Literary Criticism A Short History, Vol. 2: Romantic and Modern Criticism

by William K. Wimsatt, Cleanth Brooks

First published in 1957, Literary A Short History traces our aesthetic heritage from its classical origins up to the contemporary state of criticism in the English-speaking world.Divided into four volumes, each book adopts a fair and objective position in the presentation of various critical positions, and each critical theory is considered not only in competition with other critical theories, but also in vital dialectic with the creative literature of its own time.Volume One focuses on Classical criticism, exploring Socrates and the Rhapsode, poetry as structure, tragedy and comedy, Roman classicism, and some Medieval themes.

Genres: Literary Criticism, Nonfiction

Paperback

First published January 1, 1957

Reviews

[H]

Benjamin Constent in Journal intime, 1804: "L'art pour l'art without purpose, for all purpose perverts art. But art attains the purpose that it does not have."

Wilde: "Beauty reveals everything, because it expresses nothing."

Art for art's sake = return to vita contemplativa?

Schiller: classical = naive (direct/objective)
romantic = sentimental (reflexive/subjective)

Trilling: "the pastness of a work of art gives it an extra-aesthetic authority which is incorporated into its aesthetic power."

Cassire: "mutual limitation and supplementation" of myth, art, religion & science
- we know reality only through symbolic forms so what reality exists outside of these symbols is irrelevant

Wilbur Urban: problem of penetrating symbolic language fully while recognizing its symbolic nature: "The solution of this paradox seems to me to lie in an adequate theory of interpretation of the symbol. It does not consist in substituting literal for symbolic sentences, but rather in deepening and enriching the meaning of the symbol."

Langer: all art has import, i.e. "not "meaning" but "vital import," "the pattern of sentience"

Hegel's three phases of art: symbolic, mimetic, romantic.

All critical theory depends on Hegelian synthesis, the harmonizing of at least two opposing key terms, in order to avoid tautology or literalism. E.g. Platonic seeing/saying (= moral statement) vs Aristotelian making (= craftsmanship).

Three modes of mimesis/praxis: emphasizing material reality, emphasizing emotive reality, and emphasizing the reflexive/emotive nature of experiencing material reality. Goncourt: "to see nothing in nature that is not a remembrance and recollection of art"

[Jonathan Lovelace · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a historical survey, going into some (and interesting) detail but not getting very bogged down, and beginning by going back to Plato and Aristotle, at first this "pushed my buttons." By the end (of this one volume), however, I found myself enjoying it less and less---probably, at least in part, because I don't think much of the way literature, criticism, and philosophy went from about the Renaissance on, but there was also some other subtle je ne sais quoi in the authors' perspective that didn't sit well with me.

In the end, I'm glad to have had the chance to read it, and wish that I could have done so during one of my college literature, history, or philosophy courses, but it'll be a long time before I read it again.

[Gary Mesick · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm an unrepentant fan of "The New Criticism," so I find Winsatt and Brooks essential reading. Those who have cut their teeth on the continentals will find this about as appealing as fingernails on the blackboard.