Presentor: Emon B. Mijas Jr.
Johnson acknowledges that “the greatest excellency of
Subject: Literary Theories and Criticisms
Topic: The Enlightenment Period (English)
Professor: Dr. Milagros Villarama
John Dryden (1631–1700)
Samuel Johnson termed Dryden “the father of English
criticism,” and affirmed of his Essay of Dramatic Poesy (1668)
that “modern English prose begins here.”
Dryden’s critical work was extensive, treating of various
genres such as epic, tragedy, comedy and dramatic theory, satire,
the relative virtues of ancient and modern writers, as well as the
nature of poetry and translation. Dryden was also a consummate
poet, dramatist, and translator. He was appointed poet-laureate
in 1668 and his major poems included the mock heroic “Mac
Flecknoe” (1682), and a political satire Absalom and Achitophel
(1681). Dryden’s Essay of Dramatic Poesy is written as a series of
debates on drama conducted by four speakers–Eugenius, Crites,
Lisideius, and Neander – who have conventionally been identified
with four of Dryden’s contemporaries, with Neander (“new
man”) representing Dryden himself.
In his 1666 preface to Annus Mirabilis, he states that the
“composition of all poems is, or ought to be, of wit; and wit ...is
no other than the faculty of imagination in the writer”.
Later in “A Defence of An Essay of Dramatic Poesy”
(1668) he insists that “moral truth is the mistress of the poet as
much as of the philosopher; Poesy must resemble natural truth,
but it must be ethical.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744)
His critical statement is found in his work “An Essay on
Criticism” (1711). He describes a good critic as unbiased, learned,
well-bred, sincere, modestly bold and humanly severe.
An Essay on Criticism is written in verse, in the tradition
of Horace’s Ars poetica. Pope here not only delineates the scope
and nature of good literary criticism, but redefines classical
virtues in terms of “nature” and “wit,” as necessary to both
poetry and criticism.
Pope specifies two further guidelines for the critic:
1. Recognize the overall unity of a work, and thereby to avoid
falling into partial assessments based on the author’s use of
poetic conceits, ornamented language, meters, as well as
judgments which are biased toward either archaic or modern
styles or based on the reputations of given writers.
2. A critic needs to possess a moral sensibility, as well as a sense
of balance and proportion, as indicated in these lines: “Nor in the
Critick let the Man be lost! / Good-Nature and Good-Sense must
ever join.”
Pope does not believe, like many medieval rhetoricians,
that poetry is an entirely rational process. In poetry, as in music,
he points out, are “nameless Graces which no Methods teach.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)
Samuel Johnson is perhaps best remembered for his
two-volume Dictionary of the English Language, first published in
1755.
In 1750, he urged that modern writers require not only
the learning that is to be gained from books but also “that
experience which...must arise from general converse, and
accurate observation of the living world.”
art” is to “imitate nature; but it is necessary to distinguish those
parts of nature, which are most proper for imitation.”
John Locke (1632–1704)
Whose most influential works were An Essay Concerning
Human Understanding and Two Treatises on Civil Government,
both published in 1690. In the Essay Locke denied Descartes’ view
that the mind has “innate ideas,” ideas that it is simply born with.
Rather, the mind is initially a tabularasa or blank slate upon
which our experience of the world is written. Locke argues that
all our ideas come from experience, through either sensation or
reflection.
Rene Descartes (1596–1650)
Often called the “father” of modern philosophy. Like
Bacon, Descartes challenged the basic principles of medieval
philosophy. In his Discourse on Method he began his thinking in a
skeptical mode, doubting all things, including his own senses,
understanding and the reality of the external world, until he
could find a secure and certain foundation of knowledge.
He imagined that the entire world might be a delusion.
But Descartes realized that he could not doubt that very element
in himself which was engaged in doubting or thinking, hence his
conclusion “I think, therefore I am.”
Voltaire (1694–1778)
Voltaire popularized the ideas of Newton and Locke. His
numerous works included the Philosophical Dictionary (1764)
and a fictional philosophical tale, Candide (1759), in which he
promulgated the necessity of reason and experience, and the
notion that the world is governed by natural laws.
One of the two stark lessons to emerge is the need to
experience the world directly: “to know the world one must
travel,” concludes Candide. The other lesson is the need to work,
in order to stave off the “three great evils, boredom, vice and
poverty.”
Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797)
Acknowledged as one of the first feminist writers of
modern times, Mary Wollstonecraft was a radical thinker whose
central notions were framed by the French Revolution of 1789.
She was known for her A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
(1792).
The issues Wollstonecraft raises in A Vindication of the
Rights of Woman have remained crucial to much feminist literary
criticism. Her central argument is that if woman “be not prepared
by education to become the companion of man, she will stop the
progress of knowledge and virtue; for truth must be common to
all.”
If the rights of man merit consideration, claims
Wollstonecraft, then by a “parity of reasoning,” women’s rights
also claim attention. These claims are founded on two
fundamental principles:
1. That not only men but also women have “the gift of
reason”; and
2. That no authority can simply coerce women into
fulfilling a given set of duties
Wollstonecraft sees one fundamental principle, rooted in
educational strategy: an endeavor to “enslave women by
cramping their understandings and sharpening their senses”
(VRW, 104). In being deprived of the ability to generalize, women
are, in effect, deprived of the ability to think.