B a nkruptcy of Critical M o n i s m ”, srn Bhllolo.my. vol. 45, 1545, pp. 226-245. The controversy between Chicago Crirics a n d the N e w Critics is set forth more' sharply in a sequence two m'ticlesJ Trowbridge, Hoyt, ”Aristotle an d the 'New C r i t i c i s m * ”, and som, J.C., "The bases of C r i t i c i s m ”, The Sewanee R e v l c v , vol. 54, 1944, 537-571. 2 I b i d . p . 226. 2 ior-gh Crane deals specifically with. Cleanth Brooks, his are intended to apply to the whole group. c h a r g e s a gainst Accusing ^ r o o k s of r e d u c i n g cri— 1 theory to one principle denoted by irony, Crane sa.ye, 5, he is not alone among the *new critics.* **In this, it is The terms 3n a y differ, hu t the i tendency toward a monistic reducti 010 of cri tical c 020c e p t s Is maorif es t 1n in Tate* s doctrine of * tension* in John Crowe Hanson*s p r i n c i p l e of * te»;, * in Robert Penn Warren* s obsession w i t h symbols, a b o v e lards* Pnvlovian mythology concerning the *behavior* all i n I .A. of w o r d s . :h Mr. Brooks inspires thus become doubts about the g e n e r a l 1 earning. and I ided his I shall treat him therefore rather as a s i g n s t a t e of criti- than as an indivi— take him in place of any of the others, partly b e c a u s e position in full most recently, The doubts and partly b e c a u s e the h e has e*posit i o n it- *, as I shall indicate, is set forth in language which a t once af f o r d s an r clue to what happened in critical theory in our age a n d at the same tine rophetic, however unconsciously, m a y y e t talce. of the new direction i t 3 It vrf.ll be a. significant conclusion of this essry that there is no such sy clue to what happened in critical theory in cor age." If the N e w Cri— .am has failed it is not because it has tried to imitate C o l e r i d g e success- 75 it is because the complex synthesis of the i d e a l i s t i c .od to resolve the paradox of poetic objectivity. not only Coleridge but Plato, H e r d , tradition has Crane* s fa i l u r e to see Croce, Bosanauet, F . H . B r a d l e y have their influence on the New Criticism, can be attributed o n l y to a near— itedness which is th.elinitn.ti on of his own school of c r i t i c i s m . It will h o major task of this essay to demonstrate the broad and. significant 3 Ibid. p.227, see Crane, R.S., "Cleanth Brooks; or, T he B a n k r u p t c y of -icrl Monism", Crane, R.S., "I.A. Richards -n lb' Art o f Interpret?tion", m, Elder, "A Symbolic Reading of the Ancient I:a•"iner,,. ning of the whole tradition of metaphysical idealism for the new criticism* In the simplest statement, the H e w Criticism may he said to aim at a ne w hasis on the work of art as a work of art first and last* In spite of dis- eements within the school as to the nature of poetry, its chief exponents ee universally that the poem shall he the center of the critical evaluation* thetic judgment must generate from the essence of the poem under examination all attempts to interpret poetry in terms of biography or morals or any er irrelevant convention are cast aside* To emphasize the specific essence of the poem as the locus of aesthetic ue and not the poet or some clear and distinct idea is not a new theme in ernry criticism* Whet i s n e w is the fact that a sufficiently strong and nl movement has arisen in our time to counter successfully the conventions Romanticism as they were rooted in the dualism of Rene Descartes* After cartes poetic experience and, indeed, poetry itself was split up into idea feeling. Instead of poems bein'; objects of our aesthetic contemplation poss- ing intrinsic poetic value, distinct ideas. they became media, for the communication of clear Metaphor was merely a colorful accident to ideas which mitted looser comprehension on the part of less able intellects* work of the Romantic theorists, Young, In all \7ordsworth, Shelley and others "the Cartesian mentality prevails* although the doctrine may be v/nispered and sometimes only supposed, the absolute and ultimate referent of meaning is the idea, not being* Poetry is strung down from ideas, and emotion or seas ^-knowledge, admittedly present in the poem, come in somewhat surrepti­ tiously being inexplicable under the terms in which the idea, is analyzed* To sperk of these other things as integral to the organ?.zation of the iaeu 3 themselves would be profanation of the intellect and perversion of language*" A Ong, Walter J*l"The Meaning of the New Criticism, .20, 19*4-3. p.l9*4-« The Modern Schoolmans * One Is fundamentally correct la his estimate whan he suggests that the V«v ltlolaa vlihsd to c«t away tram, tha anbjeetlrism of most alaataaath century terary criticism* Vow Critics would ahara (hag's conrlctlon aa Ulustratad low* * Za a passage which will ha recognised aa typioal, eaaMntlng on Elng'o exquisite "Brequy on tha Beath of a Balorad VLfe"* Bogfd (James &• Boyd* ELonemte o* M mTft M ! f ,» Qrltlolt (8th ed*S Bov Tories Harper and Brothers• 1887) •(p*113) • Aron tha number of adltloaa we eaa Judge tha po­ pularity of this textbook.) haa such things aa this to says •ifcat a last good night" la this! and ohl idiat a j y "good morrow!" to last for atamity, than auoh partners awoke from tha same had* In tha resurrection of the Just! la there tha "men horn of women"* who has lored a irowan* and lost whoa ha lored* and lamented whom ha haa lost* that not f a d In tha depth of hia spirit all tha tenderness and truth of these ddffashloned ooupletsi Z dare not offer a oraiment upon then* laat Z should disturb tha sanctity of repose dilch they are calculated to Inspire*" Ihoed with tha complexity of organisation In tha poem* the commentator throws up his hands* Zastead of explaining tha poem* ha tries roistering aa emotional reaction* rather lass successfully than the poem Itadf does*" * Zt Is this subjeetlre Inadequacy whloh the Vew Orltlclsm would oorract* e cone sen of tha critic Is ooneaired to ha In tha "tlringhood" of poetry and t vlth taste In any personal or subjeetlre sense of that ward* that quality as tha poen contain or generate which guarantees Its objectivity and which nders It as an external aesthetic entltyt The logical question of the metaphysical basis of thlnghood or objeotlrlty Is basic Interest of the Hew Orltlclsm* In what sense can we speak of external ijeets as real and Independent entitles free to create a specific or essential (pact upmn the obserrerT Such a significant question has caused the Vev Critics * look V»oV rery far into the literary and aesthetic traditions of Western ilture to examine the greatest metaphysical systesm whloh hare attempted to 5 resolve the paradox of objectivity* Far from being "new", the H e w Criticism Is largely a revival of great literary tre.dition of the past fron the Middle &ge 3 and from the Renaissance which have necessitated a reorientation of our views concerning the history of literature and the study of literary forms. The attempt is being made to make a ra-synthesis of poetry which enables the poem to exist as a specific whole with its own intrinsic formal essence. The New Criticism tries to correct the mistaken notion that a poem is an ornamented idea or concept. The school has tried to bridge the gap between the poet and his experience of external objects* Metaphor becomes a means of fusion and of total communi­ cation and not a sentimental expression of the poet*s subjective experience* "As the •new criticism* took over the direction of affairs, the subjects made to bear the weight of its investigation were such things as metaphor, "meaning" in its largest sense and various manifestations, metre considered not as a. mathematical abstraction but as a nervous stimulant, ambiguity in poetry, and the behaviour of words in conversational usage — with questions of imagery running through all these things* These subjects lie on the borderline between sensory apprehension and intellection, and thus although its separate parts have other aspects, in its ne w respect for the organisation of poetry in terms of "total meaning" — that is, in terms of its total communication, sensory and intellectual, regarded as a unit, the new criticism differs from what had gone before and becomes a single movement*"® This essay will be concerned chiefly with the N e w Criticism as it developed from the idealistic tradition* Various attempts have been made to identify this group and to indicate its origins* The task here will be to show how the metaphysical and epistemological tools of philosopliic 6 ibid, p* 2 0 2 idealism have been used to defend -the principle of objectivity in poetry# The school includes critics whose i n t e r e s t ranges fl*om semantics to the mystical quell ties of imagination, f r o m the ideals of logical consistency to those of spiritual unity hut in -the end there is revealed a metaphysical quality which is common to them a l l # these New Critics defend their c a s e It will be the task here to show h o w for objectivity and to study the nature of their success and failure# In the name of accurate d e m o n s t r a t l o n a careful exposition of the aesthetic position of each of the critics e x a m i n e d has been undertaken# As the exposi­ tion develops implicit comparisons a x e revealed and characteristic weaknesses of the critics* position as p h i l o s o p h i c a l idealists ere discussed# this essay will examine the attemp-fc Specifically of the idealistic group within the n e w cri­ ticism to provide a basis of o b j e c t i v i t y for poetry. It will be found in every case that the paradox of o b j e c t i v i t y is manifested in the inevitable con­ flict between a rational m e t a p h y s i c a l object upon existence. Y/hat is the s tatus of a poetic object if it is the function of the dialectical p r o c e ss What is the status of the poem qua system and the insistence of the poetic to reduce all existence to absolute unity? w o r k of art if the critic insists upon its intrinsic aesthetic quality as an o b j e c t while at the same tine calling the poem a manifestation of Spiritual U n i t y ? critic in the attempt to make M s his chief inspirat?.on from Hegel *a It will be shovn how the new i/ny along this perilous course has derived -treatment of the concept or idea as a "concrete universal" and Groce* e t r e a t m e n t of aesthetic as a- science of 7 m r M t l o B 1* ^ 2a its more djrando fora this «plct«Mlocloal thesao la foand i Hegel's Phenomena flgy ^ ad of itoolf — idiere eoueloasMts is both of tho ohjoot "being-for-another* and "belng-for-itself"• for Hegel* eat* arlence &o a dialectical process by whloh It becomes aware of aa object in op» coition to itself* As oooa as consciousness* which eabraoea both itself sad to object* becomes identical with its ova essence, it sill have attained to bsolute knowledge* S m s each consciousness of self sad object at tho lord f sense certainty cancels Itself as soon as it aohleres truth* giving **7 to be higher* nore universal yet never losing its concreteness* b e Absolute is sown not la sad for itself alone but rather as the result of a development hrarugh the oansoiousneos* The Hew Oritles examined here rarely if ever apeak of the Absolute or Hegel (its creator) was the death of art* Bat they are interested la the ynamic interaction of the poetic self with the object of its poetic rmntom latlon aad they show la & highly ingenious if not creative fashion how the ntrlnsle quality of the poetic object is cornualoated without loss of the •oem*s aesthetic independence or of the poet1a creative will* She influence of [agellaa and Orocean idealism on the Hew Orltlclsm will be demonstrated here 'or the first time in aa effort to show its strength aad weakness as aa onto* ogy for poetry aad criticism* 7 Hegel* G. ¥• I*, r^r pf m*ui translated with aa Introduction ad Kotos by J* V* Baillle* (Second Sdltlon)* London! George Allen sad Palsfln* ltd** 1933. - 8lh pages* and* Qrooe* Benedetto* /Aif yiffto As Science of n*gg«sslon ind General T^mmlatlc translated by Douglas Ainslle* (Second Bdltlon)* London* IftcKHlan and 0o*» Ltd** 1929* 503 pages* 8 If the orltle who follow tho load of aa ldoollotle aetapfayslo la his oooreh r aa ontology ot poetry faao difficulty la dofwdlag tho poem as aa object also faoes tho difficult task of preserving tho Independence of tho post’s 11* Coleridge deliberately forossore ontology wlhan It threatened to to tho will of tho poet* As oao follows tho subtle adad of Oolarldgt throtgh 0 analysis of his oroatlTe ls^laatloB oao discovers a flao sensitivity far ems as poasis aad a profound awaroaoss of thepvyehology of poetic oroatloa* was a tribute to his philosophical Imagination that ho saw tho pitfalls of ying to explain poetic objectivity la toms of aa objective philosophical stoa* la spite of tho paradox Involved ho assorted tho ultimate authority the will If necessary at the eagpease of tho poem as aa object* It is for As reason that Coleridge Is significant for tho Sow Crltlclsa and not because lo new critics have flailed to emulate his highly Individualistic theory of agination* Long after Coleridge the problem of the role of the poet as creator ’ Imitator has been revived In the penetrating studies of the new criticism* > \dtat extent must the poet be the real sooroe of poetry and to what extent » the role of the poet that of aa • imitator" or a representing agent of what 1 specifically the essence yf aa external obJeotT Hollowing the example of Hegel* and of Croce who purported to have saved at ms living In Hegel’s dootrine ® the new or1ties have devoted much ore* tlve effort to the dynamic relation between the poet aad his objeot* fixey ire attempted to desarlbe the eplstemology of poetry through Its characteritic modes of language aad metaphor* Star tram being the ornamental 5 Benedetto Crocs* Mhat la Living and Shat Is Bead In the PMlosorflaTat MtfSL* tr.f*ron the origin?.! text of the third Italian edition^.91 ^ Inslie, London, Ilr.cMillf'ii and Co.,Ltd. 1915,21? pp. by Dou^ls-s 9 imitation of a oloar aad dlatlnot idea* both language aad metaphor ara mads bo significant of that fusion between tha poat and tha arant dasoribad which itltutaa tha objectivity of tha poem itself* 8a far as tha process is mads iado tha issua of tha subjaotiva — objaetira controversy is not raised* Only x tha oritio is foroad to draw a systomatlc conclusion to his metaphysical nature does the paradox of objectivity reveal itself and one is left with r an intuitive awareness of a subtle imaginative experience* Aa the course of tha demonstration advances, tha question is inevitably ladi are ontology and aesthetics or poetics mutually exclusive? Oia Chicago ties or the Chicago Aristotelians have engaged in some sharp controversies i their opponents in the lew Criticism on this point* Explicitly they have ranced ontology aa a basis for poetry* Plaining to derive from Aristotle only »etlc method* Yet in their search for a poetic science they have automatic- Ly raised the question of the reality with which a poetic science must be lerned* Learned and rigorous though their critioal discipline nay be* it L be seen that they have not escaped the very issue they would avoid* Zf alogy and aesthetics are mutually exclusive then a new aesthetic scepticism t be the order of our day* Zt will be the burden of this essay to show that if ontology aad aesthetics not to be mutually exclusivet if language and metaphor are not to be re­ ed to one basic trope which signifies only the unity underlying all existences the creative will and the object of its creation* the posm* are both to exists the poet poem are not to be lost in one whirling vortex of tha idealistic Clutes then a new course must be followed which will allow the paradox of 10 lectlvity to "be the means of revealing the essence of the poem and not to the instrument of its destruction* 9 9 Of* the suggestion of a compromise between the two schools within the ■Criticism. Blaclrntur, R.P.,MThe Lion and the Honeycomb^ (The Hudson Review. .3. Winter, 1951. P P . W - 5 0 7 * IX OHAPTK XX JQBV O E O U RAHSOMS THX POETIC OBJECT xv fntTT w oor ■tzxtubs ” Significant theorists of the Boasntic period such as Coleridge, VoardUsworth Keats, had concerned themselves with tho state of the poet's Bind in t h e net creation* They had sought to restore ae sooh restraint as possible frosi tha id of the poet so that his imagination night penetrate to the unexploar^dL depths his subjective passion* Xn their theory, the poem, was a projection o f tha tlat's aind aad any objective reality the poem night hare oould not h o ogulehed from the poet's own state of Bind* din- She poet concerned himseCLf with, e Semantic agony of those who had fallen much upon the thorns of life* She mantle poet was more concerned with how the world of nature affeeted h i s than was in giving any account of beauty or truth Inherent in nature itself. He s more concerned about his imaginative treatment or coloring of the o b j e c t his contemplation than he was abcut the intrinsic beauty of the objeoh itself* is this remolding of the soheme of things nearer to the heart's deslnr« hn Crowe Sanscm seeks to disparage* Poetry for him is a reaction froam ideellty i which the poet recognises the inner reality of the external world* P a r from taking to establish the identity of the poem with the poet. Hansom seelos to nd the nature of the objective, concrete element in the poem itself* As a part of the modem reaction against the Romantic movement, m o s t 11 ter­ ry effort was directed to the re-establishment of the reality of the e x t ern al world* Valve realists like James T* Parrell, Edgar Lee Masters, OoarX Sandarg, sought to capture the essence of the local American scene by a imi ng at an 12 qpirleal r«grM«iitat&oa of nature aad of sooiety* She roallat of tho •20,a id *30*o « m uudooa to avoid ooaoarn with hlo private Inner world of tho Lad* Bat although tho modern roallat roatralaod tho flight of tho laagiaatioa » could aot oaoapo tho ehargo of subjectivity* Since ho laalatod on hlo soasoa i tho only aoaaa of apprehending tho real world* any ordor whloh night rooult i hlo writijg would cone inescapably firoa hla own mind* Lclal tIov Boeaaao of hla super- of tho aaturo of reality* hlo attesjpts to achieve order aad font sre doomed to failure* Hoaoe the real olala to dlatlnctloa which auch worka >aaoaa la tho preclaloa with which they alrror tho laagiaatioa* She adalrera of Coleridge*a theory of tho laagiaatioa In tho 19th )th eoaturloa carried to tho lladt tho Idea of Kant that judgments of taato nre no determining ground la a universally applicable formula* Am Kant *ld* "with regard to tho representation whereby aa Object la given* the OrlLque of Baste Itself la only subjective! via* It la the art or science of ro­ wing the entual relation of the understanding and the Imagination In the Lven representation (without reference to antecedent sensation or concept)! snsequently their accordance or discordance* to rules* Lth regard to their conditions*" ^ of detemlag then Poetry could then* la no sense* be lad ta­ lon of what Is real In nature* since reality would seen to lie only In tho oet*s knowing Bind* fhe analysis of tho poem* the painting or the statue erred only to show that the lm.owS.edge of beauty is a subjective judgnent of aBte* Both the Bosnntlc idealist and the naive realist failed to provide any 1 Kent! Critique of Aesthetic edited and translated by Janes reed Meredith* Oxford* at the Clarendon Press* 1911* pp*lhl—2* Mils for tho objectivity of poetry because they both nditd * false issue* is separation of the poet’s knowing nind from the thing he eoatesQlateo is Hrtain to end in scepticism* Zf we follow the lead of the Boaaatles* the >em will hare reality only in the poet’s mind* Zf we follow the nalre realist* >v shell the poet ever come to know an external world of which he can neror he idopendantly consolone* Benson begins his attack on the Bomantle tradition by pointing to this ilse separation of the knowing mind from the thing ihich it tamvs* He o W Borres that this tendency to separate knowledge of truth fTam truth Itself id to confusion in the moral aad religious world as well as in the realm of istheties* Am Bomaatloism separated the poet’s orsatire genius from the ob- ®ct of hie creation* so the Puritan had separated morality from religion aad asthetio* ■ •five splitting up of the moral-beautiful compound for the sake of the pmre moral article is visibly at work in the Yew Testament* aad in the bourgeois cult of plainness in seventeenth century in the finicky private life of a Puritan moralist like Kant* aad today in moral or sociological treatises aad authors idxich neither exhibit nor discuss charm* ■ 2 B d i separation of thought aad content* so characteristic of the modern artesiaa mind is revealed in science aad busineas ae well aa in aesthetics nd religion* Puritanism as Hansom describes it* is very much at home la the deuces aad the world of busineas tdiere pure aad unconditioned principles of fficiency* technological improvement* aad mailmm productivity hold full sway* 2 Hansom* John Crowe* Bia Harld’s Body. Hew Tork* Charles Scribner A 8ons* 938* pp*65-66* 1« separation of thought froa content in hoth the Bosmtntlo 1— mlnatilun and e Puritan mind resulted in the denial of any objective quality in poetry* defence of hie refusal to separate the poetlo act from the poem created* nsom sayst "She effect which we actually reoeire from poetsry is not that of an aggre­ gate or series or mechanical mixture of distinct properties hat only the sla^e effect of a compound* Xh that erent the properties mill exist se­ parately only in r aa Baneom calls It* this "sustained e ff or t of ideation* • • le covered up uxd eomnmnlcatea ItseXf only on a sabtLlml nal plane of consciousness" hy aeani >f which the eaqperlenoed reader dlstlngniahee 'between "a reallea shamelessly passing for poetry11* sued *a vall-plaaned b u t blundering poetry*" 9 If poetry Li to he reel* its laages most not* In the end* h e llluatrat1re merely of Idem* Che objectivity of p o e t r y doea not lie In i t s Ideate* "The way to obtain the true Dingllchlcelt of a formal dinner or a landscape or a beloved p erson la to approach the ohjeet ats such, and In hudlltyt then It unfolds a nature which we are unprepared for if we have pat oar trust In the elmpOLe Idea which atteapted to represent it*" 1 Tran his discussion of physical poetry (the poetry of things) and of Pistonic poetry (the poetry of ideas) Ransom turns to metaphysical poetry vhloh leala with the miraculous or supernatural* Here Ransom la attempting to des* sribe the intrinsic essence of a poem In Intuitive language* He would get at sn ontological essence which la neither sensuous nor rational and one which the reader bee ones aware of only after the repeated perception of identity among things or In this case* among poetic objects* 9 1° Ibid* TU120. Ib^df p*12fe. "8peolfioally, th« mlraeullsm arlits idian th« poet dlsoovers "by analogy* an identity between objects which, is partial* though it should be consider­ able* and proceeds to an Identification which is complete*” ^ like the sinUe the identity peroelred does not lie in a simple parallel of eas* Sever should the metaphor be developed so literally that it is capable meaning only at one level of knowledge* She difference between the 17th aad th Oentnries depends upon their use of metaphor or simile* m As the one period pithy and original in its poetlo utterance so the other was prolix aad pre- etable* Aad so by example one may compare the rich suggestiveness of nne'e conceits as compered with the vague and sentimental didacticism of rdsworth in "Die Character of the Happy Warrior!* Zf poetry is to have an ontology then its ontology will closely resemble at of morals or religion* ”l*om the strict point of view of literary orltlolsm it must be insisted that the alraeullsm which produces the humblest conceit is the same m±raeullsm which supplies to religions their substantive content* • • • Zt Is the poet aad nobody else who gives to God a nature* a form* faculties* aad a history; to the God* most comprehensive of all terms* Which if there wore no poetlo impulse to actuallse or "find" Him* would remain the driest aad deadest among Platonic ideas* with all Intension sacrificed to infinite extension*" • some modern theologians the idea that God*s existence depends upon the poet ruld seem heretical* Hansom is saying that the reality which the poet perceives i that which manifests God's existence* She poet idxo sings only of the spacious moment with all its order and design can be accused of oreating a gigantic Lbjeetlve scheme* 11 Ibidi p*139L 12 IbldJ p*l40. Such an account of the external world can leave no room for 19 at all. Bat as the poem "leaves us looking, marvelling and revelling in thick dinglich substance that hac Just received its strange representation" n we do know about "a God who has his being in the physical world as well in the world of principles and abstractions." stance which poetry a n d religion have active It is in common. It this thick dinglich is because of this quality that poetry is said to be a metaphysical affirmation, the consequence of wixich "is to convince the reader that the living spiritual thing which they (the poets) analogize in physical terms is real and important though not susceptible of diefinition by the determinate sciences; which is not a dire but a blessed consequence." 13 Hr on the above account, ical basis for poetry. erlies all things. we can see that Hansom tries to provide an onto— He has described a basic techrr! q u a or order which Technique involves not only things but also the dramatic m which selects them and brings out their appropriate qualities relating parts a whole. Technique was "the sustained effort of ideation", ielf only on a subliminal plane of consciousness. communicating Throughout his discussion poetry, he urges that "the poet must find his way back to those whole states of mind in vdiich the world is originally experienced r-nd from which every pure intellectual achieve uent had to take its start. "I**' is in this whole in which images inhere. The body of metaphysical poetry "is not content with the concepts, but is constantly stopping to insert or attack the particular!ty which is involved in images; a procedure which might be called the imaginative realization of the concepts."15 13 Ransom, J.C.^The Making- of a Modernr The' Southern Review, vol.l ,1935-^t P.3 14 Ibid. p.872. 15 Hansom, J.3., Honey a nd Gall, The Southern Review, v o l .6,1940-41, p.10. 20 is within this more or less logical Whole that the particular!ty of poetry is "be discovered* "The particularity is inexhaustible* and if held under observation it offers plenty of apt images* These do not conflict with thought, but only displace it momentarily or, even, realize in Ransom reveals M s ontological position when he speaks of 11the noun in try, the substantival whole*" The poet is able to suggest the nature of real— , "the irreducilllity of the object as a whole by citing some perfectly in.ctable part*" It is against this background of ontology that Ransom discusses objectivity* means by facts or particulars "the invincible contingent texture of a situe— n*" He is in sympathy with the idealist*s passion for real or natural action he wants to keep the substantival or ontological quality of the object her than any pure universal* "To be vivid is to have special and substantival character wMcJt is excessive, or goes beyond the general occasion, so that actually we cannot attend to it without suspending the rule* To be vivid importantly, and to a degree that strikes with an awe of substantival nature, is doubtlbss to be magni­ ficent; it is an effect unprovided for in tidy discourse; and it is the effect in poetry upon which religion capitalizes* is this union of poetry and religion in ontology that culminates in the r&;sentation of the World*s Body* ’ r. poem; Sturcture in a formal sense is not enough substantival local texture as its bod;/- is also necessary* 16 Ibid, p.12* 17 Ransom, J*C.,“The Irish, The Gaelic, and the Byzantine, The Southern Review L.7, l ^ l - t e , p *5^5* 21 Ransom haa given varied statements of his meaning of ontology in poetry* a poet and a literary critic his p rimary aim is to give an account of what objective and particular in poetry* He wishes to begin and end with that ility of Dinglichlceit which enables the poem to exist by its own power over i above any conceptual, historical or biographical account which might be given* ; there would seem to be an important distinction to be made between a speci— : Dinglichkeit which la the poem and the general “thick dinglich substance” .ch. poetry and theology share in common* Without the specific quality of God a. Creator the ontology of being leads to pantheisms without the specific iglichkeit of the poem itself, the critic will be left with only a poetic solute and the specific existence of the poem will have eluded him* 3Tor uiple, we have seen that Ransom generally places texture or technique prior any rational or emotional content* Yet he can write such an apparently cozw ?dictory statement as follows* "The poen is not a poem at all without Its free poetic •texture*, of cause; but its texture is incidental to its main structure which is scientific; b o that I should have to concede that the poem is really achieved under the patronage, or perhaps we should say the unwilling auspices, of scien— tific discourse*" 'e he seems tc have reversed his position and instead of structure being pre­ led by texture he has texture preceded by structure* Indeed it Is difficult to conceive how either of these terns could convey the idea of objectivity* ;:ture as a term fails to convey the Idea of specific particularity as the rose "thick dinglich substance" failed to convey the idea of Dinglichkeit* 18 Ransom, J*C*, "Positive and Near— Positive Aesthetics,’ The Kenyon view. vol*5» 19*0» p«^46* 22 Z& spite of this failure* which la the failure of the Idealist* Sanson ijects somewhat vigorously the ldeallatle conceptualism of the abstract unlveril* Be does not see that In the end his ovn attempt to eapCLaln essences Is as xtologically Inadequate as was that of Hegel aad of Orooe* In several places* uxeosn has attached Hegel as a "Platonist" In his redaction of poetry to the itlonal consistency of a logical thole* By his own confession he says "Che Heo-Hagellans* for Instances It Is from them that X have the Impression of having reoelved ay fullest understanding of what Is Implied In a per­ ception* ■ » adds* of course* 1 or even the Greek aesthetlolaas* with their dootrlae of Imitation — a term meant to confer upon the artistic laeges at least the dignity of trutlw fulness* * 19 Hegel wrote "that It Is not the Iflfla aq gqfih* * * the iMftrrflWI of the artist,which creates a poetical content* under conditions* that Is* In which the Imaginetlon grasps the same content In such a way that It Is therewith associated In language* words and their more beautiful conjunction as human speech* Just as In other arts we find It present In the architectonic form*” 20 uxsom would* of course* concur with this Insofar as poetry and Imagination seeks > maintain a middle course between the abstract universality of pure thinking id the concrete corporeality of matnrial objects* r which we secure the particularity of objeots*” Imagination Is "the organ But for Bansom this particu­ larity consisted In "Images" rather than In "Ideas"* He felt that the ooncrete 19 Bansoml^e World* s Body* P*157. " ” 20 Hegel. G* ¥. osonhar of line Art. tr. T.P.B* Ctaaston. London* * Bell and Sons* Ltd** 1920* Vol*^, p*ll* 23 ea in Hegel (the general Idea or universal receiving concrete or sensible pression) kept its abstra-ct quality ouch too clearly# The clarity of the con- ete idea hr ought with it a transcendental i sm in which things, persons and e- nts rrust he transparent enough to he shone through* Hansom now raises the tal question which is at the same time the "basic criticism of an aesthetic based absolute idealism — which was to come first, the idea or the expression? ason continues, "In Hegel*s view, which was Plato* s viev, the backward man worked M l way towards the pure idea.3 through the concrete iceas; hut the enlightened man would he going "backward to find them* He would he doing it only as an edu­ cator, as a missionary, for the enlightenment of other men still further back* It was in this way that the arts were the handmaidens of religion and of the Absolute*" ^1 •me this precedence of the pure universal over the concreteness of the poem ich produced the literary poetry of Romanticism. Ransom feels that such otr y in our time "is certain to he approved because it is understood, hut is likely tc serve up only a warraecU-over llected in the tranquillity of reflection experience*" - in a vacant or a an emotion r ^ pensive mood# His fundamental fear of Hegel*s philosophy of art was the fear that any .entification of poetry with universale or ideas was the destruction of etry - a point of view which Eegcl ultimately expressed. at modern positivism ov/es much to Eegcl as fdr a.s its ■ncerned* Hegel had said that art is either Ransom feels attitude to art is rational spirit or it is not* >dern thought of the nositivistic tradition says art is either scientific 21 '.T-ff. - >-6 5 * "22 loc*cit* Tfet-ina- r.f a "nrprn" The Southern Review, vol.l, 1935-6, 2k it is not. Hegel reduced art to pure reason but the positivists have scorned t not even taking the trouble to reduce It to their s y s t e m . ^ Hegel found beauty in Geist— a-t-work. Art wa 3 me.n1o primitive "impulse express himself, end so again to recognize himself in things that are at rst presented to him as externally existent." And so the moderns rre forced acini t that "art is the portrait of the artist; beauty is the ■warm suffusion that comes ■with the recognition of one*s own likeness in unexpected places. . . . Art is a useless representation of triumphal process, operation, or hypothesis, such r s k s already perfected itself in action and imposed its crder v.pon nr ture. cruse nr.ture rnd rational order are incommensurables, nature itself is pore r?order. This, Urn non believes, is the extravagant affirmation of all monists. insist upon a clear, rationr.l structure in the nature of things is to turn e essence of the external world into a mere shadow or appearance of the forms 23 Ayer, A.J., Language, Truth rnd L o g i c . Second Edition, London, ctor Gollrncz Ltd., 1 9 ^ , pp.ll3-ll’'» — "Aesthetic terms are used in exactly c same may a.s ethical terms. Such aesthetic words as *beautiful* and *hideous* e employed as ethical words are employed, not to make statements of fact, but mply to express certain feelings and evoke a certain response. It follows, as ethics, tha.t there is no sense in attributing objective validity to aestheti dgments, and no possibility of arguing about questions of value in aesthetics, t only about questions of fact. A scientific treatment of aesthetics would .ov us vhat in general were the cruses of aesthetic feeling, why various socle— es produced and admired the works of art they aid, why taste varies as it does thin a given society, and so forth. And these are ordinary psychological or ciologica.1 questions. They have, of course, little or nothing to do with aes— etic criticism a.s we understand it. But that is because the purpose of aesthetic iticisn is not so much to give knowledge as to communicate emotion. The critic, ■ calling attention to certain features of the work under review, rnd expressing s own feelings about them, endeavours to make us share his attitude towards the if; r.r. a whole. The only relevant propositions tha.t he formulates are proposiens describing the nature of the work. And these are plain records of fact. ; conclude, therefore, that there is nothing in aesthetics, anymore than there is l ethics, to justify the view that it embodies a unique type of knowledge.1 1 tnlics mine) „ _ , 2h Hansom, J . C . ’Art Heeds a Little Separating, The Kenyon Review, vol.6, ) *r>_TT ll,_ ' the knowing mind* Ransom* ■ repudiation of the paradox of the ooneroto unl^» trsal is boot aaqpressed la the statement that "a tras universal is aa Idoal oparatlon la whichpartial aad abstract fuaotloas contribute* bat aot parts with coaerateaass or aatarlal aabataaca of their own; tha prirate energy- of these parts m a t overflow their functions* ▲ universal eaa no more be formed oat of concrete parte than la a concrete object formed eat of abstract functions* 11 35 re Hansom Is trying to reaffirm the dynamic quality of the Idealisticaesthetic* Jeotivity does aot consist la any static combination of concrete aad abstract el­ ects bat rather it consists in a vital Interaction of abstract and concrete aments la which each overflows or transcends the other* She objectivity of etry lies in the expresslonlstic power of lta texture* Zn the end* we eaa no re escape from the charge of aesthetic scepticism in Hansom than we could la gel or Croce* She dement of objectivity remains a rational element and as ch is more subjective than objective* 80 far it moat be dear that Ransom Is aware of the idealist*s pitfall reducing poetry to abstraction or of reducing the particularity of a poem to clear and distinct idea* t in a scientific way* an rational* 3he specific essence of a poem Is cognitive but Our knodedge of the poem1 s essence Is Intuitive rather Zn the lines* "She oak* ancient* moaning Its splendours gone*” e poet Is as much committed as if he had said "the oak moans in pain"* "Hut ese assertions (the one just cited* for example) may be 'mythical* ones* d what will be their status as c o g n i t i o n ? H a n s o m is critical of Z* A* shards for hie reduction of objectivity to rational essences and it is clear 25 Ibid* P*121» 26 world's Body. p*l57- Bit Uoharda is too much of a sol entlst to tolerate Loh Is mythical* 007 status for oognltien Images bars not the status of perceptions which hare a place the rational ordsr of things* Tot Sanson insists that poetry Is exactly aowledge by lassos reporting the fulness or particularity of nature* • • it a context made of images• and the images are attended to and dwelt an without acral from context*“37 Ve hare here a knowledge of truth about nature witiw t abstracting the truth firon nature as It exists* Sol ease rlews the world universality while “poetry rlews the world as particularity, aad we hare to re the world in that sense* * 9ueh a oreed of objectivity which we hare here expressed above by Sanson characteristic of the Hew Orltlelsa and rhetariaaiiv his determination “to re the world11 as particularity is most convincing* But he betrays his deeper pulses as a Hegelian when he will write such a passage as followet “fixe poetlo impulse is much too insistent to stop there* (Presenting its objects in detail without ever exceeding actual observation*) file poet proceeds next to assert properties and behaviors in the object which are not verifiable or not sufficiently so to be approved by the strict canon of science* It animates nature* Zt confers mentality upon the rock* the tree* the star* which do not discoverably hare it* nor the organs for its it makes the mountain brood protectively over the mountaineer* aad the Hester bird sing carols* Poetry does this by virtue of idiat we call the pathetic (sympathetic) fallacy* Oxe poet invests the lower forms of animal life* or even the inorganic body* with his own mentality* (HIa procedure In elevating an object to a higher classification is opposite to that of the behaviorlst* who degrades it into a lower elcbsslfleatioa*) 38 isom's sense of the oonfliot between the Idealist and materialist as the 3 seeks to elevate the object while the other seeks to degrade it shows his 2# ibidi p*158* 28 Ibldl p*159# •u Im i i with the compulsive logic of the dialectio* Under pressure fkon the tional will the objeot cannot exist la either oaae because lte existence must timately he lost la the conceptualising activity of the mind* Za this same passage Hansom speaks of the movement of the poetic mind la the ooess of creation* He argues for the objectivity of the poem aad yet he ams to place the greater emphasis on the poet as the souroe of reality for the enu Throughout the discussion of ‘ Richards both la "She Vorld1s Body" aad he Hew Criticism"• Ransom realises that unless the cognitive dement la invold he will he uaahle to " tawv* the poem* Tot, too clear aad distinct aa ea of the thing perceived - the poem - d l l he to identify Its reality oo»> etdy with the percelver's Idea of It* Therefore* to preserve the Image la s reality rather than la Its rational marltv. Hansom saysx "I prefer to think that these Images or assertions which exceed obearvatioa are the form that certain cognitions take with us hscanse of our natural propensities as knowersf perhaps that Is a Kantian sort of position* She poet neats to particularise his objects In order to understand thorn fully* and Images of this sort are habitual to our particularization* Shis argtw meat makes them natural* and therefore makes them stubborn*" ^ Is process of securing the particularity of objects Ransom calls Imagination* both the scientist aad the poet move in the same mental say towards a knowu dge of the object wherein do they differ? All knowledge would seem to be ually real or equally mythical if knowledge must derive from the same souroe l the knowing In the end* poetry seems to be more creative than science* tlenee seeks to reach Its object In order to know It* while poetry seeks to 29 Ibl^f T>.l6ll 28 ovexvreaoh its object la Its exuberance. Zt is by this nrttur— ehtag that Baaaon tries to solve the opistimolagleal problem of the Hegelians* Instead of denying the existence of the poem in its relation to the Absolute* the poem is said to retain its indiTlduality aad to dartre its ritality from Its relation to a much more tolerant leiad of unity • the world1s body - or Spirit* What remains uasolred Is how this Spirit or World's Body is made specific* She term "body" is a metaphysical tern by weans of iddoh nake Spirit concrete* tries to In a poem, the metaphor or other figure is the neans of asking the World's Body specific and by this means it becomes objective* This abjeotivity is not en(plrioal or material nor is it the result of an abstract operation of the rational mind* Belther is the prooess which creates it psychological, scientific nor philosophical* It is an essentially aesthetic, poetic or spiritual process the result of which is an art object or a poem* But that which is a metaphor for Bans am is a "muddle" far Aspson* Bauson objects to the diffusion of the "muddle” into empirical dieorder* He says a muddle could 5e impressive only "idien the complications support and enforce a central meaning tad do not diffuse it or dissolve it*” Hansom feels that psychologists like topson tend to admire all possible complications, all muddles, indiscriminately* Ghis confusion comes about beoause the scientist attempts to think, ignoring the metaphysical foundations upon which his thlnking must Inevitably operate* Like Orooe, Hansom sees all thought as well as all aesthetic or poetic tctivity preceded by a cognitive spiritual unity* In relation to the paradox of thought manifested in a "muddle", Banson says* logical whole may have as much complication really as a muddle; that is, as many and as unique items discoverable in It* Zn fact it permits com* 29 plication, up to any particular limit, if that is what these psychologists want. The thing that makes a lyrical poem supreme over the other literary forms, and indeed the epitome and standard of literary forms, is its range of content; or what is the sane thing, its density# But the logic of the poem is supposed to control this range, and if it does not, the exhibit falls short as a poem# Tt is the sane principle which works in the meter and it will he recalled wha a symbol of righteousness Mr# Winters finds in a good meter; if there is no governing pattern to assimilate the sounds, they are but sound and wasted; their independence dooms them from enjoying in a society, which would be a poetic melody and they remain in their state of nature as a prose#w-^ t is this logical essence which seems to constitute the objectivity of the lem# 1 By logic Ransom does not mean strictly rational essence but some for— quality tranttended by the poet*s will and expressed as a manifestation i Spirit or tile World's Body# The problem remains as it does in Croce; hov.r c m sjectivity consist in an expression of spiritual or metaphysical unity and still ynain a self— subsistent object? In a general way this passage expresses the essence of Ransom*s philoso— lical basis for literary criticism# In a concrete way he is concerned with ie vital rhythm ox poetry, its underlying pattern in sound. This rhythmical n i n g logic is the means by which we intuit, grasp or comprehend the logical : spiritual whole willch underlies the individual poem# Muddles, myths, sym- >ls, figures of speech, what have you, all are means for the expression of the ?nsity of the whole. 5 Paradoxically, however, the denfclty of the whole is much dependent upon the particular manifestation — the poem, as the poem 3 dependent upon the density of the whole# Speaking of Hardy* s poem According to the Mighty ’.forking" Ransom believes it to have the duality of lot rood tiioughtful or philosophical poetry# 30 Ransom, p .337. k n s o n i o Muddies." '^e Southern Review, vol.k, t] 30 ■It is not content with concepts, hut is constantly stopping to Insert or to attack 4he particular!ty which is involved in images; a procedure which might he called the imaginative realization of the concepts* A genuine poetic energy will work hoth these dimensions at once* It must he concedr* ed that we do not find here a single extended image to hear the whole weight ox the conceptual structure a.s is the way of that precision method of poetic composition which flourishes in the metaphysical style# But the images come up now and again, to engage the sound reader's imaginetion? there is playing hack and forth between the world of ideas and the world of images* Here is the perpetually recurring poetical dialectic, .stinct concept in the Spiritual whole in Croce, 1 the Absolute in Hegel* the unity of the the synthesis of opposites But a.s we move through the development of the ?taphysica-l spirit in Hegel, we lose the poem as existence. In Croce we ist beoome identical in spirit with the enthor if we would know the poem# 1 Hansom we have a more concerted effort to maintain the individuality of le poem* The dialectical unity is shaped so as to preserve the determinate .enent of content at the expense of the indeterminate formal quality* >re determinate the content, the more indeterminate the meter* The Hence one m n o t make a poem out ox’ the binomial theorem because it cannot be changed > suit a meter. Again in reference to Hardy, Ransom feels that meter is :ilfully handled without the sacrifice of the content or subject matter* "On the contrary, he (Hardy) keeps his sense as sharp a.nd distinct as ever* The indeterminate element v.dthln which he has to range to make his meters is the -particularlty of his object; that is the principle I have been coming to* The particular!ty is inexhaustible, and if held under observation it offers plenty of apt images* These do not conflict with the thought, but only displace it momentarily or, even, realize i t*w32 31 32 Ransom, J*C*,"Honey and Gall, The Southern Review. vol#6, 19^0— ^1*P*10* Ibid* p*12. 31 She particularity, so rich la ooataat, la tha alamant of reality, the itologieal spirit which la the source of poetry* Zt was this power of the -et to realise Images which Hansom called imagination* For Croce It la tuition, a term which "sums up the whole imaginative activity of man aad ▼es rise to a particular philosophical science. Aesthetic*" 33 Shis aginative activity is involved in the synthesising of distinct oonoepts la l&tion to Spirit* ntultlon"* Zt Is the conversion of "chaotic" feeling into dear Like Bansom, Croce hdleves that meter, rhytlmx or sound are not ough in themselves to make poetry* "Zt is a delusion to suppose that a verse delights us ty any sounds with which, it stimulates our ears to ecstasy* What it stimulates to ecstasy is our Imagination and thereby our emotion*" 3** Lug a line from B a d net "La flU e de Minos et de Pasiptial'" he says that the ■uty of these lines does not lie In the physical combination of sounds for b can easily make infinite other combinations of such sounds without prodnc- ; a beautiful effect* Such an activity could be described as the play of acy* 2tet language is not the expression of mere b or fancy; it is *31 inter-related meaningful feelings which the richness of the spirit can ppiy* Sheas lines from Baelne are beaatifd "because these sounds, these syllables and accents, bring before us in an instantaneous Imaginative fusion, all that was mysterious aad sinister, all that was divine and fiendish, all that was majestic and perverted both In the person and the parentage of Phaedra* And this is expressed 33 Croce, Benedetto, What la living and What is Dead in the Philosophy Hegel, tr* Douglas Ainelle from third edition, (1912,) London, MacMillan and » Ltd*, 1915. P.107* 3k Croce, Qf Poetry, variations on the theme of alley, tr* E* F* Carrltt, Oxford, 1933. the Clarendon Press, P*23* by two epic names# that of the royal Or •tan legislator aad that of hi a incestuous wife# at whose aida rises# la our imagination tha brutal figure of tha bull*"35 Die use of language praauppoaas tha reality of spirit aad its correspoalenee with physioal reality ia merely a oonvention by which the self becomes iwre of itself# the object corresponding to the name being only a construct >f the thinking mind* Qrooe denies that his reduction of the physioal corres­ pondents of words to the level of mere appearance makes him a solipsist* She abject of expression in the imagination must have its concrete individuality Lf the self is to be conscious of itself* The reciprocal relation between the two brings awareness of the true reality which underlies both subject aad object# namely 8pirlt as intuition* Zn spite of the similarity of spirit manifested here in Oroee aad Hansom# In at least two places Bansom has expressed his distrust of Croce* s ontological basis for art* Ve remember Bansom*s note in ontology in which he ultimately states all poetry to belong to the olaas of "physical poetry*" Beallzing the prejudice of idealistic philosophers that "things" as such may not exist# he speaks of "images" in opposition to ideas rather than of "thlzgs” versus ideas* Zn place of "images" Bansom also suggests "perceptions" or "im­ pressions” (sic Bums) or Qrooe* s pre-intellectual impressions which are lndm> pendent of concepts* recollection* The compulsion to poetry for Bansom is the dream or But "Zt can hardly be argued# Z think# that the arts are constituted automati­ cally out of original images# and arise in same early «ge of innocence* 33 (Though Croce seems to support this view, end to melee ext a pre-adult stage of experience.) Art is "based on second love, not first love* In It we make a return to something we had wilfully alienated* The child is occupied mostly with things, “but it is "because he is still unfurnished with systematic ideas, not "because he is a ripe citizen "by nature and comes along already trailing clouds of glory# Images are clouds of glory for the man who has discovered that ideas are r sort cf darkness*11 36 Hansom*s uneasiness about Croce seems to lie in his desire to give more au— ority to the will of the poet than Croce*s more systematic account of aesetic development will allow* Croce experienced the same conflict a.s Ransom his efforts to maintain the freedom of the will from the absolute* sir: and idea li sm are in conflict in both critics* rl;/ the "Poetry is a reaction from ideality*" Return— 3ut Ransom urges more ea­ Like Croce he feels that e poet must drew upon whole states of mind in which the world is originally perienced if he will find the true particularity which is poetry* It is from is sane source that all cognitive activity has had its beginning* "All etry, of course, is the record of vision recovered by imagination under the thority of m e m o r y * it the role of the uoet to find the images of nory which the mind in pursuit of urc reason does not find* Although Ransom is prepared to a.ccept Croce* 3 placement of art at the tuitive or pro—rational stage, he is more concerned about the will of the tist in the process of p>cetic creation* nsor Croce’s illustrations suggest to that the intuitive process is the infantile stage* "In mature poetry the mind which experiences the object does not surrender the edge of its intellectual discrimination* The mind intuits with its 36 Ransom, J*C*, The Vfor1 d *s .uody, p,ll6* 37 Ransom, J. C.,"The linking of a iodern." The Southern Review, vol.l, 35-36, p.372. intellectual orgene, aa well a* with ite sense organs* and indifferently. r art is derived directly from the intuitive* pre-ratlonal level* there is no >cm for the poet to represent those objective qualities which he leans to icognlse in his maturing experiences. She Dinglichkeit of poetry in Croce >mes about as a development throu^i oonsoiousness. "distinct concept" i presupposed by and lives in its other which follows it in the sequence of Leas* file "distinct" concept is not a pore idea but is more a particular!— ktlon of Spirit than it is of Reason* 39 Ransom is fearful that the production 38 Ibld*p*873* 39 HOCSfln his enthusiasm far the dynamic qualities of Bagel* s dialectic* oce tried to save idiat he considered to be living in Hegel* Be thought that te destruction of art in Hegel came about by the achievement of synthesis through unity of opposites* As in Hegel* the Spirit as concrete universal is known t in and for itself alone but as a result of a development through conscious ss aad it is the development rather than the resolution Wiich interests oce* fixe real is the spiritual and the concrete universal may be said to posss particular distinct forms of which it is not the mechanical aggregate but e organic whole* Zn his investigation of reality* we find ourselves eonfrom* d not only with opposite concepts* as in Hegel* but with distinct concepts leh attempt to preserve existence rather than destroy it* Croce* s "distinct" lstlnct concept) is somewhat analogous to Ransom* s notion of the "image"* .distinct concept is presupposed by and lives in its other which follows it the sequence of ideas*" DLstinets are degrees of reality of which the war la the foundation of the higher but eaa stand quite apart from the gher. Dlstlncts are not themselves opposites but they are each in themselves synthesis of opposites* Beauty is a distinct because it has ugliness withit - as a degree or stage of development and not as an opposite or negation itself* So particularise or to distinguish the concept is not to extinlsh* negate or annihilate it* At the same time the distinct is not sam^ ing outside the unity of spirit. Together unity and distinct are a paradoxi1 whole* Pistinets can never be olMslfled or divided into discrete parts* ke the more dynamic Hegel in the Bncyolopaedla "The feellxg that we have the living unity of the spirit is it-self opposed to the breaking up of the spirit into different forces* facul­ ties or activities* whatever they be* concerned as Independent of one another." d eo Instead of the world of existence being classified as species under 35 ensra. reality is conceived as decrees of Spirit* Croce likens the develop* ient of the distlnots related in unity to the speotaole of life as a historic­ al process. "in which erery fact is in relation with all other faotst aad the fact which cones after la.certainly different fTosi that which precedes, hat is also the same*" Susbodied concepts l*e* pore universals hare no meaning for Croce* ikewise he dismisses tha opposite state of complete empirloal particularity* "Zn erery concept there is the whole concept, aad all other conceptsS hat there is also one determinate concept* Tor example, beauty is spirit (unirersality). and into!tire spirit (sls^ularl ty) S that is to say. tha whole spirit in so far as it is intuition".™ or Croce. Beauty. Zruth. Utility. Moral 0>ood are distinct concepts* Tfeliess. falsehood, uselessness, eril cannot he treated as existent opposites f their distincts. cannot he added to or Inserted among them* Hone of these atter concepts eaa he reduced to the former, yet they exist within the unity f the concept. i*e* within the distinct concept* fakea as distinct moments in the progress through sereral degrees towards he fulness of the Spirit, theseopposite states are no longernegative* pposltes have no Independentreality hat aremerely abstractions from Beall ty. Fair is foul, aad foul is fair", heanty is such because it has within it. gllness. the true is such because itj.has within it the false, the good is uch because it has in it the evil*" By correcting and integrating one bstraction with another we attain the fulness of truth* hO Croce. Benedetto. Logic as the Science of the Pure Concent, tr* ouglas Alnslie, London. MacMillan and Co*. Ltd*. 1917. P*78* hi liid, p.8h* h2 ibid* p.97- 36 f poetry from an i d e a l process of any leind will end in the loss of its "phy— .cal" element* would not identify "physical" with "material"• Yet h.e iea.d of looling 'to any "pr^adult" or"infantile" stage, let us Iz>repeat .nson,s conviction tlreft; "The way to obtain hire true Dinglichkeit of a formal dinner or a landscape or a beloved p e r s o n i s to approach the object as such, and in humility; then it unfolds a na t u r e which we are unprepared for if we have put our trust in the simple icier, which attempted to represent it*" ^ iere is a contrr.dicti o n , a paradox with no solution in the t ttempt on the one nd to describe a s u b s i s t i n g reality from which all tilings are derived and on ie other hand to crcr.te b y the rot of will seme object or other which is net dritual but existent clepending upon the will of its creator* loose ennfcistently to f*ight for the latter choice* Ransom will If the conci'ete, indepea- >nt existence of the p o e n is to be maintained, some form of transcendent turrlism rather t h a n i thw t Rrnsc” is as e-lisn* spiritual idealism must be developed* The curious fret s u s p i c i o u s of the validity of naturalism as he is of Tills fact b e c o m e s manifest in his discussions of Aristotle* Ra nsom has e x p r e s s e d his indebtedness as well as his discontent with at ;ast one other critic .the* in the Hegelian tradition — his c on temporary, Kenneth Toth are c o n c e r n e d with the unity of the many in the One, the agyes— on of the whole by r n y part mentioned. tiecdoche — she menti o n o the y rt for the whole — ;i th the "reductive" uses s used by Boier.tists* .t;loyicrl prejudice of .ces th-n cirdlao-i ti e s h3 Bur he has identified thcloyic of RanSom suy -;er ts that there is a difference in the poet ruf. sci entirtwhich wr-ld mr he for ... re differ— - n th.eir a tie-'-, ts : t synthesis, - ltd Ransom feels that Rrnso:.i, J • O • » The World1s B ody, p *1 ?:L-• 37 >ke does not emphasize this fact sufficiently* "Synecdoche is a vjay of indicatin g the irreducibili ty of the object as a •whole b y citing some perfectly intractable part, while scientific reduc­ tion is a way of indicating the docility or generality of the object by attending only to its commonplace* The difference in the two processes is in the IdLnd of part they propose respectively to fix upon. If the scientist wants us to see h o w like his object is to all others, the poet ■wants us to see tha.t his object is u n i q u e * " ^ Ransom finds in Burke a kindred soul in reaction to absolute idealism* could say that the whole group of so-called objeetive idealists react from it Hansom calls the "first moment"* This stage of poetic experience is ;hly subjective* selfish and sophistical representing "the drive, the passion, r a kind of knowledge which is not practical, and bjdLogicelly superfluous*" s whole trend leads to the loss of the individual datum or external object a timeless world* Since matter can never be subjected systematically to re reason the first moment leads to a kind of monistic materialism* Ran- r* s fear of the invasion of poetry by science is on the very ground tha.t "a scientific construct in any man* s actual science is like a little mon­ istic system in that it premises in the materia! beneath the generic pro­ perty it is studying, and hopes to find there a neutrality or inertness upon the part of all other properties which will amount tfljk-a effective homogeneity and hence a complete and closed materialism*" ^ But it is in his philosophy of the "Second Moment" that Ransom finds s much stated realm of particularity* This is the moment of art in all n he ter ogenei ty as the first moment v/rs that of science in all its homo— Ransom, J*C*, The Irish, The Gaelic, and The Byzantine." The Southern ;view. vol.7, 19^1* *4-2-, p.528, note. h-5 Ransom, J * C *, "Address to Kenneth hirtc." The Ken.von Review, vol.h, >*42, p . 2 2 6 . 38 eneity* Vov Ruanw la evtrytdwrt axudoni to avoid all tha logical emptiness f abstract Idealism aad ha fadi that Burke la too prone to ha aa ahaoluta daallat In hla too great concern for "atrue tora” la poatry* Za ardar to a- old thla logical emptiness Bansom adda that "texture" aa wall aa "structure" oat ha eonaldared* Bansom admits* la a note to hla addreaa to Burke that ha aa elsewhere advocated that a poem shows la aoaa fulness both ontological el»enta Tie* (a) rational atruetura aa lta skeleton, aad (b) substantival loeal axture aa lta body* Bow* fearing the overeerphasia oa atruoture per aa* ha ould change the formula to reads (a) atruotura aad aatl-structure* b) texture* He la anxious to keep anti- atrue tura under (a)* on the ground ttet t la aadlatlact from aubataatlTal texture aa atruetura la* but la not aa ntologlcal element dlatlnet from atrue turel hA Only texture aa a direct anlfestatlon of the Yorld* a Body la la any aaaaa obleotlv^,* Ve will note here how Bansom* the transcendent naturalist* reasons la a aahion analogous to Groce* He will allow no ontological status to tha negat­ ive phase of tha poetic process la antl-strueture* Opposite concepts la rooe are mere abstractions tram reality aad have no real objectivity* Just a la Bansom* anti-structure cannot be aa ontological element distinct from trueture* so la Croce, complete and total error la inconceivable* aad* since t is inconceivable* does aot exist* By over-emphasising the synthesis of ppoaitea - anti-structure. Hegel destroyed poetic quality In M a final aeshetlc synthesis; such was Croce*s claim since the synthesis was baaed on ure reason rather than on Spirit by means of which distinct concepts ab* orbed the opposite concepts as degrees or stages of development* 39 Zt is because of too great an emphasis on structure and its opposite that larke loses the quality of poetic genius* Ran sou says that Burke1s Interest s In a dlaleotloal or a critical kind, of poetry and that he neglects the yrical or radical kind of poetry* As Borke places more emphasis on structure* o he tends to go temperamentally in the direction of the "first moment" of hilosophy to the monism of the scientist and is in danger of the pitfalls of bsolute Idealism which Burke had tried to avoid In the first place* Ransom Istlngulshes Burke as a dialectician* from the absolute Idealist — as one ho Is Interested in the process of poetic creation* But* "the trouble with the dlalectlclst Is that no more than the Idealist need he hare any patience with the residuary body of the image idien he has done with it* 2he residuary body* with its irrelevance* Is what consti­ tutes the 'free image* • The poet embraces that but not the idealist* naire or critical*" **7 e Groce had offered his philosophy of Spirit as the retainer of the distinct oneept and the particularity of beauty so Ransom offers the "texture" of the forld's Body as the retainer of the free image wherein lies the objectivity of 11 poetry. By means of "figures" or "tropes" he would depart fTom the logico- lathematlcal level of procedure which is normal to the clear rationale of prose rlting and move into the area of intuition where substantival imagery can be ound* Images cannot be reduced to the harmony of a rational structure* re essentially heterogeneous and cannot be reduced to an "effective homo;eneity*" They Ransom attacks the Kantian account of tho sublime ac too idealistic* Ldmittlng that our concoc cannot organise a percept of a sublime experience* Cant claims the mind can farm a concept which Is a kind of super-sensible dec­ lination for itself* Bans an prefers to say that instead of the senses trtll- .ng the mind in such a futile fashion* the adad actually trails the great tensity of nature* "Die art fesls wonderfully rich and strange to us then and re strain erer so painfully to receive Its and adventure with boundless am48 tertallty*" Zt Is this confusion In Bauson*s own between body as t manifestation of spirituality and body as material wfaiah makes It so diffirult to be clear about his ontology* Apparently his naturalistic reaction gainst dialectical idealism has been so strong that materialism seems to be the only kind of objeotlvlty he can suggest* Tar more serious for Baason*s hole argument Is the fact that dialectical materialism Is the only opposite me can achieve If one resorts to the use of dialectic to reject Idealism* md in the end materialism and idealism are not opposites but simply different laalfestatlons of the same dialectical unity* But Bansom remains firm In his belief that his Idea of nature differs ’ram that of Burke* Hegel and Oroee* He firsly believes that he can save the >oem, as an independent object* from being engulfed In the totality of a ra­ tional system* He says "X think the trouble with Burke*s readings is that his Imagination plays too near the rational surface of the poem, and the reason It does not go deeper is that he is no lover of nature! Itdd. 13.211. i*9 u s , p.2 3 1 . n his dMlrt to save the texture of the Vorld*s Body in all its richness vt ctlce that Ransom does not apeak of It aa a Zn the paet the hlrd stage of synthesis haa always apelled the disappearance of the natural bjeot* He has followed Orooe's device of not allowing a real stage of axis- ease to the phase of negativity or anti-structure* By weans of laages he eeks to designate the objective existence of the Vorld*s Body In a poem* ut one does not oosqprehend fully the relation of these laages to the reals f enplrleal experience* How oan an lwage he an expression of the poet's will* nanifestatlon of the world's body In Benson's wetaphysleal sense* and at the awe tlwe have sensuous or empirical qualities? As the prying wind seeks to ISBBl" tk® nature of this specific "texture” in a particular poem* the wore ntelllglble became Its Internal relations until finally any hard oore of unique nd particular objectivity which the poen wight have la lost and Hanson knows nly too well how the dialectic oan corrode and destroy any particular or exi­ stential qualities a poem or even an object of nature way have* Hansom would argue In defence of the Dlngllchkelt of poetry but his on* ology demands the sacrifice of the poetic object to his ontological synthesis* hat little sympathy he has for Jristotle is baaed on a misreading of Aristotle Ince he confuses realism with his own naturalism* On the one hand* Hansom s anxious to preserve what he calls a "physical poetry" but on the other hand .e fears that the complete sacrifice of "texture" In which the physical poetry nheres will mean a return to the name realism which would identify the cem­ ent of poetry with sense experience alone* As has been intimated* the real and the natural In Aristotle are not dentical* process by means of which matter takes an form Is not 42 olutionary in the Darwinian sense of that ward bat the moTement of the velopment is always the result of cause* by an actual agent* Zhe Idnglichkelt of & particular object is not dependent upon Ideally ntinuoas development of and from the world9s body (texture)* Instead* to e Aristotle9s language* the substance (texture) is immediately present* piicable specifically to individuals* Zhe idea of a man or a horse is only empty universal - a form applied to matter but treated as universal* Bat th respect to the Individual or the particular* Socrates already Includes in me elf ultimate Individual matter* Substance* for Aristotle* is not a substra- m upon which a naturalistic evolution takes places it is only knowable as is embodied in this -particular nan or object * He admits* of course* that ‘ these there is no elearly ihteillglble or rational definitions ■they are known only by the aid of Intuitive thinking or of perception; and when they pass our of this complete realisation it is not clear whether they exist or not; bat they are always stated and recognized by means of the universal formula* Bat matter is unknowable in itself* And some matter is perceptible and some intelligible* perceptible matter being far instance bronze and wood and all matter that is changeable* and intelli­ gible matter being that idiich is present in perceptible things not qua perceptible* l*e* the objects of mathematics*"50 istotie is no idealist* bat hie real objeet* at the same time* is no natural >jeot* "To reduce all things thus to Vorms and eliminate matter is useless labour; for some things surely are a particular form in a particular matter* or particular things in a particular state*" 51 50 Aristotle. Metotihvilei. ed* McKeon* Bie Basic Works of Aristotle* >ok Zeta — 1036 a, 6 - 13. 51 Ibidj 1036 b,21 - 24. 4-3 acain "The fonr o f man is rlw.ys found in flesh, an d bones e n d parts of this ’rind; ere these th.cn el so ports of theforn a n d the formula? Ho, they ore ru 11 e r ; hit 1000011.00 r.:an is no^-h'-'Jid ''Iso ir.other nattfers we m e u n a b l e to perform the abstraction#" *' At no point is the individual object a purely naturalistic phenomenon# oh r.n individurl can have positive e istence only w h e n it is r e a l l y or ro­ ily caused end not '-3ien it m e r e l y develops# The process of evolution is l e s s and indeterminate unless there is at work a final cruse v/hich deterrlAes s existence of the object in its final form# It is in th.is rol.. of determi— te crusrti on that the prime mover as an u l t i m a t e m d prim a r y thinlriiv: on it- Lf is to he r clr ted or reconciled v/ith the concrete existence of particulars# H a n s o m 1 1* criticism' of A ristotle plaices h im in the cmtinuirr; traditi 0:1 tfr neo- Her cl inns • He is firm in his belief that the ’ .oicv.ied. e of indivi— Is is not anii ..vlis tic hut the "basis upon va.ich he vrould determine tiie nature that individuality is 0 far dangerously close to the loss of it if he will press the "fioyni ti on" of the vorl c J s hod;' ir. •which *ndivi dw.ali ty inheres# c _ ' 0 cn, f or Er.r.com is a desperate ontoloricrl :.rrnoefuvre# “The poet perpetuates in his poem an order o existence which in a ..-tual life is crumbliny beneath his touch# His poem celebrates the object wi ich real, individual, and n \ v 1 i tfetively i r.fini te# • • • • The critic shoudd find in thrpoom a total poetic or individual object which tends to be u n i v e r s a l ised, but io not permitted to suffer this f a t e # 11 ^ c ; a v a d o z is 53 53 r l i a t on Hr r.son* s 'er: m the o b j e c t I b i d , 10 36 b, 3-6# Hansom, J.C., The iforld« s B o d y , p . 3^8. ’..ill crumble a s r- pI d l y in 44 3 framevoi'k of "texture" rs it \/ill in nature* If vc are to be formal, . ’co u p o n u g ot* none idec the problem of reta i n i n g the object seems to of causation apart from, the efficient causation cf the The oocr. itsr-1-', if it is coin,': to be truly objective, i srf stantival essence* must embody its It cannot be objective end demend entirely u p o n the .1 of the poet for its erf.rtence* Ra.rson sa ys that "for each poem even, -•ally, there ir: distiivf-ishrfole a logical object or universr.l, but at the 54 oe time a tissue of irrelevance fror which it does not rea l l y ene r ^e , " this the residua? area vhere Images lie? If so, h o w c m they be objective they ha ve not yet emeryed from the tissue of logical Irrelevance — from 3 tenture, u v t . the world*s body? L e t us recall ransom* s o”n problem s' \ r also in Croce and in Hopei* of the conflict of ’.rill m e idealwhich Ransom finally sacrifices logic in order ret' in the natural, external world. in all Its richness of particularity» .resents the poetic impulse to crea.ti on v.-lilch brings the poet to sre nature her richest qualities and believes thr a the e? siest perspective upon such lunations of the poet nay come from the naturalistic description* Ignoring rst causes in true Hegelian fashion, he says "The creature was formed within na.ture, but inmedia tely nature became his vironnent, enternab to h.im; idlereupon self-preservation depended upon enforcing M s needs and uses against environment■ A r i s k is r un in the f ormation of any organic species, lest It fail to establish its vital e— con o n y firmlv svninst an environment horribly unresnonsive to the cr.atures' C?C* poor techniques* *' hr ~~ I b i d * p . 349. 55 L e c t u r e s in Criticisn. 17cw York, 1949. The Boll inyen Series, XIV, e Ransom, J.C., "The Literary Criticism of Aristotle", p*36* Sow Bansom la not a complete naturalist tut believes rather In the suffilent power of the will to establish security and henoe leisure for contemplaIon* Zt Is at this point that Benson*s transoendent naturalism becomes manli­ est* At the point of security* "the creature begins to devote some of his leisure and unexpended energy • • • to reversing the normal attitude to environment* so that where there was only dominion and use there develops a sentimental fixation upon cer­ tain natural objects* which Is conspicuously disproportionate to their utility* "56 t is at this point that the poet* freed from concern for the practical mores nto the area of the aesthetic* hr means of his wits* the man of sentiment ecomee the man of sensibility* "Vow the whole of nature* rather than Its obvious and familiar concretions* become the object of his affection* so that he will be ready to stop whereever he may be traversing It* and make observations and Imitations an passant; for there Is nature always and everywhere* Be Is on the watch for natural effects which are not useful but brilliant and vivid* uod so the naturalist becomes the transcendent naturalist* Vature In Its ma­ terial aspect Is not denied but rendered more "significant" as the poet is able to express the relation of inner qualities of things to the texture of which they are a pert* l a d so by means of myths of tropes* the poet achieves a total sosuunlcatlon In which thought and feeling are one* Throughout Baoasom* s poetry and criticism there runs a central theme of Irony* She poet will never quite master the nature of things and only In the trailing coneretezxess of a world* s body not yet comprehended can the poet sug­ gest the true reality* In the Preface to his poems "Chills and Fever" he 1*6 s a poem in its structure does not aim at representation of emotion* ther the pure emotional cry is only a fragmentary expression of the experi— e of which complete sensibility is capable. "-5® Ih&t man is subject to kery who tries to determine human action according to mechanical principles# som would remind the idealists of the grim possibility of the destruction objects which the movement of their metaphysic suggests. At any point of ermination along the line of development Croce and Hegel would allow existence tilings only as an expression of the spirit# But Hanson will still reserve the t as the agent for the organization ox the World* s body# He retains the rlist*s ontological basis but rejects the ultimate demands of any system order to leave the poetic agent free to orgmise, mythically if you will* : relation of tilings to the texture of reality# Poetry must be concerned with ! texture of par ticularity giving it universal!ty without being reduced to abstraction# The irony of the idealistic position lies in the failure of ie simpleton idealist" who "does not know he is handling dynamite and will be hoisted with his own petard. I am putting the grim interpretation uj>on humor# Like the dialec­ tic, it is critical of programs. But not "constructively" to make them workable; nor does it try to furnish the frail logico—mathematical struc­ ture with some decent imagery in order to make it "ontologically" respect­ able. It sweeps the whole thing away with laughter; which, though wise, is primitive and organic rather than vocal, but, if it could be articulate, would be found reiterating, Substance, Substance. Humor is neither poetic nor anti-poetic but pre-poetic. Hie ambitious determinant is absurd by the same considerati ons that marl' the substantial poem as beautiful .*^59 58 Warren, R. I5., "John Crowe Ransom: A Study in Irony", Virginia rterlv Review, vol.ll, 1935. p#l£5* 59 Ransom, J. C., "Address to Kenneth Burke", The Kerr/on Review, vol.h, -i-2, . 236 • By his transcendent naturalism then, Baasom seeks to avoid the grim destruction of existence which Idealism oompelo* The will must remain supreme In its un­ conscious motivation towards the production of poems* Baasom would seem to desert the tradition of philosophical Idealism at this point but he clings to the idea of the world* ■ body as the non-rat1onal emporium of nature In her Infinite and boundless plenitude* then Baasom sees the simpleton Idealist hoisted with his own petard* he Is speaking of the idealist idio is prepared to sacrifice the creative will to a system of concepts within a rational frame­ work* By his enthusiastic emphasis upon the will as the real source of poetry he hoped to avoid the aesthetic scepticism of the Hegelian Idealist* But the difficulty of the idealistic position Is not so easily overcome* Hot only is the will the source of the poem but the poem is created by that will* Moreover Creation is not a simple subjeetlve process but involves an Imitative element by means of which the poet perceives what Is substantially specific in the thlnghood of natural objects* The poetic object must emerge somewhat more freely from Bansoms "tissue of irrelevance" and its "texture" must be specifically separate from the World* s body which Is its substratum* In his aesthetic leisure* Bansom says the poet looks to nature not for useful, but for brilliant and vivid effects* But the substance for which he cries must inhere in something more than a brilliant or vivid effect* stance Is not only pre-poetic; it is the poem itself* The sub­ In spite of Bansom*s rejection of the philosophical idealist as well as the scientist* he has not sacrificed the desire for a systematic unity* To preserve the creative will from absorption into the world's body has been a significant concern* But his method of preserving the will by emphasising the naturalistic existence of the rid*o Body Is oonfused with, the noiwmechaaical, noxwempirical substance he old describe* Zt was Samuel Taylor Coleridge who sav how completely the etlo Imperative must remain supreme In Its detachment from any metaphysical stem* h9 CHAPTER III COLERIDGE AND THE PARADOX OF THE POETIC IMPERATIVE Coleridge*s enthusiasm for a metaphysics of poetry originated in his early :ation under the tutelage of the Reverend James Bovver, Head Master of the m a r School, Christ*s Hospital, Coleridge learned from him “that Poetry, even of the loftiest and, seemingly, that of the wildest odes, had a logic of its own, as severe as that of science; and more diffi­ cult because more subtle, more complex, and dependent on more, and more fugitive causes. In the truly great poets, he would say, there is a reason assignable, not only for every word, but for the position of every word," 1 ■ridge shared in general the conviction of the Romantic period that there always a sense of the Infinite implicit in human life, s deepest experiences. the source of all For the Romantic thinker, Philosophy was the effort srting from the unity of experience as a. whole, to bring the different inter— ' of the human spirit together so that it night feel itself at hone in all diem," Characteristically Coleridge states that “the prine object of all reasoning is the reduction of the many to the one and the restoration of particulars to that unity, by which they alone can participate in true being on the principle of onne ens unum"• 3 ; statement of Coleridge*s is fundamental t t h e ti on vfiich he later developed. dynamic principle of ima— Before we can deal adequately with Colci'i— ?*s concept of Unity, itself a metaphysical problem, we must establish clearly :">si ti on with respect to Logic, Like Kant, Coleridge was concerned about ?* t failure to solve the problem, of synthetic a. priori Judgments• 1 Coleridge, S. T., oe-rambh a T.-jter or la, edited with his aesthetical "yp by Shewcross , J,» two vols,, Oxford University Press,London,1907* C tion used throughout for reference,) P Uuirhcnd ..T.U- .Oolerldr:e a s Philosopher, George Allen A Unwin, Ltd.1930, "Suppose Z see a tell moving In a straight line towards another* Z imftediataly conclude, that they will shook* and that tha sooond Min ha in notion* Biln Is tha inference from oansa to effect; and of this nature ara all ofor ramaomlngs in tha conduct of lifas on this is fotxndad a n oar haliaf in histoflr/t and fron hanoa is derived all philosophy* excepting only geosietry and arithnotio* Zf wa can eaqalain tha infaranoa fron tha shook of tha two balXs* wa "tell ha able to aeeonnt for this operation of tha mind in ail ins teaoas • ha ground of our haliaf in this nscsssary connection hatwaen physical or hisorioal events Buna conceived to ha marsly custom* habit* association* Hence it oliowad. that tha mind had no Independent power to initiate a oansa or to hriag bout s n independent synthesis of experience* At tha same time that Borne he> laved physical or metaphysical Judgements to ha synthetic hat not mental in rlgln (a priori) ha denied to mathematical Judgements any synthetic quality eclaring them to ha purely analytical without ground in sense experlenoe* ant (and Oolarldge) saw that mathematical Judgements did involve a synthesis* mat set up tha problem dearly in his Critique of Pure Beamon and in tha action, of tha Categories makes plain the different kinds of synthesis in Judgm­ ent* Coleridge agreed with Kant this far but when Kant denied that tha knowing Ind of the individual could penetrate through and beyond tha limits of logical nderehanding* Coleridge refused to admit such an impossibility* osslble, unity of poetic experlenoe could not he known* Unless this war* Coleridge felt that ant lnft logic in a state of dichotomy teleh was paralyzing to thought* Ee ellevmd. that Plato had penetrated much further into the metaphysical depths f thought thm had Kant* teen the mind was prevented from reaching into epths beyond its own lmsedlate rational capacity* it had no alternative tet David Hume* Abstract of Human Hature* 17*10. reprinted with an introXLctiozs by J*M*Kaynes aad-?*Sraffa* Cambridge* 1938* P*13* b 51 supply Its oim unity sliding in a sort of pantheism typical of ssaj^ such **««»*s from Zeno to Spinoza* If dichotomy as a basic principle of Logic was not satisfactory, Coleridge Lieved that the principle of trichotomy would make possible the establish, it of a metaphysic which would not be pantheistic and would leave room for the >1 existence of both the knowing subject and the object which it knows* Die .nclple of dichotomy continually set up oppositions which made unity impos>!e of achlevesMnt because there was no possibility of mediation between the poeites established* "Everyidiere in it we have terms standing in stark opposition to each other without any attempt at mediations afflrmatlve»negative, universal-parti­ cular, unity-nrultiplicity, real-unreal; with the consguanee that idxere one of them is conceived of as denoting something real or objective, the other is set down as denoting something ideal or subjective** 5 addition to a 2h.esis and an Antithesis, Coleridge introduces a principle of Lty as an Absolute Idea presupposed in all acts of knoi&edge* Ye have, says Lerldge, to seek first for the Unity as the only source of Reality, then for the two opposite yet correspondent forms by whloh it manifests itself* Tor it is an axiom of universal application that manifestatio non datur nisi Pa? alterum* Instead therefore of affirmation and contradiction, the tools of dichotomic Logic, we have the three terms Identity, Thesis and Antithesis* * ® Ye come to know nature in a larger sense by seeing opposites as corresodents in relation to a total Unity* Lglnal characteristics* Coleridge* e method here has two very First of all the dynamics of thought move to- 5 $ P * c l t *. p*83* 6 Marginal note on Kant*s Allgemelne Katurgaachlchta. quoted in Muirhead^ft. *cit->p.06* rarda enlargement rather than exclusion* Instead of negating opposites out of ixistence. he w s aide to hring "all problematic results to their solution mv%A educe apparent contraries to oorrespondent opposites* • • fragments of truth. 7a alse only by negation*" lore Coleridge antioipates Hegel and although he did not read the great until late in life, his marginalia in the ow Perceptive Coleridge* ■ mind actually was. *how Because Hegel opposed Being with othing in his triad. Coleridge accuses him of sophistry* Hegel's is not a rue dialectic hecau.se he loses objectivity in abstraction* f Being is not but mere non-existence* *Ph«» true opposite "Nothing" in Hegel's sense annot in any i«y be said to be objective, since it is. at all times subjective* On March 23, 1801. Coleridge wrote to Thomas PooleS "My opinion is thlst hat deep thinking is attainable only by a man of deep feeling, an* nil truth a a species of revelation* What Coleridge meant speoifioally by such terms s "feeling" and "revelation" no one can be absolutely certain since his pro-* ected comprehensive work on Spiritual Philosophy was never written* Yet in he search for possible meaning Intended by Coleridge for such a term lies the ay to an understanding of hie metaphysical genius* Modern interpreters have ended to underrate the importance of Coleridge as a metaph ysician* Zt will e the purpose here to discover the nature of his metaphysics and to relate he poet's ontology to his theory and practice of poetry* ?a •86 g-T-- Poetae. -P-301 . quoted in Mulrhmad.Ittou,clt^7 • 7b ftuoted in Bichards. I*A«. Coleridge on Imagination. London. Routledge nd Megan Paul. 1934-* P*l6* Zhere Is little dontt about Odarldg*1a intention to be a metaphysician the first pages of the Blographla Li teraria. "Bat it wee sgr constant reply to authorities brought against me firom later poets of great name* that no authority eould avail in opposition to Truth* Hature* Logic and the Lavs of Universal Grammar* actuated too by ay former Passion for metaphysical investigations * I laboured at a solid on which permanently to ground my opinions* in the component faculties of the human mind itself* and their comparative dignity and importance*”8 Ls solid foundation mast be some real principle upon which poetry can be based* fore the poet can be truly creative he mast find some reality underlying all rticular entitles in life and in nature* The poem mast have some objective ality apart fTom the artist who created it and yet the poem most also bear e stamp of its creator marking it as truly his* Here is a paradox which many philosophic mind has attempted to resolve • and beoause Coleridge himself 11ed to resolve the paradox does not render his attempt completely lnsignlcant* The task here will be to render these insights into some meaningful ttern as a basis for Interpreting poetry* The genius of Coleridge is ima- native or intuitive rather than philosophic in the strict sense of the word* at he believed to be true about poetry or religion was not always philosophic 1 in a purely rational sense* I* A* Bichards Indicated two strains idiich ire fundamental to Coleridge*s thought and these to some extent seem to be >posed to one another* "a projective outlook* which treats imagination* b pro­ mts as figments* and a realist outlook which takes imagination to be a means r apprehending reality* 8 Coleridge* S* T** oP*cit*fTol*l, p*lh. 9 Richards, I*A** Coleridge on Imagination .* London* Routledge and Kegan *ul, Ltd*. 193h. p.26* his essay* Bichards for the most pert tried ■to use Coleridge's metaphysical machinery as machinery disregarding the undeniable fact that Coleridge himself so often took it to he much more* I shall take his constructions* that is* as 'concepts of the understanding* (to use his terminology) and use them* not as doctrines to he accepted* refuted or corrected (however great the temptations) hat s m s JL2UL13Q3EM&&'1 to explore the nature of poetry* ■ though Bichards does treat these same concepts* more concretely* as 'facta mind' (to use Coleridge's terminology) in Chapter 711 of him work* it cannot said that he has given the fullest implications of Coleridge' b metaphysical inking* Zhere has been much dispute about the influence of Kantian idealism on leridge's thought* The general consensus of opinion is that Coleridge had iveloped the main principles of his philosophic thinking before he had read int*u In his marginalia on his own copy of the dritique of Pure Beacon * >leridge noted some very perceptive criticisms* Kant more or less believed x a metaphysical reality which underlay nature but as we have already mentioned* 3 denied that there was any possibility of a rational knowledge of it* Coleridge had found the source of explaining the unity behind the facto f nature in his reading of Plato and the neo-Platonists long before he had rer read Kant* bo When he did study the Critique of Pure Besson* he was quick to the positive side of Kant's work in urging that the f sense experience must be connected necessarily* 10 11 dispersed elements 2*xt Coleridge knew that ibid. P«23U Shawcross. J.. Introduction . B1 agraphia Li teraria * p.xxvii. 55 o alone and not Xant would p r o v i d e him with the basis for hla spiritual osophy* "Die difference between them (Plato and Bant) was that, while the emphasis in Kant wee upon the conceptions of the understanding into which the ideas of reason entered only as a x»encnlatlve principle bereft of any substantia­ ting power, in Plato the idee® were the underlying basis of the whole struc­ ture of knowledge* being not m e r e l y const!tutire, but •productive* • Hence* while to Kant philosophy aeant the undermining of their influence over the mind* as guides to the real w o r l d beyond the phenomenal, to Plato* all education was the preparation, of1 the mind for their entrance into it and its domination by them**1'2 In his poem Religion* . Coleridge tells us that Zhere is one M i n d * one oamipresent Mind Omnlfle* His m o s t holy name is Love* 3*3 as Coleridge* e further convic b ± on that the Classical inJunetlon* “Know >elfl“ could lead only to an a w n r eness of this fundamental unity in the uni­ te* Through the study and conteuplatlon of Hature, one becomes aware of “Universal Principle of Life** Ait* as Shawoross points out* “not by any process of reasoning, but by a direct intuitional act* the poet feels himself brought I n t o communion with a reality Itself emotional* the “one omnipresent mind* t h o s e “most holy name is love* “• I1*” Ln in a letter to Thaiwall* Coleridge writes* “Hy feels as if it ached, bo behold and know something great, something onq end -tmMvieihls.. And it I s only ln the faith of that, that rocks or waterfalls* mountains or o a v e r n s * give me the sense of sublimity or majesty. But ln this faith allthjjagfi counterfeit InfinityI" 15 12 Coleridge, S.T., 2£*£L&m> Vol. I, P*95; _ 13 Coleridge, S-T.. CamPle b e Poetical Vorka.ed. Ry J.D.Campbell, London* MilIan A Co., Ltd., I938.p0.55lh Shawcross J*» op.cit.%, T>^3cv±i« 15 Coleridge, Edward HBurtloy. Letters^ p.228 -yquotad in Shawcross.op. b nature poetry Is filled with similar references* ae for example* whan eaklng of nature in mat* r^m ™ Bering Left a Place of Retirement: It seem* d lSJce Omnlpreeenoet God* Bethought* Had hullt him there a Templet the iftiole World Seeaed Imaged in its vast olrcumferenee• ^ & le reflected thrmagh erery aepect of nature ln Prost at So ahalt thou hear She lorely ahapee end eounde intelligihie Of that eternal language* tdilch thy Ood Uttera* who Aram eternity doth teach Himself ln all* and all things ln himself* Great universal Teacher! he shall mould Shy spirit* and hy giving sake It ask* *7 If Coleridge believed that "the true object of natural Philosophy was to scover a central Phenomenon in Hature. ” he also hastened to add that "a ntrel Fha-en(omenon) ln Hature requires and supposes a central tSiought ln Le Mlnd*"^® At all costs* Coleridge was anxious to avoid a sceptical monism ’ pantheism* The imaginative Interpretation of nature did not lead to pea- Lelsm in Coleridge because "he placed the exclusive transcendent consciousness " God above all other forms of consciousness*" ^ irsal Teacher* Thus Ood Is the great Uni- It Is not only a sense of Oneness which Is revealed ln the mdy of Hature but it is an even more specific awareness of the personality* le very selfhood of Ood* IS 17 18 19 Coleridges ^Complete Poetical Works. P*53Ibid. p.127. from Coleridge's KS*C* p*117, quoted ln Moirhead.Siop*clt*rp.122. Shawcross, J** ot>*clt*>u*xlx. So by a strange and dim similitude Infinite myriads of self—consolone »<«<<■ Are one all—ooneclooe Spirit* which informs With absolute ubiquity of thought (His one eternal self—affirming aotl) All his Involved Monads* that yet seem ML th Tarloua province and apt ageney fc«h to pursue its ovn self-centering end* (Coleridge* The Destiny of Hhtlons) the same MS.C already referred to ln Muirheed* ■ treatise there Is the more mal statement of this speclflolty of Spirit In Coleridge1s enunciation of the r of Bioexxtrail ty• "hrery Whole* whether without parts or compos ed of parts* L* ln the former* whether without parts by defect or lowness of Hature (a a serial atom)* or without parts by the excellence of Its Hature (■ a Monad or Lrlt)* must be oonoelved as a possible centre ln Itself* and at the same time hawing a centre out of Itself and common to It with all other parts of the us system* Coleridge guards carefully against the pantheistic notion that the self the objects of nature are only appearances or degrees of a monistic unity ln s universe* To be sure* Hature Is the "Universal Principle of Life” and ture Is refleoted ln every object or part of Hature* But Hature Is a power e* with a conscious creative principle at Its core and* Coleridge adds with rong emphasis* "H.B. - In this* the only scientific view* Hature Itself Is assumed as the Universal Principle of Life* and like all other Powers* Is contemplated 20 HI Coleridge* S* T., Complete Poetical Works, pp.70-71. Muirhead.won.clt*, p.122. under tha two primary Zdeaa of Identity and Multeity, i*e* alternately as one and as many* In other words* exclusively of degree, and as subsis­ ting in a series of different intensities*■ ^2 She words "powers" and "Identity" express the deep and unflagging oosw tlon of Coleridge in the pert played by the individual Hill in the act of tlo creation* Although he has asserted the necessity for a spiritual unity end behind nature* he also believes that this spirit oan be known only ough the power of the individual will to express the meaning of this same ritual unity* Zn other words* the act of the poet1s will in the effort express the objective and permanent truth of nature is the beginning and . of poetlo loiowledge* But that same act of will is possible only if it is alngfully related and is an intrinsic part of the spiritual unity which ts behind Nature herself* bill over reason* In this passage Coleridge asserts the superiority By means of his doctrine of bill he preserved the i m u ­ tuality of things from absorption into a monistic rational Unity or Absolute The same principle of will is implied in his Idea of Life* Here it is Lied a "principle of individuation" and he defines it eplgrammatically as latever is organized from without la a product of mechanism; shanized from within is a production of organisation*" whatever is There is a pro- esslve movement of individual forms through nature up to man in whom "the ole force of organic power has attained an inward and centripetal direcon*" This centripetal force moves constantly towards unity rather than tords any separation or detachment* Here again Coleridge parts from Kantian eallsm because such a synthetic or productive theory cannot be comprehended 22 M8*C* p*108, quoted in Mu±rheadjWJp*12k* 59 of mathematical analysis* 1> Coleridge taji, "tha foil applicability detract science ceaaaa tha moment reality begin**" ^ ■All tha forces of nature Illustrate tha lav of polarity or "the essential Llsm of nature" or it is alvays in the identity of two counter povers that "life subsists; in their strife it consists; ln their reconciliation it at once dies, and is born again into new forms, either falling back into the life of the >diole, or starting anew ln the process of individuation*" unity of reality, is then "by a strange and dim similitude" made up of finite myriads of self-conscious minds"* These same Individual entitles all the product of God's "one eternal self-affirming act" and yet they seem with various province and apt agency Each to pursue its own self—centering end* (Colerldgel The Destiny of Sations) 25 it is by means of this principle of polarity, this dualism ln nature, t we become aware of the third element in Coleridge* s trichotomy i basic principle of spiritual unity* tdiich is Coleridge avoids the error of hy- tatlzlng Nature by his very insistence on the dynamic will of self—cons— ms to comprehend the "one eternal self—affirming act" of G-od* In- >d it is correct to say that the spiritual unity of which Coleridge is »aking is this cosmic principle of individuation which was srnal self-affirming act"* 1 transcendent* 001*8 "one And yet somehow. Cod is also completely universal He is everything but He is One and the passage quoted above wa Muirhead shows the living quality of a mind which is dynamic because it 23 Ibid* P.129* ' 2U fbia* pp.129-3025 Coleridge, S*T*, Complete Poetical Vfcrisi) P*71. cm unity unity alone* Tor all Its search for unity* tho aplrltual reality nade up of "infinite myriads of self-eonseious minds*" Zt le at such, a at in Coleridge*e philosophy that one sees hie priority over Bansom* s trans­ ient naturalism* Instead of setting nature up Independently of the will a means of establishing indirectly the reality of the will* Coleridge s nature as the one eternal self-affirming act of Cod* Spirit la indivi- 1 and cosmic at the same time* wdiile ln Hanson* both qualities are lost vagueness* Tor bo t h Hegel and Croce as it was for Coleridge, the spiritual activity the a priori synthesis of all thought* The concept cannot eadst outside the ginal lx&tuition of the spirit and the Judgement is a primitive act of the rit* In the logical a priori synthesis pure concept and individual Judgement tome identical* "Spirit is self-supporting absolutely real ultimate being* dll the previous modes of consciousness ere abstractions from it; they sure sonstituted by the fact that spirit analyzes itself* distinguishes its moments and halts at each Individual mode in turn* The isolating of such moments presupposes spirit itself and requires spirit for its subsistence* ln other words* this isolation of modes only exists within spirit* idilch is existence*"2” a a priori synthesis which, is Spirit belongs to all forms of the spirit* Leridge 'believed as did Croce at a later date that the intuitive knowledge individual things has nothing to do with Intellectual or rational knowledge; tuitive kno%&edge is its own master* Muirlxsad susmarizes the genius of Coleridge*s metaphysics of nature as Fngftl | The Phenomenology of Mind; tr* J* B* Balllle* Rev* 2nd Hditlon* ndon* G-oorge Allen and Uhlvin, Ltd** 19^9* P*^+59* 61 llOVSt "Vhat is philosophically valuable 1& it* connecting it in a suggestive say with, rsoant physical speculations • is, in the first place, the emphasis on the prsssnoe in all phenomena of a principle that goes beyond anything that oan properly be called mechanical; secondly, the conception of this prin­ ciple as operating throughout the whole extent of Hature, manifesting itself in erer higher forms, idaleh constitute real differences of kind, and not merely of degrees Hature, as he puts it, *ascending not as links in a suspended chain, but as the steps in a ladder*, asslmllatli^ while transcending what has gone before; thirdly, the interpretation of the lav of the universe, ln harmony with this idea, as *a tendency to the ultimate production of the highest and most comprehensive unity; lastly, the dear­ ness with which he insists that the unity must consist of individuals, becoming more and more truly such in proportion as they unite themselves with the whale, and reflect the perfections to which as an embodiment of bill it summons them,* 27 Tram the earliest point ln his intellectual history Coleridge realised at no theory of poetry could be effective or meaningful unless it guaranteed .e objective existence of the poem. In the Biogra-nfo-t* y ^eraria he gives careful analysis of Bartley1a materialistic psychology which emphasises matter the source of our real experience of nature, Coleridge rejects materialism ia basis for objectivity because "in Hartley1s scheme, the soul is present ly to be pinched or stroked, while the very squeals or purring are produced •an agency wholly independent and alien," 2®He rejeots the Hartlelaa theory "for it is the mere motion of ay muscles and nerves; and these again ere set ln motion from external causes equally passive, which external censes stand themselves in Interdependent connection with everything that exists or has existed, Zfacus the whale universe cooperates to produce the minutest stroke of every letter, save only that Z myself, and I alone, have nothing to do with it, butjserdy the causeless and effectless beholding of it When it is done," ” 27 Mnirhead.* 28 Coleridge, s T t TT Biogra-nhfla. 29 t b l f y p. 82. tar aria. 7ol«l, p,8l. oh a naive realism oan give no acoount of the true psychology of poetle creaon* B&e passivity of the knowing self is the very antithesis of creative tivity. Zn order to make clear all the factors which cooperate ln such spirl- al activity* Oalerldge continues! ■ Host of ny readers will have observed a small water-inseot on the surface of rivulets* which throws a cinque-spot ted shadow fringed with prismatic colours on the sunny bottom of the brook; and will have noticed* how the little animal wins its way up against the stream* by alternate pulses of active and passive motion* now resisting the current* and now yielding to it ln order to gather strength and a momentary XslffiQI for a further pro­ pulsion* This is no unapt emblem of the mind* s self-experience in the act of thinking* Share are evidently two powers at work* Which relatively to eaoh other are active and passive; and this is not possible without an intermediate faculty* which is at once both active and passive* (In philosophical language* we must denominate this intermediate faculty in all its degrees and determinations* the Imagination* But* ln common language and especially on the subject of poetry* we appropriate the name to a superior degree of the faculty* joined to a superior voluntary control over it*”) Imagination must be something creative and dynamic* A ny theory Which ra­ ces imagination to purely mechanical laws of association will not give an itelllgent understanding of the aesthetics of poetry or of any other art* Zn Leary* Coleridge required a psychology that would explain two things in the nctlon of imagination* firstly it must, establish the existence of a creative it a reproductive process* Secondly it must be based on a metaphysic that .11 establish the connection between poetry and the very depths of man's i»vidual soul* Art will never be understood as a recurrence of resembling ;ates of feeling but as trains of ideas consciously developing a sense of the >st profound reality both within the heart of the artist and ln the world of iture* ”▲ Metaphysical solution (like Hartley's) that does not instantly tell you something in the heart is grievously to he suspected, . . . I almost think that ideas merer recall ideas, as far as they are ideas, any more than leares ln the forest create each ether's motion* She hreese It is runs thro* them - - - it is the soul of state of feeling* Zf Z >*^ said no one idea sror recalls another Z am confident that Z could support the assertion*N 31 Coleridge is dearly aware that any systematically rational attempt to ahlish the objectivity of natural objects is foredoomed to failure* ■Z began then to ask myself shat proof Z had of the outward of anything? Of this sheet of paper for instance, as a thing in itself, separate from the phaenamenon or image ln ay perception* Z saw. that in the nature of things such proof is impossibles and that of all modes of being, that are not objects of the senses, the existence is by a logical necessity arising from the constitution of the mind itself, by the absence of all motive to doubt it. not from any absolute contradic­ tion in the supposition of the contrary*” 32 It is false to oreate a dichotomy between reason and sense experience such a split makes knoidedge impossible and yet a distinction must be nstda ween the percipient and the thing peroelved* dll knowledge begins and the knowledge of spiritual reality* ”01 the one life within us and abroad. Which meets all motion and becomes its soul. A light ln sound, a sound-like power in light Bhythm in all thought, and Joyance every where — Methinks, it should have been impossible Hot to love all things in a world so filled; Where the breese warbles, and the mute still air Zs music slumbering upon her instrument* 33 > same theme is current in the Statesman's Manual, Appendix B 31 Letter to Southey, quoted in Muirhead. op,clt, ,p»199. 32 Coleridge, S.T., Tfl Li teraria. Vol.l, p*133* 33 COleridge, S.T,. Oomplate Poetical Works, p.49. 6* ■All things that surround us* sad all thix^s that happen to us have hut oas cowman final oaussl namely tha increase of eonselousnsss la suoh. wise that whatever part of the terra Incognita of oar nature tha lnoreasad comsolousaess discovers* our sill may conquer aad bring Into subjeotlon to itself under the sovereignty of reason*" 3* Reason Is concerned with, the entire operation of the mind with respect Ideas* Ideas are defined as "those truths* namely (supposing such to exist)* the knowledge or aoknow lodgement of which require the idiole nan* the free ulll* no leas than the intellect* and which are not therefore surely speoulatlTe* nor yet prac­ tical* hut both in one*" icon In this total or comprehensive sense is distinct from Understanding .ch Is only an experiential faculty as compared with the sciential faculty of tson* In "Oxe Priend"* Coleridge defines Reason as the faculty of the >ersensuous* all that distinguishes man from the animals while Tinderstandlrg the faculty of the sensuous* the same as animal instinct with the addition self-consciousness* ^ Reason is the source of Principles* the Phdsrstanding b faculty of Roles* "The Reason is all end* summa finiua* the understanding L means* suama medioorum* The rules are in all cases means to some end*” ^ Bie use of the term "Reseon" in this broad* Intuitive sense is confusing d it has been indicated as one of Coleridge* s greatest errors* "The fundamental error of his aesthetic lies in the confusion of "intuition" with reason* HLs *Reas on* includes the whole world of feeling which arises in the individual* and also the knowledge of general laws and of "essences9”*^ 3h Comal ate Works* ed* Shedd* Vol*l. p.hTO, H.T.* Rarper• 35 Coleridge* S.T*. ffl Idteraria. Vol. ft*. p.250 36 Snyder* Alice D*» Lorlc and Literatore in CoLeridge* p.110. 37 Dodds* Mrs. Annie xdwM»de (Powell3. ^ e Romantic Theory of Poetry >w Tork* Longmans Green and Co** 1926* p.117. i term "spirit” si used 'by Groce would bSTi btea a snoh more fortunate choice word and would hare helped to keep straight the distinction between the ctieai ideas of mathematics and the dynamic ideas of Coleridge* s theory of glnatlon* Geenetry for example* nay appropriate to erery construction a respondent outimrd intuition but it is not fkom the outward image or picture t we learn what a line is* "On the contrary, we bring this stroke to the original line generated by the act of the Imagination; otherwise we could not define it as without breadth, or thicloiess* Still however this stroke is the sensuous image of the original or ideal line, and an efficient mean to excite every imagination to the intuition of it*" 38 Coleridge*s theory of Imagination begins with this act of the inner eense naans of which the mind becomes aware of the concrete individuality of it* f and of the objects of nature* Self-knowledge consists in the science of og altogether, neither merely speculative nor merely practical but both one* "ill knowledge rests on the coincidence of an object with a thing* • • • Tor we can JaUUf that only which Is true* and the truth is universally placed In the coincidence of the thought with the thing, of the represeiv* tatIon with the object represented* ”39 This is at once the most difficult but the most important notion in Cala­ is theory of the Imagination* Somehow we must comprehend the possibility things having individuality in other than a material or sensuous essence* f objectivity of these "conarete universale" or ideas lies in their close 38 Coleridge, S« T., B1agraphia Llterarla. Yol* 1, p.172* 39 Ibid*, p.171*. The ition both to the knoviag mind of the artist and to the total spiritual by of the Bivlne Creator of all reality* The Ideas which are the essence the objects of nature are not to he known by oold notions or lifeless teob> il rules of the abstract wind* Bather they are "living and life-producing &.s* which shall contain their own evidence* the certainty that they are ontlally one with the germinal causes in nature* "Vow the sum of all that is merely QBJSOHTX we will henceforth call V12UBX* confining the term to its paaslve and material sense* as eooprlsixg all the phaenomena by which its existence is made known to us* On the other hand the sum of all that is SUBJECT!VI* we may comprehend in the name of S S X or IVTZLL1G2VCX* Both conceptions are in neoessary antithesis* Intelligence is conceived of as exclusively representative* nature con­ clusively represented: the one as conscious* the other as without conscious­ ness* Vow in all acts of positive knowledge there is required a reciprocal concurrence of both* namely of the conscious being* and of that idiloh is in itself unconscious* Our problem is to explain this concurrence* its possibility and its necessity*" 4l Zf objects exist externally* they must somehow be unconsciously Involved the knowing subject* In the beginning and in the end there can be only one nciple of being or reality: otherwise if there were several principle a each Id have to refer to some other by which its quality la affirmed and neither nciple would be self-established* The first principle of reality must there- >e be singular and in addition it must be self-conscious manifesting itself the Sum or lam: "which I •hail hereafter indiscriminately express by the words spirit* self* and self—consciousness* In this* and in this alone* object and subject* being and knowledge are identical* each involving* and supposing the other* In other words* it is a subject which becomes a sub­ ject by the act of constructing itself objectively to itself* and only so TJo 3-T-. On ooesv and Art to Shawcross. Vol.2.. p.258. 41 Coleridge* S*T*. IAtararln. Vol. 1* p*174. 67 tax am by tha very mama act It becomes a subject*” it Is that the act of1 self— consciousness tor JUk 11 our knobELedge* 1* the source sad principle As the artist seeks to represent nature in his poetry oes not make a sensuous representation but he must create so much according he laws or ideas of reason that he sill be in harmony with the spirit of re for from this spirit both himself and the objects of nature are derived* her a slavish copying of nature nor a skilful practice of rules of metre make poetry* Bale advice to the poet to sing of the of nature is d in the JQ£2i£l9 ga3L£* And many a poet eohoes the eonoeitt Poet who hath been building up the rhyme When he had better far have stretched his limbs Beside a brook in mossy farest-dell* By sun ar moon-light, to the influxes Of shapes and sounds and shifting elements Surrendering his whole spirit, of his song And of his fame forgetful! So his fame Should share in Nature* a lasinrtnl 1 1 j. A venerable thix^l and so his song Should make all Nature lovelier, and Itself Be loved like Nature!* ^ Poet*® fame must be based in his spiritual power to represent or imitate which is within the natural object. "that which is active through form and figure, and discourses to us by symbols — the Batur-gelst. or spirit of nature, as we unconsciously imi­ tate those idiom we love! for so only can we hope to produce any work truly natural in the object and truly human in the effect* The idea which puts the form together oannot Itself be the form* It is above form, and is its essence, the universal in the individual, or the individuality in Itself, — the glance and the exponent of the indwelling power* h2 U-3 hh frbld. -0*183. Coleridge, S.I*. Complete Poetical Works. p*132* Coleridge, S.T., On Poesy or Art_ in Shawcross, op.clt. Vol.2 , p* ^ the 3rmn_Esfore.Sunrise. In tha Vale ** n^i olarlflaa la tie practice thie response of tha conscious aalf to nature* At firat* tha a to identify onaaalf with aatoraU harmony attrihutaa only a passive role tha aalf* Pantheletioally tha aalf seema to have haan abaorhad in harmonious ty of Heavens Tat. Ilka some eweet ttguiling melody, 8 0 awaat. wa know not wa are listening to it. Sum* tha aeanwhile. west blending with ay Brought Taa. with ny Life and Life's own aeeret Joyt Sill tha dilating Soul, enrapt. transfused. Into tha mighty vision paaaing — — thara Aa in har natural form, ewalled vast to Heavenl"^ aalf ia absorbed passively and pantheiatioally into tha vaatness of tha venly universe* Sit in order that thia harmoniooa etate can ha anloysd* abapinga-plrlt of Imagination muat play ita rola* She moat natively pond to nature before ita true reality can ha known or experienced* And ao* erldge expreaeea thia dynamic poetic imperatives Awake, my aoull not only passive praiee Thou owaatt not alone theee awelllng tears. Mata thanks and searet eost&syt awake. Yoice of awaat songl Awake, my heart. awake!,. Oreen vales and icy cliffs, all Join my It la nor our task here to explore tha implications of Coleridge*s meta-sics for hi a philosophy of religion, hat one or two observations on this ijeet in the Blegranh4 a TAterarla are especially illuminating* Just as tha tatlve act in writing poetry la an act of will rather than of understending, he wrote that hS k6 Coleridge. S*S» loc.cit. OomtPleta Poetical Harks. P*l6g "Dhlla* is an act, not of the understanding but of tha will* So become a believer on# m o t loro the doctrines and n u t resolve with passion to bellerve. " **7 ho essay on JUlth (supplementary to Aide to Reflection. pub.1825). faith aid to aubalot "in the the not tha synthesis of the Reason and the individual bill* and *by virtue of latter* • • It n u t he an energy, and Inaomch aa It la related to whole moral nan* • • n u t he a total ..not a partial —— a continuous* a desultory or oooaalonal — energy * Deeply oonsolooa of the rational uncertainties and contradictions Involved he pursuit of metaphysics Coleridge expostulate* In a footnotes "Door m l ucVjr Metaphysical and what are they? 1 single sentence expresses the object and there the contents of this science* et Deum quantum licet* et In Deo osmla selhls* Know thyself I and so shalt thou know Cod* as far as Is permitted to a creature* and In Cod a n things* Surely* there Is a strange—— nay* rather a too natural — aversion In many to know themselves* ”^9 to know oneself Is not to taxow one*s bodily self so much as It Is to know s Cod as Coleridge reveals In the following lyrlct gvrj-rwnwT.wpar — D coelo descendlt Juvenal, xi.27* 1— and Is this the prime And heaven-sprung adage of the olden tlmel — . Say, oanst thou make thyself? — Learn first that trade;— Haply thou mayst know what thyself had made* What hast thou* Man* that thou dar*st call thine own?— What la there In thee* Man* that can be known?— Dark fluxion* all unflxable by thought* A phantom dim of past and future wrought* Tain sister of the worm* — life* death* soul, clod*— Ignore thyself* and strive to know thy Codl 47 48 49 -A Diary* etc*MS.Deo*20, In Shawcross* op*clt*.Tol*1. p.236. Loc.cit. _ ^ T ■^TMTftPh~ 53 ag to the noxwrational nature and origin of the self as will, the problem t be expressed in persistent paradoxes, *¥e begin with the »I know order to end with the absolute We proceed from the j g i i n order to e and find all self In Cod.*5^ It is with such a paradoxical, elaborate and not too clear metaphysical kground that Coleridge says "I shall now proceed to the nature the Imagination*"^ genesis The key to understanding Coleridge*s theory of ima- atlon lies In this self-reciprocating relation between the poet's creative 1 and Nature both of \diioh are manifestations of the eternal Unity of Spirit— elf the Divine Saif—consciousness — the beginning and end of all tilings* distinguishes between -fancy as "the aggregative and associative power* and glnat^gQ as the "shaping and modifying pommr"* artals ready made from the law of association*" Taney"must receive all Its The elements of faacy r»> n the same after they have been combined by the will as they did In their orate state* As in Wordsworth's Preface ^9 of 1815 "Taney does not require that the materials she makes use of should be susceptible to change in their constitution from her touoht and where they admit of modification, it is enough for her purpose if it be slight, limited. 53 p.185 5 ** 1 * 1 d* p*i8 6 55 l H d t p*l8 6 •ad • m t i e n t * Directly the rarerie of these are the desires sad of Imagination* she recoils tram everything hat the plastic* the pliant* •ad the indefinite*" So She projected work on imagination idiloh Coleridge was to write was never ■empted and we hare only a few fragments of his schesie intlnated in the igraphia Id teraria* First of ally he makes a distinction between imagination primary and as secondary* "the primary imagination, I hold to he the llriag Power and prime Agent of all homan Perception* and as a repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of oreatlon in the infinite I The secondary Imagination I consider as an echo of the former* coexisting with the conscious will* yet still as identical with the primary in the of its agency* and differing only in dMQkSS* and in the jggjA of its operation* It dissolves* diffuses* dlssl pates* in order to reoreatet or where this process is rendered impossible* yet still at all events it struggles to idealise and to unify* It is essentlallyvltal* even as all objects (apobjeots) are essentially fixed and dead* "57 the case of primary imagination Coleridge was trying to describe the faculty ordinary practical perception of the world of natural objects around us aa use it unconsciously in our daily lives* As Shawoross puts it* "the imagination of the ordinary man is capable only of detaching the world of experience from the self and contemplating it in its detachments but the philosopher penetrates to the underlying harmony and gives it concrete expression* The ordinary consciousness* with no principle of unification* sees the universe as a mass of particulars! only the poet can depiot this whole as reflected in the individual parts* It is in this sense (as Coleridge had written many years before) that to the poet 'each thing has a life of Its own* and yet they have all our life*l"5® It is interesting to observe a record by Sara Coleridge that the sentence 56 57 58 ghaucrosa»s;op*olt*.vol*l> p* 272* Coleridge, S. T*. Blogranhla Literaria. Vol.l, p.202. Shfl.wBrose.fi on-dt*. vol.l* p*lxviilr 73 - repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the iiv! JLisS" ls stroked out in a copy of the Biogranhla Literaria with a few Lai notes "by the author. Shawcross cautiously observes that "probably ■dge felt that the ideas which the sentence suggested were incongruous with ist of the passage."59 In a recent article a critic of this fact is more Lie. Jurely the reason for striking them out is clear. If the primary or un>ns clous imagination is a repetition of God's act of creation, it follows r implication that God's act of creation is unconscious, that he is no 5re than some aim Spiritus Mundi which directs the evolution of the world Lthout really knowing what it is doing . " ^ 0 2. statement as this shows a failure to comprehend Coleridge's metaphysics irit. In the ordinary act of perception, ruct then as subjects. As Coleridge says, subject as its antithesis." we know objects when we unconsci ousl; "an object is inconceivable with- Perception in the finite mind is a repetition e eternal act of creation because there can be only one original or ia.te act of ’m o w l e d g e . All other acts of knowledge are derivative* k n o w that we exist as we exist in God. We Coleridge distinguishes the conditional finite "I" (which, as known in distinct consciousness y occasion of experience, is celled by Kant's followers the empirical I") and the absolute "I a m ", end the conditional finite "I" depends on r inheres in the absolute I, 'in whom we live and move and have our being', -s St, Paul divinely asserts, differing widely from the Theists of the meh a n l c school (as Sir J, Newton, Locke, etc.) who must say from whom re had our being, and with it life and the powers of life." 59 Ibid. p.272. 60 Benzlger, J.,"Organic Unity: Leibniz x,o Coleridge", Publications Modern a~ge Aaaflgl? tlpa* i95it p . ^ 2 . 61 Coleridge, S.T., Bingra-nid& Literaria. vol.l, p.183-8^, footnotes by ridge. .erldge may hare feared that his rsadars might adslrrfcrnorpret the Idea of pri ry lamination as aa analogue of the dlYlne creative mustlon, hat if there is .7 one immediate and original intuition of being or ar^stiLlty and. all other Lth is derivative, Coleridge oould nerer hare enter-tatAried the possibility Ood as aa unconscious Creator* At all times the r mXmL-tlonship between Ood and t or between nan and the objects of his perception i s .erldge has already been quoted as saying dynamic and interactive* "that a s p i r i t is that, whloh is i own object, yet not originally aa object, bat aa aLt>solute subject for which ., Itself ineluded, nay be aa object* Zt n u t therefore be aa £££•* 62 rue from the dynamic will of Ood to the analogous w i l l ngs ih Ood, and not from man to Ood* Descartes in a footnote in of man who sees a n This is la e s s e n c e Coleridge*s critique a Litwraria^3 and. the nature of Coleridge* ument eliminates the possibility of Benslger's onsclous of his creation* Ke impEI.ica.tlon that Ood is In Ood "the ground of sxistenoe and the ground the knowledge of existence, are absolutely identical • Sum quia sum.M and s principle is the principle of freedom, of self—cozxsclousness, of will* erldge is no monist bat rather a dynamic interactloxaist* i dynamic will of Ood to the analogous will of mam. w h o If we argue from sees all things in L, then imagination will be analogous to divine perception by means of which tan sees into the essence of Ood’s other creatures* Coleridge's theological tight and hie aesthetic have the same metaphysical bskals* The secondary imagination differs from the prlmaarsr »ort only in 62 63 lbldt P»l8fr ibid, p.183 .la the jutflA of Its operation* It is that operation of the Individual spirit oh Is In closest harmony with the dynamic principle of Interaction In Oolere's metaphysics. Pf.IrrtlffTl* "71 *Mf- Ooleridge distinguishes sharply be­ en the Eaney with Its "viper thoughts , that ooll around the mind* • Reality1s k dream" and "Ky shaping spirit of Imagination". There is a contrast "between cy as the deluding instrument of his love for material nature and Imagination ch is the instrument for the perception of what Is genuinely real In nature* 0 Lady! we receive hut what wo give* And In our life alone does Hatmre lives Ours is her wedding garment, ours her shroudt And would we aught "behold, of higher worth. Than that inanimate cold world allowed To the poor loveless ever—anxious crowd, Ahl from the soul itself must issue forth A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud Enveloping the Earth-And from the soul Itself must there he sent A sweet and potent voice, of its own birth. Of all sweet.sounds the life and element) ■ as there issues forth from the soul this light which envelops nature, so ure In reciprocation enables us to have Joy, the spirit and the power, Which wedding to us gives In dower, A new Earth and a new Heaven, Undreamt of by the sensual and the proud— ;h nature and the soul must reciprocate before the act of poetic creation l be accomplished. In the Ode as it was originally printed in the Morning it of October U, 1802, the reciprocal and dynamic relationship which la sgination is expressed in terms of Wordsworth*s poetic genius. Coleridge. S. T.. - Oonrolets Poetical Works. P.160. To thee do all things lira from pole to pole* Their life the eddying of thy living soul* I* Richards affirms that this "eddying is one of Ooleridge*s greatest lmaactive triumphs* da eddy is in something• and is a conapicuous example of ilance of f a r c e s * T h e eddy is the symbol of this dynamic will of Ood :reation and man's analogous action by imagination* Ooleridge speaks of the imagination aa "esemplastlc" from the Greek • to shape into one; the ward is of his own coinage* Che "one ellactual hresse" which is "At once the Soul of each* and. God of all" is Bribed as both "plastic and vast"* Throughout his discussion the freedom the mill in creative action is maintained* "Zf there is one motive common to all genuine poetic lnipulse* it is surely the desire to objeotify* and in this object to know and love* all that in the Individual experience has seemed worthy of detachment from the fleetlni personal life*" in it is important to notice that Ooleridge never separatee the necessity of edom of the will for existence of objectivity* g as there are free creators to make them* There will be poems only as Imagination is again revealed as f—reciprocating in the following lines to William Wbrds%*>rtht Of tides obedient to external force* And currents self-determined* as might seem* Or by same inner power; of moments awful* How in thy inner life* and now abroad* thaw power streamed from thee and thy soul received Dae light reflected, as light bestowed — ®8 65 66 67 68 Ibid* p*52fr. Richards* Z*A** pp*cjt** p*158. Shawcross* J* op*cit*.p*lxxv. Ooleridge* S*T** Complete Poetical Works. P*l?6* » attempts to draw from Bator• Deep* heartfelt* Inward Joy that elosely dings t •And trace In leaves and flowers that round me lie Lessons of love and earnest piety* 69 iphaslses his role as a mediator of spiritual reality* |Phi» poet as medl- malntalns his selfhood and avoids pantheism as he builds his altar In the Is* the mere "priest of this poor sacrlflcel" As the priest of Sod in Ba­ hia Imagination is always partaking "of the reality which It renders Lligihlet and while it enunciates the whole* abides itself as a living In that unity of which It Is the representative*" Hegel struggled with the very same difficulty as Ooleridge in this paradox ibjectivlty and objectivity* of unity and multeity* of the oonsclous self slatIon to an all—Inclusive Absolute* Like Ooleridge he Insisted upon the oic principle of the will as prior to the manifold aspect of nature and to rnlty of the Absolute* Lt* The objects of nature generate their own form from !Qie artist perceiving this form at once identifies It with the forms Ls own mind* This is possible since both the objects of nature and the active self are derived from 8 pft£lt In Its Absolute Ohite* "Hence lt ls spirit is equally consciousness of itself as Its objective substance* as as simple self-contained self-consciousness*"'71 Spirit can operate through ral objects which lose their objectivity as the artist sees into their re or spirit may operate conversely where the artists makes himself into forms of the objects he observes and creates in his work of art* 69 70 71 Ibid p*190* Of* first Lav Sermon, quoted in Shawcross* op*elt^p*3oclll« Hegel .C-.PP*olt*, p . 751. "Por spirit ls knowledge of self In a state of alienation of selft spirit Is the Being which Is the process of retaining Idjantlty with Itself In Its otherness* ■ 72 dynamic principle of self-identity ls ever present and yet the self is tar— " saorlflelng itself In the comprehension of the forms of external objects* n Coleridge* s trlchotomlc logic* a principle of unity most underly this itant reciprocation between subject and object* "Spirit ls content of Its consciousness to begin with In th- form of pure substance* In other words* it Is content of its pure consciousness* This element of thought ls the process of descending into existence* or Indivi­ duality* She middle term between these two ls their synthetic oonnexlon* the consciousness of passing Into otherness* the process of imaginative presentation as such* The third stage ls the return tram this presentation and from that otherness: In other words* lt Is the element of self-con­ sciousness Itself" 73 becomes more fully aware of Coleridge's idealism when he leaves poems to : about poetry much in the same way that philosophical idealists can talk t "becoming" but not about "being" In any specific sense* Process* not tence* Is reality* It ls Indeed remarkable that Coleridge should eo completely anticipate greatest philosopher of the nineteenth century in one of M s most vital rl butions to the history of thought* Coleridge may have lacked the par­ ent tenacity of spirit to realize his original thoughts into a system* the freshness of his creative mind led him to see that poetry would never nderstood by the application of external theories but only by a specific inatlon of poems themselves and of the poets who wrote those poems* 72 73 Ibid*' p.758# lbldy p.765- The 79 • relation between, the poet as subject and the poem as object was a dynamic tion* Coleridge spoke of "two cardinal points of poetry* the power of exciting the sympathy of the reader by a faithful adherence to the truth of nature* and the power of giving interest of novely by the modifying colors of 1 imagination*" 75 paradoxical objectivity of subjectivity is presented as a possibility as ridge describes his role In the double authorship of the Iarrlcal M3tt was agreed that my endeavours should be directed to persons sad charac­ ters supernatural, or at least romantics yet so as to transfer from our lmerd nature a human interest and a semblance of truth sufficient to pro­ cure for these shadows of imagination that willing suspension of disbe­ lief for the moment* which constitutes poetic faith*"75 specific forms of the mind cure here projected as manifestations of spirit i as much objectivity or reality as are seen by the artist when he perceives essence of a natural object in its real or specific form rather iuous in its or material form* On the other hand the paradoxical subjectivity of objectivity is presented l possibility as Coleridge describes Wordsworth's role "to give the charm of novelty to things of everyday* and to excite a feel­ ing analogous to the superxiatural* by awakening the mind's attention from the lethargy of custom* and directing it to the loveliness and the wonders of the world before us S an Inexhaustible treasure* bur for which* In consequence of the film of fsurdllarity and selfish solicitude we have eyes* yet see_not* ears that hear not* and hearts that neither feel nor understand*" f 75 9olerldge. S. T*. Biographic Llterarla. Vol*2. 75 76 vol*2 * p.6 . ibid* vol*2 * p*6 * Concerned aa ha is with the centering of literary criticism in the poen .f rather than In historical or classical theories* Ooleridge defines at once he means "by a poem and by poetry* A poem is that species of composition* which ls opposed to works of science* >y proposing for Its IfiBS&Lfi&ft object pleasure* not truth; and from all ither species (having t M » object in common with lt) lt ls discriminated >y proposing to Itself such delight from the whole*a« is compatible with i distinct gratification from each component part**^7 There are two points to consider here* First of all* a poem proposes 'for its ijwpuftfliate object pleasure* not truth* * pleasurable activity is the same dynamic principle which we have already Lssed in the relation of the knowing mind to its object* both being manl— itions of the unity which is spiritual reality* 'Like the motion of a serpent* which the Fgyptians made the emblem of ntellectual power; or like the path of sound through the air; at every ttep he (the reader of the poem) pauses and half recedes* and from the *etrogres sive movement collects the force which carries him onward* " 7 8 Secondly* a poem "must be one* the parts of which mutually support and iln each other; all in their proportion harmonising with* and supporting purpose and known Influences of metrical a r r a n g e m e n t * T h i s internal iion of all the parts of the poem resulting in a total sense of unity ls metaphysical counterpart or foundation for the dynamic relation which ts between the poet (or reader) and the poem* 77 78 79 IMl* Ibid* lbid^ vol*2 } p.1 0 . vol*2 * p*ll* v d * 2 } p*1 0 * The existence of a poem Lways defined, paradoxically aa the self-representation of spirit, the self bject to Itself* Shawcross ls harsh with Ooleridge for making a distinction "between a poem poetry* He is further critical of the definition of poetry in terms of the "which in its turn resolves itself into an enumeration of the character80 3s of Imagination”* Shis passage which Shawoross oritiolses ls neverbsb characteristic of the spiritual idealism of Coleridge* A n things are ted to all things with respect to poets, poems, readers and poetry in gsn­ are concerned* The nature of poetry has been anticipated in the preceding uisition on the fancy and imagination* Imagination was seen to be the » Dale reciprocation of the poet and the nature^. objects* This dynamic o- tion of the imagination results in a specific and individual representation pirlt; Poetry on the other hand, "ls a distinction resulting from the poetic us itself, which sub he poet*# mind*”81 tains and modifies the[ images, thoughts and emotions Here the word "distinction" means "separation", i*e* ever the poet creates as a manifestation of Spirit has its own specific viduality* In Ooleridge*s metaphysical system .these distinctions between s and poetry can be fairly drawn, for poems are the moltelty which is y, l*e* poetry itself* If Poetry ls not to be a meaningless spiritual system poet must be present as self-conscious spirit; otherwise poetic knowledge pleasure" (in the dynamic sense previously defined) would be impossible* ridge insisted on the fundamental intuition of self-consciousness* J'ust ant Insisted dogmatically upon the existence of the moral self as the fcerlon of a poo011)1e morality, so Coleridge Insists upon the existence of aesthetic self as a kind of poetlo laperatlre which urges all ereatlTe wills urds expression* And so the poem most he distinguished from poetry If lt to hare concrete existence* Die poem is the concrete universal of poetry* try alone would he an abstract universal with little or no meaning for aestic objects* Just as Spirit is self—consciousness, so is poetry a poetlo r.consciousness* She poet is poetry and poetry the poet# In a constantly uaic Interaction just as the Many constantly strives towards Unity or Spirit Unity or Spirit constantly strives to manifest Itself In individual form* All this aesthetic activity culminates In Ooleridge1s concept of imaition* It ls the poet "who brings the whole soul of man into activity"; Ls he who "diffuses a tone and spirit of unity, that blends, and (as lt were) ss . each Into each, by that synthetic and magical power, to which we have Luaively appropriated the name of imagination*" But the activity of the b's will achieves consciousness of Itself only as It is sacrificed to its ler" (to use Hegel's term)* She power of imagination Is necessarily revealed "in the balance or reconciliation of opposite or discordant qualities; of sameness with difference; of the general with the concrete; the idea, with the image; the Individual, with the representative; the sense of novelty and freshness, with the old familiar objects, a more than usual state of emotion, with more than usual order; judgment ever awake, and steady self-possession with enthusiasm and feeling profound or vehement; and while it blends and harmonizes the natural and the artificial, still subordinates art to nature; the manner to the_matter; and our admiration of the poet to our sympathy with the poetry* so it ls that 82 f b l ^ Yol*2, p*12* ■GOOD B B S S is the BOOT of poetic genius* TiHCT Its IRAFIRT, MOTIOB its LXFX* and XKAQZKATXOV tho SOUL Shat is everywhere* sad in each; sad fons all into ons graceful and intelligent shale* 11 hout these elaborate or separations. Coleridge* s aesthetid t degenerate into the "crude egoisms" of Fichte or the Pantheism of oiling or Spinoza. She function of the poet*s creative will in the prooess of imaginative duction ls amplified farther in Coleridge* e dlsamesion of genius* Of Shake- are*s Venus and Adonis he says its "first and most obvious excellence ls the perfect sweetness of the versi­ fication; its adaptation to the subject; aad the power displayed in T a r y lng the march of the words without passing into a loftier and more majes­ tic rhgrthm than was demanded by the thoughts • or permitted by the property of preserving a sense of melody predominant*" °3 first reading Coleridge*s discussion of the form of poetry leads one to leve that it is merely an instrument of the poet*s will to be used according his subjective feeling I QL .entlon*" "metre in itself ls simply a stimulant of the But as In his previous descriptions of the imaginative process* erldge always concludes with a metaphysical interpretation* Although "the iso of musical delight", the reduction of multeity to unity, or the modi.ng of "a series of thoughts by some one predominant thought or feeling", » ell functions of the poet*s creative will, "no man was ever yet a great it, without being at the seme time a profound philosopher*" The philoso- Lcal element In poetry ls that manifestation of spirit which can be realized Ly by the poet of genius* "It la throughout aa If a superior spirit more IntuitIra, mare -t«iv conscious. even than tha characters themselves* not only of every outward look and act. hut of tha flux and reflux of tha mind In all Ita auhtlast thoughts and feelings, vara placing tha d m l a hafora onr t l w t hlaaalf meanwhile unparticipating In tha passions* and actuat^fl 'HlilT ^ & "Pleasurable ukich had raaultad from tha energetlo fervor of hia 01m aplrlt In ao vividlyexhibiting* what lt haa ao accurately and profoundly eoatemplated* " a onea again la summarised tha idiola function of Imagination In Ita metaphysI aspects* tlha poet la tha prlaat by meana of which a aanaa of objectivity achieved for the aeathetle object Which ltaelf makes reader and poet perve the i&oleneea In the Individuality of the poem* Before the poet can ate. there maat occur thia flux and reflux of tha mind between tha poet and 1 eplrltual reality ha would manifest and communicate* The poet la "actuated" the dynamic flux and reflux of the mind aa lt becomes aware of Its spiritual Lerneas* He creates an object* a poem which can exist only in terms of his it sacrificial contemplation of Spirit in both ita manifold and individual tecta* As Coleridge says* "essence In Ita primary signification* means tha principle of l n d l v l 7 "the Inmost principle of tha possibility of any thing* aa that particular thins* It is equivalent to tha idea of a thing* when aver wa use tha word* Idea, with philosophic precision* Existence* on the other hand* Is dis­ tinguished from essence. by the superlnductlon of realltv* 9ms we speak of the essence* and essential properties of a circlet but we do not there­ fore assert* that any thing* tdiich really exists. Is mathematically cir­ cular." 8 6 ls 3 the poem has certain sensuous elements which stimulate the feelings of reader* but its true individuality or objectivity can consist only In the Hviduation of Spirit which is its essence* Bt to seek unity by harmonious adjustment* It is the human nature of the "She Composition of a poem Is amosv ths vtsl tad that Imitation* as opposed to copying, consists either In the Interfusion of the SAMS through­ out the radlcally hi W jM SI , or of the different throughout a hase radi­ cally the same*” 87 s In this Interaction between sameness and difference that the poet achleres fflclent awareness of Spiritual reality to make poetic creation possible* Coleridge ls a metaphysician %dio insists that the beauty of poetry can nJoyed only as one apprehends the unified spiritual reality which underlies poetic creation* The elements of poetry such as language and metre are iclent to prore that "such language and such combinations are the natlre produce neither of the fancy or the Imagination; that their operation consists In the excite­ ment of surprise by the Juxta-position and apparent reconciliation of widely different or incosqpatible things*" 0 0 compulsory Juxtaposition of Images such as hills being made to reflect the e of a Tolce are the work of a shallow mind. "not produced by the presentation of Impressive or delightful forms to the Inward vision* nor by any sympathy with the modifying powers with which the genius of the poet had united and Inspirited all the objects of his thought; that lt Is therefore a species of wit, a pure work of the jtUJL* and Implies a leisure and self-possession both of thought and of feeling* incompatible with a steady fervor of a mind possessed and filled with the grandeur of Its subject*" 89 Zt Is part of Coleridge1s genius to have avoided the folly of the modern jrary positivist who attempts to reduce poetry to the mere Juxtaposition of ruage and metre for Its own sake* Without the fullness of Spirit individu- 1 in the poetic self* there can be no poetry# 8? 88 89 Ibid* Yol*2* P*56* p H . Tol*2. pp.67-8. Ibid, Vol#2, p.68, It is only when poetry has 86 sn deduced In the author*a o n mind from considerations of grammar, logic* the truth and nature of things” that lt can achieve the level of greatness be the expression of genius* Zt has been show, that the intuition of spiritual reality la primary and rlorl In Ooleridge*s "system" and that the existence of this reality la 1stlately affirmed in every man* Without this existence of spiritual reality ag manifested In man* knowledge of all kinds* scientific or poetlo would impossible* This knowledge of Spirit "becomes intelligible to no man by the mini atry of mere words from without* The medium* by idilch spirits understand each other* la not the surrounding airs but the freedom which they possess in common* as the common etherlal element of their being* the tremulous reciprocations of which propagate themselves even to the Inmost of the soul* Where the spirit of a man ls not filled with the consciousness of freedom (• • • ) all spirltual inter­ course ls interrupted* not only with others but even with himself*"9® As for Kant* so for Coleridge, the Will and not the reason forms the mdatlon of our knowing minds and of the world of things which we know* Just Kant had allowed a certain metaphysical capacity to the will* so Coleridge .owe the same capacity to the poetic faculty* 2kit Coleridge ls less critical I less sceptical than Kant even though the latter was so passionate a defender the freedom of man as derived from his Divine Creator* 3 Less Interested in analysis of the antinomies of reason* Coleridge was more Interested in the Liness or content of owledge* Be loved Plato* s "divine nonsense" as he called because "he leads you to see that propositions involving in themselves 90 lhidn Vol.l. t>*i 68. ;radictary conceptions are nevertheless true; and which therefore, moat be; to a higher logic — that of ideas**91 The richness of these ideas lies ;he awareness of the spiritual unity of which they are the manifestations* Just as the categorical imperative urged the action of the will towards rational objective of Justice and falmindedness to all men. so Coleridge9s ;ic imperative urged the Will towards a more Platonic unity in Love* Coxv- ling human nature* Coleridge once said* There are two mighty mysteries — action and passion (or passive action)* and love is a synthesis of these* in which each is the other it is only £ synthesis* or one of the syntheses of action and passion; other discoveries must he made in order to know the principle of Individuation in general and then the principle of Personality** rhead quotes this passage in defence of Coleridge*s conviction of the meta3ical nature of the moral (and we may also add) the creative or poetic self* *lt a s the growing conviction of his later years that individuality, in the only sense in which it was of moral and religious significance* consisted not in the narrowing down of life to an exclusive point* hut in the expansion of lt towards the inclusion of the Whole — man in Cod. doubtless* but also Cod in man* *'3 dll thoughts* all passions* all delights* Whatever stirs this mortal frame* All are but ministers of Love* And feed his sacred flame* the imperative to such an all-absorbing Love requires a lover ar>^ that lover the poetic genius whose creative will can make this universal Love real and ividual* Coleridge. S-T.-Ta.b1,*> Ta^fc-ARrll 3 0 * 1830,quoted Richards,I.A.att*£iJt.;P.l6< 92 Coleridge* S*T** Table Talk.quoted by Muirhead. J»H«. o p . clt.0 .1 59. 93 Muirhead. J.H., lbldt p.159* 9h Coleridge. S*T.* Comm eta Poetical Works, p.135* 91 GHAPTI& XT iM.gr TATE AKD OLXAITIH BROOKS' THE PARADOX 07 OBJECTIVITY WITHOUT A MBTAPHTSXO X - AXJ.gr TATE Qxe problem of knowledge has always been concerned with the relation the knowing conscious mind to the objects which lt peroelres and knows* i 'burden of the Hew Criticism has been to sare poetry fkom the Bomantle tdltlon shlch reduced the poem to a mere shadow or phantasm of the poet's tense emotion* 3 At the same time the new critic Is attempting to sare poem ft*am semantical rednctlonlsm which would explain the poem simply a set of signs or symbols and syntactical rules* As the new orltlcs irch for a standard of objectivity* the ancient but persistent conflict tween the Academy and the Sophists* between the realists and the noml— Lists* between the modsffn Aristotelians and Hegelians* continues with porous and sometimes bitter struggle* Both traditions In their most ooa- iielng form discover a paradox between the loaowlng mind and sense experl— ee* Both schools of thought believe that a work of art has universal well as highly individual qualities but they disagree as to the origin art* T’h* Hegelian describes poetry or art ultimately as an objectlfl-* tion of the poet's experience while the Aristotelian describes poetry an Imitation* Far Hegel* "the work of art ls not only far the sensuous apprehension or sensuous object* but Its position ls of such a kind fttaat as sensuous lt Is aft the same time essentially addressed to the mind" 1 m * Hegel idxo set the pattern of tMntelng for shat le known as objective illom* If universale are primarily derived from the mind, how eaa they B&de objective or concreteT J uat as there can. he no final answer to this question so there wnn 10 final answer to the paradox of imitation* Aristotle says, "The statement that all knowledge is universal, so that the principles of things most also be universal and not separate substances, presents indeed, of all the points we have mentioned, the greatest difficulty, but yet the statement is in a sense true, although in a sense it is not*"2 rirst sight the two philosophers seem to agree but a closer examination sals a fundamental metaphysical difference* Whereas Hegel presupposes etaphysical reality which is essentially rational, Aristotle conceives a. metaphysical reality which can be Interpreted as substantial or spirit L rather than rational or sensuous* Whereas Hegel is always concerned b. the relation of parts to the whole, Aristotle is more concerned with specific essence of particular things* Zn what ways does an object ody the substantial reality of the universe in such a way as to preserve individuality before analysis by rational mind which would reduce particularity to a set of ideas in the knowing mind? Tor Allen Tate, poetry itself is a kind of knowledge* He rejects opinion that all experience eaa be reduced to scientific knoWLedge* 1 Bo8anquetJ*,Hflgel> Introduction to Bagel*s Philosophy of H a e Art* 1. 2 Aristotle* Metaphysics.ed* McEeon, Richard, Bimic Works of etotleT 1087 a,10-15- 90 i an assumption "has logloally reduced the spiritual realm to Irresponsible emotion* to what the positivists of our time see as Irrelevant feellre; It Is Irrelevant because It can't be reduced to the tuns of the positivist procedure* It Is my contention here that the high forms of literature cnly complete* and thus the most responsible* versions of our experience* pie point of view of this essay* then, Is influenced la*e neglected T*X>* Hulme (and not this essay alone)* It is the belief* philosophically tenable* In a radical discontinuity between the physical and the spiritual realms*" 3 Out of this radical discontinuity comes the special kind of knowledge sh i8 poetry* Poetry "is the art of apprehending and concentrating experience in the mysterious limitations of f o r m * A p ^ m e test of ideas: rehension."5 "Poetry it is ideas tested by experience* by the act of direct Tate observes that I. A. Richards has come to believe b poetry Is an independent form of knowledge equal in value if not stuLor, to scientific knowledge* Sate abandons the Doctrine of Relevance Btry can be tested by scientific observation of the world that it repr»to)* He also rejects the formalist theory of art for art's sake *rd sludes that poetry is dynamic: it provides a knowledge of inner e»» Lence which Is beyond the reach of the scientist* Moreover* the poet the means of figurative language and the power of rhetoric at his dls-> el for the expression of such knowledge which the scientific method not communicate* Although Matthew Arnold states both these charso ter- ics of poetry* late feels that Arnold has missed the Important feature poetical knowledge that language and subject are one* Poetry is more 3 Tate. Allen* On the Limits of Poetry. Selected assays» 192S-.1 York, SwallowuMorrow* 19h8, p*h* 4- ibid* p.xv# 5 ibld^ p.xv. tha adaptation of man1s experience to the forms of language* Jate rejects the positivism of Charles W* Morris because it gives no mt of the poet or of shat the poet is talking about* She nature of ry is said to he semantical and pragmatic without any metaphysical Lng* Sate feels that "since the values are not attached to reality* are Irresponsible feelings* Tate makes a sudden transition in his reasoning about Morris*s dilemma similar dilemma in Coleridge* Morris seems to be unable to say whether ot poetry means shat it says or whether it means the "situation11 we from it in a process of reduction* Tate observes a similar problem in iridge as he struggled between psychology and metaphysics* "He cannot make up his mind whether the specifically poetic element is an objective feature of the poem* or is distinguishable only as a subjective effect*"7 Zf Tate is not satisfied with Coleridge*s Incomplete theory of the ^.nation* he is still less sympathetic with Bi chardo* attempt to syxw> Blze Coleridge* s theory* Either the poet gains an Insight into objective lity i*e* he sees objective essences in nature not normally perceived "the of the poet creates a Mature into which his own feelings* aspirations and apprehensions* are projected*" Hichar ds tells us that ther of these alternatives is intelligible apart from Imagination* ice Richards has not considered Coleridge*s metaphysical speculations to of any importance* Tate may well ask 6 7 Ibid* P*35> Ibid* p*39. ■What Is this Imagination which Mr* Richards says mill anfca the two doctrines intelligibleT Vo doubt it becomes in hie something different from Coleridge* a conception of its It closely raaomblaa an Hegelian synthesis* which joins tha opposites in a new proposition in which their truths* no longer contradictory* are preserved*"" lards feels that this synthesis makes poetry "the completest mode of BESBfift*” **** this is a linguistic or semantical not a metaphysical thesis* And Sate warns the rationalist and the positivists "We do not need to reject the positive and rational mode of inquiry into poetry; yet even from Mr* Morris we get the warning lest we sub­ stitute the criticism for the poem* and thus commit ourselves to a •learned ignorance'* We must return to* we must never leave* the poem itself*" ? The Romantic movement in poetry Illustrates for Tate the fallacy of munication* "She poets were trying to use verse to convey ideas and feelings that they secretly thought could be better conveyed by science (consult Shelley* ■ cp), or by what today we call* in a significantly bad poetic phrase* the social sciences"a10 itry which attempts to communicate the affective state of the poet*s ml nd essentially unpoetlc. Le Vine" by James Speaking of a typical nineteenth centmry lyric* Thomson* Tate says it lacks coherent meaning both literal terms as well as metaphorical terms; "it may be wholly replaced *11 any of Its several paraphrases which are already latent In our minds*” 8 9 10 11 IbidT Ibid* !Hd* Ibid, p3J57 p*48. p*77# p*78. Zn preference to affective poetry* Sate ohooeee metaphysical poetry as .fled ‘by Donne and the Seventeenth Century Metaphysical poets* "The metaphysical poem Is an analytical proposition exhibiting the properties Inherent In the major term; that Is* exhibiting as much of the universe as Cowley could get around to before he wearied of logical extension**12 .s true that In metaphysical poetry there may occur another fallacy* mere denotation* such as QoHey or Cleveland wrote at their worst level aoetlc enterprise* •This Is the poetry which contradicts our most developed >*»««■« insights Insofar as It falls to use and direct the rich connotation with which language has been Informed by experience***13 The two extremes of poetic expression are best described as the level axtenslon and the level of Intension* b By extension* Tate means the pro- of abstraction by means of which a Platonist would reduce an object s poem to a universal concept* Bor example* one may read Marvell *s His Coy Mistress* as recommending Immoral behaviour to young men* s is one possible meaning* but It Is not the etf&uslve one* Shere Is o an intensive meaning i&lch expresses the conflict of sensuality and etlclsm* Zn Donne* s "Valedictions forbidding mourning* Our two soules therefore* which are one* Though Z must goe* endure not yet ▲ breach* but an expansion* Like gold to alary thlxmesse beate* 12 13 Ibid. p*80* Ibid* p.82. ■the infinite iaage of the gold., in extension* logically oontradiets the intenslTe Meaning (infinity) which it conveys; hat it does not invalidate that Meaning* . • • She clear denotation of the gold con­ tains. hy intension* the full meanly of the passage* Zf we reject the gold* we reject the meanly* for the Meaning is idxally absorbed into the gold*j. Intension and extension here are one* and they enrich each other** 1 late refers to the phrase of John Crowe Sanson "the Metaphysical starauy" of the poet as "the point on the intensiva-extenslve scale at which the poet deploys his resources of Meaning* She Metaphysical poet as a rationalist be­ gins at or near the extensive or denoting end of the lines the Saaantle or Synbolist poet at the other* intensive ends and each by a straining feat of the imagination tries to push his Meanings as far as he can towards the opposite end* so as to occupy the entire scale**3-5 sense they are at the centre - they achieve *the poetry of in Lch the "strategy” is diffused into the unitary effect” Sate coins the rn "tension” by dropping the prefixes from the terns "intension” and rtenslon”* XLsevere. Sate has Isolated his ideal of poetry by contrasting three pes of poetry* indicating three attitudes of the Modern world* First all there is the poetry of the practical will which looks fTon scientic explanation to action and leans upon moral abstractions and allegory* condly there is that type of poetry which is a reaction against the ■dnation of scientific knowledge in poetry* 14 15 Ibid* P.84. p*86 * This is poetry based upon » amotion of romantic irony* Sate rejects both of these types of poetry sense they try to make the will do the vork of the imagination* Soeh an terprise can never produce creative poetry* Zn his definition of creative poetry* there is a complete statement Tate* s theory of imagination* "The reader is asked to keep in mind two re general statements with some brief commentaryI First* the power of seising the insard meaning of eaqperlence* the power of poetic creation that I shall call here the vision of the whole of life, is a quality of the 1rrfflir^ri"TI- Die apologists of science speak as if this were the scientific attitude* bat the aim of science is to produce a dynamic whole for the service of the practical will* Our ex­ perience of nuclear energy seems to be very different from our capacity to control it* For the imaginative whole of life is the wholeness of vision at a particular moment of experience; it yielda us the quality of the experience*" 1© ereas the will makes only rhetorical propositions about the whole of life* e imagination seises upon the materials of the poem and makes them into whole* To illustrate his point Tate contrasts Shelley's lines I Life like a dome of many—coloured glass Stains the white radiance of eternity* th Edgar*s reflection on his father's downfall; "Ripeness is all"* In the elley passage* the simile Is imposed upon the material from above! "it does not grow out of the material* It exists as explanation exter­ nal to the subject; it is an explanation of 'life* that seems laden with portent and high significance* but as explanation it necessarily looks towards possible action and it is there that we lmow that the 1? Ibldy p*92 itatena&t it meaningless* fit means to ends*"*7 Pr&otloal experimental knowledge can alone can dieonee the truth or falsity of suoh a proposition as Shelley makes t as certainly as we can Incuas Xdgar's proposition* But T&te observes t Shakespeare1s figure "rises from the depth of Gloucester's situation* Zt is a summtlon not only of Gloucester's tragedy tut of the complex tensions of the plot before the catastrophe In the last scene* Possibly would be as good without Xdgar's words: but It would be difficult to imagine the play without the passage ending those words* Qxey are Im­ plicit in the total structure* the concrete quality* of the whole e x ­ perience that we have when we read £Lflg-2iSS£* The specific merit of Xdgar's statement as general truth or falsehood is Irrelevant-because it Is an experienced statement* first from Xdgar's* then from our own* point of view: and the statement remains expertenced* and thus signi­ ficant and comprehensible* whether it be true or false** * three types of poetry are summarized specifically as follows* "She pure scientific spirit I shall call here without much regard for accuracy* a positive Platonism* a cheerful confidence in the limitless Power of man to Impose practical abstractions upon his experience* Homantic irony Is a negative Platonism* a self—pitying disillusionment with the positive optimism of the other program* the romantic tries to build up a set of fictitious *explanations1* by means of rhetoric* more congenial to his unscientific temper* The creative spirit occupies an aloof middle ground — it is in no sense a compromise* as the late Irving Babbitt conceived it to be — between these positions* Zts function is the quality of experience* the total revelation *— not ex­ planation for the jxirpose of external control by the will*"1? The relation of particulars to the total structure of poetic wholes is fectively illustrated in Tate's tut He discusses » meaning of objectivity in poetry as contrasted with empirical objectivity 17 18 19 Ibid. p.92-3. Ibid; p. 93. I H d y p.9*4-5. 97 la seeks to resolve the paradox of the one sad the ussy la poetry* Sate wise enough to avoid the perslsteat dualism of Desoartes between the things ■ease aad the things of reason* The plala maa» beoaa.se of his sentlmeatal entation to his environment, customarily distinguishes betweea the world poetry aad the Actual World* By the term Actual World or Actuality e means the external world of experience* "So I take it that the bearing of the phrase *actual world1 Is towards something outside us* something objective, whose actuality is somehow aa empirical oae which teads to look after its own affaire without con­ sulting us, aad even at times resisting whatever It is la us which, we like to call by names like subjective, private, human as opposed to non-human, although even the Jumaa aad the subjective lie ready for objective scrutiny If we change our vantage-point aad let them stand opposite us rather than let them oppose a third thing* a world* beyond them* It is* in fact, no mere quibble of Idealism If we dhclde to call this subjective field not only the world but the actual world* taking our stand on the assumption that It sufficiently reflects or gathers In or contains all that we eaa ever know of any other world or worlds that appear to lie beyond It*"20 How can the subjective field be the actual world? At first eight s would seem to be a worse paradox than the oae with which we have begun* we attempt to resolve the paradox philosophically* we shall have to admit ■ helplessness before a "fenced-ln aprlorlsm"* If we accept the actual Id as the world of sense experience alone, we shall have only a sclentl— : knowledge not a poetical knowledge* The subjective can be the actual •Id If we can think of the actual world as the realm of dramatic imagine— >n* To Illustrate the relation of the Imagination to the actual world* be chooses Sostoyevslor* s 20 IbidT p*150 because ■the resolution. Is managed by means of that most difficult of all feats* a narrow scene brought close up* In whloh the "meaningM of the action is oonveyed in a dramatic visual1cation so immediate and. Intense that it creates its own symbolism* Ans it is the particular symbdliam of the fly in the final scene of TAiot which has provided, the spring­ board, or let us say the catapult* that will send us off into the un­ known regions of "actuality" into which we have received order to ad­ vance* "2* re are to know the actuality* we shall not know it by looking at the enoal data of our sense experience but only by comprehending the symbolic ling of these data in their relation to a dramatic context* is Kyshkln Bogozhln keep their eerie vigil over the dead body of Bastasya* the isphere is tense and motionless* Suddenly there is the buzz of a fly >h flies over the bed and settles on the pillow where Bastasya lies* ; as he has remarked earlier how Edgar's image "Ripeness is all" rises i the depth of Gloucester's tragedy* so the hovering fly summarizes the ;edy of The Idip^* Tate observes* 'X am not sure that the power of the scene would be diminished by the absence of the fly; but at any rate it is there; and its buzz rises like a hurricane in that silent room* until* for me* the roam is filled with audible silence* !Qie fly comes to stand in its sinister and abun­ dant life for the privation of life* the body of the young woman on the bed* Here we have one of those conversions of image of which only great literary talent is capable; life stands for death* but it is a wholly different order of life, and one that impinges upon the human order ohly in its capacity of scavenger* a neosssity of its biological situation which in Itself must be seen as neutral or even innocent* day sinister significance that the fly may create for us is entirely due to its crossing our own path; by means of the fly the human order is compromised* But it is also extended* until through a series of similar conversions and correspondences of image the buzz of the fly distends* both visually and metaphorically* the body of the girl into the world* Her degradation and nobility are in that image* Shall we call it the actual worldT" ^ Hero is a world that Is real taxt la It fair to call it actual wfren tha 'actual* haa already an empirical connotation! Since any attempt to an univocal definition of poetry oust commit ua to a poaltlon which, la n»tely untenable* we must conclude that actuality and poetry are res— lvely and even reciprocally one* Out of the paradox of poetry and p>»*- phy comes a unity which la at the same time manifold and apeelflo* The r of our time haa been the emphasis upon one art to the sc elusion of tha r* Grammar» philosophy and rhetoric must all blend together to "achieve naalo and precarious unity of experience*" Tate makes the aame attempt to describe the essence of the dramatlo ination In his A Reading of Keats* Although the senauousness of his ;ery would put Keats in the class of the empiricists, there is a dynamic lty which transcends the whole (the poem) In such a way that all the uous images are converted into a dramatic actuality which is permanent* "She ambivalence of the nightingale symbol contains almost the whole substance of the poems the bird, as bird, shares the mortality of the world; as symbol, it purports to transcend it*"^3 same sort of paradox occurs In Ode on a Grecian Urn where "The poem Is an emblem on one limit of our experiences the impossibi­ lity of synthesising, in the order of experience, the antinomy of the Ideal and the real, and, although that antinomy strikes the human mind with a different force in different ages (Donne*s dualism is not Keats*), it is sufficiently common to all men in all times to be tinderstood* again 23 2h Ibid* p.172. Ibjdy p.177. "there U Mi to pat It In the simplest language* a strong compulsion towards the realization of physical love* hut he eoruld not reconcile it with his Idealisation of the beloved*"25 As one recreates in one*s own Imagination the subtle Insights of Allen >» one feels the struggle for a sound metaphysical basis for poetry* yet he is unable to state or describe the essenoe* the reality which the naent of the dramatic imagination reveals* He speaks of Teats*s poetry •omantlc because "Teats*s doctrine of the conflict of opposites says nothing about the fundamental nature of reality* it Is rather a dramatic framework through which is made visible the perpetual oscillation of man between extreme introspection and extreme loss of the self in the world of action*" 26 Ln he eludes the metaphysical essence which he seeks tdxen he says that elements of poetry are combined as experience and experience means con­ st and conflict means drama* egorleal* Dramatic experience is not logical* not It is not empirical nor sensuous* "Serious poetry deals with fundamental conflicts that cannot be logically resolved*" Heeesslty is dramatically relevant* not the logically necessary as far as poetry concerned* But the reader is not clear as to the nature of the reality to ,ch the poetry Is dramatically relevant* Ve are aware of the process by which he might perceive the substance of 0.1ty when he speaks of Bhdly Dickinson mastering life by the rejection it* Over against nature symbolized by death, she sets the puritan theo­ ry of redemption and immortality — 25 26 Ibid.* p.183* iSId* p.222, a clash of powerful opposites* a lion between abstraction and sensation the paradox of which reveals to ;he true morality, the true reality* "The two poles of the mind are not separately visible! we Infer them from the luold tension that may be most readily Illustrated by polar activity* There Is no thought as such at all; nor Is there feeling! there Is that unique focus of experience which is at once neither and both*"2* •e is a subtle movement of the poetic mind perceived but it is as though > were Indulging In the aesthetlopleasure of the liturgy without the > spiritual essence which is the mass* In speaking of the types of :ination, he distinguishes the religious "which can mythologise lndlsdnately history, legend, trees, the sea. animal s. all being humanly iatized. somehow converted to the nature of man#" .ch. 18 the religious Imagination manque — from the historical an exercise of the mytlw Lag propensity of man within the restricted realm of historical event*" .tlvlsm which is the truncation of the historical method, is Just plain ryday history* He is describing Imagination in terms of society rather i In terms of poetry at this point* but one feels the same strenuous »rt objectify the knowing mind of the poet* How can the religious jinatian mythologize If there Is no agent to perform the act and If the it Is present, then exactly what is the nature of the reality which he Lpulates — — or dare we say — Imitates? H® criticizes MacLelsh because "there Is not one moment of action rendered objectively In the entire poem tOonouiatadorl* There Is constantly and solely the pattern of sensation that surrounded the moment of action — the fringe of the physical shock and awareness that survive in memory* 27 Ibid* p.210. 28 Ibldfr p*367« 102 [•elsh h&# not oaptnred the essentially dramatic* the relevant qualities kils experience: the Implication Is that he Is not aware of reality* Zn an evaluation of Stephen Spender9« the translation of doctrine into metaphors* fete criticises Spender He attacks Spender for the sclous attempt to hi end belief as a statistical and sociological category h the arts* He singles orut such passages as She architectural gold-leaved flower Trom people ordered like a single mind* I build* or • • • .larger than all the charcoaled batteries Aad Imaged towers against the dying sl^r* Religion stands* the church blocking the sun* "Such translation (of doctrine into metaphors) probably Precedes (mar Italics) the creative moment* and the best poetry Is probably written by men who are not even aware that it has taken placet expression is the total thought (my Italics)*" be seems here to be talking of the same metaphysical reality as Croce B8 when he speaks of the unity of Spirit of which the artistic object the esqpresslon* sub Just as Croce objects to any distinction between cons- form and poetic content* so fete is anxious that the formal or philo- phlcal element never be separated from the charged dramatic quality of agination as it Is manifested or "expressed” In the poem* "If there Is a single good dogma In poetic criticism It Is possibly this* that no philosophy is good enough for a poet unless It is so seasoned In his experience that It has became* like the handling of the gravediggers9 skulls* a property of easiness* It Is not what a poet 9bell eves9 (Hr* HI chards9 theory) but rather what total attitude he he takes towards all aspects of his conduct* that constitutes the 9content9 side of the aesthetic problem*" 29 fete. Allenj The Hovering Fly and Other Bssays .Omnmlngton. Lmmlngton Press(Limlted Edition)* 19^+9* P*72* £• Wlmsatt, In his essay on "The S"fcx*ucture of the Concrete Universal"29& erves that Tate arrives at the c o n c r e t e universal of the Idealist in his enpt to achieve poetical objectivi-by* Whereas most modern logicians ept the Inverse variation of e x t e n s i o n and intension — shallower the other* Tate suggests the wider the one "that in some peculiar way the poem is erbal structure which has "both a v e r y wide extension and a very deep ension* At the same time that Ta-te has "been speaking of the actual ex— ssion in a poem "being the total t hought, he alsossays that good poems vey "single emotions". the specific poem. The t o t a l i t y of the poet's subjective experience But like the Croceans, he denies the distinction "be­ en subjective and objective as the resents* He denies as doe3 Croce loss of the reality which the poem that art involves concepts because ! intuition aims to express individ.txa.lity* In ^ate's terms the jargon intuition and expression is a b a n d o n e d for dramatic imagination, the natically relevant* In his essay on Longinus Tate d i s p l a y s his finest critical insights L at the same time his theory of p o e t r y is most readily identifiable ;h fr om a historical as well as a n sxesthetic point of view* s discussion upon thetv/o Greek w o r d s tion of Language1 and * transport* Ee centres 'houpsos* and 'ekstasis', *EL^» respectively, which words, he s^ys, m o t be di sentangl ed* "They contain, in their interrelatio:-B, a version of a persistent biguity of critical reference w h i c h appeared with Aristotle, and bad porous life up to Coleridge (whitlx w h o m it comes back disguised), and v: eggs on the edifying' controversy of the contemporary E l i s h d American critics: Hansom, C l e m t h Brooks, Herd, Lea vis, El char ds, aclnxur and Winters* Is H e v a t i o n a m objective Quality of the literary rk? Is Transport its subjective r e f e r e n c e denoting the e otions of e reader — or the 'hearer1 a,s L o n g i n u s calls him — as he 9a Wimsa~tt, W.K., "The Structure o f the Concrete Universal," 104 ' receives the impect of novation? Does either term* XLeva tion or Transport* point to anything sufficiently’ objective to he isolated for critical discussion?" 3° Sate attempts to show that Longinus* theory is unique and distinctive >m that of the Classicists and from that of Aristotle in particular* 'faring from the Classical tradition* Longinus was ahle to write that the action of the sublime was "not to persudde* hut to entrance* like a flash lightning** 2y insisting that the style is a compound of natural talent i conscious method* Longinus "claims for Thought and Diction (two of the nonetrue tural elements in Aristotle* s analysis of tragedy* a degree of objectivity that Aristotle*s rhetorical view of poetic language could not include***31 en Longinus tells us to speak at the right length and to the occasion* are being asked rson to idiom the to adapt form to subject and to relate the poem andthe poem is addressed* Tate notes that theserelations *rlght length* and *occasion* are the same as Hansom* s relation of xture within a structure or Winters* relation of to rational ntext* When Longimxs asks if there is an art of XLevatlon* he is really king if there can be a criticism of convincing objectivity which approaches .e literary work through its analysis of style and which arrives at its xger aspects through that aperture* isthetic Idealist Whether or not we may call Tate an or not* we can certainly be sure that his theory is not ‘istotelian in tone* Beallty will likely be much closer to the concrete idversal than to any substantial "essence" which is specific but neither 30 31 Ibid* p*84. Ibid* p.85. ;lonal nor sensuous* Tate says that Longinus* question. "Is there an i of XLevatlonT" is tha question of our tins* "In asking it* are we not following Longinus r&thsr than Aristotle? Aristotle began with the conspicuous "larger aspects" of a nature li­ terary genre* Greek tragedy, and. got around to the problems of poetic language only at the end* and as a rhetorician (except for one curious remark about metaphor) who offers us shrewd but merely schematic adrioe about the use of figures* "32 9ie word *techne* in Longinus means something similar to the dramatic gination in Sate* it* l*e* Longinus means both criticism and the art of the By making too sharp a distinction between the form and the feeling* her writers become coldly formal by only at "the curious and the dflclal" or they neglect form and as Longinus writes "fall into a maudlin mood and digress from their subject into their own tedious emotion* Thus they show bad form and leave* their audience unimpressed; necessarily, for they are in a state of rapture, and the audience is not*"33 chne* is the "controlled awareness guage ofwhat can be made actual (to use Henry James*s term) through language* resulting in a just, if redlctable* proportion between that Longinus calls the *emotion* and the ibjeet*"* Wehave two extremes* "the pride of Intellect and the pride feeling* the pride of will and the pride of instinct*"She history of i Imagination seems to be the pendulum between these extremes* Xate stresses Longinus* statement that "Most Important of all. we it learn from art the fact that some elements of style depend upon nature 32 33 P* 87. Ibid* - p*8 8 . 106 ie.* Sate takes this passage paradoxically to mean ■we learn from the development of technique that stylistic autonomy is a delusion* because style comes into existence only as it discovers the subject: and conversely the subject exists only after it is farmed by the style* Vo literary work is perfect* no subject perfectly formed* Style reveals that which is not style in the process of forming it* Style does not create the subject* it discovers it* th* fusion of art and nature* of technique and subject* ccm never exceed the approximate: the margin of imperfection* of the unformed* is always there — nature Is intractable to art* art unequal to nature* The converse of Longinus1 s aphorism will further elucidate it: we must learn from nature that some elements of subject matter* In a literary work* •depend9 upon art alone* There Is a reciprocal relation* not an Identity — • not* certainly* the Identity of form and content — a dynamic* shifting relation between technique and subject* and they_reveal each other* This Is my sense of Longinus*s primary Insight* There could be no better revelation of the metaphysical baals of Tate's ;icism than Is given in this passage* Here Is the language of the iphysical Idealist In the Hegel of "The Phenomenology of Mind" and In :e's theory that Intuition is expression* Zn Hegel* the notion of the sept as concrete universal is the essence of his dialectical process* »dousne 8 s Is both conscious of the object and of Itself — bherN and "being—for— 1 tself"• "being-for- Tor Hegel* experience is a dialectical seas by which it becomes aware of an object in opposition to Itself* As i as consciousness* which embraces both itself and its object* becomes itical with its own essence* It will have attained to absolute knowledge* s each consciousness of self and of the object at the level of sense balnty cancels Itself as soon as it achieves truth giving way to the ler, more universal* yet it never loses its ooncreteness* 34 Ibidy p. 90. The Absolute 107 known not In and for Itself alone tut rather as the result of a developit through the consciousness* Vhen Sate speaks of dramatic imagination* or describes the best poetry 11the actual expression is the total thoughtN he is attempting to make the ►wing mind* the subjective mind, as dynamic and as objective as did Hegel L Croce* out of which the pure concept For Croce* the reality is spirit* forever springing* All logical activity presupposes intuitions* icept as a manifestation of spirit* as an aspeet of reality* as a spiriil activity* Itself constitutes the object of Logic* *PHe dynamic con- >t which, lies at the core of Croce's Logic is the same kind of specific ►11 ty which is the objective core of a poem* And so Croce writes meaning­ l y for the occasion of all aesthetic idealists when we readthat "She concept then* is not representation* nor is it mixture and refine­ ment of representation* Zt springs from representations* as something impllolt in them that must become explicit; a necessity whose premises they provide* but which they are not in a position to satisfy* not even to affirm." 3*** both Hegel and Croce the concept has the character of expressivity moving ;waxd from the real Spirit maintaining unity in diversity* Leon must be taken as Immediate being* Immediate unity* On the one hand* On the other hand* Is reality "must see Itself as concrete reality, and find itself present objectively embodied form and in the shape of a *thing* And so Tate sempts to avoid the reduction of the specific quality of thought or poetry an Absolute in which everything is related identically to everything else* 34b 35 Croce* Benedetto, Logic as the Science of Pure Concept, pp.17-18Hegel 0*F** The Phenomenology of Mind. p*282- 108 character of expressivity In Hegel and Orooe la the same "dynamic* shlf- ; relation hetween technique aad subject" revealing each other which » believes to be Longinus*s primary Insight* Aad this same Insight Is core of Tate*s dramatic Imagination* It Is not surprising that Tate should be critical of Aristotle shea realizes his strong Idealistic bias* His admiration for Longinus Is larlsed as foil owe I "I have shown* Z hope* that his considerable originality consists In shifting the centre of critical interest* without ‘rejecting It as aa •Interest* from the genetic aad moral Judgement to the Aesthetic* from the subject matter and the psychology of the author to the language of the work*" 3 6 The title of Tate’s latest volume of criticism "On tha reminiscent of Lessing* of vftiom little is said In the book* of Poetry" If Lessing »elf was responsible for interpreting Aristotle's poetic theory on the xctlc level alone* Tate has perpetuated the same prejudice* He admires £lnus because this Ancient did not commit himself to a metaphysical Ltlon* Tate Is trying to say that poetry "Is neither religion nor Lai engineering"* xs critics* He would avoid the didacticism aad scientism of pre- The Implication of his criticism of Aristotle reveals arly that he is not aware of the aesthetic theory which is Implicit In am- He criticizes Aristotle because he confined his remarks the practice of poetry to tragedy* thus limiting the scope of his literary erence* 32 Whereas Aristotle's remarks on rhetoric are "shrewd but merely Tate )T oP*clt* r p *95 » 109 imatlc advice about tha use of figures* N Longinus surpassed Aristotle ils "awareness of literature at large which raises his theory* of the ition of language aad subject to a higher degree of useful generality i any literary* theory before him had reached*" ^7 Sate reveals his own awareness of Aristotle* s genius when he speaks i soste puszlement of his theory of metaphor* The use of analogy in the itructlon of the metaphor leads to metaphysical Insights which the more .ted rhetoric of a Longinus or a Tate will not reveal* Tate finds »to tie* s remarks on metaphor "curious" because he falls to relate the tusslon of metaphor to Aristotle* s Metaphysics which provides the means .nterprstation of Aristotle* s meaning* Tate asserts that "metaphor was »ature of discourse to be described* not a metaphysical problem to be tstlgated*" Zt is because of this basic error that all Tate*s cri- .sm must inevitably lead to the very semantical redaotionlsm ihlch he .ores in positivism* Reluctantly he admits of the existence of a total .lty in a work which it is beyond the power of language to describe* .s in this subtle area of Intuition where one finds the dynamic quality which iscends the language which the poet employe* Tate says that Aristotle's .nltlon of a good metaphor as one vhich "implies an Intuitive perception *he similarity in dlssimilars" is very nearly the beginning and the end ile own inquiries into metaphor* But Tate feels that "the ancient Inquiry > the structure of metaphor was less resourceful than ours* if not less »lllgent*" 37 Ibldy The implication of Tate's brief remarks seems to be that p*91 no » Greeks scarcely got 'beyond the physical analogy* Eren Longinus has not >aped this charge* "He shared Aristotle* • cosmetic sense of the simple relation between word and things in a world of fixed forms* thing was unyielding! the word* like its object* retained a plastic visibility* With the Oreeks the "transference" of "names" was limited to the surface designation* to the comparison of objects in the round* to sculpturesque analogy*" l so by failing to see that the fourfold analogy which is the peculiar u.cture of Aristotle*0 metaphor is also the key to his most profound aphysical insights* Tate makes the error of believing that "metaphor was eature of discourse to be described, not a metaphysical problem to be estigated*" He sees only the physical level of meaning in metaphor and didactic level of meaning in Aristotle* s theory of tragedy* He fails perceive the similarity* the unity in the dissimilar* XZ - OLSAHTH BROOKS Although Brooks shares the same objectives as Allen Tate in his search a criterion of poetical objectivity* one can perceive certain differ»s in temperament which are significant* intlcB* Both critics condemned the Whereas Tate criticized them for identifying the p oetlc ex>- .ence with the assertion of the will (without the systematic method of scientist who also seeks to express his will)* Brooks criticizes the intlcs for being anti— Intellectual* Lect as Inimical to deep emotion* The Bomantlcs distrusted the istThey would have criticized Bonne or rell for sacrificing the intensity of a passionate experience to an aeite and therefore dry* logical and precise image* Brooks feels that h criticism Is shortsighted however* Zt neglects to consider the figure relation to the total context* aad fails to consider that a figure may used for a contrast as well as a camparison*"38 Moreover* he adds that Marvell*s poem PeflnAtlon of Lovat As lines so Loves oblique may well Biemselves in every Angle greets But ours so truly Parallel* fiiough Infinite can never meet* e geometrical figure gives a sense of logical Inevitability •*** finality a relationship which Is usually considered irrational — - a sense of even hematlcal order to a relationship usually cohsldered chaotic* The t of the validity of any figure should not be the subjective feeling which stirs In us nor the rationality of such a figure* "our only test for validity of any figure must be an appeal to the whole context in which occurs! Does it contribute to the total effect or not?"^ Tate would ee absolutely with the principle enunciated here but one would feel 8 sharply the exactness of the point and would be made more aware of > spiritual or dramatic quality of what Brooks has called nthe total ‘ect"* Both Tate and Brooks will agree that the objectivity of poetry will found In the language of the poem rather than In any Intellectual or sen- us quality of the imagery* Tate differs from Brooks In his notion of > quality of the language as expressive of dramatic imagination* Brooks 38 Brooks* Cleanths Modern Poetry and the Tradition^ Editions Poetry* idon Ltd** 1 9 ^ » p*2^> 39 Ibid ,p.2^. uch more concerned with the preolaeneea and exactneaa of the Imagery .* Inatead of discussing expression. he talks of sit and paradox* Be Rich more certain that the moderns are related to the Seventeenth Century heir conception of the function of metaphor* She aenae of the poetic eaa la much more definitive even If he arrives at the same conclusions late about the unity of the total effect or the neoesalty for a dramatic ilopment of "the poet* a fervour”* In a poem like Oarew* s "Aak M* Ko Mare. "The test of his sincerity Is to be measured by the Integrity of tone which the poet achieves, and this In turn, as the poem Indicates, may be achieved by Ingenuity, aa well as simplicity — by a sense of consciously artificial statement aa well as by a sense of natural statement* lyric, to be a good lyric must "be tender, and at the same time, alert aware Intellectually*" Such an attitude Is complex and mature but not tssarlly self-contradlctory* ;he wit. but through it*" 42 "The tenderness Is achieved, not in spite When Coleridge spoke of the necessltyfbr iteady fervour of the mind* • • filled with the grandeur of Its subject". >ks Insists that "ldentlflotation of depth of sincerity with a steady rour leaves out of account the possibility of dramatic development 43 fervour*" of It is Brooks* s contention that metaphor is essentially linked with iirdlty. even In common expressions*"Tor the Imaginative act of fusing of t In ordinary experience Is inharmonious, the Hobbes tan poet tended to stltute the rational act of sorting out the discordant and removing It n the c o n t e x t * B u t It was by such an aesthetic theory that the dramatic 41 Ibldt p.32. 42 IbiA* P*33 • 113 lties of human feeling and experience were reduced to sentimentalities Brooks continues "the irony of a poem aa a whole is a rich and complex dine of pity and laughter in which the attitude of the reader, far being simplified, is developed and complicated." The true aim of the should be "to fuse the conflicting elements in a harmonious whole" not to simplify. Concluding a chapter on the relation of wit to high ouaaeiti he writes "in the end, the only poetry which possesses high ousness is the poetry of wit." It is important to note Brooks's source for wit in the poet aa maker* Is his making, his imagination that gives the poem its poetic quality, some intrinsic quality (beauty or truth) of the materials with which uilds his poem."**-* The objective quality of the poet's mind is to ound only in terms of paradox. The Romantic poets had depended upon er, surprise, the charm of novelty to things, etc. for their sense of dox. But Brooks insists that true paradoxes "spring from the very re of the poet's language.*" Whereas "the tendency of science is necessarily to stabilize terms, to freeze them into strict denotations; the poet's tendency is by contrast des­ criptive. She terms are continually modifying each other, and thus violating their dictionary meanings. ks emphasizes the transcendental qualities of paradox. Without paradox, h its twin concomitants of irony and wonder, the matter of Bonne's poem Canon!zatlon unravels into 'facts', biological, sociological and eco— TJ5 Ibid. • P.sT ~ ~~ 46 ^rooka, Cleanth: The Well-Wrought Urn. Studies In the Structure oetry. Benhis, Dobson Ltd., London, 1949, p.847 Ibid^ p.1 6 . Brooks*• ideal Is the symbolist poet* best represented by V* B* Teats* symbolist poet is neither obscure nor escapist* "The symbolist poet refuses to sacrifice the subtlety and complexity of his total vision of reality* Such a poetry will undoubtedly result in a limitation of the audience* but the limitation will be an unfortunate necessity conditioned by thefigature of the poetry* not the effect of the poet*s personal snobbery*"4** Tefcts*s poem Sailing to Bvsantlum* the logical xml.ty of the central theme brought into larger imaginative uni ty* Brooks* s enthusiasm for Teats is greater than Tate* s* Whereas Sate Is that Teats's poetry is ultimately romantic* Brooks seizes upon Teats*s ctlon to science as the keystone of modern poetry* Teats writes in the roductlon to A Vision* "I wished for a system of thought that would leave imagination free to create as it chose and yet make all it created* or Id create* part of the one history* and that the soul*sN* Or as BLiot ht have said* "Teats set out to build a system of references which would ow for a unification of sensibility*"4^ The appeal of symbolism for Brooks as for Teats is the means it provides ’ the attainment of a tremendous richness and coherency which, is Imaginative her than logical* "Teats*s symbols* though they are Interwoven into complex organizations* never give way to a merely allegorical construct* the proof that they do not lies in the fact that on their literal level they tend to take the reader in the direction of the system* "50 1*8 h9 50 Brooks. Cleanthj Modern Poetry and the Tradition. p*(a7« Ibid* p.173. IbldT F.191. roughout Brooks's essay on Teats* one finds oonstant approval of .Teats*s tempt to use concrete symbols rather than abstract ideas* "She system, to pat it concisely, allows Teats to see the world as a great drama, predictable in its larger aspects (so that the poet is not lost in a welter of confusion), bat in a pattern ihloh allows far the complexity of experience and the apparent contradictions of experi­ ence (so that the poet is not tempted to oversimplify*"51 be had been critical of Teats*s attempt to obtain dynamic effects by the ifllct of opposites because it said "nothing about the fundamental nature of reality? it is rather a dramatic framework through which, is made visible the perpetual oscillation of man between extreme introspection and extreme loss of the self in the world of action* "52 >oks in following Teats seems to lack the same perception into reality* sreas Tate had tried to visualise a reality of spirit to which language i dramatically relevant. Brooks defines drama in terms of a system in which continually repeated victory over the contradictory is recognized, and rough the recognition, resolved into agreement*" 53 Just as Teats had ight a philosophy that was at once "logical and boundless" so Brooks ild resolve the paradoxes of truth in poetry* "Had Teats merely been content to indulge himself random superstitions, he would never, presumably, system of beliefs at all* A? philosophy which was would allow a person to live in a pleasant enough cal " quality demands a systamatisation, though in would not violate and oversimplify experience*"^ 51 52 53 5* in fairy tales and have bothered with a merely *boundless* anarchy* The "logi­ Teats* s case one which Ibid* p.1 9 6 . Tate, Allen, Thg T.imits of Poetry, p. 2 2 2 . Brooks,, Cleanth, Modern Poetry and the Tradition. p*l96. P.173. Art elsewhere, Brooks has strongly emphasised his affinity with the >11 ectual side of the Metaphysical poets* He has defined the poetry of as the draaaatlsatlon of the lyric• herein placing the emphasis on wit ter than on the lyrical quail ty per se* There Is a rigour of logic in concept of a drama that continually conquers the dlssimllars into *y which la more reminiscent of the Inflexibility of Hegel *s >f the dynamic movement of The Phenomenology of th*n It Tate had used language of symbolism to illustrate the operation of the dramatic Ima— ition In Dootoyevskyls She Idiot* The resolution of the plot "is managed leans of that most difficult of all feats, a narrow scene brought close up, diich the 1meaning1 of the action Is conveyed In a dramatic visualisation .mmedlate and intense that it creates its own symbolism" — — > the emphasis is on the pictorial quality of the symbolism* the fly* One feels > concreteness in the symbols vfclch Tate uses than in those which Brooks i* His description of the dramatic quality of Milton* s Lucifer shows •eater element of abstraction than is shown by Tate in his treatment ;he hovering fly* The character of Lucifer "Is dramatic in that it represents a union of the subjective and ob­ jective! the poet explores experience by separating his symbols fl*oan a personal allegiance to his own ego, and while Infusing them with an active vitality, allows them to work out In accordance with their own logic and develop in a life of their own*"55 Brooks of course denies repeatedly that logic can capture the poetic Llty of imagination* by, he says 55I£l£t P.Z11. Concerning paradox as a means of achieving poetic 117 * to assimilate incongruities requires* of course* a rather rigorous ant of synthesis* Such, an act finds no counterpart in science* and it la definitely distasteful to a mind impregnated with science* Science* on principle* cannot tolerate the incongruous* Its method is analysis by which it attenqots to reduce its world to congruitles by an act of abstract!on* "50 as one recalls the drama which demands a continually repeated victory onrer contradictory* there is an inevitability Which is not only rigorous but destructive of lyric quality* As one reads Brooks*s Ingenious ons of poetry in terms of his critical theory of paradox* or wit* one s that the spiritual unity, the expressivity is giving way to a more sxible kind of logic* Let us admit that the epitaph of Gray*s Elegy is actional pert of the total structure of the poem but there will be who will feel that the Ingenious attempt of Brooks to relate almost every e to the totality of the structure in a specific manner may be under— og more than the frail structure of the poem will stand* It is possible urn the searching light of analysis upon the unity of a poetic experience he point where the lyrical vision is blinded by the glare* There is more of a metaphysical quality in Brooks*s discussion of cture in the Veil Wrought Urn* "The structure meant is a structure of meanings* evaluations* and Interpretations; and the principle of unity which informs it seems to be one of balancing and harmonizing connotations* attitudes, and meanings* But even here one needs to make important qualifications: the principle is not one which Involves the arrangement of the various elements into homogeneous groupings* pairing like with like* It unites the like with the unlike* It does not unite them, however* by the simple process of allowing one connotation to cancel out another nor does it reduce the contradictory attitudes to harmony by a process of subtraction* The JS Ibid, p*2 0 1 . unity is not a "unity of the eort to "be achieved "by the reduction simplification appropriate to an algebraic formula* It Is a positive "unity» no5_a negative; it represents not a residue but an achieved harmony* ke disclaims paraphrase as a means of rendering the meaning of a poem* efer the structure of the poem to shat is finally a paraphrase of the Is to refer It to something outside the poem*^® To take paraphrase he criterion of meaning In a poem Is to misconceive the function of phor and metre* One can perceive the emphasis here on the lntemallty tructure as a pattern of resolved stresses si thin the shale context he poem* For all his disclaimers about the logical rigour of his fly tion of the function of poetry, one feels again the lack of metaphysical ort for an otherwise logical structure* Without the Intuition of a rate, non-loglcal, non-sensuous reality, all Brooks protests seem very nvlnclng* Where Is the sense of metaphysical reality in the following ageT "But to deny that the coherence of a poem is reflected In a logical paraphrase of Its (real meaning* Is not, of course, to deny coherence to poetry; It Is rather to assert that its coherence Is to be sought elsewhere* The characteristic uni ty of a poem (even of those poems which may accidentally possess a logical unity as well as this poetic unity) lies In the unification of attitudes Into a hierarchy subor­ dinated to a total and governing attitude* In the unified poem, the poet has *come to terms* with his experience* The poem does not merely eventuate In a logical conclusion* The conclusion of the poem is the working out of the various tensions — set up by whatever means — by propositions, metaphors, symbols* The unity is achieved by a dramatic process, not a logical; it represents an equilibrium of forces, not a. formula* It Is *proved* as a dramatic conclusion Is proved; by its ability to resolve the conflicts which have been accepted as the of the drama* "59 57 58 59 Brooks, Cleanth, The WeJ\ Wrought Ibid*, p.l8 fc. Ibid, p.189. P* 179. w these "donndes" are not so dynamically quelltatire as Bergson*s onn^es" because Brooks is much more concerned with the movement of th* id than he is with any Lamarckian dynamism of nature such as Bergson 1 In mind* Both share lh common an anti-metaphysical attitude but rgson'e is Inevitably sensuous In its orientation while that of Brooks is bional* What Brooks fails to see In saying that 'conflicts' ere the mees is that dynamism is not enough* Tate* for all his anti-metaphysical is* v»s aware of the need for some relevancy for his dramatic Imagination in If he did not state the nature or the metaphysical element to which .8 dynamic quality was related* By falling to face this issue* Brooks forced into the camp of the monists and must lose the dynamic quality ch he would preserve* Another characteristic of the idealist is to be seen in the strong ijective element In Brooks'theory of poetic creation* Like Tate the bility to convey in any objective sense the awareness of reality forces to place greater emphasis upon the creative power of the poet* In his inition of the metaphor* for example* he is careful enough to avoid the or of the Homanticist or the sentimentalist in defining the metaphor as embellishment* The metaphor is an aid to expression in the sense that is an extension of the known to the unknown* of a familiar term to an amlllar fact or situation* As previously noted* the metaphor should bine both the similar and the dissimilar in a central consistency* "Metaphor is not a mere decoration* It is not an illustration not apolnt-to-polnt analogical likeness* It is not an alternate naming of the thing which is chosen because it is 'prettier1 or 'simpler' Rather it is our great instrument for interpreting the thing in question* Metaphors are new namings which seize upon the thing and interpret it lovingly, reverently, contemptuously, mockingly* coldly* or warmly as the skilful author may desire* The aptness of p. comparison* therefore* cannot "be determined in islotation* The author*8 larger purpose, and the whole content in vfoich the comparison occurs, must be taken into account•" It will be noted that throughout this description of the function of the metaphor, it is essentially a tool of the author to project ids own response to ids own environment* It is an instrument of interpretation* If "meta.phor is ultimately the jgower (my italics) to take a given and known term and jjend it to a fresher ana richer use'1, then its function in extending the imagination can be nothing else than the extension of the poet*s mind to a. world mind which includes every detail in a sort of mind context, a con­ text in which everything is related to everything else. It is difficult to distinguish in Brooks whether the psychology of octic crertion is inoividual 1stic or monistic* In the fashion of Hegel, Erooks does try to bring about a dynamic interaction between the poet's mind ■nc. tr.e structure he creates* The structure is the reflection of a dra­ matic conflict in the poet's mind as he sets about the ta.sk of projecting to his reader the essence of his experience* As he sets about his job, the :oet employs various devices such as metrical pattern and metaphor. The rent irrelevmcies do become relevant "when we realize that they function p. good poem to modify, qualify, and develop the total attitude which we rrc to take in coming to terns with the tot ad. situation* Just as the uoet's ■'ttitude rrast come to terms with a situation, so must the reader develop 60 Brooks, C., and Yferren, R*P., Modern Rhetoric. p*h29* total attitude to come to terms with the total situation* By dramatizing a oneness of experience* the poet must at the same time pay tribute to s diversity* any* To achieve this feat* the poet must resort to paradox and to Die poet Is trying to give us "an insight which preserves the unity experience and which* at Its higher and more serious levels* triumphs 3r the apparently contradictory and conflicting elements of experience by Lfying them into a new pattern* Oils movement of the mind towards poetic creation Is not unlike Hegel's Bcriptlon of the operation of the imagination* The objective element in etry is simply an Internal representation* "the images aroused to life the arbitrary signs of language* 11 The subject matter which the poet s to hand must be seized by the artistic imagination which operates quite fferently than does the act of thought in a logical process* "This mode of activity is something quite other* (l) The subject is not conceived under the form of rational or speculative thought* nor under that of sentiment inexpressible by words* nor with the preolslon of sensible obje cts* (2 ) The subject in entering into the domain of the artistic imagination puts off whatever particularities and acci­ dents may destroy its unity* rejects all surplusage* and appears as an organic whole* which* though having the look of olose relation between the parts* is yet free from that kind of mutual dependence which charac­ terizes the prosaic reality* Its unity is entirely ideal*"62 i other words* the situation is the same as it is in Brooks# the experience ' the poet in a particular context* Lpplled by memory* The imagination seizes upon the material The imaginative manner of dealing with this same materi- . Involves a new kind of activity* the importation to this aggregation of 61 62 -V- V O s » Brooks, Cleanth, The Veil Wrought Urn. p*195. Hegel* {£• S’*^ Aesthetics» p*264>* ed.J.S. Kedney, Jliicego, S.0.Griggs 1 O O % 122 > soul* s own. •unity, thus organising it and giving it objective unity* Zn ,s we have a completer fusion of the subjective and objective elements, in .ch. the soul thus determined becomes its own object*"^ There is the le attempt here to capture an essence in poetry which is neither rational * sensuous* The poet can never analyse his materials and organise them exactly as does the scientist* "When we consider the statement immersed in the poem, it presents it­ self to us, like the stick immersed lh the pool of water, warped and bent* Indeed, whatever the statement, it will always show itself as deflected away tram, a positive, straightforward formulation*”^ ’ E* S. Crane, in a recent article published in Critics and Criticism the Chicago Critics, has attacked Brooks vigorously for what he calls b monistic reduction of critical concepts* Brooks, he says, has reduced agination in Coleridge*s sense to one principle of structural irony or radox* Crane spends a good deal of time showing how Brooks has failed to rry off a critical enterprise which was attempted and done much better by leridge* From the somewhat elaborate and sophisticated scheme of Coleridge ooks 1 8 said to have reduced the poetic process to two principles, the conciliation of opposite and discordant qualities, and the discussion of etry as the contrary of science* Crane rightly points out that Brooks s lost the metaphysical sense of Coleridge*s theory by mak ing "poetry" differentia of poems rather than a criterion of their value, "The ideal ’ perfection to which they, or passages in them, are to be referred*" l Coleridge, poems are said to approach perfection §3 64 Ibid* p*265, Bote by Kedney. Brooks, Cleanth, The Veil Wrought Urn, p*193* 123 "whenever the poetic genius, or imagination., put in action "by the will and understanding and retained under their control, succeeds in recon­ ciling or reducing to unity any of the various 11opposite or discordant qualities" involved in the substance or the diction of a poem, and they , depart from perfection in proportion as such unification is not achieved,**°^ Crane also observes that Brooks is anxious to avoid any reference of .e poems or poetic values to the mental powers of the poet and their teratlons, Zf he did, he would no longer be able to distinguish the struc— ire of poems from that which produces works of science, philosophy, theo­ ry or rhetoric. In his attempt to avoid subjectivity, he has forsaken ie elaborate psychology of Coleridge and has placed the cause of poetic xucture in the poet 1 s language instead. "The causal efficacy thus runs, not from the poet to the poem, but from •the language of poetry* to the ironical or paradoxical •structure of poetry* which the poet* s choice of this kind of language, Instead of that of science, makes inevitable. But 1 the language of poetry* is the language of paradox*! in aether words, the two terms signify the same thing, or at most different degrees of the same thing; and thus all the multiple principles which Coleridge found it necessary to Invoke — in pro­ per subordination —— for the adequate criticism of poetry are collapsed into one < — the single principle, essentially linguistic in its for­ mulation, which is designated as *irony* or paradox*. Brooks, in short, i 8 a complete monist, and, given his choice of language rather than subject matter or the poet or the ends of poetry as the unique basis of all his explanations, a materialistic monist at that,**®® This critique is penetrating but it depends too much upon the unesta— Li shed fact that Brooks has deliberately derived his theory of paradox rom Coleridge, It is easy to victimize Brooks*s theory if one compares t to the achievement of a critic whose work has stood the test of time, rane has overlooked largely the effectiveness of Brooks* s analyses based ^5 66 Coleridge. Ibldy S.T.. Blographla TAterarla j P. 91. pp.93-3. Page 1 2 4 lacking in number only when material checked here for microfilming. UNIVERSITY MICROFILMS 125 ►on his theory* He mentions disparagingly Brooks's treatment of Gray's J9SZ ^ut 110 overlooks the 'brilliant analyses of such poems as Teats's i&lflfi js° By^antinB or the effective Interpretation of the symbolism of he naked hahe and the cloak of manliness" in MaobAfeh- it seems much more ir to Brooks to examine his criticism as an example of metaphysical ideaam. Brooks Is the type, not Just of Coleridge but of the whole school idealists who have written since Classical times* The difficulties of s theory come not so much from his failure to emulate Coleridge successlly* He fails for the same reasons that Coleridge himself, Hegel, Croce d all the other idealists have failed* Because the idealist has no be­ ef in the Independent existence of the external world, he has no diffilty in making the world of appearances conform to the whims of his fancy* ce the theory of imitation in its metaphysical sense has been forsaken, will be difficult to preserve poetry from absorption into the solipstic pleasure of the poet's palace of art or into the nameless unity of e rational Absolute which is the death of art as Hegel too well knew* Crane is right, however, when he says that Brooks has begun to theorise •out poetry with only one of the several internal causes of poems as an solute norm* He should have started, says Crane "with concrete poetic idles of various kinds, the parts of which, with their possible interilatlonships, can be inferred as consequences from inductively established 'inciples*"^? If Brooks had started with the poem as a "simulacrum of >alityn rather than with the language of paradox, he would likely have >tten further* 67 Ibidy Crane is referring here to a significant passage in THa p.1 0 5 . ill Wrought Urn In the chapter celled "The Heresy of Paraphrase" in which rooks almost seems to betray the point of view He has sought to establish* bill contrasting vigorously the operation of the will In science with that f the will In poetry* Brooks write** "It is not enough for the poet to analyse his experience as the scientist does* breaking It up Into parts* distinguishing pert from part* classi­ fying the various parts* M s task is finally to unify experience. He must return to us the unity of the experience Itself as man knows It in his own experience. The poem* if it he a true poem Is a simulacrum of reality — in this sense* at least* It Is an •Imitation* — by be^ru> an experience rather than any mere statement about experience or any mere abstraction from experience* But it would be wishful thinking on the part of Crane if he hoped that rooks meant 'imitation* in the sense that Aristotle did* It is an 1 ml- ation only in the sense that it is a reflection of the unity of a spiri­ tual reality* This unity is the unity of poetic thinking and not of sp»- u&bive thinking* "Both speculative and poetic thinking* as we have said* coordinate* and demand unity; but the one deals with Ideas and relations* the other with the concrete manifestations of the same* a n d feels as the first does not* the correspondence of all the elements of absolute being* and thus makes a completer synthesis* which appeals not to the coal reason only* but to the entire sum of the soul's actlvlties*" ®9 he word "imitation11 in Brooks is as much a paradoxical term as is any other echnlcal term he uses* The poem is as much an Imitation of the poet's ind as it is the type of all objectified consciousness* Regardless of aradoxlcal language or the structure of language* poetry and the poetic (58 Brooks. Cleanth. The Well Wrought Urn, p *68 69 Hegel* G-. F Aesthetics* p.267 , ed.Kedn.ey. o~p.clt. * ocess are initiated in the poet* a mind* Wit makes poetry dependent on l6 poet as maker* "It is hie making, his imagination that gives the poem its poetic qua­ lity, not some intrinsic quality_(beauty or truth) of the materials with which he builds his poem*" *0 70 Brooks, Cleanth, Modern Poetry and the tradition. p*51* CHAPTER T KENNETH BURKE: 3HE IRONY OF SYNECDOCHE For us ®iy name a Gre a t Synecdoche, T h y works a G r a n d Tautology.^ Burke: "Dialectician*s Hymn" I - F O R M A N D A C T I O N IN THE P O E T I C P R O C E S S "The titular word for our o w n m e t h o d is • d r a m a t i s m * , since it invites one to consider the matter o f m o t i v e s i n a p e r s p e c t i v e that, toeing d e v e l o p e d from the analysis of drama, treats l a n g u a g e a n d thought p r i m a r i l y as modes of action*" 2 le i r o n y of Burke* s philosophical 3ramatism"* theme is summ e d u p in his k e y term Etymologically the wo r d attempts to tolend two elements w h i c h ist fore ver contradict one another* fnamic principle* If "drama" means a c t i o n as the the sufflm "ism" implies "system" or formal order which levitatoly m o v e s in the direction of a static principle* O n the whole, le w o r k of K e n n e t h Burke is a h i g h l y stimulating a n d creative effort 3 solve the eternal p r oblem of philosophical idealism: h o w c a n the idividual will remain free a n d yet enjoy the h a r m o n y which pa r t i c i pa t i o n a a n eternal formal u n i t y of Spirit will provide? Burke* s study of h u m a n stion comes late in the h i s t o r y of p h i l o s o p h y a n d the dynamic q u a l it y of Ls w o r k lies in his attempt to synthesize the mos t vital elements of western nought f r o m Hegel to the present day* 1 Burke, Kenneth, The P h i l o s o p h y of L i t e r a r y F o r m * B a t o n Rouge, auisiana S t ate University Press, 19^1* P*^5C* 2 Burke, Kenneth, A Grammar of M o t i v e s , N*Y*, Prentice-Hall, l9^5»P*33cii 129 Karl M n r x ^ h a d c r i t i c i z e d his master Hegel for the direction of all ght towards formal abstraction* Employing the sane dialectic he aim e d to turn 1 upside down a n d c ompletely embody the dialectic within the context of n history* The dialectic became the class struggle a n d the Abso l u t e b^- the n e w order of the Workers of the W o r l d v i c toriously u n i t e d over the . body of capitalism* But Marx* s dialectical materialism ve -s bas e d on a destructive principle* leth Burke sees the drama of human a.ction on a. broader scale* l Consistent the Platonic theme he imagines a pr^-existent harmony or state of ^oration* He shares Marx* b contempt for mystical or spiritual u n i t y an d 'ines the scope of his dramatinm to the field of human action* His .a! sense is h i g h l y developed ana consistent with his rim to centralise dialectic within the human drama, he speaks of "that ultimate disease of cooperation: war* (You will u nderstand vrr much better if you think of it, not simply as strife come to a. head, but rather as a. disease, or perversion of communion* Modern war charectcrictically rocuiren a. nyrir■.c. of constructive acts foi* each, destructive one? before each culminating blast there must be a vast network of interlocking operations, directed commu n a l l y , M 3 s the theme of A Grr.: :.gj of Motives is "ad bellum pur if icandum"* c'y of economics, of politics, of poetry, of philosophy, The of religion, eed of the whole field of human anti on is reduced to the context of the m a n Barnyard in which all human events take _1 a c e • 2a. Marx, Ka~rl, Cr.oi tab. Chicago, Chas* II* Kerr and Co*, 1906* rrefr.ee* 3 Burke, Kenneth, A Rhetoric of Motives. H e w York, Prentice-Hall, >0, p . 22. 130 Bat If Burke* s enterprise assumes the proportions of an Idealistic rstem, he urges that "It is not our purpose to import dialectical and metaphysical concerns into a subject that might otherwise be free of them* On the contrary* we hope to make clear the way in which dialectical and metaphysical issueB necessarily figure In the subject of motivation* Our speculations* as we interpret them* should show that the subject of motivation is a one* not ultimately to be solved in terms of empirical b is in the subject of motivation, the self* the individual will* that irke is interested* Although Burke* s dramatism moves inevitably towards system of cooperation* he tries at the same time to convince the reader f the significance of the creative will as the source of human action n. this system* Likewise* within the context of literary criticism he writes hat "artistic truth is the externalization of taste" end by such a definiion of artistic truth he places the main emphasis upon the role of the gent in the artistic process* If dramatisn is to function* the Initial agent must act in terms of one context which in turn may have provided the motivation for his action* n speaking of Shakespeare* s Hamlet, Burke shows how psychology end artistic orm interact with one another* In the fourth scene of the first act, "the psychology here i3 not the psychology of the hero, but the psy­ chology of the audience. And by that distinction, form would be the psychology of the audience* Or, seen from another angle, form is the creation of an appetite in the mind of the auditor, and the adequate satisfying of that appetite*" 5 4 Burke, Kenneth, A Grammar of Motives, p.xxiii. 5 Burke, Kenneth, Counter statement. N.Y., Hercourt Brace and Co., -931. P.40. ome incidents are purely* the psychology of information such as Hamlet* s dvice to the players 'while Antony* s instigation of the Roman mob to avenge he death of Caesar Illustrates the dramatic psychology of form which timulatea an audience* 086 "The drama more than any other form, must never sight of its audience"* ^ timulates others to action* Here the artist has created a form which The play is formal in an aesthetic sense and et it has the power from its author*s creative mind to inspire specific .ction in others* In order to externalize taste, the basic forms of the human mind crescendo, contrast, comparison, and so on) must he experienced emotionally -nd nsingular!zed into an example . an example which will he chosen by the rtist from among his emotional and environmental experiences*" ? As the irtist proceeds to express his emotion, a certain counter-theme is called ip* "While the originating emotion is still in ferment, the artist is O ;oncerned at the same time with impersonal mechanical processes*" It is 3urke*s intention to shift the emphasis from the dichotomy of form and ac­ tion to the dynamic and reciprocal interaction* of both* But the question now arises: fying his experiences? how does the artist succeed in objecti­ Burke says that the artist begins with his emotion* He translates this emotion into a. mechanism for arousing emotion in others and thus his interest in his own emotion is transcended into his interest in the treatment of his experience* 7 8 Ibldy p.62-3. Ibid, p*68. "The poet steps forth, and his first step is the translation of his original mood Into a symbol* So quickly has the mood become something else, no longer occupying the vihole of the artist* s attention, hut serving rather as a mere Indicator of direction, a principle of ferment* We may Imagine the poet to suffer under a feeling of Inferiority, to suffer sullenly and mutely until, "being an artist, he spontaneously generates a symbol to externalize this suffering*"9 Consistent with what he will later call dramatistic, Burke* o idea of irm is dynamic from the beginning* "A work has form in so far as one 'rt of it leads a reader to anticipate another part, to be gratified by ic sequence*"10 The movement of form toward the completeness of an rtistic object takes five steps* The progression is syllogistic, moving bep by step through a logical series* Qualitative progression is more ibtle, e*g* as Macbeth* s murder of Duncan precedes his own death; its .iticipatory nature is not so pronounced. Repetitive form is the consistent ?*intalning of a principle under new guises. Conventional form involves o some degree the appeal of form as form while minor form as the existence f a smaller plot within the larger plot* "Perhaps the lines in Othello, eginning *Soft you, a word or two before you go,* and ending *seized by he throat the uncircumcised dog and smote him thus (stabs himself)."11 ell exemplify the vigorous presence of all five aspects of form, as this uicide is the logical outcome of Othello* s predicament (syllogistic proression); the speech has about it that impetuosity and picturesqueness e have learned to associate with Othello (repetitive form); it is very ecidedly a conclusion (conventional form), and in its development it is tiny plot in itself, (minor form)" 12 9 10 Ibid* p. 70-71. Ibid* p*157. 11 12 Shakespeare, William, Othello, Act Vj Scene 2« Burke, Kenneth, Cohnterstatement, p.l63. 133 turke aays this formal process is dynamic and yet one feels from this desc­ ription that the self has no other choice than to submit to the compulsive iressure of this formal progression. In addition to the progressive or teleologlcal movement of form towards nity, Burke says that form is not exclusively aesthetic. Artistic forms mbodied in the context of the artist's experience parallel processes which haracterize his experiences outside of art. Individuated within the cozw ext of an artistic form however* this experience becomes specific in rords. “The symbol is the verbal parallel to a pattern of experience."^ lymbols ere the means by which the artist forces patterns of experience .pon an audience. As symbols schematize a situation “the schematizing is done not by abstraction, as in science, but by idealization, by presenting in a 'pure1 or consistent manner some situation which, as it appears among the contingencies of real life, is less effectively coordinated; the idealization is the elimination of irrelevancies. ly means of symbols, the perceiver becomes one with the artist, both sacrl— 'icing their own emotional experience to the formal quality of the work »f art. Symbols help us to accept situations which in real life we may iot be able to accept, e.g. the existence of a certain danger which we Lad emotionally suppressed. Symbols range between two extremes of power and lomplexity. "A symbol is 'powerful* in proportion as it limits its ramifice.tions to a strict reinforcement of the poet's underlying pattern (as in the unified effect of a story by Poe, or in a poem such as Keats's Ode 13 14 Ibid. Ibldy p.193. p.195. to ft Nightingale} A symbol is *complex1 In proportion fts its rami­ fications follow the ’logic* of a symbo rather than the emotions of the underlying pattern*"15 "Eloquence is a frequency of Symbolic and formal effects* One work is >re eloquent than another if it contains Symbolic and formal charges in :eater profusion* Eloquence is not a means of helping us to live our Lves on paper but rather it is a means of expressing or converting life ito its richest verbal equivalent* ^iiis is nota semantical or positi- Lstlc representation of human experience which Burke has in mind* b Indeed is more concerned with how effects are produced rather than with what ffects should be produced* But whatever effect the artist may desire* urke says "he can in all humility be assured that they are "natural" since is desire could not possibly be anything other then natural; and if he finds he present categorical expectarcie6 obstructive to his purposes, he may e Justified in violating these expectancies and in allowing his procedures o be viewed as an oddity, as peripheral, on the chance that other men ay eventually Join him and by their convergence make such procedures the orm* The difficulty throughout this account of the poetic process seems ;o lie in the conflict of form as a specific principle and action as a levelopmental principle* Burke’s desire is that the work of art shall >e specific and unique in its internal structure but he does not wish to sacrifice the dynamic action of the poetic process itself* 15 16 Ibid, Ibid* p*202. P*209. His account 135 E* -the scene from Othello In terms of the five steps of formal development s too subtly logical In its analysis and one feels that the simple and Lx*ect dramatic experience is frozen "by the rigidity of his concepts* This ro"blem becomes magnified in some of his later work and we shall leave the all discussion of It until a later stage of this essay* Tor all hi8 concern with form and structure, Burke has said that the ffects which the artist desires are natural i*e* they are part ox the r-tist's experience of the sociological, psychological and physiological mrlronment in which he lives and moves and has his being* Indeed the norm f* art itself would seem to depend upon the public approval of his techniques* xx the relevant passage Just quoted Burke speaks of the artist deviating roro "the present categorical expectancies"• Now if the convergence of •tlier men's opinions can establish the artist's procedure as the norm, then ;3ne customary patterns can scarcely be "categorical". II - BURKE'S REBT TO MEAD'S SOCIAL BEHAVIORISM In his concern for the dynamic interaction of the artist in society Jurke rejects more basic metaphysical considerations in favour of the more Immediate process of the individual as a function of society and vice irersa. If Burke sounds like an idealist, he also sounds like a pragmatist in his concern for the principle of action or as Geroge Herbert Mead calls it* "the philosophy of the Act"* In order to comprehend the pragmatic element of Burke's drenatism, some salient points from Mead's philosophy wu-st be made* It was one of the great contributions of George Herbert M e a d to modern thought when he rejected the hopeless solipsism of Watsoniaa "behaviourism in favour of a more dynamic social behaviorism* 136 hat I ".rented to Taring out is that the approach to psychological theory on the standpoint of the organism must inevitably be through an phasis upon conduct* upon the dynamic rather than the static*" rue pragmatist he d i s c l a i m e d all concern or interest in systems as behaviouristic p s y c h o l o g y represents a definite tendency rather a n a system, a tendency to state as far as p o s s i b l e the conditions .der whi ch the experience of the individual arises*" 19 s he r e j e c t e d a study of systems in favour of a study of process r e j e c t e d a study of coasiousness in terns of an y physiological or :r-l origins • ’sychology is not something that der Is with consi o u s n e s s ; psychology jals wit h the experience of the individual in its relation to the jnditions under which the experience goes on* It is social psych o l o g y oere the conditions are social ones* It is behavio u r ! s t i c ".here the jproach to experience is made through conduct*" 20 Ayinst this dual b a c k g r o u n d of Mead* s dynamic interne ti oni sm and s passionately categorical teleology, Burhe attempts to b u i l d a 'which places aesthetics ir. the context of social experience. All action ic social ranging from the biological, through the sociolo— and p s y c h ologica.I The basic poetic to the intellectual level* •ory in his Attitudes towards Hi story is the epic, ■ oth.ers to be vicariously heroic, doing is c apturing values of enjoyment there, which fill out and ;orpret our o w n interests ill living a n d doing* They have a perlent val ue because they are the lang u a g e of delight into which i can translate the m e a n i n g of their own existence*" ;ic experience is "based on our own m o t i v e s an d desires. r in this ITow it is spirit that Bur k e describes the ’'function" of the epic. : lends dignity to the necessities of existence, *advertising' irage a n d individual sacrifice for g r o u p advantage — a n d it enables : humble man to share the worth of the hero b y the process of identification*". ^ !ter of the epic enobles humility an d self-glorification to wor k Dr in the individual." .ic sense of one's limitations (in coni:nrison wi th the mighty figure the legend) provides one with a realistic attitude for gauging his rsonal resources, while his vicarious kins h i p with the figure gives ~i the distinction n e c e s s a r y for the needs of self— justification." epic becomes an artistic means b y which the individual establishes nsciousness of self— existence a n d self-importance in terms of his " which is, in this case "society". A s H e a d says, the individual es this consciousness not through the rational awareness of abstract oles but 2 Head, G.H., "The N a ture of Aesthetic Experience", International Journal ics* vol.36, 1 9 2 6 , p*3S7. 3 Burke, Kenneth, Attitudes toward History, vol. 1, p.W*. b rbid. p . ^ . 138 "his own experience as a self is one which he takes over from his action upon others* He becomes a self Insofar as he can take the attitude of another and act toward himself as others act*"25 Since both Mead and Burke emphasize dynamic interaction on a natura— stlc level, they are both critical of individualistic theories of psy- ology* "Individual psychology pays too little attention to the matter of mnunion*" Burke criticized Freud* s naturalism because It tended to duce poetic meaning to too limited a physiological origin* The motive the individual in a specific action is much more complex e.s, for example* e internal structure of a work of art would indicate* eud* s theories because they were Marxists criticized not dialectical enough* But Burke ds MI should say that both Freudians and Marxists are wrong in so far as they cannot put their theories together* by an over-all theory of drama itself (as they should be able to do, since Freud gives us the material of the closet drama* and Marx the material of the problem play, the one worked out in terms of personal conflicts* the other in terms of public conflicts*)" 27 ds is exactly the sort of criticism which Mead made of the behavior!sta ‘ the Watson school* Watson identified thought simply with the word, ■mbol or vocal gesture by means of a transference of a reflex from one dctulus to another, i*e* by means of a conditioned reflex* A loud noise ssociated with the presence of a white rat will cause a child to become 'raid of white rats* 25 26 27 But Mead felt rightly that Mead, G. H*, Mind. Self and Society, p.71. Burke, K e n n e t h , Attitudes toward History, Vol. 2, P*175* Burke, Kenneth, The Philosophy of Literary Form* p*29l« ■the getting of an Idea Is very different from the result of having an Idea* for the former Involves the setting-up or conditioning of reflexes* which cannot* themselves* he used to explain the p r o c e s s * "28 order that the individual may know the meaning of what happens to him— f* he must "make use of something answering to the same gesture he observes* saying it over again to himself, putting himself In the role of the person who is speaking to him, then he has the meaning of what he hears* he has the Ideas the meaning becomes his*" 29 ke has the same opinion as Mead when he urges that communion of the Ividual with the social group is necessary before meaning can be said exist* "It is that sort of a situation which seems to be involved in what we term mind, as such: this social process, in which one individual affects other individuals, is carried over into the experience of the individuals that are so affected* The individual takes this attitude not simply as a matter of repetition, but as part of the elaborate social reaction which is going on* It is the necessity of stating that process in terms of behaviour that is involved in an adequate behaviour istic statement, as over against a mere account of the conditioned reflex* 'ke®s appreciation of Mead seems to be the basis of his own sociological sory of criticism* He points out the source of Mead,s theory in nln»- snth century idealism and then describes vividly the principle in Mead .ch he has taken over* "Mead*s philosophy of the act, in other words, takes its start in the idealist*s concern with the identity of subject and object* The con­ cept of the Self is pivotal, the very word "Self" suggesting the 28 29 30 Mead, G* H., Mina. Self end .Society, P*107Ibid* p.109. Mead, G. H., op*cit*. p*109» reflexive form* a subject that is its own object* Dae strategy of romantic philosophy (which Mead likens to the beginning of selfconsciousness at adolescence) was to identify the individual Self metaphysically with an Absolute Self* thereby making the reflexive act the very essence of the universe* a state of affairs that is open to lewd caricature* But Mead* turning from a metaphysical emphasis to a sociological one* substitutes for the notion of an Absolute Self the notion of mind as a social product* stressing the sociality of action and reflection* and viewing thought as the internalization of objective relationships*11 31 speaking of orienta-tlon as a means of the Individual adjusting to his rironment Burke is not as careful as Mead to distinguish between the ad of adjustment an animal might make and one which a human would se but his definition of orientation contains the same thought as Mead that asclousness is creative response in terms of what we expect the responses others to be when we act in certain ways* "Orientation is thus a bundle of judgments as to how things were* how they are* and how they may be* The act of response* as implicated in the character which an event has for us* shows clearly the inte­ gral relationship between our metaphysics and our conduct* Tor in a statement as to how the world is* we have Implicit judgments not only as to how the world may become but also as to what means we should employ to make it so*M 32 ere is h e r e b o t h a pragmatic and M a r x i a n tone as we see that art is a ans of p e r s u a s l a n c o n d i t i o n e d e s s e n t i a l l y as a tool for the control of r e n vironment* Burke follows M e a d as he describes the individual ful- lli n g h i s person a l i t y by responding to the pres s u r e of society a n d by eking to exploit its riches for his own enlightenment* The M a r x i a n a n d .erefore categorical response is i m p l i e d b y Burke w h e n he describes the 31 32 aurW. Burke, 05. p*2h. . Kenneth. The P h i l o s o p h y of L i t e r a r y Form. P » 379-80Kenneth, Permanence a n d C h a n g e * N e w York, The N e w Republla* 141 dividual as seeking for controls to reduce society to his own conception it* ation* And so for Burke "in Its simplest manifestation style is lngre— It is an attempt to gain favour by the hypnotic or suggestive ocess of *saying the right thing**" ^ It is the means of controlling the .(Hence*s responses by anticipating what the audience*s respons will be a particular situation* Commenting on the subtleties of ingratiation* rice draws a-ttentlon to the way ih. which Shakespeare penetrates deeply to human motives as be Quincey observes in Macbeth* •'When he has finished depicting Macbeth* s murder of the King, and lets us hear a lewd porter knocking at the gate, has he not here intermingled internal and external events, by objectifying something so private as the harsh knock of conscience, thereby implicating us in the murder not merely as witnesses but as participants?" 34 re is raised again the relation of the poet to form he creates which . turn motivates an audience to act in a specific manner* The naturalism of Mead and Burke requires that society or the social ocess always be presupposed in any statement about self-consciousness or dividual creative e.ctivity* “Our contention is that mind can never find expression, and could never have come into existence at all, except in terms of a social environment; that an organized set or pattern of social relations and ins* • • is necessarily presupposed by It and involved in its .en Burke speaks of an underlying situation or context common to the tions of all men, he means exactly this social environment which alone 33 34 35 Ibid* p. 71. Ibid* p. 73-74. Mead, G. H., on.cit.T0*223 142 in give meaning to human consciousness and human action* Turning this relation of the consciousness to social environment into ;s significance for poetic theory* Burke says "the general approach to the poem might he called •'pragmatic11 in this sense* It assumes that a poem1s structure is to he described most accurately hy thinking always of the poet's function* It assumes that the poem is designed to 'do something* for the poet and his readers* and that we can make the most relevant ohservations ahout its design hy considering the poem as the embodiment of this act* In the poet* we might say, the poetizing existed as a physiological function* The poem is its corresponding anatomic structure* And the reader* in participating in the uoem, breathes into this anatomic structure a new physiological 3o vitality that resembles, though with a difference* the act of its maker, the resemblance being in the overlap between writer's and reader's situation, the difference being in the fact that these two situations are far from identical*" 37 i the one hand, the poem is a record of the social environment out of which mtext it has emerged* 1 the other hand, it is specifically objective its internal structure* "But to guide our observations about the form itself, we seek to dis­ cover the functions which it serves* This takes us into a discussion of purpose, strategy, the symbolic act* YJhen one notes, for instance, that the Pilot's boy in 'The Ancient Mariner' acts as the vessel that takes upon Itself the most malign features of ^ cure effected under the aegis of moonlight (l*e* the worst features of the lunacy affecting the 'greybea rd loon'), one discerns his formal function in the drama — and, going further back, vre may discern the formal function, as fore­ shadowing, of the 'silly' bucket s that are filled when the cure first begins to take effect*" 38 36 Actually, Mead is more profound than Burke in describing this pro3ss* Burke confines the activity to the 'physiological' because his "system" in control it, while Mead sacrifices system to get a more dynamic social ehr-viouri sm* 37 Burke, Kenneth, The Phlloso-oh-V of Literary P o m , pp.89-90. 38 1*3 ire the content of the poem is not a series of empirical data for the iference of a social scientist hut rather the content is functional and any >mment concerning the form of the poem involves a statement ahout the >em*o subject* Poetry then is dynamic in the sense that its form as a >em is an objectified process* 1 The value of the poetic object would, Mead*s terms, consist in its capacity to satisfy an interest - its value >uld he discovered neither in the object nor in the emotional state of the ibject, And so it ifc Burke*s contention ’’that if we approach poetry from le standpoint of situations and strategies, we can make the most relevant >servatlons about both the content end the form of the poems,"^ But one lould note the contrast of Burke with Mead when Burke uses terms of rstematic control such as "situations end strategies,” In e more Hegelian mood, Burke contrasts the essayistic with the poetic :yle, The former is critical and logical while the latter Is necessarily mtradictory* Poetry always manifests the dynamic tension existing between le individual and society. Suffering accompanies the search for the ideal id even at the most naturalistic level, we have the neurologist Sherrington 10 ted by Burke as pointing out that "whatever "consciousness" may be, it is mainly manifested in those pro­ cesses involved in the seeking and capture of food; whereas, once the prize i6 seized and swallowed, the organism’s "awareness" is of a very blunt order. Unless the digestion is impaired, there is slight ^ sensation beyond a vague state of well-being, relaxation and somnolence," 39 kO Ibld^ Ibid, p.12k. p. 2 5 5 . As long as Burke follows Mead*s example, his defence of the priority the human will Is dynamic hut when he tries to make the will fit into 'situation1* or into a "dramatistic" context, he loses the identity of the f in a deterministic set of internal relations* Burke owes to Mead the lamic naturalistic process which characterizes his drematism* The poetic .f in these terms is a sensitive voice in a dialogue with society, each liprocatlng with the other and “being enriched in the process* But when s self must resort to the use of conceptual strategies to contend with :onceptual social force, the Marxian dialectic is in motion and the very stence of the self is in peril* III - TEE DEATH OF THE SELF IN BURICE1S URAMATISM Like all pragmatists. Mead insists that the self must prevail above . systems of metaphysics* The pragmatist insists that the systems of ;aphysics do not describe reality as man experiences it* They have listed that metaphysical systems leave no room for the Lividual*e existence as an active agent* The pragmatist therefore re­ sted historically in all pretence to metaphysical thinking as symbolized John Dewey* e conversion from Hegelianism to Darwinism* While he denied i-t he had any system, he had by that same protest to admit that he had one* iion of the individual was always physiologically motivated* Mead >ids the metaphysical systems with the same vigorous spirit of protest ; the concept of society, while still a generic term neverthless suggests analogy with the metaphysician’s concept of unity which underlies existence* ▲t first sight it would seem that there was no similarity "between Ld end Hegel• To "be sure, Mead*s naturalism and his professed freedom >m categories make him seem very far from any popular notion of Hegel* it they did have in common was the notion of a dynamic interaction of .f with society as the means of communication in the search for truth* s similarity is not too extensive in the case of Mead and Hegel "but in 3 case of Burke* the comparison with Hegel is much more significant* Burke*s Is the case of a modern critic who returns to the fundamental Lrit of Hegel and at the same time tries to retain the most dynamic itures of a pragmatism so characteristic of the reaction to nineteenth itury idealism* Burke sees Mead as one who is deeply concerned with the entity of subject and object* Throughout Burke* e work there is found this Lfting emphasis from Mead* c social behaviorism to Hegel*e idealism* The anple of the early Hegel is dynamic and is closer in spirit to Burke*s amatistic theory of human conduct* But it will be seen throughout that e dynamic quality is lost in Burke*s work (as it was in Hegel*®) when e categories become too rigid and inflexible* There is little doubt that ad would have protested against Burke* o statement that his (Mead* s) ilosophy of the act began in the idealist* s concern with the identity of bject and object* M e a d would have denied that there v/as any split among nd, self, or society i n the first place* The relation for Mead was ge- ric and developmental without any separation of elements in the beginning the end* Like all idealists, l relation Hegel was trying to solve the paradox of the self to the object which it knew and recognized* Vhen I observe a lair and set about describing its character!sties, I may find that I havs .uced the chair as I have first experienced it to a series of concepts shape* colour* texture* and size* But such concepts must inevitably ge in my mind and one is at once compelled to ask what has happened to specific objectivity of the chair as it was first observed* On the ier hand, if the knowledge of the world of things is purely conceptual* n there is no basis far the thingness of things at all and the thinker is .uced to a hopeless solipsism* To overcome this difficulty, Kant had ed to solve the ancient and persistent problem by bridging the gap ween empirical and rational experience in his intuition of the thing— Itself in which the essential thingness of things was situated* Hegel . found such a device unsatisfactory in his attempt to give an account human consciousness* It was his early belief that consciousness was :h too dynamic and all-embracing to be set apart from the objects of iwledge and perception so arbitrarily* By the development of his remark- .e theory of consciousness in the Phenomenology of Mind* he set the pattern • some of the most creative speculation concerning the human mind since j time* He was anticipated by Coleridge in his concern for the specific rflculty of the Independence of the will in relation to a rational ex- ination of consciousness but his own account was much more comprehensive* As soon as Hegel equated absolute consciousness with a completely tional system of internal relations in an ultimate Absolute, it became sar that on such terms, the Self could have no independence* The worst =rs of the Stranger in Plato*s Sophist that absolute being would be iroia of motion and life and soul and intelligence were actually realized the Logic of Hegel* It was against this rigorous and inflexible logic p.t much of twentieth century thought reacted* The Italian school of 1^7 $&Iiats led by Arfincotoo de SsActls^ and latar developed fiyatenatioftlljr Benedetto Crooe distinguished the early inspiration of Hegel In The Pheaenology of Mind from the later speculatione of the Logic, referring what they considered to he living and to he dead in the Philosophy ^ *1 th this living tradition that we are here concerned* In order to bridge the gap between the subject and object eo that they ild be at once specific and identicel, Hegel conceived the brilliant radox of the concrete universal. The concrete universal is known only rough a moving dialectical process in which, the thing is always in process reduction before the analytical power of the mind while the mind in the ae process is forever losing its identity in the thingness of the object its contemplation. Consciousness is both, of the object and of itself -"being-for-anotherM and "being-for-itself ». For Hegel, experience is e contradictory means by which it becomes aware of an object in opposion to itself. As soon as consciousness, which embraces both itself and s object, becomes identical with its own essence, it will have attained absolute knovdedge. Thus each consciousness of self and object at the vel of sense certainty cancels itself as soon as it achieves truth giving y to the higher, more universal, yet never losing its concreteness, e Absolute is known not in and for itself alone but rather as the result a development through consciousness. In speaking of self-consciousness rather than things Hegel says that Breglio, Louis A., Life and Criticism of Francesco de Sanctis . York, S.F. Vcnni, 19^1. "consciousness Is essentially that which thinks* is a tin wirf-ng reality* and that anything is really essential for consciousness* or is true and good* only when consciousness in dealing with it adopts the attitude of a thinking being*n **2 the beginning, one's self-consciousness is free from all involvement with ngs other than one's self* Over against this feeling of freedom in .ependent self-consciousness comes the awareness of a negative state ch Hegel calls sceptical; here the state of mind which is statically erred to as thought becomes thinking and in the process it takes on > awareness of the world of substantial objects around it* At first* f-consciousness is the bare and simple freedom of itself which Hegel .Is Stoicism* In the next stage* Scepticism, self-consciousness realizes lelf, negates the other side of determinate existence* but in so doing* illy doubles itself and is itself now a duality* rers to consciousness as Unhappy* At this stage* Hegel The whole process is described as Hows in rather poetic and moving language* "Here, then, there is a struggle against an enemy* victory over whom really means being worsted, \diere to have attained one result is really to lose it in the opposite* Consciousness of life* of its existence and action, is merely pain and sorrow over this existence znd activity; for therein consciousness finds only consciousness of its opposite as its essence — and of its own nothingness* Elevating itself be­ yond this, it passes to the unchangeable* But this elevation is it­ self this same consciousness* It is, therefore, immediately conscious­ ness of the opposite, viz* of itself as single, individual, particular* The unchangeable, which comes to consciousness, is in that very fact at the same time affected by particularity and is only present with this latter* Instead of par ticulari ty having been abolished in the consciousness of immutability, it only continues to appear there still* *2 ^3 Hegel*koP*clt*,p*2 ^ » Ibid^ p.252-3. 149 And so Hegel attempts to preserve the individuality of self and at same time he wishes to set it over against its other* "In one it is a i*ire consciousness* at another time a particular individual who takes up towards actuality the attitude characteristic of desire and labotr; and in the third place it is (^consciousness of its self-existence* its existence for itself*" ultimate synthesis which Hegel has in mind is a blend of pure thought h the realm of particular existence over against a background of rit which is dynamic and moving, constantly contributing life to both thinker and the object of his contemplation* The reader will notice throughout the pages of Hegel's Phenomenology Mind * sense of grim comedy bordering on tragedy* The concrete univer— contains within Itself the element of its own destruction* The sense otherness is always conquering and superseding the sense of selfhood and ; without this sense of otherness* the self could not be conscious of self at all* The unhappy consciousness consists in this eternal battle sweea the sense of selfhood and the sense of otherness* life is to be found in its delusions and contradictions* The very comedy The genius Hegel’s dialectic lay in his conviction the "Everything depends on a -sping and expressing the ultimate truth not as Substance but as Subject well*" ^5 Heg el began M s career enthusiastic in the conviction that j.th is v/hat the subject experiences* As the tragi-comedy of the human ncl unfolded before him* he confessed to the 44- 45 Ibid* Ibidj p. 256. p*80. 150 "blindness, ignorance, conceit* delusion* and impotence in the face of a world that is too ouch with us* The mind the.-t seeks to dominate or to reform this venerable worldof ours* to use ox* to malign it, to be happy in it or to flee ftom it, soon discovers the Aolidity and perversity of things* Mind proposes but the world disposes* The world triumphs in the end*H 46 G* H* Mead shares with Hegel the idea of the opposition of the self its other but he has eliminated the negative element from it* On the lei level he would seem to have taken what is 11vine from Hegel Just Croce sought to take what was living from Hegel for the study of ithetics* She attitudes of the whole community are the "generalized iern of the self which responds to the social group. " So the self reaches its full development by organizing these indi­ vidual attitudes of others into the organized social or group attitudes and by thus becoming an individual reflection of the general systematic pattern of social or group behavior in which it and. the others are all involved — a pattern which enters as a whole into the individual*s experience in terms of these organized group attit'u.d.es which, through the mechanism of his central nervous system* he telces toward himself Just as he takes the individual attitudes of others*" 4-7 re is the dynamic movement of the self toward consciousness of Itself idered in terms of the individual* s awareness of his social self* Just Hegel makes Spirit in its ugiversal and specific form prior to all Lstence, so Mead makes society prior to all knowledge of self* As we ve already seen, Mind is a social phenomenon which cannot exist outside e context of society* Logic has been forsaken in its more categorical ects in favour of the element of process in Hegel* rning A s Marx spoke of the dialectic upside down into historical material.ism, one might 46 Heg el^.Selections, Introduction by J. Loewenberg, ribner Sons, p*xxxiii* 47 Mead, G* H*T O P * c l t *^ P*58» Charles r that Mead has turned the dynamic phenomenology of Hegel upside down „o social behaviorism* It should he noted carefully that although Mead and Hegel may share j same enthusiasm for the idea of society as the responding “otherM relation to the individual, they differ in their notion of how the scess is effected* Mead* s concept of society is genetic rather than Leological in any spiritual sense* Mind develops in society and as it relops, the Individual personality is organized and the form of society undergoing constant change* 5 Burke does not follow Mead consistently in conception of the mind* s relation to society* As Burke* s dramatis tic aerne expands, the element of cooperation between the self and society tree way to a Marxian-Hegelian tone and the self is seen to be at strife ther than in cooperation with society* In the attempt to take on social titudes, personality seems to dissolve into social conformity whereas Mead, the interaction of self with society tended to organ!ze personality to individuality* This conflict of Mead and Hegel is to be seen throughout rice*s work* In his description of the drama of human consciousness Hegel refers it as an epic in which the relation of the divine to the human is set rth and displayed as a whole to consciousness* “The content is an *act* of the essential Being conscious of itself* Acting disturbs the peace of the subtance. and awakens the essential Being; and by so doing its simple unity is divided into parts, and opened up into the manifold world of natural powers and ethical forces* The act is the violation of the peaceful earch; it is the trench Walch, vivified by the blood of the living, cedis forth the spirits of the departed* who are thirsting for life* and who ceive it in the action of self— consciousness •“ **8 the self moves into action in society, conflict is the inevitable result* "In any event, action of an external sort must eventually lead to combat in one form or another* Action of this plane is no longer harmony; it lacks the symphonic quality thereby the notes of coexistent melo­ dies can at the same time both proclaim thier individual identity and function as parts in a whole* Action in the realm of normal experience involves patterns of striving, competition and conquest which reach their ultimate conclusion in war •"^'9 i common element in Hegel and in Burke is the element of battle, of ife in which the peace of the earth is destroyed* i purification of war is to kill the self* The only means for Instead of a recognition of f coming about by cooperation with society, Burke seems to feel the :essity for a death of the self* In romantic poetry there are many 'erences to what may be called poetry of the “death wish" in which, re Burke, “you will see that the symbolic slaying of an old self is complemented by the emergence of a new self* In fact, even though every action and person in the plot led downwards, we should find an assertion of i— dentlty in the constructive act of the poem itself* I should want to treat even suicide in real life as but the act of rebirth reduced to its simplest and most restricted form (its least complex idiom of expression)•“ 5 0 e act of suicide is the assertion of personal identity* As Peer Gynt es in search of his personal identity, he passes through several stages which his original personality is sacrificed, "killed" and in the end U-Q He/?el The Phenomenology of Mind*. p*733J+9 Burke, Kenneth, Permanence and Change, New York, The N e w Republic* 35. P . 320* 50 Burke, Kenneth, The Philosophy of Literary Form, p*39* not Peer hero at the last found hie Identity again In the maternal woman? And since he had gone on hi 3 wanderings at the very moment when Solvelg had first come to his hut, she Is the Virgin Mother, who has conceived him as an Idea derived from God. He Is, In brief, translated to the role of the Christ-child, whose conception was an Annunciation. And his essence resides in merger with this spiritrial 1 zed maternal grounding, which simultaneously transforms the wife hack into a mother and replaces his real mother and his drunken wandering father hy a new and ideal parentage." 51 By means of an imagery of killing, Burke intends to represent the cess of change as it culminates in a rehirth of the self. Without haps intending to go heyond the reconciliation of the conflicts in the an Barnyard hy the use of certain rhetorical techniques, Burke neverle88 ends up with a metaphysical system closely related to those of idealistic forebears. He tells us that he alms to go beyond the tra— ional hounds of rhetoric, to ldentif 1cation rather than confine himself the techniques of mere persuasion. As in Hegel, the self must sacri- e itself to a negative state of otherness before it can enjoy the fullis of self-consciousness. In Samson Agonlstes, Milton identifies hinw- f with the aggressive, self-destructive hero who was in turn identified ih God. The following passage from the Rhetoric of Motives I s a good .ustration of literary criticism in which Burke blends the Hegelian igery of killing with the pragmatic motivational formula. "The recurring stress upon the reflexive nature of Samson*s act (the element of self-destruction in his way of slaying the enemy} can he a roundabout device for sanctioning suicide; yet Milton*s religion strongly forbade suicide. Compelled hy his misfortunes to live with his rage, gnawed hy resentments that he could no longer release 51 Burke, Kenneth, A Grammar of Motives, p.439* ? out\mrd conquest, Milton found in Samson a figure ambivalently fitted to symbolize both aggressive end inturning trends. Here too, though still more remotely, would be 'literature for use's the poetic r ® f nf c t ™ ® n t of Samson's role could give pretexts for admitting a motive which, if not so clothed or complicated, if confronted in its simpli­ city, would have been inadmissible# By dramatic subterfuge Milton could include what he would have had to exclude, if reduced to a conceptually analytic treatment#"52 Likewise in Arnold, one finds the same theme# Sohrab by Rustuiq, After the recognition there takes place a cosmic unification, Just as re also occurs in Jtopedocles on Aetryi after he Jumps into the crater# •edocles Jumps into a crater as a symbol of absorption into ideal unity, le the river in Sohrab and Rustum flows on to final unity in the sea and ' ar© ©-t peace# HThe poet, in both cases, imagines that the "ure with vdiom he identifies himself is being killed; and in both cases s destruction terminates in imagery of a homecoming, a return to sources >bably maternal."53 the same tlae there m >m one order of motives to another# .ign form to a benign form? & tpeaafor|afttloa U8UBlly The transformation can take a it can transform an evil motive into a good ;ive# By means of the process of killing, the state of Identification is -ched# "An imagery of slaying (slaying of either the self or another) is to be considered merely as a speciel case of identification in general. Or otherwise putx the imagery of slaying is a special case of trans­ formation and transformation involves the ideas and imagery of identi­ fication# That is* the killing of something is the changing of it end the statement of the thing* s nature before and after the change is an identifying of it#" 5^ 52 53 Burke, Kenneth, Ibid# p.8. 51* Ibld^ p.22* A Rhetoric of Motives. Prentice-Hall, 1 9 5 0 , p# 155 Here, once again, is the problem of the identity of subject and object which Burke spoke in Mead* ^ut his presentation of the problem is Lctly Hegelian as he is very conscious of the relation of identification division, of the whole to the part and for all the social dynamics tiis context, one feels the trenchant knife of logic penetrating into whole cutting out the parts which in turn must be killed againthat y may be reborn in the absolute* "Identification is affirmed with earnestness precisely because there is division* Identification is compensatory to division* If men were not apart from one another, there would be no need for the rhe­ torician to proclaim their unity* If men were wholly and truly of one substance, absolute communication would be of man,s very essence* It would not be an ideal, as it nov; is, partly embodied In material conditions and partly frustrated by these same conditions; rather, it would be as natural, spontaneous, and total as with those ideal prorotypes of communication, the theologian* s angels, or *messengers*"55 toric is concerned with the very realm of communication between the ided objects and their relation to the whole symbolized in identification* "In pure identification there would be no strife* Likewise, there would be no strife in absolute separateness, since opponents can join battle only through, a mediatory ground that makes their communication possible, thus providing the first condition necessary for their interchange of blows* But put identification and division ambiguously together, so that you cannot know for certain just where one ends and the other begins, and you have the characteristic invitation to rhetoric*"56 is certain that there would be no strife in pure identifica.tlon because ! self would have been completely absorbed and dissolved into the coi>>tual unity which identification symbolises* Every time the self is .led one thinks of the process of the dialectic in Hegel in which the 5*5 Ibid* 56 TET^ 22. p.25. P . ividual is so completely transcended (aufgehoben) that he is a mere ction of the absolute without any personality* In the first section of this study the attempt was made to show Burke goes about the business of establishing the existence of the f* Until the basis and the origins for his theory of the self have n examined one is not in a position to study the techniques which a tic self migh employ in the act of poetic creation* r It has been shown Burke is more the Hegelian dialectician than the dynamic social be- iourlst* His love of categories and his passion for system within the ial context seem to be based emphatically upon Marxian theories while i concern for selfhood and the dynamics of social interaction is much iser to Mead* In the end the two theories are never fused into a ;isfactory synthesis because the element of social behaviourism gives way the dialectical system of dramatisn and with the loss of behaviourism* •ke*e naturalism becomes materialistic monism* And yet* Burke is as anxioxxs as Mead to avoid the mechanism of the .entist in order to retain the power of will in the philosophy of the b* Mead states his theory of the self in terms of the “I" and the "me"* le *1* means nothing without the *me* but the *1* is the sense of freedom initiative* The *me* represents a moral* not a mechanical, necessity* e *1* and the •me1, taken together constitute a personality as it pears in social experience." ^ his rhetoric* 57 Mead, G-* H., op.cit.%p*l78» Burke picks up this theme as central ■The individual person* striving to form himself in accordance with the coffiTmnlcative norms that natch the cooperative ways of his society* is hy the same token concerned with the rhetoric of identification. To act upon himself persuasively, he must variously resort to Images and ideas that are formative. Education (»indoctrination*) exerts such pressure upon him from without* he completes the process from within. If he does not somehow act to tell himself (as his own audience) what the various brands of rhetorician have told him, his persuasion is not complete. Only those voices from without ere effec­ tive which can speak in the language of a voice within."^® self is an agent in combat against forces which at the same time demine the very essence of his personality. Out of the context of the ial environment evolves the self which is specifically creative in terms the most dynamic qualities of that environment. Burke differs from Mead L loses considerably the dynamic quality of individual personality by luding a number of human experiences which may not fit his categories. :d has no categories but seeks rather to organize personality in all i richness and fullness. In the account of John Crowe Ransom there was found a contradiction hi8 search for a subsisting reality for both the poet and the poem, his insistence upon the creative will of the poet as the source of s poem*e existence. Ironically, Ransom was critical of Burke for not dug sufficiently clear the differences in the syntheses made by the 3t and the scientist in establishing the relation of the part to the Die, of the self to the unity behind all existence. Burke has insisted that the "kill11 is necessary for the rebirth of Lf-consciousness Just as Hegel did. Taken in relation to the third 58 Burke, Kenneth, A Rhetoric of Motives. p.39« ;e of the dialectic, death is not merely a negation of existence* ises to signify what it means directly — It the non-existence of -frMlI .vidual — . and "becomes transfigured into the universality of the spirit, sh lives in its own communion, dies there dally, and daily rises again**59 \ process is what Burke has in mind when he speaks of the dynamic symbol leath in Arnold's Xbpedocles and his plunge into the crater* It is > the same theme which Shelley symbolizes in the cloud which is its cenotaph* I change, "but I cannot die* Tor after the rain when with never a stain. The pavilion of heaven is "bare, And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams Build up the "blue dame of air, I silently laugh at my own cenotaph, And out of the caverns of rain. Like a child fTom the womb, like a ghost from the tomb, I arise andmbuild it again* Shell ey: The Cloud Like Croce, however, Ransom feared the quality of negation in the snd moment of the dialectic and although they allowed the anti—structure legativemoment as a stage in the development ofself-expression,they would allow it any real or ontological status* And so it is with Burke in logical triad of the self, the kill and the rebirth* Any such systeLc incorporation of self in an ontological whole is in direct conflict i the necessity for the priority of the creative will in the poetic :ess. If the principle of entelechy is to be meaningful It must culate in fully developed existing and not in an absolute tuiity which 59 He£:el.C»Phenomenology of Mind, p*780. >urs all existence* If the ultimate goal of entelechy is the absorption ;he death of the self then the system also must meet the same fate* What ;rue for Hegel must be true for Burke* "Hegel* s own method decrees that his own system be ultimately Jetti­ soned* It too must become *aufgehoben* • In Bogle, alas, the exception never proves the rule* And the rule is relentlesst universal and perpetual transition of everything to something else* Hegel* s logic is well symbolized by Shelley in the Impetuous end uncontrollable Vest Wind — the wild spirit which is moving everywhere, tameless and swift and proud, at once the destroyer and preserver of every kind of truth, Hegel*s included*" 59® In Ransom nature as a whole confronts the noet who is always on the :h for natural effects which are not useful but brilliant and vivid* Burke it is not an idealized concept of nature which confronts the poet it is the context of society. His response is very pragmatic and the t actually does seek for effects which are useful. In Ransom, by means myths or tropes, the poet achieves a total communication in ^diich ught and feeling are one* In Birke, by means of myths or tropes, per— ulerly the trope of synecdoche, the poet achieves a total communication which self and society are one and in the ideal process, the initial conct of individual and group in the human barnyard is reconciled, at least the point where the disease of cooperation is considerably remedied* if the price of cooperation means the death of the self then the ty achieved must be that of a mechanistic whole without life and witlw spirit* 59a Lowenberg, <^acob, ed. Introduction. Hegel Selections. Hew York, 19* Charles Scribner*s Sons, p.xv. l6o IV - LANGUAGE AS SOCIAL AND AESTHETIC CONTROL Erom a consideration of the self in relation to its environment of re, society or spirit, we turn to a discussion of the meang of coinnniTfl— on "between the self and its other* The paradox of the creative will he poet and the poem which he produces centres in the problem of her the poem is a mere reflection of the poet*s imagination ©r vdiether lbs some degree of independent aesthetic existence, some public quality :h allows us to call it objective* If language is expression of some ;, is the language of the poem only a means of expressing a subjective ;e of the poet* s mind or does the language of the poem as it is embodied - formal structure constitue a specific object! There seem to be je possible alternatives for the interpreta.tion of languages (a) it is means of subjective expression of the poet*s feelings; (b) it is an lel imitation of the thingness of the things it describes and the poet*s = is that of the imitator; or (c) it is a. process which the poet by 2 intuitive means attempts to objectify* The art of poetry is seen to Ln the dynamic process of describing in an objective manner the poet»s erience of the external world* The symbols of poetry become the func- n of this dynamic process which Burlce on several occasions calls the ncing of an attitude*n When we speak of the poet objectifying a process, we imply that the ect of the process, its end, is the poem which itself will have a. tain objective or independent quality* At the same time, one senses paradox of a process which is ongoing and of a thing which has objective i8texxce a n d is therefore to some extent static* Moreover, a process plies the existence of two poles, in this case a poet and the goal of s creative activity, a poem* But there must also he a third pole, namely e substance out of which the poem is made and Indeed the same substance out viiich the poet himself is created* discover, The major problem of aesthetics is if possible the exact ne.ture of this relationship and by so ing establish the basis for the poetic object for the poet himself as 11 as for the nature of that psychological process called poetic creation* In the Aesthetic of Benedetto Croce, the philosophy of art, the llosophy of language and the science of expression were all the same* •'Were Linguistic really a different science from Aesthetic it would not have for its object expression, which is the essentially aesthetic fact; that is to say, we must deny that language is expression* But an emission of sounds which expresses nothing is not language* lang­ uage is sound articulated, circumscribed and organised for the purposes of expression*" ^0 Language as expression is a spiritual creation* It does not develop i any associative way for Mif language be a spiritual creation, it must always be a creation • • • .Expressions already produced must descend to the rank of i m ­ pressions before they can give rise to new impressions* Vflien we utter n e w words we generally transform old ones, varying or enlarging their meaning; but this process is not associative, it is creative, although the creation has for material the Impressions, not of the hypothetical primitive man, but of man who has lived long ages in society, and who has, so to say stored so many things in his psychic organism, and among them so much language*" 6l aus language for Croce is a cumulative expression which embodies the tra­ it! on of a people and conveys not only the direct intention of the speaker ut also the intention of the whole society of which he is a part* £0 0roce,Benedetto,Aesthetic As Science of Expression end General Linguistic P . l o u a l a s A i n s l lp.?nd.ed..T,rinrinn.lfec?H 11 a n a n d Co.Ltd..! PPQ.n.l/i? . '' Moreover, language has no reality outside the expression or work of t in which it exists concretely* The culture of a given people is nothing t the sum total of the individual expressions of the people themselves* th the one and the many here have their unity as well as their multiplicity the spirit or intuition which is expression* For Croce the reality of nguage lies in its expression of spirit, the indivisible whole which is lture* Croce* s theory follow genetically from Hegel*s acocrunt in the enomenology of Mind* "We see language to he the form in which spirit finds existence* Language is 3elf-consciousness vdiich as such is there immediately present and which in its individuality is universal* Language is b elfvseparating itself from itself which as the pure ego identical with ego becomes an object to itself, which at once maintains itself in this objective form as this actual self, and at the same time that it is perceived by others: and this perceiving is just existence which has become a self*" o2 .e unity of culture which is manifested by language rests in the content of nguage as spirit* "What the language of conscience contains is the self owing itself as essential reality*" Groce*s theme that "language is perpetual creation" reiterates the truth that all actions of mankind are expressions* Just as Dante* s poetry can be enjoyed only by means of raising ourselves to Dante* s level of expression, so "what has been linguistically expressed is not repeated, save by reproduction of what ha.s already been produced*" man must create out of his own consciousness, according to his own 62 Hegel, op*cit*, p*66l, 63 Groce, ot)*cit*. p*150» sBsions* But creation is expression lay which, the natural object becomes abol of the artist* 3 intuition* Zt is by means of language that an 3nes8 of the inner character of spirit which underlies all particular i of life is achieved* Croce and Hegel sought to establish the origins of the theory of iage as dynamic coitmiunication* As idealists* they were not only keenly e of the problem of the identity of subject and object in the under­ ling of the function of communication but they gave the most intelligible ant of the nature of that function* Croce* in particular, was careful mphasize the role of language in the development of self in relation ts spiritual context* He avoided the deadening Influence of categories logical definitions of language* tion* Language is expression* not classl- It communicates the traditions of culture through the agent of ession and at the same time makes meaningful to an audience experiences h they could not otherwise express* By means of language, the poet u his deepest self through his sense of community with other spiritual gs* He is at once aware of the unity of spirit which makes intuition •ecific expression and of that quality in specific expressions which ena— i us to understand spiritual unity* The context of his aesthetics and of account of the psychology of poetic creation is ideal and somewhat ieric* Hie dynamics of his thought are the most inspiring element in writing but as we have already seen in our discussion of the self* modern mind has craved a more empirical account* It is in the ph.ilos o— of G-. H. Mead that the same dynamics are used but in the rich context our everyday practical experience* Before Burke* s discussion of lajw Bge and symbol in relation to the idealistic tradition can he evaluated., e comparison of the idealist with Mead ‘the pragmatic social behaviorist st he revealed. Tor Mead, Language is a part of social behavior. Language is the :hanism of gesture. "which makes possible the appropriate responses to one another*s behavior of the different individual organisms involved in the social process. Within any given social act, an adjustment is effected, by means of gestures, of the actions of one organism involved to the actions of another; the gestures are movements of* the first organism which act as specific stimuli calling forth the (socially) appropriate responses of the second organism. The field of the operation of gestures is the field within which the rise and development of human intelligence has taken place through the process of the symbolization of experience which gestures especially vocal gestures — — have made possible. The jcialization of the human animal within this field of gesture has been responsible, ultimately, for the origin and growth of present human society and knowledge, with all the control over nature and over the human environment which science makes possible," As we have already seen, Mead is very careful to distinguish between i symbols used by animals and the significant symbols used by human beings. "The vocal gesture becomes a significant symbol (unimportant, as such, on the merely affective side of experience) when it has the same effect on the individual making it that it h a s on the individual to whom it is addressed or who explicitly responds to it, and thus involves a reference to the self of the individual making it." means of significant symbols individuals can communicate with one another comparatively complex levels, 64 Mead, G. H,, Mind, Self 65 Ibid, p.46. Hot only does the use of language enable and Society, p . 13-14, Note . 165 > individuals to focus their attention upon a common object but It ibles the speaker to take the attitude of the other person toward his 1 gestures* "In this way every gesture comes within a given social group or com­ munity to stand for a particular act or response* namely, the act or response which it calls forth explicitly in the individual to whom it is addressed, and implicitly in the individual who makes it; and this parti collar act or response for which it stands is its meaning as asignificant symbol* Only in terms of gestures as significant symbols is the existence of mind or intelligence possible; for only in terms of gestoires which are significant symbols can thinking — —- odiich is simply an internalized or implicit conversation of the individual with hisw self by means of such gestoires —— take place* The internalization in ooir experience of the external conversations of gestures which we carry on with other individuals in the social process is the essence of thinking; and the gestoires thus internalized are significant symbols because they have the same meanings for all individuals making them tha,t they arouse in the individuals responding to them* otherwise the individual could not internalize them or be conscious of them and their meanings*"66 re is a process of expression which is analogous to that described by ice. Mind as social intelligence is substituted for Spirit and in the ne way as Spirit, Mind is prior to all thinking individuals* Yet it is Ly in terms of gestures as significant symbols that the existence of ad or intelligence is possible* Likewise for Croce intuition is expression; e intuits the existence of spirit which can be known only in terms of rticular expressions* Without Spirit, expression is impossible and yet thout expression we could never be aware of the existence of Spirit* the pragmatic level in Mead there is a greater tendency to speak of mind icing out of the conversation of gestures than to speak of language ising out of mind* Croce* s more idealistic approach tends to place ater emphasis on the existence of spirit as necessary for the possibility language and language necessarily arises through Spirit* In spite of thes thases, in the ce.se of both Croce and Mead, the common spirit of their ught lies in the great value placed upon the dynamics of interaction* s self becomes aware of itself in Croce only when it has expressed itself terras of spirit* In Meed* the body becomes a self only "when it has reloped a mind within the context of social experience*" For Mead the synthesis of expression in language is achieved when we * able to communicate on both the intellectual and emotional level* But ;ardloss of the level, language is always functional, fulfilling a need the individual using it* A poet depends upon the emotional character of sture* "For him language is rich and full of values which we, perhaps, utterly ignore* In trying to express a message in something less than ten words, we merely want to convey a certain meaning, while the poet is dealing with what is really living tissue, the emotional throb in the expression itself* There is then, a great range in our use of laiw guageS but whatever phase of the range is used is a part of a social process, and it is 3Lways that part by means of which we affect ourselves as we affect others and mediate the soctel situation through this uiw derstanding of what we are saying* That is fundamental for any lan­ guage ; if it is going to be language one has to understand what he is saying, has to affect himself as he affects others* "^7 characteristic pragmatic fashion, the role of the intellect in the ocess of art is somewhat suppressed in favour of a behavioristic emotional pression* ®ut Mead never loses sight of the necessity for intellect in nguage for without it he laiows full well he would eliminate consciousness* 167 "The symbol is thus more than a mere substitute stimulus —- more than a mere stimulus for a conditioned response or reflex* For the condi­ tioned reflex — the response to a mere substitute stimulus — does not or need not Involve consciousness! whereas the response to a symbol does and must Involve consciousness* Conditioned reflexes plus consciousness of the attitudes and meanings they involve are what constitute language, and hence lay the basis, or comprise the mechanism for, thought and intelligent conduct*M Having thus far discussed the function of consciousness in relation to imore behavi oristic aspect of language, Mead now shifts sufficiently far the side of the rational intellect to show the necessity of selfaware— is in the process of linguistic expression* "Language is the means whereby individuals can indicate to one another what their responses to objects will be, and hence what the meanings of objects are! it is not a mere system of conditioned reflexes* Ra­ tional conduct always involves a reflexive reference to self, that is, an indication to the individual of the signlficances which his actions or gestures have for other individuals* And the experiential or be­ havioristic basis for such conduct — the neuro— physiological mechanism of thinking is to be found, as we have seen, in the central nervous system* Here the cycle of Mead* s theory of language is complete* From an ational fulfilling of needs by anticipating the responses which his stures will stimulate in his social environment, the individual is given rational consciousness with which to recognize and analyze these responses* then returns to the neuro—physiological mechanism which is the source rational thinking* For all his attempt to insist that mind is a product social experience, he has ultimately submitted to the Darwinian principle at mind, self and society presuppose a physiological unity, a materialistic tology* 68 69 The value of Mead* e contribution to the theory of language lies Ibid* Ibid^ p.122, Rote. p.122. 168 so much In this fact as In his careful analysis of the process of guistic communication* Likewise in Croce, the value of his contribution s not so much in the ultimate reduction of his thought to an idealistic ology as in his acute insights in to the process of expression at the the tic level* The dynamics of mind, self and society, as far as Burke’s of the concepts is concerned, are summed up in the following passage m Mead* "It is the unity of the whole social process that is the unity of the individual, and social control over the individual lies in this common process which is going on, a process which differentiates the indi­ vidual in his particular function vdiile at the same time controlling hi8 reaction* It is the ability of the person to put himself in other people’s places that gives him his cues as to what he is to do in a specific situatlon* The versatile mind of Kenneth Burke has reached into political, economic ial, and religious areas as well as into the aesthetic in his study of guage* He has uncovered valuable information in the previous studies language made by such nineteenth century thinkers as Jeremy Bentham# In A Grammar of Motives, he has studied the use of terms, of language in ier&l on all these manifold levels* In keeping with the purpose of this >le study an examination of Burke’s theory will be made only on the ithetlc and poetic levels* It will be seen that it is at this level re the conflict in Burke’s mind concerning the objective structure of iguage is centred* In Mead, one wap accustomed to hear of language as a process of 70 Ibidj p .270. nunication at the social level alone. He spoke of attitudes and res- ses, of conventions which society accepted as customary ways of expressing tions or of maintaining conventions hut he did not easily formalize these itudes. Oving to his intuitive reaction against all categorizing of the d, he strove to avoid the specific study of formalized conventions. For Ice* the vdiole enterprise of locating the nature of the various resses and attitudes of individuals in society constitutes a vast ritual, uni is a means of erecting "a vast symbolic synthesis, a rationale of ginative and conceptual imagery that ‘locates* the various aspects of e r i e n c e . J u s t as in Mead, the aesthetic work was a means of ful­ ling a need of the individual to anticipate the responses or attitudes society, so in ^urke "the organization of a work can he considered with ation to a »key» symbol of authority. The work is a ritual whereby the st takes inventory with reference to the acceptance or rejection of this .hority." 72 In order to gain comprehension on the practical as well the aesthetic level, the poet must sacrifice his identity to some extent, a result of his taking on of the attitudes of the society which, is his ;her*, the poet becomes reborn and so increases his perspective while at > same time remaining as his former self. •‘Rebirth is a process of :ialization.w In this attempt to discover what the response of other individuals is our actions, we depend primarily upon speech. As in Mead, Language is e symbol!zation of gestures and as these symbols develop, they are found 71 72 Burke, Kenneth, Attitudes toward History. Yol. 2, p.l. Ibidj p.i|4. ora clusters around which. additional significance or meaning can be overecL. e#g# Caroline Spurgeon* s charting of Shakespeare*8 imagery* anguage Is used to develop one*s awareness of his relation to his al environment, clusters help the individual to realize this fulfillment "The charting of clusters will eventually reveal how thoroughly the syntheses of poetry manage to eschew the *law of excluded middle* dear to argumentative thought* The symbol, as *vessel*, may quite easily unite logical opposites* Die same symbol may contain meanings of parents, child, wife, career, promise, and fear# It may contain both sexual gratification and castration, both retreat and aggression# perhaps it is not complete as a *vessel* tantil it has secretly performed this merger of opposites by •transcendence* "#73 he seme way that Croce and Hegel sought to achieve unity of opposites :e relates concepts or experiences which are opposed to one another# implication in all three cases is that such concepts are not really >sites hut merely distinct manifestations of the same substance#^ In case of the idealists, Hegel and Croce, the element of identity running nigh the opposites is the ontological Spirit# In the case of Burke, element of identity is the commonality of experience which all in.dual8 must have as partially developed social beings# As spirit rides the basis of unity for opposing concepts, so the context of Lety provides the basis of unity for opposing experiences# But Burke is little concerned with words as abstractions of Spirit# e Mead he shuns metaphysical speculation to search for the content Language# Verbalizations must and do synthesize a whole infinity of redients# The ideals of 73 7L lbldt p. 77-8. t a m Pp.3^5. pure conceptualization can be attained only by overlshment, ‘alienation** Words ©re rich in •linguistic action* y in so far as there is a ‘dance* implicit in their naming* The con- :t of symbolic language must constitute a. dance* a movement of thought . not a mere classification of symbols into categories* Consistent with his conviction in the dynamic power of language s.s ■ression, Burke believes that imagery can never attain scientific tcision* He tries to ©.void categories which tend to kill the creative ivity of the will* Language is merely the reflection of a self in rch of unity in social context* Just as the self had to sacrifice ielf to the kill in order to be reborn as a new self closer to a knowledge the social unity out of which it came* so Burke claims that “our basic principle is our contention that all symbolism can be treated as the ritualistic naming and changing of identity (whereby a man fits himself for a role in accordance with established coordinates or for a change of role in accordance with new coordinates which necessity has forced upon him)* ; in his attempt to substitute dynamic categories of Judgment for the *e logical categories of the logician, Burke tends to give too simplified account of the poetic or literary process* The meanings which he asso- ites with the symbols of his ritual dancing of attitudes are too explicit* ) logical* A certain rigidity of mind tends to kill the dynamic quality spirit and a static as well as dogmatic tone prevails* Symbolism is 3 ritualistic naming and changing of identity* 3 conceptual, they tend to reduce personality to abstract!on* 75 Since his symbols are The con- Burke, Kenneth, Attitudes toward History, Vol. 2, P*l69-17Q* Page 172 lacking in number only when material checked here for microfilming. UNIVERSITY MICROFILMS I •te are sufficiently rigid that a return of the self to the further obtive contemplation of these concepts is impossible* The symbols lack od.b5.lity because they are too frequently made to be manifestations of ocial spirit which is either Marxian or Freudian in its implications* ! materialistic unity is as dissolving of the quality of existence as Hegel*3 Absolute* The following passage is typical of his literary ticism: “In general, these rituals of change or *purification* center about three kinds of imagery: purification by ice, by fire, or by decay. *Ice1 tends to emphasize castration and frigidity. (Severe mountains, winter, Ardtic exploration, death of the individual, or the world by* cold. We should thus note the difference between Eliza* s crossing atop the ice with her child in Uncle Tom* s Cabin and the opening of Odets* play, Pa.re.ddse Lost, another story of *redemption*, where the leading character complains that he lies drowned, benee-th ice.) Purification by fire, *trial by fire*, probably suggests *incestawe*. (As in some mystics*dream of *the sun death*, where one is both welcomed into the sunand consumed by it. The sun v;as originally a female, the goddess of fertility as preserved in the German *Frau Sonne*. The feminine character of fire is preserved in Wagner»s opera depicting Siegfried*3 rescue of his bride across a circle of fire. You may find such connotations preserved in the stories of Ershine Caldwell, where imagery of fire, mother, and earth is merged). Redemption by decay is symbolized in all variants of the sprouting seed, which arises in green newness out of filth and rot* Often it seems to gravitate towards connotations of the homosexual (as in the novels of Andre Gide). Wemay also note the two symbols of perspec­ tive, the mountain and thepit (sometimes merged in symbols of bridges* crossing, travel, flying). The mountain contains incestuous ingre­ dients (the mountain as the mother, with frigidity as symbolic punishment for the offense). So also does the pit (ambivalence of womb and *cloaque*. the latter aspect tending to draw in also in­ gredients of *purification by decay*.” 76 re one experiences the rigidity of Burke’s reductionistic mind. He has obvious enthusiasm for the task of criticism but he tends to violate 76 Ibldy Vol.2, p.170-1, object of art b y reducing its objective quality to conceptual struces: these structures are more the projection of Burke's mind than they any account of the object of art itself• Burke does extend his interior stations somewhat beyond the Freudian el which he believed to be too limited, go beyond the social level* too uni vocal* But he will Brilliant though some of his interpre— Ions are, he begs his own aesthetic question by his insistence u p o n the ority of the social context, a context which is more conceptual in x1s sense than it is dynamic in Mead's sense* The study of aesthetics intended to illustrate how the social elements are involved in the rossments of individual creativeness* In his Attitudes toward History concludes his discussion of symbolism with a statement of his creed* of the new critics, he is interested in the metaphor, the symbol, Like the m as an objective entity, capable of much greater expression than the e representation of a single idea* "A symbol is a vessel of much more content than is disclosed by its 'face value' as a label* Words may contain attitudes much more c omplex and subtle than could possibly be indicated in the efficient simplifi­ cations of a 'practical' dictionary*" 77 is ready to argue that "once a man has integrated his whole life about Ids business Cinter— weaving it with a full texture of social relationships and personal transcendences) you will be far from knowing what is going on if you try to analyze his motives ae merely the 'desire for monetary profit*. His business has become a 'vessel', it is 'charismatic'*" 7o 77 73 I b i d * - Vol. 2, p.231. Ibid, Vol. 2, p . 231. 175 Burke loses touch with Mead's dynamic naturalism, he loses the poles self and society* o unity* Marxist* All the manifold experience of nature dissolves The pragmatic aesthetic becomes the monistic aesthetic of Yet he concludes by saying Our own program, as literary critic, is to integrate technical cri­ ticism with social criticism (propaganda, the didactic) by taking the allegiance to the symbol of authority as our subject* We take this as our starting point, and 'radiate' from it. Since the symbols of authority are radically linked with property relationships, this point of departure automatically involves us in socio-economic criti­ cism. Since works of art, as 'equipment for living,' are formed with authoritative structures as their basis of reference, we also move automatically into the field of technical criticism (the*tactics* of writers'*"^~ So far, Burke had kept himself relatively within the framework of the sial behaviorist and the dynamic pragmatist* Language in its origins » an implement of action, a device which takes its shape by the cooperare patterns of the group that uses it*"®0 ans; Speech has two polar func- "Speech is communicative in the sense that it provides a common sis of feeling — or it is communicative in the sense that it serves the common implement of action*" A Either social attitudes become ecific in the individuals who seek to communicate among other individuals the individual acts in such a way as to anticipate the responses of e member or members of society with whom he would get along* At all mes language can have mee-ning only in the context of consciousness, e individual mind interacting with the group mind* mbolic of situations* "We cannot compare mere verbalizations — -31 also correlate the situations behind them*" 79 80 Words are always Qp Ibid, Vol.2, p.23^* Burke, Kenneth, Permanence and Change, p*220. we In the Philosophy of Literary Form. Burke showB eigne of shifting ground from the naturalistic approach to the poetic process, to a e rationalistic approach* The passion for categorical thinking is inning to loom even more clearly on the horizon of his mind* The sym- ic dance of the individual with society in the universal enterprise of ression is ‘beginning to take on the proportions of the dialectic in ch the moments of activity &re much more sharply defined* say that Burke rejects his naturalism* This is not Prom here on one will find a >ater concern with the objectivity of the poem* But the task of main- .ning a dynamic process of reciprocation between the poet and his jature, the poem is becoming more difficult* The poetic process with its matic quality is becoming methodized and the inevitable result is ilectical criticism in which drama is not likely to live* Imaginative '>8 of ext are strategic answers to the questions which arise in uaxticular buations* He therefore proposes "an initial working distinction between *strategies* and *situations*» whereby we think of poetry ( I here use the term to include any work of critical or imaginative cast) as the adopting of various strategies for the encompassing of situations* These strategies size up the situations* name their structure and outstanding ingredients, and name them in a way that contains an attitude towards them* This point of view does not, by any means, vow us to personal or historical subjectivism* The situations are real; the strategies for handling them have public content; and in so far as situations overlap from individual to individual, or from one historical period to another, the strategies possess universal relevance*" These poetic strategies are the culmination of the poetic process* i the first place, the poet is in the state of a dream where the unconscious ‘ subconscious factors in. a poem are nascent* 83 Burke, Kenneth, In the state of prayer, The Philosophy of literary Form, p*l. poet seeks to communicate Ills feeling to a public by means of a form, lomnuaicatlve structure. Finally, at the level of chart, the strategy the poet hrs been worked out. In chart, we have "the realistic sizing- Df situations that is sometimes explicit, sometimes implicit, in poetic Qli itegies." Here one feels already the cooperative and reciprocal fit giving way to the spirit of war and strife. The harmony of Indi- nal with Spirit or Society in Croce's or Mead's sense is giving v.ey to struggle of the individual with cle.ss. The poetic Tsrocess is organ!s— ally related to the same grim dynamics. Burke sums up his approach to language and e symbolic act is the .dancing of ar. attitude. poetry as symbolic action, . . . Inthis attitudinizing the poem, the whole body may finally become involved, in ways suggested the doctrines of behaviorism. «S5 But as in Mead, this body which :omes involved in the poetic process is an intellectual entity as well a biological entity (as if in Burke's terms these two were not ultimately ? seme thing). The poem is objective because the motivation of an author synonymous with the structural way in which he puts event and values jether when he v.Tites. isclous. The total contextual relation is probe.bly un- Without knowing anything about Coleridge or his poetry, one old read the Ancient Mariner and perceive how the loathsome snakes were ansformed into something blessed. We would recognize how the poet dured his sufferings under the sun and enjoyed hi3 cure under the moon. 84 85 Ibid, Ibldj p .6. p.9- e develops this theme characteristically as follows, clearly showing n his categorical turn of mind* "We would have some *equations* to work one, as the Sun is *like God's own head*, and the *loon* whose cure "began when •the moving m o o n v/ent u p the sky*, was laved "by a curative rain that, in ending the state of drought, filled *silly "buckets'; and when the Mariner entered the pilot's boa.t the Pilot's "boy, 'who now doth crazy go', called hi m the Devil* We may also see inklings of a 'problem of marriage', in the setting of the poem, and in the closing explicit statement as to a. preference for church over marriage* U-sge as expression gives way to language as strategy or control in :e* As hie concept of society "becomes more logical and categorical, individual is reduced to abstraction while in Mead, Language was a is of fulfilment* Mead preserves personality by his own voluntarism .sting on the priority of will independent of any social context as ?ricge had on the independence of the will in the imaginative context* ;c r. is the destroyer of the creative will and is the effective killer 30 th the poet and the art object in Burke by reducing then to the ab- -ct Marxian concept of society* 7 - THE IR017Y OF SYNECDOCHE In gurke'o scheme, language as the reciprocal expression of self and Lety is most fully signified in the basic trope of synecdoche* Synec- he is " "the figure of speech wherein the pert is used for the whole, the whole for the part, the container for the thing contained, the cause 86 Ibid; p.24« for the effect, the effect for the cause* etc. The hoth the structure of poetry and structure of human of poetry, the more I become convinced that this is of speech, and that it occurs in many inodes besides trope."8” more I examine relations outside the basic figure that of the formal Lance at the following illustrations of Burke* s use of synecdoche will erl the mechanistic way in which the part symbolizes the whole. The bolic treatment of Coleridge* c The Ancient Mariner has already been cussed end certain symbols in the poem were found to be relevant to the t*s own personal experience, as he stated his own values on the subject marriage. It will also be found that the images in poems constitute fbolic clusters or wholes which are represented by the specific images the poem. Thus, •'the albatross, we are told, came through the fog *As if it had been a Christian soul1, and the Sun that avenges the murder is said to be *like Cod*s own head* • In the Aeolian Harp we are told that Sarah, the poet*s wife, vdio biddeth the poet walk humbly with his God, is a 'Meek Daughter in the family of Christ.* Sarah anththe Albatross are thus seen to be in the same equational cluster."^5 rke goes on to point out that the sane fears and feelings of guilt which sessed Coleridge* s soul also drove on the Mariner* e ship. Burke apolo— zes for appearing to reduce the poetic process in Coleridge to his rital troubles and suffering from drugs but he continues: nMy position is this: that if we try to discover what the poem is doing for the poet, we may discover a set of generalisations as to what poems do for everybody. 1.1th these in mind, we have cues for analyzing the sort of eventful ness that the poem contains. And in 87 88 Ibid. p.25-?£. Ibid. p . 71. analyzing this eventfulness, we shall make "basic discoveries about the structure of the work Itself* i can substitute the part for the whole, the whole for the part because ise pairs belong to the sane whole, to the same e.ssociational cluster* s symbolic motives in the poem are always moving toward a fullness of >erience which is i # i i y represented by the whole, a kind of ontological metaphysical integrity which underlies all existence* Things which pear to be opposed to one another in reality are manifestations of the ae whole, the same associationel cluster* In this whole discussion one is once again reminded of Croce's critique Hegel wherein he, Croce, distinguished between a destructive unity of posites and a dynamic unity of distincts* "A distinct concept*^s presup- sed by and lives in its other vhich follows it in the sequence of ideas*11 stincts are degrees of reality of which the lower Is the foundation of e higher but can stand quite apart from the higher* Distincts are not emselves opposites but they are each in themselves a synthesis of oppos­ es* a synecdochal representation of the whole unity underlying the spefic symbol* Beauty Is a distinct because it has ugliness within it — i a degree or stage of development and not as an opposite or negation of iself* To particularize or to distinguish the concepts is not to ex— .nguish, negate or annihilate it* At the same time the distinct is not m e thing outside the unity of spirit* paradoxical whole. 89 Ibid% 39a. Together unity ana distinct are The realm of particular symbols is not classifiable p . 73. ? pp.3^ 5 * ITote 39> o species under genera "but ere conceived as degrees of development as particular symbols at all times manifest the absolute rather than stentially contradict one another.^0 Spealring of synecdoche as the basic figure of speech. Burke himself ks up the Hegelian formula that *everything is its other* and notices same distinction as does Croce between a unity of distincts versus nity of opposites. MWe have the polar kind of otherness, as a certain kind of villainy is implicit in a certain kind of heroism, and vice versa. And we have synecdochic otherness, as the beloved*8 house nay represent the beloved (or, as the ship on vdiich the Mariner voyages represents the Mariner*s cwn mental and bodily symptoms). Polar otherness unites things that are opposite to one another; synecdochic otherness unites things that are simply different from one another. Hie beloved* s house is not opposite to the beloved, but merely different from the beloved. There is the same effort here to avoid the destructive quality of ;elian or Marxian logic in which certain particular objects are said be opposites of one another in such a way that the existence of the gating force destroys the object of which it is the antithesis. Vlhen dee spoke of the self, it was noticed how he referred to the "kill11 as lecessery stage in the process of identification or transformation by ins of which the poet took on a new form and yet remained himself. He ild remain himself only as he was developing toward a fulfilment of his rulties and not as he was literally destroyed or so made over as to lose s former identity. 91 Burke, Kenneth, The Philosophy of Literary Porn, p.77-78, 182 The next step in Burke's analysis of the account of poetic creation ,o introduce the concept of drama into relation with his concept of ,>cdoche, i*e* he now tries to equate drama with dialectic* At this Lt we see ho\* Burke is trying to confine the dialectical movement of mind to a dynamic level rather than to a logical or categorical level* Is as distrustful of Marxian materialism as Croce was of Hegel’s epis— ^logical idealism* On the naturalistic level he wants the same dynamic Lity of "expression” which Croce sought on the intuitive or Spiritual level* Ls at this point that Burke Beems to rely on G. H. Mead, the naturalistic ^natist rather than the historical materialist, Karl Marx* Mead says t "the mind is simply the interplay of such gestures in the form of sig­ nificant symbols* We must remember that the gesture is there only in its relationship to the response, to the attitude* One would not have words ■unless there were such responses* Language would never have arisen as a set of bare arbitrary terms which were attached to certain stimuli* Words have arisen out of a social interrelationship?^ ke makes the same point as Croce on the political level and his analogy a brilliant illustration of the total theme of his work. He wants to jstitute "competitive collaboration" for "competitive destruction", bellum purificandum that the disease of cooperation known as war nay cured* Burke feels Justified in equating drama with dialectic because is the dynamic and constructive kind of dialectic which he has in mind* in Plato, 92 Mead, op.cit* .p*l89* "Inimical assertions are invited to collaborate in the perfecting of the assertion* In fact* the greatest menace to dictatorships lies in the fact that, through their ‘efficiency* in silencing the enemy they deprive themselves of competitive collaboration* Their assertion lacks the opportunity to mature through ‘agonistic* development* By putting the quietus upon their opponent, they bring themselves all the more rudely against the unanswerable opponent, the opponent who cannot be refuted, the nature ple would know what you wanted when you asked for one* Semantic -ring is a way of pointing to a chair while -poetic meaning is weighted ;h emotional values* attitudes* -ht or wrong* Poetic meaning cannot be said to be Burke's illustration of the idealistic philosophy of error stated well in the following passage! 185 "Meaning, when used in the sense of 'correct meaning*, leads to an sither-or approach, *New York Oity ig in Iov/a* could, by the either>r principles, promptly be ruled cut. The elther-or te/t w o ^ d r e ^ e sent the semantic ideal. But I am sorry to have to admit that, by the Poetic ideal, »New York City is in Iowa* could not he ruled o£t. on th. « L ° n V T I" for instance, in some little outlying town, on the edge ox uhe wilderness, and watched a train go hy? Has one perhaps suddenly felt that the tram, and Its tracks. v £ e f i l n d of p-rm of the city, reaching out across the continent, quite as though It were sinply Broadway itself extended? It is in such a sense that L-.ew Yor.r City c m he found all over the country — end I subnlt that one would miss very important meanings, meanings that have much to do with the conduct of our inhabitants, were he to proceed here hy the either-or kind of test, “'Hew York 01 ty Is In Iowa' Is 'poetically' true. As a metaphor, it provides valid Insight. To have ruled it out, hy strict semantic authority, would have heen vandalism,M 96 can see here that the semantical approach is the logical approach from h all dramatic quality has heen eliminated. In poetic meaning there Iramatic development in vaiich the truth is expanding as hy a set of :entric circles ever widening in its conprehension until the fullness ;ruth is comprehended, and witliin the context of the circles all parilar experiences are hoth related to each other and to the fullness of th of which they are an ever-revealing part. It is hy means of ex- 331 on, hy fulfillment that the emptiness of a more formal logic is Lded, Burke's attempt to solve the paradox of the identity of subject and ect In his philosophy of e-ction reaches its fullest and most complex ression in his A Grammar of Motives , To solve such a problem the r.list must establish the fundamental basic existence of the poles or rdinates in the relationship to the basic principle of unity or identity. 96 Ibid, p.l^. 3 Plato in opposing Noiv-Being to Being was careful to point out that -3eing was not mere Nothing hut was rather an assertion of the negation the existence of Being, If non-Being were Nothing then Being could rcely he said to have a reel opposite at all and the means ox relating mediating between Being and the ultimate unity of the universe would he os3ihle, Hegel had seen this difficulty, of course, hut his logical lectic involved the complete destruction of Being hy Non-Being, Croce hasized the importance of the dialectic as a developmental process in ch the principle of Antithesis was p. principle of otherness rather than r i n d pie of nothingness and the process of mediating "between the world existence and the unity of spirit which underlies all things was d^opmental rather than purely dialectical, Coleridge had pointed out •.t the dichotomy of existence and its opposite continually set up opsitions which made ultimate unity impossible and so in addition to the .es of thesis and antithesis, he introduces a principle of Unity as an 3olute Idea presupposed in all ants of knowledge, If Coleridge was sufficiently concerned to preserve the existence of 3 poles of e-ction in the development of the dialectic towards its ful- Lnent in the unity of thought, Burke as a more dogma.tic naturalist v^.s en more concerned. As a. typical pragmatist, he was anxious to e.void e metaphysical speculations ox a philosopher like Coleridge, To accom- ish this end, he actually built up an even more complicated system to tablish the existence of the poles on the process of action. 97 Sotr^ p.51-52. If Coleridge »red his principle of trichotomy to save existence from the raro^es iichotomy, Burke may "be said to have outdone all previous idealists i his pentad, or shall we say, his pentachotomy of dramatisnu In the -inal idealistic triad, one had the agent acting in terms of his environb, in terms of a purpose which was a manifestation of the unity underag both the agent and the environment with which the agent was reacting, ce now distinguishes further the act as the event which took place, the at (tliat person or kind of person he is or was) and the agency, the means instrument used by the agent. By this means, Burke hopes to analyze e carefully the nature of action itself. But the elaborate structure dramatism as defined by Burke does not help us to understand the object creative action. Such an elaborate rational tool conceptualizes our erstanding of the object to the point where its objectivity is lost In a yrinth. Paradoxically, this elaborate structure to preserve the particularity existence promptly moves inevitably towards the destruction of existence in the dramatic process begins. The act is simply the scene made more licit. "Using ‘scene* in the sense of setting, or background, and *rct* in the sense of action, one could say that *the scene contains the act*. And using *agents* in the sense of actors, or actors, one could say that *the scene contains the agents*. "It Is a principle of drama that the nature of acts and agents should be consistent with the nature of the scene. And whereas comic and grotesque works may deliberately set these elements at odds with one another, audiences make allowance for such liberty, which re­ affirms the same principle of consistency in its very violation. 98 Burke, Kenneth, A Grammar of Motives. p.3» i n t e g r a t i o n of the five elements of dramatism is illustrated in Burke* s ount of Ibsen* s A n E n e m y of the P e o p l e i n whi c h the scene-act ratio is dominant* "The whole plot is that of an internality directed outwards* We pro­ gress by stages from a. scene (reported) wherein the plan of social purification was conceived in loneliness, to the scene in his study where the hero announces in the exaltation of a dramatic finales •The strongest man in the world is he who stands most alone** The pronouncement is modified by the situation in which it is uttered: As Dr* Stockmann speaks, he is surrounded by a loyal and admiring family circle, and his educational plan calls not for complete independence, but for cooperation* He is not setting himself up as the strongest man in the world, but merely as one headed in the sane direction* And, with the exception of his brother Peter, we may consider his family circle as aspects of his own identity, being under the aegis of •loneliness* since it began so and retains the quality of its ancestry* In the same way, the scene-agent ratio Is a synecdochic relation* Wordsworth’s sonnet, "It is a beauteous evening, calm and free,” "by selecting a religious image in which to convey the purely natura­ listic sense of hu3h, the octave infuses the natural scene with hints of a wider circumference, su£>ernatural in scope* The sestet turns from scene to agent; Indeed, the octave is all scene, the sestet all agent* But by the logic of the scene-agent ratio, if the scene is supernatural in quality, the agent contained by this scene will partake of the same supernatural quality* And so, spontaneously, purely by being the kind of agent that is at one with this kind of scene, the child is *divine** The contents of a divine container d l l synecdochically share In Its divinity*"^®® At the seme time that Burke is emphasizing the synecdochic quality : the ratios of the elements of dranatism, he is careful to limit Its motion in the ratio of act ana agent* 99 100 Ibid* Ibid, p.5. p *8. “Both act and. agent require scenes that •contain* them. Hence the scene-act and •cene-agent ratios are in the fullest sense positive (or positional). But the relation "between act and agent is not quite the same. The agent does not 'contain* the act, though its results night "be said to *pre-exist* virtually within him. And the act does not *synecdochically share* in the agent, though certain ways of acting may be said to induce corresponding moods or traits of character. To this writer, at least, the act-agent ratio more strongly suggests a temporal or sequential relationship than a purely positional or geo­ metric one." passage summarizes once again the conflict between will and idea, een creator and creature, between thinicer and the object of his conlation. It is obvious that the trope of synechdoche is not effective description of temporal relationships. In order to establish the tence of poet and poem, time is an essential factor. And so then :e is willing to allow full scope to synecdoche in the relation of act agent to scene but he realizes that a sort of poetic solipsism would It if he were unable to distinguish between act and agent. At this it, he must for seize his oft-stated premise that synecdoche is the basic pe of language. The process of dramatism with its basic figure of synecdoche reveals paradox of substance or in Burke's terms the irony of contextual Lnition. It was seen previously how Hansom and Brooks and Tate got o difficulties with texture or context as a background for existence, t as in their situations, texture was strongly inclined to absorb the lily of existence in its all-embracing internal relations, so Burke tends with the sane problem here and he is not helped particularly his ch Ice of Spinoza whose doctrine of substance he tries so desperat 101 Ibid., pp.14-15 190 mturalize into a meaningful context for existence* To avoid Spinoza** iitional monism, Burke parallels two types of definition, contextual .nition which stresses placement and ancestral definition which stresses .vs.tl.o_a* These he trios to interweave "by specifying two kinds of stance; geometric substance which is more closely akin to the spirit of ;cdoche and familial substance which is biological and hence derivative* xaturall sing geometric substance, Burke reaffirms the necessity of ex■ncc in the synecdochic relation* Directional substance is a means :ying up motivation and purpose, of knitting the contradictions of the idox by sacrificing the self in a cause the fulfillment of which must ritably result in advantages for the agent involved in the cause* Burke’s verbalization of the paradox of directional substance, To wsuch ?nts are directional in that, being led up to and avjay from, they sum.ze the foregoing and seminally contain the subsequent•11102 Finally Lectlcal substance, is the "over-all ca.tegory of dramatism, which treats of human motives in terms of verbal action* By this statement we most decidedly do not mean that human motives are confined to the realm of verbal action* \Ie mean rather that ohe dramatistic analysis of motives has its point of departure in the subject of verbal action (in thought, speech and document) •” ediately one recognizes the teleological movement of the dialectic ard unity of thought and transcendence of existence* The naturalistic rtones make the form of the dialectic more in the Marxian than the ictly neo-Hegelian tradition* The application of Burke’s idealistic ol o'-'y to aesthetics becomes clear in such a. passage as that wnich follows* 102 Ib id * p*3 2. "A poem, b y shifting the imagery of its metaphors, permits us to contemplate the subject from the standpoint of various objects* This effect is dialectics! in the sense that we see something in terms of some other* In a more restricted sense, however, the dialectical considers things in terms not of some other, but of the other* «103 The poetic act must have a universal paradigm in the Act of Creation* naturalist, Burke is in difficulties here because he xmxst face the ilem of the distinction between process and reality, between what he s the Act of Creation and the Process of Evolution, between what the ents called. Being and Becoming, U1 tima-tely, Burke states that he is ■■ussing Creation "not as a temporal event, but r s the logical prototype of an act. Indeed, even if one believed it literally, one would hardly be justi­ fied in treating it as a temporal event, since it was itself the positing of time; it was the act that set up the conditions of tem­ poral development; hence a terminology that reduced it to terms of time would lack sufficient scope* Thus, even e literal believer would have to treat it in terns that placed it rather, at an intersection of time and. the timeless a point at which we place ourselves when we discuss it in terms of those non-temporal firsts called *principl es * • e again 3 u r k e gives himself away completely. He wants a system which ches beyond, time and yet he wishes to be completely in control of the ua.tion, His “strategy" is a. clever one in which he becomes out-smarted, if he would.sacrifice time* he must sacrifice existence. His scope 1 be extended to the fullness of rational unity but its transcending er cf relating all things to one another must dissolve all existence h. the aq.ua regia of dialectic* It now w o u l d seem that this initial or first creative act must have educed something out of nothing* Tliis enables u s to equate magic with n o v e l t y and leads us to look for a modicum of magic i n every act to the extent that the act possesses a m o d i c u m of novelty. This consideration also admonishes us, however, to make a distinction between *true* a n d *false* magic. •False* magic is a quasi-scientific ideal that would suspend the laws of not i o n , as in the attempt to coerce natural forces by purely ritualistic means. *Qkue* magic is a n a.spect not of motion but of action. A n d if the motives properly assignable to scene, agent, agency and purpose are a l r e a d y given, there could be novelty only if we could also assign motives under the heading of act itself. That is, there would be something n e w ihtrinsic to the act! and this novelty would be the mo d i c u m of motivation assignable under the heading of act rather than under the herding of the other four terms, singly or in combination. There must, in brief, be some respect in which the act is a cause s u i , a. motive of itself."10 ^ This whole passage is analogous to the discussion of Croce concerning ldo-Statements a-nd pure statements, pure concepts and pseudo-concepts, ore concept resolves contradictions in term3 of the spiritual unity of oh it is the manifestation while a pseudo-concept is quasi— scientific that it eliminates from meaning an y of the spiritual or emotional overes. Bur Ire seems to admit the element of the irrational as the place re objectivity both of the creative self and its object may exist. He s in Coleridge the point where this element of novelty made poetry the m analogue of crea-tion." At this point, however, he makes a. signifi— it comment about Coleridge* s dictum* '•that formula was obscured b y the idealist stress upon agent, p~s locus of the "shaping spirit of imagination" b y Which we give forth that w h ich we receive, since *in our life alone does Ne.ture live.* An d to glimpse more clearly the independent claims of the term act, we might better g o back to Spinoza who, mediating between the mediaeval and the modern, defined the universal Substance as the •cause of itself*. 105 Ib id , p .6 6 . 193 God would, thus "be perfect action* in th&t there would, he no motivating principle beyond his own nature (a consideration, incidentally, that enables u s to see why Spinoza would equate God and Nature)•" this statement of Burke* s reveals again his recurrent weakness* He s not see as did Coleridge that God without the motivating principle Id not be God at all* He does not see that to equate God and Nature in Spinozistic sense is to sacrifice all specific identity without any e of recovery of the self or of any other kind of particularity* Pure cannot exist without an actor and we are once again back to the problem synecdoche as the basic trope of language over against the naturalistic ertion of the creative will* One cannot be first without the other and h a paradox makes the attempt to reduce drama to order impossible in ke*s terms* In order to avoid losing the individual in the vortex of the Absolute ke resorts to the device of the circle or circumference which William les as well as Croce and Hegel ell used* 11If ve locate the human agent and his act in terms of a. scene whose orbit is broad enough to include the concept of a. supernatural Creator, we get a different ki n d of definition than if our location were con— fined to a narrower circumference that eliminated reference to the *supernatural * as a motivating element in the scenes and did not uermit the scenic scope to extend beyond the outer limits of *nature* • ‘ the circle expands to the full comprehension of unity, it supersedes 3 circumferences of the various agents in its development but it does not :lude them nor destroy them. Rather it includes them and by the con- iur.1 expansion towards fulfillment, each of the participants at various /els has deeper insights into reality. 106 107 Ibid* IbidT p*69> (my italics). p. 77. Burke sets the notion of the 194 xpanding circumference towards a cultural or social fulfillment• uence of events is not temporal. The seq­ Priority rests simply in the priority or niver sality of Spirit (Croce) or culture (Mead and Bur Ice). A n d so Burke oncludes, “so ©r as we can see, this matter of circumference is imbedded in the very nature of terms, and men are continually performing *new a c t s 1, in that they are continually making Judgments as to the scope of the context which they implicitly or explicitly impute in their inter­ pretations of motives. To select a set of terms is, by the same token, to select a circumference."108 Jhen the idealistic logician* s concepts three-ten to destroy movement, :ircle is often the means of escape from the dilemma. the Hoe trouble is ;hat the escape is short-lived for the fugitive must always meet himself m the circumference of the dialectic and he must return once again to solve an unsolved problem. "Hie idea- of the circle is nothing but the true philosophical idea of •progress, of the perpetual growth of the spirit and of reality in itself, where nothin; is repeated, save the form of the growth; unless it should be objected to a man walking, that his walking is a standing still, because he always moves his legs in the same time. "109 The dynamics of this passage are the same as those of Burke who simply substitutes a naturalistic or cultural context. Croce was particularly anxious to maintain the reality of self in the ever-expanding circular movement. Burke has the same aim but ho is not as consistent as Croce. Like Croce, he rejects the idea of a superhuman personality but unlike Croce, he opposes human ■pei-^onr.l±tir with a naturalistic impersonality. 103 109 Ibid^ p . 90, Crnce.fl-phe Essence of Aesthetic,, p.79. 195 e scope and reduction of the dialectical movement of Burke*a dramatism stroys the individual* "For when the scene was narrowed to a secular circumference, human personality could no longer he *logically deduced* fanilially from the divine personality* But it might he vigorously affirmed simply as an * empirical fact*, as part o * the given* in contrast with any new calculus in which the personality was *logically reduced* to atomistic, naturalistic terms of impersonality*"110 In his frequent discussions of the Self, Burke spoke constantly of e necessity of *the Kill* as a. jjart of the process of identification and ansformation* One can see what Croce meant hy the trensformatior of the 11 in the process of intuition as expression because he was operating an idealistic or spiritual level* But to translate this quality of pression into naturalistic terms and deliberately set about *killing* rsonality by the process of identification, is much more difficult to complish if one is to retain the self in its former identity after the ocess has taken place* W o w Burke achieves this feat in a way similar that of other idealists* Coleridge, seeing that the movement of his nd towards a philosophical system involved the destruction of the self, mply abandoned it* Burke, somewhat naively, thinks he can change his ctics and still retain both the system as well as the will* ange in the ta-ctics of grammar, men ceased to think, erefore h uman personality* and began to think, "By a *God*3 personality, ‘nature's impersonality, vertheless human personality*, the first pair being related consistently, Le second oppositionally*1,111 ITow it was against the impossibility of 110 Burke, Kenneth, A Grammar of Motives, p*112. 111 Ibid} P.113* 196 s oppositional explanation of the dialectic that both Coleridge and ce objected. They were both shrewd enough to abandon what Burke calls ; synechdochic principle in its more logical or geometric implications* eridge wrote his most brilliant criticisms of Kant and Hegel in this n; Croce rejected this quality of Hegel*s logic as *dead' in favour of s more *living* ana developmental phenomenology* ^urlce is not sufficiently i-re of this difficulty vfoen he tries to retain the advantages of both ^d a n d Marx in his philosophical thinking* wants Marx*s (l*e* Hegel*s) system* He wants Mead* s dynamism but If he is to give any consistent :ount of the psychology of poetic crea-tion, he cannot have both* In speaking of the means and ends of his grammar, Burke sa.ys "our concern is primarily with the analysis of lanauaa-e rather than with the analysis of realitv; Language being essentially human, we w ould view human relations in terms of the linguistic instrument* Kot mere *consciousness of abstracting*, but consciousness of linguistic act i o n generally* is needed if me n are to temper the absurd ambitions that have their source in faulty term i n o l o g i e s * " H 2 Groce, language v/as expression, the symbol ox spiritual self-fulfillment. Burke, language is the means of communication for the purification of war* Croce the context of linguistic action is Spirit while in Burke the ntext is society* rn society. Burke* s problem is centered in the meaning of the One is never sure vdien "society" is a dynamic medium avail— le to personality as a tool for self-fulfillment at the practical level when it is a category in the Marxian fashion which will necessitate general "ldlling" of Individuals in the rea-lizabion of the impersonal .d abstract social concept* 112 Ib id , p . 317* 197 Burke *s studies of Keats* Ode to a Grecian Urn* the Ancient Mariner* L Othello are particularly ingenious "but they fail to satisfy the isitive reader; the interpretations are much too conceptualized* The vuty of "The Ancient Mariner" is not necessarily enhanced "by having 3 central images related categorically to the morbid aspects of the author*s lappy domestic life or of his sickly "body* The lyrical quality of the scian U rn is somewhat deadened as Burke resolves all its paradoxes in a ^metrical fashion* The poem is more of a lyric if the paradoxes are ft to express their meaning within the harmonious context of the poem a- \tfhole, as a n existent object independent more or less of the critic^s alectical tricks* Burke firmly believes that the structural quality, rooted in a nature*stic setting or scene, linguistically expressing a social and physical ate more than constitutes the objectivity of the poem* There is un- ubtedly some validity in Burke* s observation that Desdemona is the keyone in the dialectic of ownership and theft* er— schenatized account of Shakespeere* s drama, As Burke works out his one becomes aware ox more id more symbols coming constantly into closer and closer internal relations­ hip until one feels a tremendous structural unity, nguistic relationship of individuals to society, n o t i o n of the other* the paradigm of the the one the interacting Piously, Burke extends his ares- of speculation "beyond the terminological integration of a single play, in search of an over-all motivational scliene that might account for the shifts from one work to another* I admit that here all tends to grow nebu­ lous. I use the word deliberately, thinking of great gaseous masses 198 . of v/hich solid "bodies presumably emerge. But v/e should keep peering ;o these depths too, the farthest reaches of our subject. For here t lie the ultimate secrets of nan, as the symbol—using animal.” H 3 ; seeker will peer in vain into that nebulous mass since Burke* r. excludes a. priori the emergence of any solid mass. Particularity, .vity is indeed far "beyond the reach of B u r k e ’s critical scheme. .3 Burke, Kenneth, ’’OthelloS A n Essay to Illustrate a Meth o d ”, Hudson , vol.^, 1951. p. 203. CHAPTER VI THE NSi; CRITICISM AEE THE INTERPRETATION OF ARISTOTLE The centre!, doctrines of Aristotle's Poetics have "been frequent topi discussion amonc the Hew Critics# As is so often the case with the igesis or interpretation of Aristotle* o works, ds into the text his own opinions. the woulcUbe expositor The Hew Critics recommend enthii- -stically that a poem or work of art "be allowed to exist for its own :e and that the principle of judgment must arise within the work of art ; they have not "been content to read Aristotelian texts in terns of Ar— io tie’s system* It will not he difficult to see how John Crowe Ransom Kenneth Burke have read Aristotle from the point of view of an ideali ;e the position of the H e w Criticism on Aristotle*e poetic principles 3 been examined, an attempt will he made to suggest the metaphysical =is of these principles in the context of Aristotle's more complete stem* By means of this comparison, the reader will he me.de more aware the inherent idealistic hia.s of the New Criticism* Kenneth Burke makeE more direct references to Aristotle than any her of the New Critics* His interpretations of Aristotle are not too curate because his own idealism prevents him from seeing the essential nius of Aristotle’s mind and thought* istotle’s terms mimesis and katharsis* Like J. C. Ransom, he misuses In true dialectical fashion, rke sets up these two principles as opposite excesses — "the cathartic poetry which would relieve the poet of his spell by «aliqfltles to his audience, la so far as he was capable of doing so*• A » Burke falls to grasp the metaphysical Implications of katharsis as the is of apprehending the true essence of the objective world* ®r*a^ 8** tatlon* As for the principle of purgation Is given a strictly univocal inter— As Burke calls "cathartic poetry" a "monotonic art" he reveals arly his own failure to grasp the analogical quality of Aristotle* a theory katharsis* In the same way, Burke reveals his idealistic bias in his interpretation the mimetic principle. For Burke, the poetry of imitation depends "on the recognition of the incantatory quality in imagery (its function in inviting us to assume the attitudes corresponding to its gestures), hut was disposed towards the strategy of the ’idealistic lie* in simply renaming an evil as a good, establishing solace by magical decree.*2 8 difficulty here lies in the fact that Burke confuses, perhaps purposely, e terms ’incantatory* and 'revelatory’• For Aristotle, Mimesis was a ans of apprehending the reel or central or individual essence of an exting object. The process was not one of incantation in which the poet would njure up an image which fulfilled a need of his soul or subjective .ch in the fashion of a primitive worshipper of nature. On the contrary, mesls was a stern methodical process guided by a rigorous logic at every irn of the mind’s search. 1 2 By a process of careful classification of data Burke, Kenneth, Tha Philosop h y of ^1 terary form. p.ll8* Ibid, p.118-119. »oth th« nind and of the senses* one was aULe to apprehend the parties .sed universal, the objective reality of the external object under exiatlon* In the same way, Burke misinterprets the Aristotelian principles of oarsls and mimesis as christianized in the Holy Bucharlst* Just as he can­ dle tlngulsh between the function of kathafsis as spiritual development the physical fact of purgation, so he cannot distinguish between the f Eucharist as a sacrament and as a ritual purification* His difficulty of erpretatlon begins when he sets up an opposition between *scientific* •symbolic* processes* According to Burke, the primitive rite of purl- ation %ia8 a scientific process in idilch purification was accomplished ply by the material operations of the rite* "Ho matter of conscience was involved; no private "belief" was thought necessary to the success of the rite* The iwrlflcation was, rather, thought to operate like the cures of modern medicine (from the mere performing of the correct material acts themselves) — as the effects of castor oil are the same with *believer* and *non-believer* alike*" 3 ke*8 idealistic heresy Is made more eoqpliclt in the passage which follows* "Theological tacticians had the problem of taking over the •scientific* magic of paganism and introducing a religious emphasis upon the need of belief as a factor in the effectiveness of the rite, without thereby implying that the rite was purely *symbolic** The magical doctrine was •realistic*; and similarly, the religious sacrament was *reallstlo* (that is, the rite was held to have transubstantiated the holy wafers the wine Into the body and blood of Christs the act was not deemed merely •symbolical* except among schismatics; it wee as materialistic a means of purification as castor oil, yet at the same time its effective operation required the collaboration of belief, as castor 3 Ibid^ p.121- oil does not; the effect could not Tie got, as with, pagan magic and scientific materialism, through the objective operation alone, i.e. ex opere operato." 3* The problem here centres around the question of what is real. Burke ye that the magical doctrine is •realistic* and he presumably means slistic in the empirical sense. And so he commits ills first theological ander when he interprets transubstantation on an univocal and materialiso level. The wafer and the wine are not transubstantiated in a material use at all but only in the sense that the suppliant with the aid of the iest and the church becomes aware of the individual and specific essence the body and blood of Christ as he died on the Cross of Calvary for a ry definite purpose. On the one hand, the elements of the Eucharist rrnot remain on the purely symbolic level if we are to avoid the charge religious subjectivism end hence of religious scepticism, in the negative use ox tha.t word. On the other hand, Christian doctrine certainly does t teach that the process of transubstentiation is a purely carnal one. ther it is a process in which one becomes aware analogically of the person d cause of Christ, which in this process are identical. The process is no physical sense purgative or incantatory. It is spiritual and existential. It vac just such a function a.n this which Aristophanes, and Sophocles had . mind as the function of comedy and tragedy in Greek society. Aristotle had en the weakness of Plato *s position in reducing ethics and aesthetics to his m i ctic metaphysics and Aristotle war ant:i jus to preserve the indlviduity of the work of art as veil as the individual will of nan. But re is little real metaphysical evidence that he intended to set himself is a therough-going materialist* If Ransom* for example* tvrfwly that itotle was such a materialist and finds the Stagirite lacking in a thejical sense* he must never have given very serious attention to AriaLe* s Book Lambda in the Metaphysics* Die drama mas a means of discovering reality of the universe and the place of man in its order* As the lartic process took place* the audience had its mind gradually focussed bhe centre of action in the characters who in the nobility of their :option were contending with the real issues of all human action* The jrwright was not here giving the audience the advantages of his own private wtations nor the latest physical cure for the disease of the body* here He to reveal the essential nature of human character and to Lcate in a creative way the most effective responses to one's environment, ponses which would contribute to the greater fullness of life for each Indi­ an! who witnessed the action* 8 not seek to As the poet imitates noble actions* he give materialistic representations but rather he seeks give his audience an awareness of the inner reality of individual ex— iences* • In one sense* the tortures of Oedipus are the tortures of all Ve witness the tragedy of a man first of all and last of all* but in tragedy of that we see the universal tragedy of all mankind* The ultant cathartic experience for the audience is not a subjective experie but an objective awareness of qualities in human conduct which are rnal. Contrary to Burked opinion* Aristotle does not back any psycho- lytic thesis of tragedy making for a state of resignation or acceptance the part of the audience* Burke says that ’ Wr « > • VfyehoKulftte the.i. tin* .tat. of re.l*nation 1 . protaead torou^i fualng. la aaathatlo «y»$ol., a^tel conflict, tbleh cannot t>. fused in the practical sphere.11 * ne would understand Aristotle, his work oast not he confused with Am Aristotle never once leaves the practical sphere in his account of ;edy* It was Just this departure from the practical sphere for which rltlcised the Platonlsts so severely* Birke*s dialectical mind forces to make constant dualisms between the practical and the aesthetic. ;edy for Aristotle « s a metaphysical process in which the individual came to a fuller awareness of Itself without losing its individuality* In "The World*e Body" Ransom opens his discussion of Aristotle on s Cathartic Principle" with an attack on the famous 19th Century critics. Arthur Qulller-Couch ^ and his preceptor S. H. Butcher 6* Ransom s that Aitcher and Qulller-Couch are derived from a long line of Carman dieticians who have tried to render Aristotle* s rather crude .ogy for poetry in more sympathetic language* realistic In short, Ransom believes ; Butcher and his contemporaries rather implausibly try to show that itotle loved poetry as much as he loved the sciences. Ransom shares with mq.uet? and Bemays® the conviction that "Aristotle* s view of catharsis simply that of an act of elimination." He is sharply critical of p*320. 5 Quillor-Couch. Sir Arthur, The Poet as Citizen, and Other Pauers. 6 Butcher. Samuel H*. Aristotle*s Theory of Poetry and Pine Art. with ritical text and translation of The Poetics, third edition, London. MacL&n and Co.. 1902* ' • 7 Boaaaquet, Bernard, History of Aesthetic, second edition. Ceorge an and Unwin Ltd., 19^9* i ~ > Ibid, 8 Bernays. Jacob, Zwei Abh*^ 1 Lin. 1680* tther die ArlstoteHsche Theort - 205 her for such an extension or development of the Idea of catharsis as owe i "Tragedy, then, does more than effect the homoeopathic cure of certain passions* Its function on this view is not merely to provide an outlet for pity and fear, hut to provide for them a distinctively aesthetic satisfaction to purify and clarify them by passing them through the medium of art*" 9 [her is accused of reading into .Aristotle's doctrine of catharsis a qua~ r which a strictly literal reading will not allow* Again in the following tage Ransom firmly believes that Butcher is interpreting Aristotle in context of Victorian Literal thought giving the Poetics a pious and .e tone completely out of harmony with the rather pragmatic if not llavelllan tone of Aristotle's practical treatises* "The tragic katharsis requires that suffering shall be exhibited in one of its comprehensive aspects; and the deeds and fortunes of the actors shall attach themselves to larger Issues, and the spectator himself be lifted above the special case and brought face to face with universal law and the divine plan of the world* eover, the tone is false particularly for Ransom since he will acknowAristotle only as a naturalist who conceived of all knowledge as strictscientific* pnnff/yn dismisses the sense of religious and moral activity in catharsis ch Butcher stresses, on the grounds that God is not in any sense divine Aristotle* 9 10 God is simply the top of a hierarchy of substances - the B a t c h e r /Ao P . c l t . T U P *25^ 255. Ibid} p.271. 206 •e completion, of r. na-tural series* He tolerated religion simply as a ?ns by vdiich the Greeks worked off their orgiastic rites from time to ie. Hanson believes that Aristotle ha.d as much contempt for the emotions •pity and fear as he did for mysticism or the expression of emotion in ^iastic rites. *!usic was a. pragmatic instrument to purge the Greeks their enthusiasm and tragedy wr.s to purge then of their sense of cosmic LI. In short, Hansom feels that Butcher is unjustified in hi 3 metaphysical terrireta.tion of catharsis m d argues that Aristotle's opinion "ws.s that of a man v/ith a. medical training; it amounted to saying that people had better make the most of a delicate situation, and it v;as precisely like the point of view of a modern euthroity legalizing prostitution in the neighborhood of the c a m p . " ^ ^ Hansom confuses his o m conviction that Aristotle's analogy of katharsis inept in the folloT./ing panaagc and feels that it is better to reject the leory a„r, such than it is to save it in terms of nineteenth Century liberal .eology* 11Ketharsis is a. gross physiologica.1 metaphor out of materia. medica., whereby the draining of the poisonous slops from the body is made to stand for the subtle psychic relief under the fourth figure of meta­ phorical substitution, which proceeds by analogy; this would be accor­ ding to Aristotle. He does not miss in his linguistic analysis, but he is not so proficient in the psychic mysteries. If he is sometimes a. pre-Darv/inifn naturalist, he makes it all too clear that psychologi­ cally, for all his shrewdness, he dwells in an untechnical pre— if eudian night, for my port, I cannot help but find this figure of purgation 11 Hansom, J. 0., - h e hbrld's B o d y , p. 189. 207 Inept; It la too hard to apply- It and see how the clearing out of the aainful emotions mast follow from artificially prompting them? there sust he subtler mechanisms at work* Hansom interprets Aristotle*s mimetic principle on the same naturalistic L as he did katharsis* He says that Aristotle meant simply that the >bject should look natural* not strange* 'Aristotle did not talk about art as an Imitation of nature trying rarreptitiously to convey the metaphysical "Behind-Hature" ; that Ls, suggesting Big Ideas or a Higher Reality or a Concrete Universal >r Absolute* It simply didn't* Hor did he regard art as entertaining that easier and not less noble project, the communication of moral iniversals* Hor, finally, did he thi nk of it as a handmaiden to science (which he loved), busying itself in supplying case-illustrations for ;ommon universale of any sort*"1*' Hansom suggests that there are only two ways of imitating nature, 3ne which records the universal relations in nature and the other i&lch srely a full representation of nature in an empirical sense of that "representation"* He does not mean a photographic likeness since the Dgraph ls a mechanical imitation but not a psychological one* Although om is not willing to recognize in the picture or poem anything more ral than the physical representation, he does value "the arduous pains he artist"* A photograph is characterless while the art-object re­ ts and stlmule.tes in us a deeply personal feeling* Hansom denies that totle means by imitation anything more than the physicel* He suggests the only distinction between a natural object and an art-object ls the ectlve contribution on the part of the artist* 12 Ransom, J* 0., The Literary Criticism of Aristotle, in Lectures in icism, The Johns Hopkins University, The Ball ingen Series XVI, Pantheon » Inc*, Hew York, 1949* P*29* 13 H a n s o m The World's Body, pp*203-204. 208 c is remarkable that one who hrs argued, for objectivity in poetry* ontology of poetry, should fail so completely to grasp Aristotle*s - in the doctrines of katharsis and of imitation. Probably his basic Lies in the reading of the Poetics as a separate work without relation of Aristotle’s major works. Perhaps his be.sic misinterpretation lies fact tha.t the Nieomachean Ethics and not the Metaphysics was his for a t i m e . ^ It is only natural that he would find Aristotle an sfactory basis for literary criticism if he would insist on reading ctics without relating the work to its context in Aristotle’s netaal thinking. It is indeed true that Butcher and ^plller— Couch may ected to some extent by the liberal optimism of Nineteenth Century stic thought. But at no point will their scholarship allow tlaen to one of the extravagant statements uttered by Hansom. In the light stotle’s metaphysical teaching it is quite wrong to reduce the meaning harsis and imitation to such a uni vocal interpretation on the nature— : level rlone. There is ample evidence both in Plato and in the prac- >f Greek religion to the effect tiia.t katharsis meant purification enduring substantial quality as well as physical expulsion. It is to assume thet the several meanings of katharsis which have been ad— 1 contain degrees of truth for the most part. If there is a degree of truth in all the definitions of katharsis nnt to Aristotle’s general position some basis for apprehending the ity of meaning in each, must exist? i.e. it must be possible to dis— some coherent pattern of meaning persisting throughout the extensive !£ Hanson, J.C. ."Humanism at Chicago,' The Kenyon, Eevlew, vol. 14, 1952, 209 varied use of the term* Such a concept can never be comprehended at level of clear and distinct Ideas* We can* for example* grasp some ies of existence abstractedly apart from other phases with which they are dned in rerun natura* Han* animal* colour* two* and most of the res— sted concepts of common speech are unlvocal l*e* clear and distinct in .onal terms* More Inclusive concepts* such as the Idea of goodness* Lty, unity and now to add one more* katharsis can be known only by an»l «yv* .ogy as a method of thought stands In opposition to the unlvocal method ihose vdio seek to reduce definitions to the level of one clear and dis— :t idea* An analogous concept is one "by which the broader metaphysical modes of being* such as being* unity, matter, etc** are grasped In terms of a minimal* proportional similarity* Even though ▲ is dissimilar to B and C to D* the relation of A to C may be similar to the relation of B to B* Thus one thing may be quite dissimilar to another* as may also their existences* Yet as the first ls to its existence* so is the second to Its existence* In this way existence and other metaphysical concepts of a very broad scope may be grasped not by a uni vocal cone ent but analogously by an analogous concept* Therefore* we can* on the basis of analogy retain the common element of th in all these definitions of katharsis including the moral one ta the conLon that we do not seek a strictly unlvocal definition of katharsis* sin^^ had insisted upon a moral definition of katharsis as the "conslon of passions into virtuous aptitudes"^ Aristotle actually dis tin- shed between tragic katharsis as purification through tragedy and Baideia purification through education* But the two meanings of purification e a common element of truth in relation to one another* Since art 15 Wild John, Introduction to Realistic Philosophy.New York*19zfS.Hhrper, ^99-500^ Lessing j&A/nrka. 6 vols.^Stutt-rrt, liJO, Y o l , Hrnbmy;!sche --rturcie, l.'o.7S, 0 .2 6 2 . 210 nonizea and purifies, it may indirectly prepare us to act morally in an nticipated ethical situation arising immediately after the experience of harsis in the theatre. Plato, for all his indictment of poetry, had gested a certain Indulgence of the passions to aid in achieving the perate life! “When a man* s pulse is healthy and temperate and when before going to sleep he has awakened his powers, and fed them on noble thoughts and enquiries, collecting himself in meditation, after having first indulged his appetities neither too much nor too little, but Just enough to lay them to sleep and prevent them from interfering with the principle.**17 cher*8 conclusion concerning the meaning of katharsis includes this moral el of interpretation. Katharsis is the process of bringing men face to e with universal law before vAlch all egoism dissolves and disappears. In s state presumably man is most suitably conditioned for moral action, eady the role of analogy in arriving at a satisfactory definition of harsis is becoming clearer. It becomes still more clear how erroneous isoci’a interpretation of katharsis really is. Because he fails to com- ihend Aristotle* s analogical method, he tends to reject all meanings ; his own uni vocal interpretation. Because Butcher’s meaning is taken ierally rather than analogically, Hansom thinks he is being untrue to .stotle*s position. However, if our explanation is not to be too univocal, i import of Aristotle’s metaphysic for his poetic theory must be examined rther. Hansom fails to realize that the doctrine of imitation in Greek thought basic to Aristotle’s meaning of katharsis. Specifically Aristotle tells 17 Plato, Rfttnibllc. Book IX, 571 e, ed. Jowett, B,, The Dialogue* mf a.to. vol. 3, p.28l, Oxford, The Ifciiversity Press, Third Edition, 1931* that tragedy is a species of the genus Imitation* When we are told that ^edy is the imitation of an action neither ludicrous nor trivial we may er that katharsis will not take place unless the action is noble. Lon is not a nrftiH r.iH individual* Imi- of either the physical or rational action of any Imitation ls an analogical process by means of which we seive in any action that element which ls noble and hence real or par­ ent in value for all men* In all Aristotle* s thought from his treatise poetry to those on biology he ls concerned primarily with the true end Life* He is shrewd enough to see that the spectacle of tragedy in the atre should be pleasing* He is pragmatic enough to realize that we not cure men's souls of pity and fear by the simple process of escape or nisi on* Such means as these fail to appeal to the true nature of man, reature designed to achieve a noble and harmonious end for all his ac— Ltles* By means of imitation the poet gives much more than a mere re- Bentatiom* he reveals the way of things, of life* It ls this process of idealization which Butcher, Bosanq.uet and Sulhl stress^ " Let us not assume then, that the tragic katharsis involves only the idea of an emotional relief, but the further idea of the purifying of the emotions so relieved,N says Butcher, and he adds that "the tragic katharsis requires that suffering shall be exhibited in one of its comprehensive aspects; that the deeds and fortunes of the actors shall attach themselves to larger issues, and the spectator himself be lifted above the specie! case and brought face to face with the universal law and the divine plan of the world. •* 3.® 18 Butcher,5,op*cl t*, p*271» leaning of this passage now "becomes really significant in contrast to tin*s treatment of l t « ^ Sue amihi concludes that purgation means "to associate the cure of the vurdened heart with the univeraaliring element of the drama in virtue ilch Aristotle regards it as an idealization of experience*"20 Bo- iet concludes that Aristotle1 s process of katharsis is parallel to and 3gous to the insistence upon unity* 'He identifies the object of artistic representation not with the common ihows of life* but with the spiritual forces in their deepest reality* ► * * *The reality of common experience shows in Aristotle a tendency bo lose its controlling positions for* metaphysically art and we must suppose all formal beauty in its degree ls credited with the power to represent what is unseen, and the deeper truth* "21 iquet Indicates that Aristotle "has no direct answer to the question what principle prescribes the iirecti on which this idealization ls to take* To say 'the direction of beauty* ls tautology; to say 'direction of symmetry and unltyf is dangerously formal and exqpty; to say 'the direction of morality' is simply false*" nquet concludes that no deeper theory is suggested and that by abandoning Hellenic tradition of rational idealism* Aristotle's theory must remain for unsatisfactory* What Bo Banquet describes as the Hellenic tradition is none other than own interpretation of what he thought Plato and the earlier Greeks had nded to say* He overlooks completely the element of realism in Plato*s 19 p* 2.04 ff. 20 Susemlhl* Franz, and Hicks, B.D., The Politics of Aristotle, a sed text with introduction, analysis and commentary, London, 1894, Macen and Co* Note on Katharsis, p*653* ght and accuses Aristotle of "being unclear simply because his conception hat Is real Is strictly rational* Certainly any direction to beauty autologous if we are prepared to admit that the concept of beauty and goal It must realize is pure* rational self-consistency* If symmetry unity mean nothing else than mathematical, logical or epistemological srence, then surely they are dangerously formal and empty* If to be moral ,o be strictly rational, then there are no degrees of morality* .ts own goal* Morality Aristotle however, saw more truth and reality in life as lives it than his reason alone could indicate* He was painfully aware ;he paradoxes of those first Idealists of western thought, the Heatlcs* .izlng that their sophistry offered no account of the world of existence L1 8 broad experience Aristotle searched the depths of metaphysics, pre3d to admit that reason might not be the only means of apprehendlngtruth* xough he depended upon his intuition to perceive analogies between being existence his analogous concepts were never to clash with reason* For there was a direction to beauty the fulfilment of which embodied the xest aesthetic experiences of man* TJhlty and symmetry were not danger- Ly formal and empty so long as these elements in things and experiences Ld be perceived beyond the level of rational coherence* Morality was sible when there existed a physical and spiritual condition leading to anized and teleologies! conduct* for Aristotle, morality was not merely tilitarian or rational measure of conduct in terms of certain univocal positions* There is, of course, a certain contradiction in the morality be derived from the Physics and the Metaphysics and that set forth in Hicomachean Ethics, the Politics or the Rhetoric* But even in the Ethics all its utilitarian bias, the apprehension of the Mean is intuitive rather 214 - strictly rational* The mean between virtue and vice can be known only lalogy from cur previous knowledge or experience* Since we feel that beauty or tragedy can have a purpose or direction net discover Aristotle*s development of this theme* 3Banquet He avoids the charge that any direction for beauty Is tautologous by emphasizing art is the process of realization of the potential into the actual* tils process which Aristotle calls katharsis* Zt By means of imitation s potential capacity for truth becomes actualized* As we imitate noble ons or witness such an Imitation we come to know ourselves in the fullest most complete sense of manhood* ledge* Such is the process and end of all Katharsis is one of m a y modes by which man learns to Imitate h in all hi 8 actions* At a more metaphysical level Aristotle discusses relation of potentiality and actuality in the Physics* He says that Interrelation of the mover and the moved Is necessary "so that the one of moving In the movable is the realization not only of its capacity of being d but of the capacity of the potential mover to be actually moving it*n^ energizing of a potential activity can not be different from that of a sntlal passivity* In the end the two movements of action and pension are An actor cannot inspire an audience with a noble action unless the .ence is capable of being inspired* The power to move and the capacity se moved are in the end identical and the same* oan* Such is the real nature Likewise in the process of learning and of teaching we have the same is although the two species are conceptually different* Since the function 23 AtH ft. The Phvslcs with English translation by Vficksteed, Philip and Cornford, Francis M*. London, 1929k V* Heinemann Ltd., Vol* 1, a 16-20 215 toth process** Is to Imitate truth, the realisation of the common goal eacher and learner must he the same* As Aristotle says, "the teacher learn in the taught and the process is said to he the actualizing in ^^at 8114 aot the actualizing of that hy this.2*4. To learn, a must rid himself of confusion among particulars and concentrate upon the ’ersals which underlie the complex existence of the world* And such, says Aristotle, is the function of poetry __ ersal, vfcile history confines itself to particulars* to imitate the Ransom says that itotle prefers poetry to history only "because of his under standing of history* History is either a compi.on of marvels, as in Herodotus, whom Aristotle cites, or it is science juing a thread of ideas hy an abstraction as perfect as possible; in ;her sense an Imitation of nature*" real reason for this preference as stated in Aristotle*s Poetics is that »try is something more philosophic and of graver import than history, :e its statements are of the nature rather of universals, whereas those llstory are singulars*"2^ Indeed Aristotle is not anxious that poetry soncemed with abstract universale or ideas which can he grasped hy the lematlcal mind alone* srlal nature* Nor is he advocating an empirical Imitation of Rather he says "By a universal statement I mean one as what such or such a leinri of man w! n nr nhahi tt .aw.necessarily say or do which is the aim of poetry, though it affixes proper names to the racters* 2k 25 26 27 Physical III| 202 a 30-202 b 22. Ransom, J* 0*. The World*s Body, p*204. Aristotle, Poetics. 1^51 a }5-7* Ioc»clt.. 145I “ * 7 8- 9 - 216 niversal statement here has no reality apart from an Individual speaker et we can know it to he true of all men* And so It follows that Aristotle places hoth thought and plot before cter in the elements of tragedy because character Is not an end In f* Character is merely the agent of imitation* Individuality can be ved only when a potential nature is actualized in terms of its proper Like the teacher , the actor inspires as he performs and performs as .spires* As the process of purgation takes place the change (or motion) it the removal of that (emotion) by thin (actor) but the purification mt (emotion) by this (actor)* Tragic fear attaches "itself not so to this or that particular lndlcent, as to the general course of action i is for us an image of human destiny*" 28 Hansom*s fundamental error In his interprstation of Aristotle lies in m l vocal reading of the doctrines of katharsis and imitation* He fails jmprehend Aristotle*s great religious genius owing to his failure to rehend the metaphysical method used In the Metaphysics, particularly Lambda* Just as Burke makes the mistake of saying that "we could arrive ristotle's 1unmoved mover* simply by the generalizing of motion," so Ran** commits the same idealistic fallacy by speaking of a prime mover without active power to move* Aristotle would have considered it irrelevant to k of on unmoved mover if he were not trying to prevent the very intor­ ation which Burke and Hansom would give* If we are to lend any meaning he world of existence at all, we must provide a specific source out of which 28 Butcher,SHpp*cl t*,p*263. 217 . things come; otherwise there will he an infinite regress into infini ty are there is no existence at all* Any ineptitude which Ransom feels nit Aristotle*s theories of religion or of katharsis* must lie essentially his own misreading of the text of the Metaphysics and of the Poetics telf• CHAPTER VII THE CHICAGO CRITICS AMD THE FAILURE OF RATIOlIAL FORM AS A FRI1TCIPLE OF OBJECTIVITY X- THE BASIC ATTACK OF THE CHICAGO CRITICS OS THE "KEV CRITICISM" A t the turn of the century J. E. Spingarn complained that 'all criticism tends to shift the emphasis from the work of art to lomethlng else* The other critics give us history* politics* "biography, erudition* metaphysics* As for me* I r^dream the poet's dream* and .f I seem to write lightly* It is Because I have awakened* and smile so think I have mistaken a dream for reality* I at least strive to *eplace one work of art "by another* and art can only find its alter ago .n art."1 aesthetics of the nineteenth century was essentially subjective* Vorks rt were Interpreted in terms of abstract principles which were accepted ae absolute criteria of judgment* Rarely did one find that the aestheti— was concerned with works of art themselves* Rather* aesthetics was science of adapting the art of criticism to the latest metaphysical ries in the Idealistic or Hegelian mode* The Chicago Critics share the enthusiasm of the Hew Critics for a re— to the study of works of art in and for their own sake* A valid hetic or an effective critical method can be developed only from the ination of works of art themselves and not from the external application ~I J"The Hew Criticism". Criticism in Americas ^ts tlon and Status. Hew York, Columbia University Press* 1911* p*l^- 219 aphysicsl principles to worlcs of art. But the New Critics and the o Critics have engaged in a controversy which is vigorous and proe in its argument. Although they may agree that the poem or the work should he the centre of the critical activity, they disagree violently the metaphysical "basis upon which the objectivity of poetry should he ished. A close examination of both the controversy and the essays in ism reveals that the dispute is not as basic as it might at first Because the New Critics are somewhat persuasive and intuitive in s i»yle and in their approach to the work of art, they are not unschol-* Because the Chicago Critics are committed to a. somewhat scholastic Oj. analytical criticism, they are not insensitive in their response es of art* Both schools have made the most significant contributions criticism of our age. a Grecian Urn2 Burke* s ingenuity in his analysis of Keats* s is paralleled by ELder Olson* s analysis of Yeats»s to Byzantlum.3 Both Allen Tate** and Elder 01son5 can use endifferent methods to arrive at a more exact appreciation of Longinus* lon in his essay "on the Sublime"* Both succeed in eliminating dis— is or misrepresentations of Longinus* doctrine which have persisted ticism up to this time* Burke, Kenneth, A Grammar of Motives, pp*4A7-A63* — —— — — — — Olson, ELder, "Sailing to Byzantium: Prolegomena, to a Poetics of the , The University Review. vol*3, 19^2, The University of Kansas City, ■219* Tate, Allen, "Longinus", The Hudson Review. vol*l. 19*+8, pp*3^-261* Olson, ZLder, "The Argument of Longinus *0n the Sublime* I1 Critics end ■sn. Ancient and Modern, edited by R*S* Crane, Chicago, The University of > Press, 1952, pp*232-259* 220 Thus far In the development of this surrey of the Sew Criticism, asic attempt has been made to show that the Yew Critics hare professed or Lied an idealistic metaphysic as the basis of objectivity la art* ***» sago Critics are highly sceptical about the possibility of accounting the objectivity of art la this way* Xa addition, they suggest that Critics are not thorough metaphysicians* Xa opposition to the pseudo* siism of the Hew Critics, the Chicago Critics would go back to Aristotle a method of criticism which they believe will bring the erltic much Be to the objective quality of a poem or a work of art* This declaration a traditional basis for their point of view is not given without quailfilon* "The writers would not wish to minimize their admiration for the Poetics and, indeed, for the other basic works of its author, for whose charac­ teristic approach, as they Interpret it, to problems of knowledge, action and art they feel a strong temperamental affinity* They have not supposed, however, that this prevented their admiring and using for their own ends other great philosophers, from Plato to Dewey* who on all funda­ mental points of principle and procedure have taken a quite different line; and in criticism likewise they have viewed their "Arlstotellanlsm" as a strictly pragmatic and nonexclusive commitment — much like a modern physicist* s preference for Einsteinian over Newtonian concepts — to hypotheses about poetry and poetics that seem to them capable of being developed into a comprehensive critical method, at once valid in Itself and peculiarly adapted to the study of problems which they think are still significant but for the solution of which none of the prevailing modes of criticism affords the necessary analytic tools," ® At the same time. Crane states what it is essentially that he and his up consider to be important in Aristotle* "It is the merit of Aristotle, uniquely among systematic critics, that he grapsed the distinctive nature of poetic works as Mh'fflA or concrete artistic ldioles, and made available, though only in outline sketch. g ibid} Introduction by U.S. Crane 7 pp#12*>l3. hypotheses and analytical devices for defining literally and inductively, and wi th a maxi mum degree of differentiation, the multiple causes operative in the construction of poetic wholes of various kinds and the criteria of excellence appropriate to each*" * ddltlon to this element in Aristotle concerning essentially his doctrine ubstance, Crane adds that "that Important thing in Aristotle for the present essayists, however, is not so much the statements of doctrine and history contained in the poetics Itself as the method through which these statements are derived and validated in the arguments of the treatise when it is read In the light of the methodologlcal principles stated explicitly In Its author*s other works or Inferable from them*" & s important for an evaluation of the Chicago Critics later in this chapter ote the specific nature of their qualification of the use of Aristotle* s rine and method* For Crane adds on behalf of his fellow critics that "The Aristotle they have thus reconstructed is not. It will easily be seen, the Aristotle of the Renaissance and neoclassical commentators or any of the more recent Arlstotles of such Interpreters as Butcher, 9 Bywater, Murray,** Lane Cooper, *2 or Francis Fergusson*^-3 it may not. Indeed, except in a general way, be Aristotle at all I Cxey think it is; but, whether Aristotle* a or not, the poetic method which they credit to him can be described In universal terms in such a manner as to remove It effectually from the circumstances of its historical origin and make It accessible, once Its nature is clarified and its potentialities further developed, as a method for common use today*" 7 Ibid^ p*17. 8 p*l7. 9 Butcher, S. H*, op.cit. LO Bywater, Ingram, Aristotle on the Art of Poetry. Oxford, the ClarenPress, 1909* . _ LI Murray, Gilbert, Essays and Addresses. (Chapt. V, "Poesis and Mimesis" 37-12^)* London, G. Allen and Unwin, LtdT, 1921, *. • L2 Cooper, Lane, Th« Poetics of Aristotle, its meaning and influence, fork, Longmans Green and Co,, 1927, . ♦ L3 Fergusson, Francis, The Idea of the Theater, Princeton, Princeton erslty Press, 1952* L3& Ibid* p*17. 222 iortt tlx# Chicago Critics reserve the right to select from Aristotle i elements which they can apply to their own critical purposes whenever i convenient or pragmatic to do so* Their use of what they call Arls- its method does not imply 'any assumption that the concept of imitation* in its most general leaning* is more than an empirically verifiable hypothesis for dis­ tinguishing objects of art from natural things; or, talcing the term in the more restricted sense in which it denotes one possible final cause n poetry* that all poems are imitations* though unquestionably many »f them are* It does not imply* again* that the critic must define the ind of poetry or art as pleasure simply or consider its function* as >ne contemporary has supposed* to be only that of ornamenting pleasur— ibly, in a moment1s leisure* the life of its beholder11 1** Crane disavows for his group any interpretations of the distinctions ; poetic species as 'labels for conventionally determined classes of poems or as concepts ilgnlfylag ideal values in the light of which individual productions oay be compered and Judged by considering the degree of their approariLaatlon to a previously determined norm: for the (Aristotelian* critic* leflnltlona of kinds are causal formulas inductively derived from an Inspection* in •poetic* terms* of poems* and his use of them in prac­ tical criticism is essentially as heuristic devices for discovering what ire the reUarant questions to be asked about the individual works he proposes to study**15 sareful reader will already have discovered for himself that the Chicago Lcs seem to be anxious to avoid the truly metaphysical character of totle's philosophy in favour of a more selective emphasis upon its temological or dialectical qualities* One has no doubt of this fact one is told of the need of improvement on Aristotle* lh Crane. E» S*» o~p*clt»» p*l8 • 15 Ibldf p*l8, ■If the method* however* Is to he of more than limited use today* it must he developed* through extension and refinement of its basic con­ cepts. far beyond the relatively primitive state in which Aristotle left it."16 iddition to the two species of mimetic poetry discussed hy Aristotle* method must he developed along the lines of " much inductive theoretical research* hased on wide taioVLedge and close analysis of modern and contemporary writings* into problems both of general poetics and of the specific poetics of literary forms as these are posed hy the achievements of writers of all kinds since an­ tiquity." *7 le stresses the empirical and analytical characteristics of Aristotle's hod. He wishes to go beyond the conception of art as mere production in stotle's sense of the word. He does not wish to imply that because the ool has chosen to describe Itself as 'Aristotelian* It will exclude er critical methods. Nor does he wish to suggest "that poetic kinds can r be completely enumerated or always differentiated accurately from on ther" "What is held constant In this criticism is the whole complex of acci­ dental causes of variation In poetry that depend on the talents* char­ acters* educations* and Intentions of individual authors* the opinions and texts of the audiences they address* the state of language In their time* and all the other external factors which affect their choice of materials and conventions in particular works. 5he provisional exclusion of these is necessary If the analysis Is to be concentrated upon the Internal causes idilch account for_the peculiar construction and effect of any poem qua artistic whole."1S The peculiar quality of Aristotle's method of classification appeals to 16 17 18 IbidI Ibi&l Ibld| p.18. p.19. p.20. 224 Chicago Critics as a means of identifying the poetic object in its ixw sic essence and enables them to avoid what Crane calls "the reductive* frequently monistic, treatment of poetic elements to be found in much icism of the present time*" Aristotle* s method Is comprehensive "because It embraces all the elements necessary* in some particular determination and ordering* to the existence of a poem of any irind as a made object productive of definite effects upon our minds* and because it considers these (as in Poetics 1—3) ®s independent variables• r analysis includes poetic language, poetic subject matter and poetic nique as all parts of the generic quality of the poem as a composite whole* of these is considered as an abstract principle or characteristic of s to which all poetry may be reduced* od (as the Chicago Critics see it) In addition, the Aristotelian tolerates the existence of many erent kinds of forms and principles of poetry and as many functions which can be made to serve in making poetic wholes* "When the method is properly used, it permits a far wider range of re­ levant differentiations in the discussion not only of poems but of poetic devices and materials than any method in which such a functional treatment of elements has no place*" Crane and his group are to be commended for their attempt to achieve de scope and comprehension for critical activity* The Chicago Critics redly do not wish to set themselves up as an opposition to existing leal methods but rather to fill a gap in the tradition* "The criticism of the past generation has been prevailingly as we have seen* qualitative and general rather than functional and specific, coneentan.ting on soleoted parts or aspects of poems and treating these in terms of wholes which are not concrete artistic objects bat composi­ tions of qualities having their substrate in the poet or his tradition^ or age or in poetic language rather than in individual poetic works*" tie observes that Eliot is a classic instance of this method* Before pecific statement and analysis of the Chicago Critics* doctrines is made •rould be well to pick up the attack made by Crane on Cleanth Brooks which examined in an earlier chapter* 21a Elder Olson once referred to Stepsons method of examining a poem as 22 aping poetry with "the mindless brutality of a machine"• Ever since Eighteenth Century critics have tended to seize upon one or more abstract iclples which characterize a school of criticism and they apply these ldples externally to works of art accepting or rejecting them as they formed or failed to objectify the prescribed principle* In Bart Z of blcs and Criticism. Crane has grouped those essays of the Chicago Critics :h consist of attacks upon the wealoiesses of Contemporary critics* Every of the essays makes a major point of those theories of poetry which ice criticism to a direct play of the critic*s mind upon the poetic obb* In spite of the success with which, the New Critics have brought about emphasis upon the poem as the centre of aesthetic Judgement* they are ised by the Chicago Critics of reading poetry as if it were all construcupon identical principles* I* A. Richards is attacked 23 for reducing try to the psychological and linguistic levels while Brooks reduces try to irony and paradox and Stepson interprets poetry in terms of ambiguity 21 22 Ibid* p*23» 21a Shatter IV, p.l22ff. Ibid* p.h8 (Olson, Elder,•William Stepson, contemporary Criticism Poetic DlotlozO* 23 Ibld^ pp*27—^ (R.S.Crane,'I*A*Richards on the Art of Interpretati 226 w Critics are classified p s neo— Coleridgeans l a c k i n g the kee n nets— al sense which was so characteristic of Coleridge* hat they share with Coleridge is his grcr.t sensitivity to literary ;:ts; hut being committed to a philosophical node of criticism, end nee d i s i n clined to look for purely poetic principles "by an inductive q u i r y into poems, they ha v e perforce h a d to seek substitutes for the emises which Coleridge was able to deduce, as he said, from ‘the comnent faculties of the h u m a n m i n d itself, and their conpara-tive dignity d importance** The substitutes they have found can best be described, . no i n t en t i o n a l l y invidious way, as commonplaces or topics in the rise w h i c h these words h a d in the older writers on rhetoric m e logic; at is to say, predicate terms not specialized in meaning to poetics ■ a n y other specific subject-matter, which are yet capable, through a.lectical opposition a n d equation, of serving the critic*s ends of .stinguishing, c o n p a r i n g , a n d ranking works or passages from the works r>oets and of doing thi s with some appearance of rigor rad exhaustive;ss at least in a given content or on r given occasion*" 2*4- Olson feels ;he abse nce of any clear, fruitful, m u widely accepted metaphysics, pi st ecology, philosophy of science; a d i s c i p l i n e call it what you 111 capable of articulating and organizing the arts an d sciences, stablishing a n d criticising their principles and methods, ana, in short, ottling the broader a n d mo r e general questions which the pursuit of any epartment of i n quiry trust involve*" -5 me shallowness is stated more specifically by Crane in his criticism eanth Brooks* B r o o k s * s •normative* judgments b y means of which, he res poems in a predetermined way are assumed to have validity for all no nr t.ter whrt their k i n d or intended effect* He cannot, in fret, hold anything else but this, lacking any premises ■hat wou ld warrant judgments of individual poems founded on a mean :Irtive to their peculiar ends and forms* A n d he lacks such premises "Two Essays in Practical Criticism, Prefatory note by R*S.Crane", Jni vevri t- Ibv'few. The University of Kansas City, vol.8, 19*4-2, p.199-200. 25 Crane, R. S., Critics and Criticism; , p . 57, (Clson, U d e r , " U i l l i m >n, Contemporary Criticism and Poetic Diction*?)* 227 because lie has no concept of poems as concrete wholes the unity of which requires that the parts should he of a certain quality and magnitude and present in a certain order If the desired poetic effect Is to he fully achieved#" 26 Keast 2? attacks R* B. Heilman ^ (and presumably Kenneth Burke Ld fall in the same category) for searching for a basic metaphor for a n try* She Chicago Critics feel that such an enterprise results In a ary of poetry hut gives no aesthetic basis for judging poems* This whole tendency to reduce poetry and the criticism of poetry to abstract principle Is called "critical monism" by R* S* Crane and "quel— tive Criticism" as over against " specific criticism" hy Elder Olson* the term "qualitative criticism"* Olson means that process by which nciples are made universally valid in analyzing poems when these prinles do not always apply* s of poetry* Such criticism is blind to the great various- The ultimate result of such a technique of criticism is reduce poetry to the level of didacticism or allegory and the particular etic quality which makes poems so specific in Aristotle's sense of that d is lost completely* The folly of this critical rednctlonlsm is made y telling Indeed as V* R* Keast attacks R* B* Heilman's account of r* By reducing the concept of plot to too singular a principle, Shake- sare is made to appear as a protagonist of the universe as the best of . possible worlds, an impression which few should have after reading or sing JJijjgJiSgt* Tet, Keast adds, ^ —— 1 ^ Ibid, p*98 (Crane, R.S*,~The Critical Monism of Cleanth Brooks). _ 27 Ibid* pp.108-137 (Keast, W. R;,*aSie *New Criticism* and King Leer}. 28 Heilman, R. B., This Great Stage: Image and Structure in "King Lese" lisiana State University Press, I9h8* 228 Ln the terras in which Heilman describes it I do not see h o w it sen be ay thing else. The whole tendency of his analysis — with its empluasie -l salvation as the goal of L e a r ’s actions, with its Christian ’trans­ l a t i o n ' of a pagan world, with its placement of the climax of the Lay in Lear*s reachievement of insight, with its treatment of the sversnl as a passage from bad fortune to goo d — all this and much are make it clear that Lear is a nan who, after much suffering, which 5 expiatory and therefore in the ’ p roper sense deserved, achieves whr.t e had all along been in search of — the vision in which, is eternal Lfe* That Lear dies, that he loses Cordelia at the moment of their eunion these are incidental, parts of the play*s superficial aspect, ot of its inner reality, and serving at most to underscore paradoxi­ cally the magnitude of Lear*s victory; for he that loseth his life shall ind it* Only a person incapable, as Heilman says, of distinguishing etween quality rnd quantity of life could feel any tiling but spiritual xaltation at Lear*s triumph over himself and the worl d * 11 Another cliarrcteristic of modern criticism which disturbs the Chicago cs is the method of dichotomy which accompanies this reductionlsm* This d brings about a separation of form and matter which must eliminate all bility of treating poems as artistic wholes* The matter of poetry wu^t he Procrustean forms which the arbitrary critic may have decreed as ute in the examination of poetry* It ir a method in which the ’form* of literary works is usually i s c o v e r e d in the means and in which the ’m a t t e r ’ is a function of the d a s or the interest of the critic; the ’form* thus, is statable ex— l u s i v e l y in stylistic terms, whereac the ’matter* becomes that which s intended, communicated, expressed, or ’imitated’ —— in a word, the iub.ject m a t t e r * This dichotomy of ’matter* a nd ’form* collapsing and •evercing the quali ta tive part3 of Aristotelian poetics, is due in turn :o definitions of poetry which rre not causal but analogical in character — definitions which equate poetry with the habits, acts, passions, or >pinions of the author and which consequently do not permit the con­ sideration of noetry as an object; definitions w.iich equate poetry woth latural substances and which consequently permit the discussion of ;-oetry only in terms of its instrumentality; and definitions which, although ihrracterizing poetry as an object of art sufficient in itself, define ooetry in terms of its community with the otner arts or treat it as a l i u l e m e c i e s • ”30 Crane, R.S., ou-cit*. u.133. (Keast, -./.R.T'^he «Hev Criticism* and L e a r "•) 30 Elder 01 son,"Recent Literary Criticism," p*27S, Modern Philolqgy. vol**tOt 29 229 tomy sacrifices the Intrinsic o b j e c t i v i t y of the poem and the critic ft to his own abstract devices n .3 final decrees of the nature of poetic by. ^ poem, in such an an a l y s i s a c e s s e s to be a concrete object of a par— Lcular sort, constituted of p a r t s deliberately ordered to a specific :tistic end by the poet, a n d b e e ones instead a kind of emblem or cenplar of principles broader i n their relevance than poems or any given kind r poems. In a strict sense, t h e r e f o r e , the poem, considered as a product i purposive activity on the p a r t of its author, remains unexplained; any stat^» m t s the critic can make a b o u t i t s structure or parts can only be descriptive id, as such, preparatory to j u d g e m e n t s concerning its degree of participation 1 the universal causes of e i c e l l en c e discriminated by the contrary terms E* his theory . 11 31 luch of the attack of the C h i c a g o Critics upon the Hew Critics will m t i a t e the position taken I n p r e v i o u s chapters of this work that the iss of the N e w Criticism lies I n their attempt to base a theory of tivity for poetry upon an I d e a l i s t i c metaphysic. As soon as the essence jectivity is to be found i n • m i n a ^ s t u f f 1 alone, then any perception jectivity in a realistic sense i s impossible. The more idealistic L'iticlsn, the more abstrrct it b e c o m e s and with this subjective process, er vital it may be to the m i n d w h i c h undergoes the experience, lc quality of the original a r t i s t i c object is lost. the The Chicago cs profess to be interested I n l y r i c s not as exemplars but as objects; they insist on approaching them as oems of a distinctive kind r a t h e r than as receptacles of poetry; the holes they are concerned with a r e not the constructed wholes of any ialectic but concrete wholes d e t e r m i n e d by the poet's choice of such nd such yarln in such and s u c h a-n order In a poen presumably complete nly when Its final line is r e a d i e d . In other words, eschewing philo— 31 Crane, B. S., "Prefatory N o t e to Two Essays in Practical Criticism", iilversity Bevlew, vol. 8 , 19^2, p . 2 0 0 . 230 definition* f"4 th® ln8l€hts ^ o h arise from the analogical lyric®. w to !*■•*«€•■ f*om lyrloe, of principle* P 25 «* I " £•USTS2S^ ^««aW2*r.55irs If - HICHAED MdCBON AHD THE MISCONCEPTION OP ANALOGY In the controversy which has taken place between the New Critics and j Chicago Critics, B. S. Crane has been recognized as the leader of the .cago School* As editor of the recent volume, Critic* m>H Orltigi«ffl L as the leading controversialist in the dispute over modern criticism, » administrative role In the group is clear. But when one turns to an uninetion of the subject matter of the Chicago Critics* theory of poetry, Jhard McKeon with his wealth of classical end scholastic learning seems provide the metaphysical foundation for their position. The most per- ?tive elements in the Chicago School* s theory of criticism seem to be based Aristotelian principles stated first of all be McKeon. Itlclsin Tn o h m « , ^ all of the learned articles on Aristotle ere written by McKeon i his essay on The P h l l n s o p M e Bases of Art and Criticism 33 takes the a-ding position in the third pert of the book dedicated to a positive atenent of their position or creed. One is immediately Impressed by S:eon*s erudition and the scope of his reading from ancient and mediaeval xts and commentaries to a careful analytical reading of modem criticism 32 Ibldf p. 201. 33 Crane. oiUfiit.,pp.463-5^5 (McKeon, Bichard, ’‘The Philosophic Bases Art end Criticism?). 231 rail* At the same timet one will observe that McKeon* a fundamental roach la prerequisite to what Crane. Olson. MacLeam and Keast have to about a poetics of the lyric* McKeon begins his account of the philosophical basis of art and criti­ ll by making a distinction between literal and dialectical theories* The Lectlcal approach will never give an account of objectivity in poetry, difficulties of criticism are not to be solved "by referring the problem to irreducible and stubborn facts or (what Is the same thing) to indisputable and appropriate theories, but by examing the meanings of the various explanations and their relations to one another and by formulating criteria for the truth and utility pos­ sible to such theories."^ ? against any dialectical theory which reduces criticism to a basic ma­ nor or abstract generality. McKeon goes back to Aristotle* s theory of juage and its function in poetry* sent thought and represent action* A poem consists of symbols which A literary work consists of an or- Lzatlon of symbols in the argument of the work* Imitation In literature; "language Is the means It is the matter from which a poem Is constructed* the form of the poem, however much it may depend on the subject treated, achieved by devices which may be recognized in the manner and organize— a of the expression* Another term which McKeon uses frequently for this dialectical process aesthetics is "analogy"* It is very important for the understanding of 35 Ibid* p.h6 6 _ 3ha Ibid* p.180, (McKeon, R*. Aristotle's Conception of language and Arts of Language,* pp.l7&-23l)« 232 basic opposition between literal and dialectical criticism to know tly what McKeon means by this term* "analogy11* "When terms are defined be method of analogy* the principles of the discussion are found in the “mental metaphor or metaphors* Poetry may be conceived as vision* riving* or imitation* experience* imagination, or emotion, symbol, action* 35 elation"* J This is what Crane and Olson mean by the external appli— on of abstract principles to works of art reducing the poetic to a Btic whole and "analogizing" objectivity out of existence* However* a terms are defined literally, the principles of discussion are to be d in the causes by which an object is to be isolated in its essential re*"^ What McKeon emphasizes is the necessity of maintaining strict Tories for the various abstractions in order to prevent their lndlsinate application to subject matter for which they are not appropriate* eas the tendency of the "analogical" method is to explain the poet* and audience all in one anaysls, the literal method concentrates on e characteristics which are properly those of the poem and leaves other lems such as the psychological effect upon the audience to the approte science of psychology* The so-called analogical method is most ily typified by Kenneth Burke idiom McKeon quotes as a representative of position* Poetry is analogized to one basic metaphor —— - synecdoche* ddition, McKeon identifies the term "analogically" with the term "orstically" showing clearly the manner in vfoich he intends the term "ana■" to be taken* Analogy is a process by which all particularity is ificed to unity* Ibldt Ibldn p.h72 . p.^72 . 233 On the whole* McKeon la closer to the spirit of Aristotle other critics of the school* any of His description of Aristotle*s doctrines his own account of the nature of art and criticism are closer than Is case with the other critics* In every case* his own opinions about lcs presuppose the metaphysical position of Aristotle* with one or two rvatlons* He accepts Aristotle* s method of proceeding by literal d»> tion of terms and the careful division of the domain of knowledge into mber of sciences* His own theory of the poetic process is appropriately ed "poetic science"* which is of course the science of making* As a r* the poet Imitates particular tilings and It Is the imitative element ne*s work which makes one a poet* "Art does not abstract universal forms clence does* but imitates the forms of individual things*" 3 7 Therefore poet as imitator Is concerned exclusively and specifically with the gness or particularity of things which is their essence* Language as means of imitation in poetry seeks to describe this Intrinsic quality bjects* i*e* to define them* Language is considered "not only in relation to its subject matter or to men but in relation to the structure and unity which a work of literature possesses when viewed as a concrete whole (*3unalon*) composed of form and matter* Poetry is an imitation of things as they ought to be, and each kind of poetry produces Its proper pleasure* but It Is also a whole, complete in itself, with a beginning, middle, and end and with all the organic unity of a living creature*"3® itotle would eliminate the rivalry of poetry and philosophy by eliminating false problem of the relation of form and matter* '"37 p.162 (McKeon, R i c h a r d , " Literary Criticism and the Concept in Antiquity^ pp*lil'7-l75)* Ibidy p.212; cf also, Aristotle, Poetics, 23, 1^59 a f17-2C. Ibid* Cmi tajfcion 38 "The Platonic analogy of poetry and philoaophy th.ua, la combated In Iristotle's philoaophy hy distinguishing the ldnd of knowledge required for poetle eonatruotlona from other kinds of knowledge hy Its purpose, for theoretic knowledge Is pursued for Its own sake and for truth, practical knowledge for the sake of conduct, and poetic knowledge far the sake of making something useful or beautiful • "39 analogical tradition thrives on opposites contesting with, one another to eve universality. There Is a constant compulsion to eliminate unreal inctlons In order to discover the hasic uni ty which underlies the appary opposing forces. MIn the literal tradition the effort Is to find a technique proper to each subject matter and therefore to separate, for the purposes of accuracy and clarity, considerations of moral, political, scientific, metaphysical, and aesthetic characteristics even In the judgment of a single object; and the development of the tradition Is therefore a succession of analyses which achieve critical particularity In appllcatl to objects of art, canons of taste, or means of production and manners of social use." ^ McKeon Indicates three headings under the literal tradition, noetic nee which deals with artificial objects and products, which a with the rdatlon of art to the poet's thought, and evaluation or ure which Is a consideration of the work of art in relation to audience, Its style or power of ejqaresslon. Criticism confines Itself to a study ihe work of art In relation to the artist and the conditions of its pro— Ion* And so Longinus sought to study the sublime in terms of the natural us of the poet which in turn is restrained and formalized by art. uation consists In a consideration of the work of art In terms of Its sets upon the audience. If the work of art fails to arouse the desired sets in audiences the combinations of diction, composition and subject 39 ^ Ibld« p.498, 1^1 d-f p*505. 235 sr will coma in Tor censure* •Evaluation may be achieved, in general# "by comparing the effects of dint la written on actual or chosen audiences or by measuring it against the canons for statements of the •kind* to which it belongs? the Judges ire either men conceived by various standards to be good and prudent ir men Judged to be expert in rhetoric or some other appropriate science >f expression* Broadly conceived, evaluation so practiced is concerned rfith qualities of genres of literature and art or with the virtues of 3tyle and expression* nM’1 Lc science analyzes the poem in terms of its unity structure as and whole and in terms of the adaptation of means to ends* Por ex- e, in Aristotle, tragedy is considered in close comparison with the ted art of epic poetry, “first by analysis of both as parts and wholes, ad, by analysis of them with respect to the means used to achieve their arable ends and the success or failure of those means*"^ It is out his sort of consideration that the process of evaluation develops* Having made a basic distinction between the analogical <•>*• 1 tion and the literal tradition* McKeon is careful to point out that e are not pure categories* What is being emphasized by the distinction he tendency towards universality by the more dialectical tradition and insistence upon the particularity of the work of art by the literal itlon* McKeon now suggests a classification of six modes as a means of ring the many forms of aesthetic analysis* •" •"Dialectical" criticism may be viewed as a single mode among these six, comprising a vast, sometimes amorphous series of forms, which merge or move from one emphasis to another to take up in altering but appropriate terms the continuing opposition of dialectical criticism to each of the five remaining forms of "literal" criticism* It is a 41 42 Ibid* Ibidj p*522. p.516* 236 tingle mode* despite Its diver si ty* since the full universality of s u V matter and scope which It achieved in the hands of Plato is possible n any of the forms which it has assumed since his time* Since it Is a Halectlcal mode* however* that achievement must await* in each form* i great dialectician or poet* while In the hands of lesser critics the mode deteriorates to timid and commoasense apologies for what seems ixtravagant or sophistical In the moral Judgment of art or to literal ’epetltlons of those Judgments in limited — ■> sometimes trivial, sometimes oppressive — applications* In any of its forms* the terms of dialec­ tical criticism reflect the two moments or aspects of the method! the Lifferentiation of terms in application to subjects and their reduc­ tion in the solution of problems** ^3 Although the dialectical mode in the end fails to deal with the work t as a specific object, it does establish sharp boundaries which do esult in Ma single varegated mode of criticism* but a series of literal more or less sharply and successfully separated from one another and the dialectical mode*"^ The first of the five modes of literal cisn is the scientific mode of Aristotle in the Poetics as distinct Plato 1 s dialectical mode* By means of the scientific mode* a criterion of unity and structure is thereby rendered available, nd on it the possibility of a poetic science depends, for otherwise he analysis of an object of art must reduce the diversity of concepts hat might be included under Aristotle* s six terms to two broad analytic lements form and matter -- and must go for its criteria directly o the intention of the artist, or the reaction of the audience, or the echnlcal achievement of the structure* "The third mode of criticism, 1noetic1criticism, proceeds from the oet* or more broadly the author* conceived as universal in the sense f being possessed of lofty thoughts and Inspired by vehement emotions ntelllgible or moving to all mankind, to the particular language of he author*s expression" mode differs from its more subjective counterparts in such authors as ^ Ibidt Ibid* ^5 UfcLd, Ibid, U3 U6 pp.530-531p *533. P.53^ p.535* lxsus or Kant in that "it ia concerned not with, the conditions of the ment of "beauty and sublimity in general, but exclusively with their ces in literature* "Die fourth mode of criticism, 1 scholarly1 crltlciam. reverses this procedure and attempts to reconstruct the peculiar character and signi­ ficance of an author from the corpus and development of his work."*® > again there is a counterpart with the dialectical mode where one might : a critic attempting to derive abstract principles from other sciences >rder to apply them somewhat Indiscriminately to art objects or poems* scholarly critic in the literal tradition uses the "devices of historical mces to explain the significances of objects of art*" By recovering the ior*s meaning, the scholarly critic tries to discover its effectiveness value in the art object itself* Again, "the scholarly critic will examine all the data bearing on the establish­ ment of the text and its interpretation before ventorlx^ an evaluation of the quality of any pert of it or the sense or imagination of its author* "^9 "The fifth mode of criticism, 1 technical* criticism which is developed in ‘arts* of poetry, constructs its precepts about what pleases or instructs audiences in terms relevant to thought and expression in a manner similar to poetic criticism*"30 reas poetic criticism is concerned with the sublime and elevated moments leved by literature itself, the great masters of technical criticism. 47 48 49 50 I M d , p.535. Ibid, p.535. Ibid, p.536. Ibid, P.537. 238 e* 7ica, Bollesu^are eoacer&ed with aajr device lAlcb achieves a pleas— r profitable effect* In contrast to technical criticism, the sixth formal erttie*clt*; p * 5 3 7 * “Formal criticism marshals the verbal or other technical devices by which a medium may be made to achieve any of the effects of which It is cai>able and from which the artist may choose* or the amateur recognize* devices and means*"53 McKeon claims that his essay. The Philosophic Bases of Art and Criticism ot so much concerned with the criticism of art as it is with the crism of criticism* He has shown himself to be comprehensive in his scope scholarly in his examination of the literature of criticism* His cri- le of dialectical criticism is vigorous and effective while his account iteral criticism is not as convincing* Bonald Crane dismisses the ous labels which have been applied pejoratively to the Chicago Critics bundling them into an insignificant aggregate ranging through "AriotoLanism or neo-Arlstotellanlsm* as Croceanism* as a confusion of Croceanism morel or logical positivism, as naturalism* scholasticism* nominalism, stemologlcal realism, absolutism* and relativism*"^ Although some these charges have been delivered in rather vituperative fashion by a Crowe Hansom and others* a search is here being mad.e to discover funental difficulties in McKeon1s position and not to reduce his enterprise anonymity by too simple a classification of his philosophical thinking* As a professed Aristotelian one would expect that McKeon would be e specific in his use of the term "analogy" which he so readily laenti>s with the dialectical process of an idealistic metaphysic* When he •s that the analogical tradition thrives on opposites contesting with one ither to achieve universality, he is certainly not using the term analogy Aristotle* s sense of that word*-^ 53 5^ 55 Ibid, p.5^3. Ibid^ p*2 .(introduction)* Aristotle. J3iejro2ics,108 a,7-l7->ed* McKeon, R. The Basic Works of ^ Qtl.e cf £lso Aristotle, the Metaphysics,1016 b 32, ed^fcKeon, op.clt. 240 b true that Aristotle was seeking to discover the unity which underlay things "but at no point \ai he prepared to sacrifice exlstence or perlarlty to this unity* Indeed he states plainly enough that the relation he One to the Many can he understood only as a paradox* "The causes the principles of different things are In a sense different* hut In a e* If one speeks universally and analogically* they are the same far all*"^ e principles and elements cannot he the same for all things since a tance Is so distinct from a relative term* In principle Aristotle es that all things have the three principles of form* privation ert In this sense they are the same analogically* h McKeon speaks* But before analogy can he meaningful in a realistic e the similarity In the difference must he seen* for each class* owe* It is this unity of The analogy Is differ- The three principles applied specifically would he as "in colour they are white, "black and surface* and in day and night • are light, darkness and alr**~^ Analogy Is essentially specific In Aristotle1s use of the term* ness Is not perceived "by means of identity alone hut also in difference* "Likeness should he studied, first. In the case of things belongingto different genera* the formula being ,AtB:s C*D* (e*g» as knowledge stands to the object of knowledge* so Is sensation related to the object of sensation), and *As A Is in B* so is C in D» Ce*g* as sight is In the eye* so Is reason In the soul* and as Is a calm in the sea* so Is windlessness in the air)* Practice is more especially needed In regard to terms that are far apart; for In the case of the rest, we shall he more easily able to see in one glance the points of likeness* We should also look at things which belong to the same genus* to see if any identical attribute belongs to them all, e*g* to a man and a horseand 5*3 57 AaHaijntTa. the Metaphysics. 1070 a 32, ed* McKeon, op*clt, Ibldt 1070 b 21 # 2*KL a dog; for In softer as they have any identical attribute* In so for they are alike* "•5® s by means of analogy that Aristotle arrives at what is specific or ctlve while McKeon seems to suggest that analogy moves in the direction basic metaphorical unity such as one finds in Burke* s basic trope of cdoche* What McKeon does is to overemphasize the element of identity hinge at the expense of their Independent existence* Practice is ed in the perception of likeness in things that are far apart but Ariee never loses sight of the emphasis on the particular existence* The nature of analogy is to fix the four points of existence In any relation es8 ed* What Aristotle achieves in terms of his definition of analogy* McKeon :s to achieve by means of poetic science or the literal criticism* ion rejects the analogical tradition as he calls it because it seeks Nto avoid unreal distinction between the emotional and the intellectual* the moral and the aesthetic* the artistic and the practical; and the development of the tradition is therefore the evolution of a single dialectic in which opposed devices for achieving critical universality jostle one another; criticism is sometimes the application of a theory in the judgment of objects and actions; it Is sometimes the technique which determines -both theories and arts; It is sometimes* like theory* itself an art*" ™ .nterpretlng Aristotle*s doctrine of analogy as a movement of thought srds ideality* he reduces the existence of things to a single whole* ; interested Aristotle was the existence of the world of things* He would jgnize a commonground of existence but in the end essence was existence not an absolute ontological %diole such as the Eleatics had conceived* 58 59 Aristotle, the Tonics. 108 a,7-17 ed. McKeon, op*clt* Ibid* p*505. movement of thought Is towels particularity as well as similarity, method is essentially inductive and not deductive as it is in McKeon* s sense oalogy. The process in Aristotle is "an imperfect induction in which the mind passes from one or several singular facts (or from a particular enunciation) not to a unlversf*! B9ftcXue*T°ft» to another singular or particular enunciation which Lt infers in virtue of a resemblance: Paul was cured of his headaches ^ this medicine, therefore John will be cured of his headaches by this Bane medicine." If McKeon professes to be an Aristotelian it seems strange that he should ort the meaning of analogy in Aristotle; it is the very term which would him to achieve his goal, namely objectivity for poetry. As it is, his on of a poetic science falls far short of the ideal of specific objecty idilch Aristotle described so effectively. McKeon proceeds by means part-whole analysis of the words or phrases in the poem to a conception t as a whole. The objectivity of a poem is a specific formal construct, Lving the trope of synecdoche in a particularized existence. He differs Burke in his organ!cism by making each object generate its own essence tself while Burke* g dramatlsm is a universal pattern to which all poetry orns. To this extent McKeon* 3 position is an Improvement over Burke* a he has fallen short of Aristotle* s genius by overlooking the intuitive option of essences in particular things qua works of art. Our knowledge hings by means of analogy certainly does refer to a universal concept lt also refers to the things in which that concept is realized. 60 Maritain, Jacques, Formal Logic, translated by Imelda Choquette, York, Sheed and Vferd, 19^*61 p.28*f. "Consequently, If one of the things signified by an analogous concept (for example, created being) is within our immediate range, and the other is not (for example, uncreated being) we can know the second by the first as *hy a mirror,** This knowledge is undoubtedly Inadequate, but it may be absolutely certain* awareness of objective qualities in poetry is a dynamic and intuitive ess much more than it is the perception of a structural, formal and ic element in poetry* ZZZ - ELDER OLSONS THE FAILURE OF RATIONAL FORM AS A PRINCIPLE OF OBJECTIYITT From the metaphysical criticism of McKeon, one turns to the practical icism of ELder Olson, Ronald Crane and others* In one sense, Elder n is the most outstanding of these critics because he has not only set h his ideas concerning a poetics of the lyric but he has applied his ry both to specific poems as well as to the analysis of criticism* At same time he has examined specimens of the New Critics in his critique obert Penn Warren* s analysis of Coleridge*s The Rime of the Ancient 62 ogr and William Enpson as poetic diction* As Olson sets about the 63 of writing An Outline of Poetic Theory he presupposes the metaphysl— basis and the interpretations of Aristotle which have been made by an* Through the analysis of particular poems, he would search for a Lcs of the lyric* Since Aristotle discusses tragedy and epic poetry the most part Olson must speculate on Aristotle*s possible approach to 3 poetry* McKeon classified the study of poetry under the heading of 61 62 Marl tain, QT>»cit », p* 286Orane.MfiP.clt*. (PGP. 138-144 and pp.45-82 resp.)- 63 Ibidj pp.546-566. ?hb science* The study of poetry was the study of forn 3 in individual A poem would he, therefore, an essence in the formal sense of the which the parts were related to the specific whole and the intrizw rnal quality would he sui generis in the poem. Olson believes that rch for a. poetics of the lyric is a. search for a specific formal le in art objects. In his examination of Yeats* s Sailing to Byzantium s a coordination of references within the poem constituting its arrnich as plot in Aristotle's sense constitutes tragedy. c quality of a lyric poem is formal or argumentative, er incidents a.s such, Since the "the events. . . connected by necessity or probahili ty, but de- 'or malcing poetic s t a t e n e n t s . " ^ .e priority of the poem as an individual object before the affirmation itence of any abstract principle is analogous to Aristotle's doctrine Ldividual things in their single particular!ty are never preaicable of jet i.e. of any generic quality or abstraction. Hie poet as ::r!:er has language into specific fern in imitation of the specific individuality iral things. In his interpretation ox Aristotle's theory of poetry, says "poetry is therefore distinguished from theory and practice pleasure proper to the poem itself, in which the unity is constituted incut and plot expressed in l a n g u a g e . "^5 In Aristotle the search e formal principle is in the examination of the language of the poem imitation of human action* Having a l r e p g distin,'tiished lyric poetry he cntegorv of tragedy which Aristotle vrs concerned with, Olson says h 01 son, Elder, »• Sailing to Byzantium', Proloegonena to a Poetics of the , voi.S, p . 2 1 7 * 5 Crane, E.S., on.cit*. (see chapter by {;uage " , p .192-3*) 2*4-5 bjectivity is of another sort* roperly taken, poetic questions re of a particular work, in the posed upon the medium of wordsi u la terminate in a discovery of lations through which the parts would "be concerning the poetic struc— sense of inquiring what form has been Such an enquiry, properly prosecuted, the parts of a work and of the inter— are parts of a whole*" 66 eats*s poem lends itself very conveniently to Olson*s formalistic theory ic poetry* The problem of old age, death and regeneration is examined ■ poet in terns of the paradox of age and youth as analogous to seny and spirituality* There is a shift or juxtaposition of the condi- of the young and the old throughout the poem which might be said to ■e an atmosphere of tension in Tate*s sense of the word* 'Stanza I presents a rejection of passion, stanza II an acceptance of Ltellection; then, turning on the realization that art is insouled, .l6 2 ^McKeon. Richard, "The Concept of iita-tion in Antiquity"). 68 poem. He is not so much interested in the expensive or comprehensive of the imagery as he is in the argument of the poem. Yet he is careful te thet he is not reducing the poem to a mere pere.phrr.se. "The poem comprehends the argument end collocates with it many terr.s which, gh they could scarcely be forxsiule.ted into some order approximating the n of the argument, nevertheless quali f p the argument end determine urse." The terms or symbols of the poem are not specific in the 1 or the semantical sense. "Lihe terms in most discourse, thep trice significance from their context through Juxtaposition to other terns h i c h thep are equated* contrasted, correlated, or combined.11 71 The 'Byzantium* is not a place, nor pet the scene of a historical incident •ther its specific quality is determined from its Content vdthin the "signifying a stage of contemplation wherein tiie soul studies itself o learns both, wha.t it is and in whr t consists true and eternal joy." 1cThe argument of the poem cannot be explained either in terms of „1 ot e dramatic sense of the word nor in terms- of character in the specific of a dramatic agent. "lie ther, the char' of* r in the sense in r i c h ctcr map be raid t o exist here is almost completely nniver s^li zed." 73 e the object!v: tp of the poem is discovered t -> be centred in t'-c pr -;bler 'ir.dinp c s'-.itable compensation for the losses suffered in old age." .r bier-, determines the character sue'' as it is. Olson places hi nr,elf aonewhat c orrmroni s-inf* oosition op msxir/" car r cter subservi e.it »,o uhou, HLder, in- t B y z a n t i u m * ,r hr oleg /sic", T h e U n i v e r s i t y lieview. vol.3, p.215* 71 Ibi cl. m.flo. 70 Ols on, ?;: Ibid. p.?l6. 73 Ibid, p.317. " ‘ Sail >mona to a I c - t i c - of seems to feel himself forced to eliminate the idea of character in t h e atic sense of character in action* The parts are meaningful only i n e that they are related to a Whole context* -the The whole is static r a t h e r dynamic because its essence is argument rather than plot* "Whereas in the Aristotelian treatment of poems which have a plot as their principle* certain qualitative parts of the various species r e ­ sulted from an analysis of the object imitation* that is* the a c t ! on, a different procedure is necessary here; the principle is a tissue n o t of events but of ideas* and the ordering of the poem will not be by necessity and probability* 'by the antecedents and consequents of a c t i o n * but by dialectical priority and posteriority* Lastly* while character will be necessitated here as where a plot is the principle* lt will b e determined* not by its share in an action, but by its role in a drama.* not of action, but of thought* That is* it is determined, as the c h a r a c ­ ters in a Platonic dialogue are determined, by the nature of the dis­ course \diich they are to utter*u*4 he end, the specific essence of a lyric poem is a formal principle* a. .ctural essence which is internally caused by its relations of parts t o .ole# For all the abstract qualities which one may recognize* "however liar the pattern in which it is apparently laid — is always in the last ysis sul generis* " ^ l In spite of the attempt of the Chicago Critics to be inductive it h a s seen in Chapter IV* how H* S* Crane becomes the victim of his own .ecticel method in his attack on Cleanth Brooks* Since the Chicago tics ere unwilling to accept the metaphysical elements in Aristotle* e> trine, they were driven into the very kind of subjectivism they soughffc »agerly to avoid in the first place* 74 75 Ibid} p.218* Ibid^ p. 219* Kenneth Burke offers additional 2^9 ence to prove that the Chicago Critics have not come out with anything bt than have the "neo—Colerldgeans" whom they so vigorously attack* e Is much wisdom In Burke* s comment that "one cannot he purely •inductive* in his observations of poems when naklng these observations through the instrumentality of so highly ieveloped a philosophic language* One owes too much to the language* iowever, if Mr* Crane admitted that his *inductive* method also contained strongly *deductive* elements he would have to relinquish the symmetry »f his own dramatizing, got by pitting his position in dialectical apposition to the *Coleridgean* mode of derivation* "7® Burke has no difficulty in reducing the critical opinions of the ChiCritics to his own dramatistic or idealistic aesthetic* Oils is pos- 3 because the Chicago Critics have chosen to de-emphasize the metaphysi­ alement in Aristotle in favour of a strong emphasis on his rational method* sed to rational terms there is no reason why one deductive method won*t s well as another* And so we find both Burke and the Chicago critics srned with synecdoche as a basic trope* Concerning the sonnet of rworth analyzed by Norman Maclean, Burke saysX "We have here a cluster of closely related words: action, rest (desig­ nated in the sonnet by such synonyms as *calm* *quiet* *tranquillity*, *gentlene88*), motion, attitude or potential action* Mr* Maclean says something much to our purposes here, in his gloss on the word *free* Ln the first line: *It is a strange word when coupled with •beauteous* and *calm* • As endowing the evening with the power to act, it seems at variance with the beauty of tranquillity** The comment enables us to discern that in *free* we find obliquely a reference to potential action* However* our thoughts on the relation between action and the rest that is the end of action would lead us to hold that there is nothing *strange* about this usage* Who would be more •tranquil* than the wholly *free*? For his complete freedom would so thoroughly contain the potentialities of action that there would be no problem to disturb the state of rest*"77 7^ •Burke. Kenneth. A Grammar of Motives, p*472« 77 Ibldt p .476, 250 In the end, both critics perceive the seme kind of fundamental organic ■ in the poem. The difference seems to lie in Burke’s compulsion towards ;edness vihich the Chicago critic abhors as theappllcation of an external dpi© in a Procrustean manner to every poem that is evaluated# go critic aims to be objective and specific but only in terms of an 'nal rational structure which in the end requires reference to an ex1 principle of Judgment in order to make it meaningful# As a matter of fact, there are many passages in Mr* Olson’s essay where Le profits by going beyond his principle of uniqueness. For he launches nto generalizations about the lyric generlcally that are not at all onflned to the particular poem he is analyzing# • • • These place the yrlc as a class with relation to other classes# When he says, for nstance, that tragedy, epic, and comedy are “dynamic for they imitate hange, ” whereas "the kind we have been scrutinizing is static," his oncern here with stasis profits by dramatlstlc reference#" 78 i not surprising that Burke can so readily reject the Chicago Critics’ ipt at objectivity when they reduce poetic objectivity to a principle Lternal or specific rational form# In neither case does the critic into account the individuality of the poem as a dramatic event in the ity of human response to experience# In both cases the critics aim ■asping a universal or abstract principle which is somehow individuated but >ither case do these critics see the poem as a mode of consciousness in ‘ace of experience. .vity. Only then can one form a Judgment concerning ob— It must be a fundamentally inclusive Judgment concerning humans ;heir relation to the totality of human experience. On this level, ^articular pattern of Wordsworth’s response to nature and God becomes 78 Ibid, p. ^78. ant* Dais necessary- step vtoich allows one to pass from the restrictions hian.ees” or particularity without surrendering its strength is made sary by the requirement a of the Aristotelian metaphysic* It may well not he the business of the critic to pass qualitative judgupon the particular mode of consciousness (qua mode) held for Inspection t is as much his responsibility to Invite his readers to experience it. is hi 8 responsibility to help them to taste and feel the other aspects e substance of the poem* It is a legitimate part of a poetics of the and relevant to comments made &n an object "qua work of ar t"•79 IT - EL E m QLSONx THE FAILURE OF RATIONAL FORM AS A PRINCIPLE OF POETIC COMMUNICATION Language is the device of disclosure in most mimetic poetry* • • .But t would be a mi stake to suppose that language can be adequately analysed s an instrument of disclosure merely by talking about its meaning* have already distinguished, in the first part of this essay, between peech as action (praxis) and speech as meaningful (lexis); to neglect hat distinction is* I think, to blind one's self to a great deal of he poetic mechaniam* . is highly critical of any theory which would derive meaning from the prstation of speech as action alone* Mimetic poetry as he sees it es its meaning from the textual structure of the poem alone* It has tdy been seen how he derives the meaning of *Byzantium* from Teats's Using King Lear as an illustration, he takes his pathetic speech at m d of the play, "Pray you, undo this buttonl" to reveal the four causes 79 I am indebted to Mr. Bruce Fletcher Attridge for this interpretation ►etic objectivity* 80 Crane, R. S., op*cit*^p*?!,(Olsons William Bnpson. Contemporary .cism, and Poetic Diction'?• 252 notion in mimetic poetry* We get meaning from the speech as we relate > the precedent context: the concatenation of Lear's previous actions » to this tragic consummation* The particular Bneech-actlon reveals Lfically Lear's helplessness and hopeless repentance* The diction Lmple and stark in harmony with the mood already prevalent in the tragedy* araamenlj of the speech lies in the rhythmic quality \hich affects us as » If the purpose of language in the imitative mode is disclosure* then Language should he as concise and clear as possible* Olson notes two s of concision in languages "one is obtained by the use of as few words asslble to express the meaning* while nevertheless expressing the full Lng; the other by expressing only part of the meaning, leaving the rest aference* "33- Now instead of depending upon metaphor in the ordinary rary sense of that word, Olson becomes typically logical and adds that "the use of enthymeme for syllogism is concise in the latter way; and the femous Lacedaemonian dispatch 1 Dionysius in Corinth* is of this order* The implication involved here is different from the implications of character* etc*, by speech as action in that what is implied is meaning, whereas the implications of speech as action are derived from meaning* For instance, the full meaning of the dispatch is 'If you attack us, you will be served like a similar aggressor, Dionysius, who was also a great kind and is now living, an exile and a private citizen, in Corinth*• With the meaning clear, the speech may now be interpreted as an act of defiance implying the moral qualities of Spartans*" Turning from concision to clarity ih the expression of poetic meaning, n is careful to indicate that he does not mean by clear language, language h raises no problems even though he is attacking Enpson for identifying 81 82 liii* P*73* Ibldf pp. 73-^* 253 anguage with embigulty• Ehe conditions of clarity Itself can be seen if we consider that it is ependent upon three things * the words, the syntactical arrangements* ad the relations of sentences. Clarity is produced by the words in so ar as they are prime* immediate* commensurate* consonant* and familiar* ords are prime if they are used in their first literal meaning**** ords are immediate if they yield their meaning without special calcul­ ation and are intelligible as a synthesis* • • • Words are commensurate hen they are neither too general nor too particular for the t M ng they tand for; thus "animal" or "Socrates" is incommensurate with "man""*®3 ould be noted for the benefit of the reader who is not especially trained Lstotle's metaphysical thinking that words which are commensurate are words which describe the substance or essence of things* Hence* Man ly an abstract universal, while the man Socrates is a good illustration p-t Aristotle ultimately meant by substance* Words are consonant when belong to the same context and do not suggest meanings which are intible with the organic vftioleness of the passage* Words are familiar when they not only are commonly employed but are sed in their customary grammatical functions. i*e*» qua parts of speech or instance* if a given word is commonly used as a noun and rarely as very, it is not wholly familiar when it is used as a verb*B°^ Syntactical arrangement implies the common and familiar grammatical of sentence structure and sequence of parts which are customarily iated with statements in sentence form* roper relation of sentences* ur ways: Clarity is also produced by "Sentences are related to each other additively, qualificatively, antithetically, and inferentially either add fresh information, qualify what has been said, oppose each in some way, or are related as parts of an argument."83 254- is clear idien It re<3ulres as few mental operations as possible* Clarity is not necessarily characteristic of the maximum effectiveness of an* But 01son does suggest that even the elements of suspense created Lppressed elements in plot or meaning are ultimately resolvable into ts in which the parts are internally caused or related. 'The effect of Imagery ought to be more like that of dramatic present­ ation* than of narrations we must feel as though we are seeing or hearing iot as though someone were describing something to us* The (brightness* ihould be brought out by an accurate word, or implied, or suggested >y metaphor*"®® But Olson's use of clarity here is in a grammatical or syntactical i alone* When he says that the effect of Imagery ought to be like dra- : presentation, he means the logical clarity of scientific language* itness, clarity is primarily effected by accurate words if not implied iggested by metaphor* If we are to capture the essence of lyric poetry ist be comprehended on a much more inclusive and intuitive level* Olson's >f the Aristotelian theory of perception is derived from the Be Anima* 'As sight is the most highly developed sense, the name nhantasla. [imagination) has been formed from Thaos (light) because it is not possible to see without light*" is an excellent illustration of the use of analogy by Aristotle to xnlcate the true nature of knovdedge* m, As sight must have light for so must knowledge have light for the perception of truth* The Le term "light" in this analogy is a universal concept but it is only 86 lili, p . 8 0 . ~ 87 Afridiotle, De Anima 4-29 a,1-2, ed. McKeon, op.clt* Lglcant In the two particular experiences which it relates _ vision cnovfl.edge* Olson tells us that "the constituents of beauty are, therefore, definiteness, order, end symmetry; the last being such oommensurability of the parts as renders a. thing self-determined, a measure to itself, as it were: for example, plot is symmetrical when complication and denouement are commensurate* ntially these are the qualities which Thomistic aesthetic derives from to tie., as integrity, proportion and light. The idea of integrity e8 ts completeness in the artist* s sense of that word realizable in as ways as the artist creates works of art* Proportion, fitness, harmony, r are consistent with the object and the end which the artist has in in his creation. So far, Olson* s parallel terms of definiteness and r seem to be consistent with the Aristotelian tradition. Where he falls is in Confining the idea of clarity to syntactical symmetry. By clarity rllliance of form in the Thomistic sense "must be understood an ontnl pgica^ splendour which happens to be revealed to our minds, not a conceptual clarity* There must be no misunderstanding here* the words clarity, intelllgiblllty and light, used to characterise the part played by form in the heart of things, do not necessarily indicate something clear and intelligible to us. but rather something which, although clear and luminous in itself, intelligible in Itself, often remains obscure to our eyes either because of the matter in which the form in question is buried or because of the transcendence of the form itself in the things of the spirit. The more substantial end profound this secret significance, the more concealed fTom us it is: so much so, in truth, of Intelligibility is to say at the same time that it is the peculiar principle of mystery* (There can in fact be no mystery where there is nothing to know: mystery exists where there is 88 Crane, E. S . f p*557, (Olson, U d e r / A Dialogue on Symbolism) more to be known them is offered to our apprehension.) To define “beauty by brilliance of form is at the same time to define it by brilliance of mystery** When Olson speaks of the objective element of a poem as a specific mctural form* generating its own objectivity, one feels that the essence a poem is a rational essence lacking the dynamic vitality of a living rk of art. The quality of clarity must extend beyond its syntactical f®l if we are to have an aesthetic experience. "First we recognize that the object is one integral thing, then we recognize that it is an organised composite structure, a in fact, filially, when the relation of the parts is exquisite, when the parts are adjusted to the special point, we recognise that it is that thing which it is. Its soul, its whatness, leaps to us from the vest­ ment of its appearance. The soul of the commonest object, the struc­ ture of which is so adjusted, seems to us radiant. The object achieves its epiphany.*90 other words, clarity is the faculty of recognition of the objective element the poem. The point made by Joyce as well as St. Thomas is that syntac— sal clarity is not enough to perceive particular!ty in a poem or a work art. "By an epiphany he meant a sudden spiritual manifestation, whether in the vulgarity of speech or of gesture or in a memorable phase of the mind Itself. He believed that it was for the man of letters to record these epiphanies with extreme care, seeing that they themselves are the most delicate and evanescent of moments. *91 Olson and the Chicago Critics hrve over-emphasized the rationalistic ctor in Aristotle's method, neglecting the suggestive metaphysical Insights his First Philosophy. 89 90 9! By concerning themselves too much with the science Mari tain, Jacques, A r t a n d Scholastlclsm.il.Y..Sheed and Ward, 19^7. P. Joyce, James, Stephen Hero. Oxford, Alden Press, 19^4-, p.192. Ibid, p.188. 257 oetry in their search, for literal objectivity, they have succumbed to Joyce calls the vivisective in the modern spirit* "Vivisection itself is the most modern process one can conceive* The ancient spirit accepted phenomena with a bad grace* The ancient method investigated law with the lantern of Justice, morality with the lantern of revelation, art with the lantern of tradition*" 92 * by means of the light of tradition and the intuitive process of reveon will one ever become aware of the true objective quality of a work rt* V - ALLEN TATE AND ELDER OLSON: A CONTRAST IN TEE TECHNIQUE OF CRITICISM In their approach to other works of criticism, the Chicago critics i r the same caution and the same capacity for penetrating and ingenious ena.s* If the objectivity of poetry is to be discovered in the knowledge- element in a poem or a work of art, the critical intention of an author 3 s Longinus can be discovered by means of a literal interpretation* A c of criticism, like a work of art is treated as a reasoned structure therefore the discovery of the method proper to the poet*s or the cri— >8 reasoning is essential to the apprehension of truth* With tough- iedness in the best scholastic tradition, Olson sets forth the method will employ in his examination of Longinus* There are exactly five racteristics of the literal interpretation as employed by Olson* First, author sets out to solve some specific problem and the argument ends h. the resolution of that problem* 92 Ibldj P*l65. Second, the question must be expounded 258 Lely from the text as from the ohly proper clue to the meaning and that a argument Itself must he regarded at all times as the means hy which, avlorus knowledge mediating, the end Is achieved, third, suhprohlems LI he consequent upon the main problem and the critic has the obligation organize these carefully in relation to the total problem. Fourth, "we may assume that every device — - distinction, definition, example, analogy, quotation, etc. — is used deliberately and that the use of every such device is to be explained in terms of the necessity of the end and to be noted as a sign of what the author considers to be de­ monstration. " Fifth and "finally, the order of the text as a whole Is to be explained in terms of demonstration as the author conceives it, that is, in terms of his method."93 The analytic care with which Olson proceeds to the task of analysis of iginuB 1 essay "on the Sublime" is outdone only by his own careful exeminam of the distinction between symbol and metaphor in poetry or in the £kxly conceptualized analysis of Yeats*s "sailing to Byzantium". Longinus found to have a fundamental triad of terms in his work; "in order of composition the genius (author) composes a work which has a certain literary quality of sublimity (work) and which effects ekstasis in hearers or readers (audience); the order of inquiry into the technique of composition, however, is the reverse of this; for we begin with a sensation in ourselves* as audience, which we recognize to be ekstasis. Inquiring into the cause of this sensation, we find it to be a certain quality of sublimity in the work; but, wliile this is per­ haps explicative of our sensation, we can at this stage say nothing concerning the manner in which a work must be composed. Consequently, we must inquire beyond the work into the faculties of the author which permitted its composition; and when we have achieved a statement of these, we have only t o s k how these may be acquired or cultivated to answer the question of how the sublimity i?f a work may be achieved or the ecstasy of an audience effected. 93 Crane, R. S., ou.clt., p.232*. (Olson, Elder, "The Argument of ngjinus *0n the Sublime *") 9Ur Ibld^ p.239. dlftlectical Juxtapo sition of author and audience thr ough the medium of *ork of art is a process of what both McKeon and Olson have previously ad "analogy1** the reduction of the work of art and its eaqalanation or Lng to a single plane of interpretation* *So analogizing* Longinus has made it impossible to discuss separately bhe various literary kinds* there can he here no theory of tragedy* of jomedy, epic* or comic— epic and no theory of rhetoric* since sublimity nay be found in all these and in philosophic and historical literature is well and since it results from the nature of neither one nor another jf these kinds of literary production but from the faculties of the agent who produced these* So analogizing* too* it is impossible to sscape the consequence that the foundations of the art must be stated Ln psychological terms* "95 Olson*suggests that the technique of "analogy" as used by Longinus is Liarly suited to the purpose of the essay* Although the essay has the e-mentioned limitations* within the defined purpose of the essay, Loxw s has been consistent* "We may deny the analogy constituted by the triad* we may demand an answer in other terms* but the argument of the treatise itself could be called in question only if we insisted on affixing other significances to the terms which Longinus employs or on asserting that the study of literature involves totally different questions*"* It is profitable to compare the enterprise of one of the New Critics he field of scholarly criticism and interpretation with that of the ago Critics* After a very careful pdece of textual analysis* Olson ludes that the term "sublimity" means something more than mere elevation iction* Olson is convinced as a result of his analysis of the text of essay that Longinus Intended much more than a merely verbal arrangement rords to create an artificial effect* 95 96 Ibid* pp*239-2h0. Ibid, p. 2bO» 260 e treatise of L o n y i n u s af f o r d s every evidence that lie scuyht to avo i d r r e d u c t i o n a n d thr.t hence the wor d should not be taken in its el;’" stylistic sense "but should receive its definition in terns of t com.tunicntion of n o b i l i t y which is made p ssible b y the perfection tne h u m a n soul and of art. a n d which received its answer in the wonder . a d m i r a t i o n of all men*" 97 rv: an entirely different ion in his essay on technique, L o n / s i n u s .98 A l l e n Tate arrives cat a similar He sets cut to prove r. hunch that -s* stress on the sublime is more then a verbal 'or Tr.te is L o n g i n u s 1 emphasis on the sublime one. The important "not to persuade, but to e» l i k e a. fla.sh of liebtniAq. " l the b e r i n n i n q , Lory "intis asserts an d conscious method. that style is a coap o m i d of natural Tire essay on the snbline is actually a study os of the author and the c reature of his artistic imryina tion. When is speaks of l i t e r a r y m e t h o d as a means of r.chievinr; the ripht lery t h ? p r o p e r means ‘ccasion* Tate feels that he of speech for a specific ot have in mi n d only the orator and the pub?.ic occasion; i m i n d a criterion pq-estc that he nay also of objectivity for any sort of lite r a r y composition, "ri~ht length" may mean the a d a p t a t i o n of form to subject the "occasion" means the rela.tion between the poet ana the person to ie ooci.1 is addressed. There is a sense of riphtness here which, the as camtured and which ma.y be said to be at once dynamic as well as ivc. Ir. his discussion of metre* Tate feels that Loryinuc is not attributing to certain metres specific effects. Longinus seems to th.at in th.e a u t i o r * s c h oice of lids occa sion for tne poon, p.259. All en, " L o n y i n u s " * The Hudson Be view* tjie none ox vol.l* 19h2» pp.ph^-?6l 'esslon, "the objective and communicable features of his work'* are necessary tomitants of the occasion itself* the mode is as objective as the subject :h the poet treats* Olson has declared in the first place that he considers Longinus to be ibjective critic whose limitations prevent him from separating the various srary kinds such as tragedy, comedy, and epic* ly The strength of Longinus* lies not in any unsuspected quality of objectivity he may have achieved in the careful exploitation of an otherwise limited critical method* lin the framework of his terms and definitions, Longinus* account of the .ime is entirely adequate* If we prefer another sort of description of poetic process, we must look elsewhere and not try to make Longinus* le conform to our own or some other critical pattern* On the other hand, Allen Tate is convinced that Longinus does give an >unt of what is objective in the poetic process* Contrary to the popular .on of Longinus, Tate feels that it is not the "grand" style that is being wnmended* Rather it is a fitting proportion between "emotion" and >ject". "It is clear that Longinus, by and large, is not recommending the "grand style"; his translators have probably done him a disservice in rendering his characteristic adjective, meeas as "grand"; it is, rather, great, unusual, vyncgQmgQ, and likewise hups os, "height", which I understand as "excellence*" Tftrntasls is our subjective acknowledgement of the presence of the uncommon, of an objective order of unpredictable dis­ tinction. He is quite explicit in this matter* By means of *an appro­ priate structure, and this means only, as we have sufficiently shown, (the best writers) give the effect of stateliness and distinction which is removed from the commonplace*"*99 99 Ibid} p.358. 262 There Is no doubt as to the difference in style and approach of these schools of criticism, represented by Olson and Tate. Olson is scholarly methodical in his approach much In the fashion of a scholastic logician e Tate is intuitive In his crlticel perceptions. As he apprehends the eness of Longinus* essay, he has a creative awareness of the dynamic ity of the work. In the end; his observations are not so far from e derived by Olson with his analytic method. Olson will not disagree Tate when he says that Longinus conceives ofstyle as coming into ea&> nee "only as it discovers the subject; and conversely the subject exists only after it is formed by the style. Ho literary work is perfect, no subject perfectly formed. Style reveals that which is not style in the process of forming it. Style does not create the subject, it dis­ covers lt."^®0 * » Olson would agree with Tate about the matter of "composition" in Inue. "There must be, in short, a total quality of the work which abides first Impact; 3 to that total quality he gives the name of composition. " 1 0 1 is the quality which Olson so strongly emphasizes both in the inter- tation of poetry as well as of criticism. Every part, every argument b contribute to the immediate effect of the whole upon the reader or Lence. Olson concludes that if there is to be consistency in the analogy Loyed by Longinus, "the artist must himself be sublime in soul if he is reflect the sublime; if he is led by the love of pleasure or the love aoney, he becomes little and ignoble." 100 101 102 Jbid, P.352# Ibldf P * 3 59. Crane, R.S.^ on.cit.j.u.258- 102 The synthesis which Longinus 263 ^es is more tlx a n a rhetorical device; jll as of th.e style of language* it is an elevation of the soul From Olson* s essay one concludes that .nus was wrl t i n g in the long tradition of -paldela in which the arts of >ric and of p o e t r y were Intended to reflect the greatness of the spirit xe age as w e l l as the faultless style* 'Literary g r e e t hues s is to he estimated not by mere freedom from fault xut by the g r e a t n e s s of the spirit reflected in the words as in a mirror* Lrt thus in a sense is a double discipline* being both moral and aes­ thetic; but A ts literary function is ultimately only to provide some suitable m e d i u m which the spirit of the writer transcends and illuminates* " ^ 3 Allen Tate c o n c l u d e s that in addition to the peculiar cultural signilce which L o n g i n u s 1 essay might have, he does say something relevant the modern c r i t i c . He agrees with Olson that style is something more a mere a r r a n g e m e n t of words* ortion b e t w e e n stive* As the author seeks to create a Just emotion and subject, he creates at the same time something Its objectivity consists in the dynamic interaction of nature art where n a t u r e and art are never completely at harmony with one another* "There is a reciprocal relation, not an identity — — not, certainly* the identity o f form and content -- a dynamic, shifting relation be­ tween t e c h n i q u e and subject; and they reveal each other* This is my sense of Lom^Azxus* primary insight* It Is an insight of considerable subtlety th&-fc has a special claim to the attention of our generation*" Olson is n o b prepared to allow the extension of Longinus' "analogizing" nd the framework: of the essay itself while Tate feels that Longinus* rine has rel e v a n c e for the modern critic* 103 10h Ibldy I>*258. Tate, A l l e n , op.clt*^ p*352« Sxstasls, or the response be audience to the artist* 8 use of the sublime la for Tate "our subjeoacknovO.edgemen t of the presence of the uncommon* of an objective order npr edict able distinction*" The occasion "forces upon the poet the ob- ive and communicable features of his work*" Tate is quick to perceive llels of the same technique In modern critics recognizing here John e Ransom* a theory of a "texture" within a "structure"* Olson objects to In the New Criticsl ess to areas where it does not apply* This is exactly this extension of the analogizing Only in so feu* as the principles sui generis from the work itself can one argue for any specific objec~ ty for them* Critical principles both in essays in criticism as well as oems must be generated from within and not applied from without* of the validity of such concepts of criticism must depend The upon the reader tion of the concepts to the whole of the essay* On the other hand there would seem to be a certain begging of the poetic tion in Olson* s essay* One may well ask wherein lies the criterion of istsncy and one discovers it to be in two sources: in the rational coi>- -ency of the analytic method as set forth at the beginning of the essay; in the harmony of Longinus* sta-tements on the nature of style with the sational ideal of the G-reek culture: the word sublime "should receive its .nition in terms of that communication of nobility which is made possible ;he perfection of the human soxil and of art, and which receives its answer ;he wonder and admiration of all men*"10^ Without doubting the validity )lson* 3 observations, they are not exclusive of other possible observations 105 Crane, o~p*cit*TP*259» 265 onclueiona. Tat® show® quite effectively that Longinus* notion of struc- "is not the formal •type* or genre» a viable "body of special conventions! as the lyric, the ode, or the epic provides, hut exists in the language „106 he poem*" Longinus discovers the genius of Sappho* s poem in the union ontradictions which characteristic he specifically states* The Chicago ics are surely right that the indiscriminate application of such a prixw e of Judgment to all poetry is a little absurd and it is only fair to t that Brooks and Bnpson in particular go too far in this direction* admires the fashion in which Longinus captures the total quality of em vhich abides in it 3 first impact* It is the awareness of this quality omposltion vihich leads to an Imaginative appreciation of the poem or ny poem* If the poet*s style is '-'to entrance, like a flash of lightning1*, . to be sure, the source of illumination must be in something more than rational consistency of the parts of a poem as a formal whole; it must n something more imaginative than the idea-ls of the aristocratic rationally as an instrument of Paideia for the communication of nobility* .e not denying this element in Longinus* Tate interprets Longinus* s ling for style metaphorically as illumination by a flash of lightning* 71 - SYMBOLISM VERSUS METAPHOR IN OLSON*S POETIC THEORY If one examines carefully the discussion of metaphor and symbol and the .s of distinction between these two terms in Olson*s poetic theory* becomes aware of a fundamental dispute concerning the use of Aristotle*s ruage and metaphysics as a basis for aesthetic Judgment* The term ;aphor* is used in the sense that an idealist would use it, as a repre— ;atlve of the whole or unity of mind which lies behind the significant ;s* 107 And so* Ibidj p.3h9. "there are three elements In every metaphors perhaps we may call them the *referent* or thing analogized; the *amalogue*, or thing to which the referent Is analogized; and the *continuum* or ground of likeness* whether in fact or thought, which permits the analogy* A metaphor is clearly stated as metaphor when these are explicit and when the gramma­ tical Indications of similitude are present or easily understood* i an object or experience Is compared with another similar object or srience in such a way that both reveal the *continuum* or ground of mess which makes possible the perception of identity in the first se* Olson believes that the Intricate rational structure, the knowLedgeable aent constitutes the hard core of objectivity in an art object* With ?ect to metaphor he also insists that the likeness be *intelligible* • "A metaphor can never be false. It must be true, either in that the analogy is real, or in that someone in a certain condition might think it real* Hence a metaphor can be "difficult" in three principal ways: through omission of one of its elements, through unclear statement gram­ matically, through apparent falsity*"^' suppressing or omitting one of the elements, suspense is often created the reader is forced to make an inference as to the intended meaning* le is used as an Illustration of what is here called the metaphysical 3-phor* "Anyone knows that the sun is like a lamp in respect of light; but why a flea is like marriage, or why lovers resemble compasses, is another matter* The metaphysical metaphor takes referents end analogues with no apparent contlnua; or states the continue last* " 1 1 0 108 Crane, op.cit*, p*8 l (Olson, Elder, William Hnpson, Contemporary ticism and Poetic DictioxO* 109 Ibid., p*8l. 110 lbldT P* 31, 268 When "both, the specific thing to which the described object refers ferent) and the ground of likeness (continuum) are suppressed* or as on adds* only vaguely intimated* we have symbol Instead of metaphor* Olson* symbols are far more dynamic than metaphors since metaphors are y exemplars or analogues which use the preposition ‘like* to connect identical things in order to make a metaphor* But when the poet so anizes his conception “that it is not a mere mirror, as examples and logues are* but, as it were* a window* a transparency through which we the thing he truly intends* then and then alone has he made a symbol • far this wcruld seem to be what JToyce means in the function of clarltas the epiphany as a means of intuitive illumination* Unfortunately as on goes on to say what the distinction is between a symbol and a mehor, one does not find the symbol to be the rich figure which Joyce ceived it to be* In Olson the relation of thought and sign is strictly vocal, intelligibly conceived In a strictly rational sense* “Whatever name we give to our symbol will now apply immediately to the symbolized, and thus differ from metaphor* for a metaphor is only the name of a certain thing transferred to its similar in respect to a certain similarity* although their concepts remain distinct* whereas the name of the true symbol will stand not metaphorically but directly for the symbolized; because the concept of the symbol has been identi­ fied with that of the symbolized* “1 1 2 . so the five ways in which symbols are connected with the symbolized are intelligibly identifiable in a rational sense: ig» resemblances of m or shape or nature, or a circle as the cause of a sphere* the parts 111 Crane, on.clt*Tp p *586-7*(01 son, Elder, A Dialogue on Symbolism” 112 Ibldf p*587. it stand for the vdiole as the keystone does for the houg&. or the victim the murder; instrumental causes such as the sword and shield symboliz- the art of war; "things that have a use, purpose, function, or result, each may he symbolized by its proper work or use* • • the shipbuilder*s art is represented by a ship; accidental camcomltaats of the afore-mentioned classes, arising our of confusion with the true causes Just mentioned or out of historical happenings or eustoms or legends or analogies, and so forth* For example, members of a given religious cult will be most likely to take as symbols things connected with the most crucial ar— t i des of their faith, or a nation will accept something connected with some important eventor period in its history* " 1 1 3 Zf the essence of the symbol is a knowledgeable essence, then "anyone who wishes to invent true and powerful symbols will have, there­ fore, to study that concept which, he wishes to symbolize and determine its most striking and Important attributes, that is, those which de­ termine the conception and our emotions toward it; next, he will have to find or invent something which incorporates these attributes; and with these he will have to combine the index* What Olson seems to be searching for here is a kind of .calculus by cs of which he can anticipate conceptually the emotional response to structural essences of an epistemologlcal object* Although he recognizes t the artistic or poetic object must have a direct emotional appeal, neverthless Insists that the prior quality of the essence is structural, nal, intelligible in a rational sense* concerned with beauty of form* Essentially, the symbolic poet Symbolism is the art of poetic communl— Lon without depending upon analogy, as over against allegory which ’ys depends upon analogy* H 3 llh Ibld« IbidT p.5 8 3 . p.586. The transparency of the symbol depends upon 270 ledge; the symbol has an epistemological quality which Is much more ctly defined than any Intuitive quality it might have, "Apart from ledge, he could never achieve plausibility of action or character or ment*"^^ Die confusion of allegory with analogy is similar to the confusion by McKeon between analogy and dialectic* Objectivity is reduced to rmal or structural essence understood intelligibly by the rational • The eplstemologlcal process here seems to be much more deductive than ctive* The syllogistic movement of thought in .Aristotle’s use of ana- is much more inductive* The third figure of the syllogism as conceived ristotle is called the Inductive figure because the conclusion Is de1 from a middle term which is always particular* There is a close connection between analogy and metaphor although they aot necessarily the same* "In the case of Analogy, there is a real resemblance between the two objects which are r^ct^y compared with each other — as vixen knowledge, wisdom, power, justice, and goodness, as they exist in man, are said to be analogous to similar, but Infinitely higher, perfections in God* [n the case of Metaphor, there is often no resemblance between the sign and the thing signified by it. although there may be a real resemblance between the latter and something else with which it is compared, Ln virtue of which the same sign may come to be equally applied to both* — Thus the eye is first made the symbol or sign of human intelli­ gence, and the arm of human power, — — the corporeal member or organ yeing substituted for, and made to represent, these properties in man, . and thereafter transferred to denote similar perfections in God, yn the ground of a real analogy, not between the sign and anything like existing in the Divine nature, but between the^propertlea w h i c h it represents equally in the case of man and God*"^® Ibld% p . 5 9 3 . James BuchananJ Analogy: A Guide to Truth end an Aid to Faith | yurgh, Johnstone Hunter Co., 186h, p*70. 115 116 analogy ia metaphorical but not all metaphors are analogical* Metaphors uently depend upon other relations to communicate resemblance such as use of metonymy. If we speak: of knowledge in terms of the eye, or he power of God in terms of the arm we are using a bodily sign to te similar powers in God# "not because there is anything in His nature corresponding to the bodily organs from which the metonymical metaphor is derived, but because there^isjSom^ ^ing in His nature which corresponds to the thftng si^n-t- when certain properties which belong to man are compared with certain ections which belong to God, one makes a comparison directly without intervention of metonymy or of any other trope. By means of analogy becomes aware of the true relation between the intellectual and moral erties of one*s own nature which resemble corresponding perfections od and in the Scriptures. This knowledge is often communicated effec- Ly by means of metaphor. Indeed, metaphor and analogy are seldom dis- ed. But to confuse metaphor and analogy so that one were to ascribe to bodily members and organs similar to our own would be to commit idoy. "By this fallacy we proceed when we conclude from the sign to the S signified. By this encroachment Idolatry first crept in.MH 8 The illustrations from theology of the dangers of confusing metaphor analogy are relevant to the evaluation of the Chicago Critics since would seem to dismiss the relations involved in favour of the idea symbol. 117 118 Symbols provide the critic with a kind of knowledge \diich Ibid. p.72. Sir Thomas BrowneJ Vulgar Errors* in Buchanan,o p . c i t p.72. 272 ruch more certain* The intuitive element of knowledge gained, by the eption of resemblances is apparently rejected* Hence "anyone who es to invent true and powerful symbols will have, therefore, to study concept which he wishes to symbolize*"11^ When the Chicago Critics cted the metaphysical element of Aristotle* s thinking in favour of his ntific method they committed the same blunder as did I* A* Richards in cting Coleridge*s metaphysics in favour of his method* Not only does n miss the point of the analogical metaphor by calling it threefold making the trope a pale shadow of the idealist's Absolute but he 1 ooks his recognized mater's specific discussion of the nature of phor in the Poetics* To understand how analogy functions one may illustrate from Aristotle elf* In the Poetics, metaphor as a rhetorical device is explained in terms nalogy* Aristotle says "metaphor is the application of an alien name by transference either from genus to species, or from species to genus, or from species to species, or by analogy, that is, proportion* * * when the second term is to the first as the fourth is to the third* We may use the fourth for the second, or the second for the fourth* Sometimes, too, we qualify the metaphor by adding the term 'to which the proper word is relative* Thus the cup is to Dionysius as the shield is to Ares* The cup may, therefore, be called 'the shield of Dionysus* and the shield 'the cup of Ares1* Or again, as old age is to life, so is evening to day* Evening may therefore be called 'the old age of day* and old age, 'the evening ftf life* or, in the phrase of Bapdeocles, 'life's setting sun*' Por instance, to scatter seed is called sowing: but the action of the sun in 8 cattering hie rays is nameless* Still this process bears to the sun the same relation as sowing to the seed* Hence the expression of the poet, 'sowing the god-created light*' There is another way in which this kind of metaphor may be employed* We may 119 Cf. P.32* apply an alien term, and then deny of that term one of its proper attributes: as if we were to call the shield, not *the cup of Ares* but *the winelees cup*w»120 later in xxii, Aristotle says "the greatest thing by far is to have immand of metaphor. ♦ • it is a mark of genius, for to maJce good metas implies an eye for resemblances." Now it is exactly this rich me­ trical insight which the epistemological limitations of QQLson1 s theory ymbol cannot comprehend. What specific concept or structural essense symbolized: by Aristotle*s remarkable metaphor "the wlneless cup". To ine oneself to a literal interpretation of this metaphor would be to its meaning completely. Dae great thinkers of the Middle ages continued the tradition of totle*e doctrine of analogy. Augustine indicates the four levels of ogy in his De Utllitate Credendi.1 2 1 Whereas Aristotle describes the t level in specific terms, Augustine describes the Historical or Literal 1 at the point when "it is declared therein what is written or what is •" The tropological level determines the end of the enterprise "when s showed thereby for what cause anything is either done or said." analogical level occurs when "it is demonstrated that the two Testas are not contrary unto one another." The Allegorical level occurs n it is read therein that certain things that are written ought not e understood according to the letter, but according to the figure." The language of Dante* s Divine Comedy is conceived on the seme ern as explicityly described in Dante* s Epistle X to Con Grande. 120 Poeticaf xad: 4, ed. McKeon, op.clt. 121 Augustinus, S. Aurelius, ue Utllitc.te Credeadi , i n ’li^ne, J.P r.lae Latine.e. Tonus 42. 27^ "?• To elucidate, then* what we have to say, be it known that the sense of this work Is not simple* bat on the contrary It may be called poly8 emcrus, that Is to say* *of more senses then one* * for It Is one sense which we get through the letter* and another which we get through the thing the letter signifies: and the first is called literal, bat the second (140) allegorical or mystic* And this mode of treatment* for Its better manifestation may be considered in this verse: *Vfhen Israel came out of I&ypt* and the house of Jacob from a people of strange speech* Judaea became his sanctification* Israel his power** For if we inspect the letter alone the departure of the children of Israel from Egypt in the time of Moses is presented to us; if the alle­ gory, onr redemption wrought by Christ; if (1 5 0 ) the moral sense, the conversion of the soul from the grief and misery of sin to the state of grace is presented to us; if the anagoglcal, the departure of the holy soul from the slavery of this corruption to the liberty of eternal glory is presented to us* And although these mystic senses have each their special denominations, they may all in general be called allegori­ cal, since they differ from the literal and historical; for ATl agary is derived from all eon, in Creek (l6 o), which means the same as the Latin alienum or ^ivgrsujg*" a technique of interpreting the Scriptures to a mode of writing poetry, method of analogy as a basis of linguistic expression was employed througti­ the Middle Ages* Consistent with the Classical, the literal aspect of gs was never conceived to be the only aspect* The fullness of truth d be comprehended only by the analogical method* Strong emphasis was ed upon the literal or existential but the existential was never con­ ned to be purely empirical* In modern times, Indeed since the time of Addison, metaphor has been ted in an univocal sense* s* Metaphors are representations of single coiw A modern illustration is in order* I am indebted to Professor Herbert hall McLuhan for the following illustration* Yvor Winters has made an rpretation of the following lines of Shakespeare*s Sonnet 10U - 122 From DenteJ Eoistolae X. Temule Classics^ p*3^7ff* Ahl yet doth, 'beauty, like a dial hand, Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived; So your sweet hue, which methings still doth stand, Hath motion, and mine eye may he deceived* srs» interpretation moves as follows; "Subject is change* by vdiich we core Time, but especially as that change occurs in the human facet sually there is no irrelevance here; Cox>» the comparison is used to make jarful Judgment absolutely certain and inescapable* 1,1 Concerning Winters* interpretation, McLuhan says that the metaphor llowed to amplify only the concept* He excludes any notion of HLlot’s lng for metaphor in his idea of the •objective correlative* as a pre— * counterpart of a moment of consciousness and yet every metaphor is • that* As indicated above, there are four terms to a metaphor as a ure of thought"* If we deny the metaphysical reality on which the -phor is based, truth itself becomes mere self-consistency or tautology* We may interpret the first line of the quotation analogically; "J'ust our beauty is to your face, so is the hand of the dial to the face of dial*" The second line Introduces the word "steal"* "As the hand of dial is to the thieving of Time, so is your beauty to your face*" One ily observes the pun on the word "steal" implying "robs", "sneaks "• Instead of Winters* insistence on relevance, we have from Shakes- s an Intellectual surprise in the manner in which Donne was later to (rise his reader* The word "figure" becomes leaded with ambivalence about declining wealth (Time) of day; its lengthening shadows and changing The phrase "Steal from iiis figure" involves not only the face (French 123 Winters. ctions, Yvor. The Anatomy of Konsense, NorfolltrConn*, New 19*1-3 , ® P * 2 1 2 — 2 1 3 » re) which is losing shape but the physical figure which is getting T• It not* then* beauty which is being stolen but beauty that is the cause of the theft* There is still beauty in the face but "no pace perceived”* Since se” was pronounced ”pace”» the rationale of beauty as thief becomes apparent: 3 ”There is still beauty but no peace in your face*” then is this: The ”As the dial hand steals from the dial* so your beauty robbed you of your peace which once appeared on your face*” Here again can see that a theory of the symbol such as that advanced by Olson i be quite inadequate to comprehend the analogical development of this re* The literal interpretation of Winters is clearly inadequate because eeks to settle once and for the poet's meaning on an univocal level of lng* Metaphor is the mere representation of an idea without any ob- Ive quality at all* In a somewhat patronizing manner, Tate has observed the fact that totle had interpreted metaphor as analogy by which he means the for- of arithmetical proportion, a quantitative and relational procedure* for Tate, as for Hansom and Burke, Aristotle was ordering solid ob8 under a physics of motion* Since analogy for the idealist must always n terms of rational reality, existence will always be a mere shadow hat reality* Tate feels that we have come a long way from the crude reft- l of the Greeks as he sees it* ”we are thus in the Greek Cosmos, an ordering of solid objects under a physics of motion, in which the formal object offers but a narrow mar­ gin of analogy to any other* If the ancient enquiry into the structure of metaphor was less resourceful than crurs, it *®.s not I daresay because Aristotle was les 9 intelligent than the best modern critlds* Our 277 iverse has increr-singly, since the s e v e n t e e n t h century, consisted nstable objects dissolving into e n e r g y ; pjad there has been no t to the extension of analogy*1' he analogy hrs been extended to the u l t i n a t c and the existence of things as o b j e c t s of Reason in Hegel’s h a g dissolved into energy, f the subjective mind in which the q u a l i t y of objectivity hrs been >elessly as long as we seek for an. o b j e c t i v e quality which is purely .• VII - SUMMARY - THE ^UAlOlARY OF IlhALISM ? basic failure of the Chicago C r i t i c s lies in the attempt to cave o as object by means of ra.tionrl f o r m . The specific quality of a. an object r.rart be sonewhr.t more s u b s t a n t i a l • The Chicago Critics have seen the than a generic forma-1 v; e-rimess of the lie- r Critics in •; their poetic jucgnent to a single p r i n c i p l e which they apply exto every poem* y a But it was Kenneth 'f the Chicago Critics* They set Bvirfke, ourt who saw as quiclzly the to be inductive in their for a. principle of objectivity but i n the e n d they are as deductive rationalistic as their opponents w h o m "they have attacked so vigor- Their inductive observations have b e e n , completely transcended by solving energy of their highly devel o p e d philosophic language* Burke has managed his argument :t between the inductive and the -sn. >4 so s u b t l y "Longinus", The this d e d u c t i v e into the scheme of M s By implication the dialectic m u s t Tate, Allen, that he converts as inevitably H u d s o n R eview, vol*l, toward "kill", towards the death of poetry for the Chicago Critics as it did Burke* Reason alone cannot provide illumination on the path towards objecLty* If one depends upon reason alone in the search for truth objects L be seen in a light not their own* If the principle of rational form the only criterion for poetic objectivity then there will be no real by means of which one can keep the poem independent of the knowing d. By means of the fourfold analogy Aristotle described the movement thought as intuitive rather than rational* He was able to preserve stence of the four poles by not reducing the internal relation of the le to a rational system* But it has been seen that McKeon whose epistemological position is damental to the Chicago School made no real distinction between analogy synecdoche* Without this distinction no practical case for existence poetic objectivity can be established* Olson falls into the same pit of rationalism when he is unable to tinguish between the totality of human experience and the totality of ional parts* Instead of trying to individuate universal or abstract nciples, the poet relates human events to the totality of human experice* If one would experience the poem as an object, one must be able to te and to feel its substance as well as to comprehend it rationally* Therefore poetic comnunication on the level of syntax is insufficient rity of style must consist in something more than grammatical exactness >wledge by means of poetry is revelatory not demonstrative in any mathe;icsl sense of that word* The structure of a poem must be a means of Lation not of mere semantical precision. Olson* s conception of the scope Language does not go beyond a rationed system and it is for this reason t the poem as object must forever elude him. Ultimately the Chicago Griticn themselves ere monists. ay is reduced to one level of meaning, Longinus's the communication of nobility, bols are the mere vestments of concepts which ivill stand out best in the te^t the syntactical, and grammatical v/hole. n fourfold. Metaphor is triadic rather The ground of likeness provides a. basis for the movement the mind towards a sense of unity which dissolves specific existence, separating Aristotle's methodology from hi- metaphysical system, CEfoO Critics have recreated the sane dualism as did Descartes. the By crea.ting ission between mind and body Descartes concluded that clear and distinct sas were the test 0 1 trutn and of objectivity. B y creating a dichotomy tween formal structure and the fact of human experience, the Chicago Cri- :s have concluded that specific and generic form should be the test of itic truth and objectivity. Descartes failed to prove the existence God because h i 3 doctrine of ides.s placed mind first, God next and then i external world. l25 By the same dualism the Chicago Critics re assigned priority to the mind aq,d by that same token must fail as did scrrtes to prove the existence of anything external or objective. 115 Gilson, Etienne, The Unity of Philosophical Experience, p.181* CHAPTER VIII THE CIRCLING SPHERE "It is ell the same to me from what point I begin, for I shall return again to this point." Parmenides of Elea The persistent i r o n y of the idealist* s theme is found in its t & - rent contradictions. Action and Being are never happy in the presence each other v/hen their relation is based on the dialectic. As nan es in this eternal conflict, he is in the restless sta-te of the appy Consciousness. Ho sooner does the seeker of Truth 2'ossess his ze than the very act of possession begins the process of its des— ction. In Ransom* s aesthetic the poet is never quite able to esta- sh the permanence of poems as objects. He is only able to suggest ir existence i n the trailing concreteness of the world* a body. With- the web of texture spun from the poet*s mind there can be no real stence. Ra n s o m seems to realize the withering power of the dialectic because the source of existence remains essentially in the poet*s 1, he never completely escapes ft on the dialectic. The will must ain supreme but that same will is soon destroyed b y the use of reason ch is the substrate of the dialectical process. The object of wledge is likewise lost in the v;eb of texture along with the knower. Coleridge was a more astute metaphysician and a deeper lover of ms as poems than any of the IIew Critics examined. As his mind u r e d he became less confident in metaphysics based on a- dialectic and 2231 >re confident in the creative activity of the Will* He made no attempt ) save spiritual unity at the expense of the self "but when he rejected le unity he had lost any hope of pivin^ a metaphysical account of .ther the self or ox the object cf }-is contemplation* Allen Tate tried to resolve the irony of objectivity in his stat^*nt that in the best poetry "the actual expression is the total thought"• r means of a shifting reciprocal movement between subject and object, ?tween poet or reader and poem, *s achieved* the quality of dramatic imagination In fact ’iis account of the imaginative insight of Bos­ syev sky in the symbol of the hovering fly in the Idiot is a fine piece f analysis but its qxiality depends entirely upon an existence of the rtie tic situation which Tate trices for g r m t e d , One is vividly cons- Loua of the objectivity of this finely created artistic experience xt in the end Tate has driven no metrphysical account of the poetic or rtistic process involved* Cleanth Brooks was as competent as Tate in dealir.p with the poetic bject but v s or it. equally unsuccessful a-t providing a metaphysical basis Instead of searchin;: for that substantial quality wiiich is antral and specific in the poem, Brooks depended upon an aesthetic rinciple externally applied to poetry. By means of paradox and irony rooks would "dramatise" the oneness ox' experience as a means of pprehendiXV" its specific objectivity* As in Tate the emphasis fell ltimrtely upon the subjective mind interacting with the object of conemulation and the issue of the poem’s specific objectivity was not resolved. Die Irony of Kenneth Burke* s position l a y in the conflict of na~ alism and idealism* He was as much concerned as Tate, Brooks and isom to establish the dynamic nature of the poetic process* His h o d was to temper the logical and categorical relation of parts to * whole in the trope of synecdoche with the dynamic interactionism Mead* s naturalism* In the end, the naturalism, frozen by the too ;enious use of poetic categories became formalized into dialectical ;erialism* The process became a system and both the self and the >tic object were lost in a web of internal relations* The Chicago Critics attaked the idealism of the N e w Criticism and >posed the use of Aristotle*s method to describe the poem as an Ject* In the end the account of objectivity was reduced to an account structural essence or specific form* Because the method was a ra- >nal method divorced from the more intuitive element of Aristotle*s fcaphysics poetics becomes poetic science and the ironic failure of Ls neo—Aristotelianism concluded with the same dilemma, as faced the v Criticism* The sane contraddictions pervaded the ideas and beliefs of th the new Critics a n d the Chicago Critics* jmatic assertion of their poetic faith, ons began to crumble. In the end, In the moment of most the rationalism of its founda- the relation of poet an d poem i been forced into the alien mould of a conceptual unity which desoyed both the poet and the poem* raedy* K erein lay the g r i m and ironic Speaking of Hegel in this same relation of the self to the aim of sense certainty, Lowenberg writes: 283 "The comedy results from our endeavour to force It (the contra­ diction of discourse and sense-certainty) into an alien mould. The joke, as it were, is on us. It is our histrionic feat which is ludicrous. The dialectic, so finely spun, has its inception in the false hypothesis or assumption that the ineffable can be represented a.s if it were effable. But for that hypothesis or assumption there would be no •story* • The tale is after ell nothing else than the record of a fanciful experiment. Par from being objective and necessary, it is simply the product of Hegel*s creative imagination. timately Hegel h ad never escaped from the dilemma of Parmenides. "To think is the same as the thought that It *s; for you vdll not find thinking without Being, in (regard to) which ther is an ex­ pression. For nothing else either is or shall be except Being, since Fate has tied it down to be a whole and motionless; there­ fore all things that mortals have established, believing in their truth, are just a name." Such a grim monism was revived in modern times by Descartes with his jalistic philosophy of t h e c l e a r and distinct idea. It was th e same lire for certainty that led him to substitute mathematics for meta— rsics in the pursuit of truth. "The principle that lies at the root of Cartesian mathematicism is that, since the most evident of all sciences is also the most abstract, it would be enough to make all the other sciences as abstract as mathematics in order to make them just a.s evident."-^ aimed to make the objects of knowledge in every field of human action similar as possible to the objects of mathematical knowledge. id- 1 i.e. as Lowenberg, Jacob, "The Comedy of Immediacy in Hegel *s *Phenomenology* Vol.44, 1935. p -36. 2 Parmenides of Ele a — in Freeman Kathleen, A n d 11 a to the Pre:rrtic Philosophers, tranc. of Diels, Fragmente der Vor scf.rratlker ?ord, Basil Blackwell, 1943, $.44. 3 Gilson, Etienne, The Unity of Philosophies! Experience, p.144. 284 and distinct ideas or concepts. Throughout this examination of stlc aesthetics the inevitable result in every cr.se has "been a. ion of poetic objectivity to structural forms or essences. Since forms are essentially rational and hence cognizable by the mind it is difficult to attribute any real objectivity to them at all. e has put it, ever since Descartes our multiverse has consisted of ble objects di ssolving into energy# Whereas analogy was the means covering similarities of a real sort among the objects of Imoviedce ern tines it has become the instrument by means of which objects duced to u n i t y and lost in its dissolving energy. idealist would be ■uneasy about Aristotle*s .3 under a. physics of motion. Hence Tate ordering of solid Existence is in this fra.me work really significant but to the idealist analogy is a powerful enermind constantly transcending objects into a., spiritual or rati onel unity i no specific identity or objectivity can exist. Jut the idealist has not accepted too readily this charge thnt he ’ . crificed existence to a. spiritual or rational uni ty. We lia.ve r i l l i n g dynamism of Hegel *s a.ccount of the r election of self to aject. We ’m o w end perceive objects b y recognising their opposites. tie find, as result of experience, that the thing exhibits itself, a determinate and specific manner, to the consciousness appr&m d i n g it, but ait the same tine is reflected ba~ck into itself out !T that manner of presenting itself to consciousness; in other vrards, :ie thing- contains within it opposite asoectr, of truth, r truth whose Lements are in antithesis to another.11 4 1 He,';el, G.F.W., The x h e r o m e n o T o:-a of I:ind. p.172. 285 e we have a double process involving movement towards a realization only of the object but of the self. "In the entirety of the movement, taken as an unbroken quiescent whole, that vdiich obtains destination in the course of its process and secures specific existence, is preserved in the form of a self-recollection, in which existence is self-knowledge, and self-knowledge, again, is immediate existence." so i t is i n this r e v o l v i n g energ y that "The truth is thus the bac c h a n a l i a n revel, where not a member is sober; and b e c a u s e every member no sooner becomes detached than it eo ipso collapses straightway, the revel in just as m u c h a state of U n b r o k e n cr.ln. "5 first reading it would seem that the idealist's philosophy is well resented in the first verse of the Gospel According to Saint John — "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with. God, and the Word v/B-s God. The sr-me was in the beginning with God." ® ording to Hegel when the Word is spoken, the self immedia-tely loses identity and knows itself in its objective otherness. 3y a process led kenosls the self knows itself only as the express otherness Essential Being which underlies the existence of all things and selves. "It is the 'Word*, the L o r o s . which when spoken empties the speaker of himself, outvjardizes him, and leaves him behind, emptied, but is as immediately perceived, and only tils act of self perceiving himself is the actual existence of the "Word1'. Hence, then, the distinctions which arc net up are just as immediately resolved as 286 they axe me.de, end are .Just as directly made nn they axe resolved, and the truth and reality consist precisely in this self-closed circular process." 7 The metaphor of the circle has frequently "been appropriated by the deali 3 ts as a means of illustrating v/hat is independent and whet is .ependent in the knowledge of truth and reality. Groce had used it n a specific way to illustrate this rela.tion in the process of artistic ■xpression. ^y the metaphor of the circle he does not mean any "per— >etually even revolution" such as one might have in geometry. Those ;ho have atte.cked the idealist’s use of the circle liave interpreted on :uch a logical or mathematical level in which the movement of thought ;ould be a sterile repetition of coming and going. Instead, Croce it is the means of comprehend!ng the truly dynamic quality of esthetic r.ctivity. "To be sure the last term, which again 'm comes the 'irst, is not the old first, but presents itself with a multiplici ty n d precision of concepts, ■arks contemplated, -with an experience of life lived and men of vihich vr s wanting to the old first term; and it affor :ateria.l for a more lofty, more rnfined, more complex and more mature art, hus, instead of being a perpetually even revolution the idea of the :ircle is nothing but the true philosophica .1 idea of progress, of the perpetual growth of the spirit and of reality in itself, where nothing .s repeated, save the form of the growth."® The swelling movement of the sircle moves progressively towrxds truth and the asreness of the spiri­ tual and hence the enduring quality of an aesthetic object which may be said to be its most objective quality. 7 8 Hegeltft.op.cit. .p.767Croce.ftaEssencc of Aesthetic, p.79. 207 In the figure of the bacchanalian revel, Hegel tried to grasp the snsity of truth transcending its objective manifestations* Not a ber is sober as both things a n d selves strive towards a higher reness ox the element of truth they contain within themselves* a Crowe Ransom, To the bacchanalian revel became the agony of composition the poet sought to perpetuate in his poem an “order ox existence which xctual life is constantly crumbling beneath his touch"* There is Ln here a circular process as the poem reveals a logical object or srersal, but at the same time there is always a tissue of irrelevance n which it does not r e a l l y emerge. Truth is constantly losing its itity in particular things as particular things are constantly losing Lr identity in the absolute self-ecnsistency of truth* Croce responds to those who would condemn the figure of the circle 'mse of its restlessness, that such notion is the very lav/ of life* / would e.ttain "to a region of repose from movement, so full of anxiety; with­ drawn henceforward from the ocean and standing upon the shore, they would turn b a c k and contemplate the tossing billows* But I have already h a d occasion to state of what this repose consists! an effectual negation of reality, beneath the appearance of elevs— tion and sublima-tion; a n d it is certainly attained, but is called death; the death of the individual, not of reality, which does not die, and is not affli c t e d b y its own motion, but enjoys it* Others dream of a spiritual form, in which the circle is dissolved, a form which should be Thought of thought, unity of the Theoreti­ cal end of the Practical, Love, Cod, or whatever other name it may bear; they fail to perceive that this thought, this unity, this Love, this Cod, a l r eady exists in and for the circle, and that they are uselessly repeating a search already completed, or are repeating metaphorically what has already been discovered, in the myth of another world, which repeats again the sane drama of the real world* "9 9 Ib ld y p . 7 9 -8 0 , 288 The v&ieel has come full circle and within its circumference a gious as well as an aesthetic experience has “been comprehended, nity end circularity are one and the self is essentially the process lovement towards greater and greater self-consciousness until it m e s consciousness itself. "becomes Itself again. Yet at that moment it turns upon itself In a drama of comic proportions Hegel h e 3 larized the circular movement of the dialectic as follows: •'Here, then, the Fate, formerly without consciousness, consisting in empty rest and forgetfulness, a n d separated from self— conscio\ioness, is uni t e d with self-consciousness. The individual self is the nega­ tive force through which and in which the gods, as also their moments, (nature as existent fact and the thoughts of their determinate charac­ ters), pass away and disappear. At the same time, the individual self is not the mere vacuity of disappearance, "but preserves itself in this very nothingness, holds to itself and is the sole and only reality. The religion of art is fulfilled and consummated in it, and is come full circle. Through the fact that it is the individual consciousness in its certainty of self which manifests itself as this absolute power, this latter ha.s lost the form of something ideally presented W o r g e s t e l l t ) , separated from and alien to consciousness in general — a.s were the statue a n d also the living embodiment of beauty or the content of the Epic and the powers and persons of Tragedy, It is in this sense of a basic unity in which divine love, G-od Himself ts in and for the circle that one can cause the first two verses of the el a.ccording to Saint #ohn to confom to the idealistic metaphysic. But a serious difficulty for the idealist is introduced in the third e of that traditional reading of the gospel. tor as is the poet by the same analogy. This G-od of Love was a To be sure the Word was in the nning in God a n d it was God as the same was in the beginning with God, much more significant was the fact that 9a Hegel ,6 .op,clt., p,7^8« 289 **A11 ’ t hings were made "by Him; a n d without hi m was not any thing made that was made* In him was life; and the life was the light of men. A n d the light shineth in darlmess; and the darkness comurehended it n o t . ”1 0 whirling revel of the figures in the idealist* s bacchanale was blind v/ithout a n y direction in ihe end for how could the lover of truth find w ay It he were not sober? H o w could he really ’enow himself vixen ras in the continual process of destroying h i m s e l f ? What an expensive physical indulgence was that mode of thinking which brought about 1 os 8 of the self in the maelstrom of a seething Absolute? The con- iPtion of the idealist* s religion of art has in every case come full le but if the figure of the circle represents the completeness or eness of truth it also represents the loss of both poetic objectivity ’ell as the loss of the poet*s selfhood. The turning sphere revolves and in contcnpla.tion we can see tha.t e are no still points on its circumference which can be the foundation a theory of art or of poetic objectivity. ITo fixed point can be n in itself as truth for any such concept must be taken in and for If. "Indeed", says Hegel, "no concept has in our day been more mishandled than the concept in and for itself; for by concept is generally meant the abstract determinateness or one-sidedness of representa­ tion and intellectual!stic thotxght with which it is naturally impos­ sible to think either the entirety of truth or concrete b e a u t y . ^ the world turns and in its turning it should give meaning to the realm 10 11 The G-ospel accordin'- to Srint John, XS3-^Her el .CjVorlesunguber Aes the tile, (ed.cit.) p. 118, h«tep.29S- in CroceJ B , 290 fcence instead of leading us into a darkness which shell never snd the light* The Wo r d must "be made flesh as the poetic spirit made into a poetic object a n d both poet a n d critic must bear to its objectivity at the peril of aesthetic scepticism, Lmself inevitably called it, spirit, Hegel the death of art* or a.s Perhaps in a n often uses Aristotle*s doctrine of teleology to e»- Ls own dialectic* But the anal o gy breaks down when one remembers olution in Hegel was towards dissolxition in the Absolute while in Le evolution was the realisation of potentiality into ax:tunl and 2 existence* the same paradoxical manner, T* S* if lot nay be quoted to express ning here — At the still point of the turning world lleither flesh nor fleshless; Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is, But neither arrest nor movement, end do not call it fixity, Where past and future are gathered* Neither movement from nor towards, Neither ascent nor decline* note the change of emphasis from Croce to Eliot, o Aristotle, or indeed from we have ELiot continuing immediately from the above s of ax!stence rather than in terms of Spirit; cept for the point, the still point, .ere would be no dance, and there is only the dance* can only say, there we have teen: but I cannot say where* I eamiot say, h o w long, for that is to place it in time *^-2 ZLiot, T*S*, Four Q u a r t e t s , Burnt Norton, H e w York, 193^, i>*5. Eercourt 2KL ad the still point does make all the difference "between a "bacchrn- lian evol in which not a member is sober and a dance in which the arrested Lgure of existence punctuates the circumference of an otherwise aimless svolution. For the i dee-11 st, the still point is only an appearance; fcs existence is nerely an expression of the Spirit. The Word has no .esh and the light must forever shine in a darkness wliich comprehends : not for vdiet more Stygian g loom can there "be in which the light of ;lf-consciousness does not exist? :istence as an actual moment. admits, In ELiot the still point has its It is in time and yet out of time. Time, "allows "but a little consciousness" hut he reminds us that "To i conscious is not to "be in t i m e ." Both the Aristotelians and the •gelians agree up o n the connection of time with movement, with teleology, r Hegel, "Time is Just the notion definitely existent, and presented to con­ sciousness in the form of empty intuition. Hence spirit necessarily appears in time so long ~s it does not grasp its pure notion, i.e. so long as it does not annul time. Time is the pure self in external form, apprehended in intuition, and net gre.sped and understood "by the self, it is the notion apprehended only through intuition. When this notion grasps Itself, it supersedes its time chnra.cter, (con­ ceptually) comprehends intuition, and is intuition comprehended and comprehending. Time therefore appears as spirit*s destiny and necessity, where spirit is not yet complete in itself."^3 c Aristotle, "time is not movement, "but only movement in so far as it nits of enuneration," and again time is "number of movement in respect "before and a-fter, and is continuous since it is an attribute of vfliat 1 'd But as time is a measure of notion and of "being moved, continuous". 13 Hea-el,ft.The Phenomenology of Mind, p.500. 13& Aristotle, PVlYFlififi 9 9 a ^5» e(i* McKeon, op-cit- 292 fch£as is in notion and it is to this thing which Hegel and the Lsts ultimately do not allow reality# Aristotle uses the metaphor ^ circle to explain the perfect infinity of notion which has alt/ays 5nd always will he# It is b y analogy with this perfect motion that ler stand the notion of our souls within our eric ting "bodies. It .s emphasis on existence over ©gainst essence that the idealist sizes. To the idealist existence is mere appearance, > hnowing mind. a construct A n d so "both sides nay a g r e e upon the reality of the ; "but they separate when one side accepts the existence as it is the other side tahes existence as a passing appearance Qf reality ; transcendent, vitality 01 expression. n this "process that cr rtes its own moments in its course, and hrough them all; and the whole movement constitutes its positive .t and its truth" "be it. ction, we experience time which we must lose if we "Time is no phantasm. or a nor sure; It is not a form, of intuition, an it is integral the real, and is to "be ncd only at the price of losing the v;orld." ^ h'e need not insist xiatence or objectivity per se in order to preserve reality. Ho ysieal analogy is necessary to comprehend the reality of Spirit it he the sort of analogy described "by KcKeon or hennoth Bur he. 5 Yfeiss, Paul, "Time and the Absolute", The Journal of Philosophy. die only anelogy left to the idealists is the •unlimited extension of letaphor "brought about by the dissolution of unstable objects into the jnergy of Hegel* s bacchanalian revel. )e incompletew^ b u t for the realist, For the idealist, "to be is to to be is to exist* Hereunder Jacob Schmidt who, man and bones, Has been his hundred times around the sun His chronicle is endless — the great curve Inscribed in nothing by a point upon The spinning surface of a circling sphere* Dead bones roll on* Archibald MacLeish: Immortal Helix 16 Ibld^ p .290 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY MONOGRAPHS Addison, Joseph, The Complete Work 3 with notes by Richard Hurd edited b y Henry G. Bohn, London, Bell end Deldy, 1872-77* in six volumes. Aristotle, Metaphysics edited by V. D. Ross. 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