Writing Help 129 | - Freelance Writer
Apr 08, 2013 | #1
Theory: The How's and Why's of Literature
When most academics speak about literary theory, they are referring specifically to the various theoretical schools and approaches that have been developed throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. This is certainly a sound approach, since this period has seen a true explosion of theory, the professionalization of the discipline of literary studies, and the introduction of literary forms that, more than any other time, have required the creation of new theoretical approaches to deal with them. However, although I too will be focusing on this fairly recent period of literary history, something must be said about the prime ancestor of theory, without whom the current manifestations would not be possible, certainly not in their present forms and advanced levels of development.
The acknowledged father of literary theory is none other than Aristotle, who, aside from writing works on many other non-literary topics that resound in philosophy to this day, took some time to write his landmark Poetics, which serves as the seminal, original text of literary theory. Because he lived more then 2000 years ago (384-322 B.C.), his works have come down to us in a rather fragmentary fashion, and much of the bulk of what he wrote has been lost. However, even with only a handful of extant texts, he has defined the shape of theory up till the present day, and much of the course of literary theory is generated by responses to his work.
One of the most important and lasting theoretical positions Aristotle defines is the role of mimesis in literature. Mimesis, most basically defined, is comparable to the term verisimilitude, which refers to how 'realistic' a given literary text is. It has to do with presenting literature, or art in general, in a way that people will find believable, and reflective of actual human experience. One need only go to a movie theatre and listen to the comments of those exiting an action movie to see how important this idea still is. Many will be well pleased and still excited, but some will comment on how far-fetched and unrealistic it was. But, of course, we all know that movies, like literature, are not real life, so why do we complain about it? Where do our demands for realistic representation come from?
Aristotle believed that mimesis, in the sense of imitation, is central to human thought and action, and he refers to humans as the most mimetic of animals. After all, most of our ways of knowing, especially from our earliest childhood, have to do with imitation and copying, reproducing and reenacting what we observe so that we can learn this action or behavior and later perform it independently. Aristotle also notes that we derive pleasure from this activity, and that this pleasure comes from the enjoyment of learning something new, and undergoing a satisfying intellectual experience. Here, he differs from his teacher, the great Plato, who believed that artistic mimesis, since it portrayed a false reality, encouraged the spectator or reader to entertain a false reality rather than the actual one. This misdirected engagement was equivalent to endorsing lies for people to believe in, and so it was a corrupting influence which should be avoided. Needless to say, Plato was no fan of literature in any of its creative forms.
Aristotle saw the role of mimesis in literature as central, and he had definite ideas for how it could best be displayed. Stories should have a definite beginning, middle and end (which sounds quite obvious and basic to us now, but which at the time was an important statement of the progress a work should take), which are all motivated by identifiable causes. Actions which have no apparent cause within the frame of the story, or which do not follow as the consequence of some other action in the story, are unmotivated and seem to go against our natural sense of causation. There is a definite amount of satisfaction that is lost if actions seem to be happening at random, or if the story is highly episodic, which each scene or act being independent of what had come before. Ties that bind them tightly are needed. There should be a reversal of fortune as well, where a character goes from an unfortunate to a fortunate state, or vice versa, and this should be accompanied, at some point, by a recognition of something which was previously not visible or obvious to the protagonist or those closest to him (but which the audience may be fully aware of, which allows for the creation of dramatic irony - the tension created when the readers or spectators know something a character does not).
All of this needs to be in place in order for the work to achieve its dramatic trajectory, taking the audience on a journey through pity and fear to an eventual catharsis, a key term which can be translated as an emotional purge or release, or as a dawning awareness or a coming to know and understand. Aristotle defines pity as the emotion we feel when we come across a character who suffers some great misfortune undeservedly. Fear, acting as a related counterpart to pity in this formula, is the emotion we experience when we realize that the character who is suffering this fate is very much like ourselves. In order for this kind of identification or empathy to take place, the character should be virtuous, but not completely or perfectly. If the character were a terrible, immoral, pig of a human being, we would experience neither pity nor fear, for we would feel he deserved what he got, and we would fail to identify with him. If the character were morally perfect, we would fail to see our faults in him, and thus would once again fail to identify.
This character, whom we see as much like ourselves, falls victim to hamartia, which can be defined as either a tragic character flaw, or a mistake in judgment. This can be a major or minor error, and is usually not made obvious to the character till near the end, when he has his sudden realization, by which time the reversal of fortune has occurred, and it is too late to do anything about it. We become involved in the unfolding events, and go through the emotional experience, but, thankfully, we are able to emerge from the experience unscathed, perhaps emotionally drained, but buoyed up by the cathartic experience we have undergone. It is almost as if we have seen a fate that could be our own (like in a nightmare, for instance) and have awoken to find that it was just a dream. We are a little wiser, as well, for the experience, as we have learned something about human nature, and have, knowingly or not, put ourselves in the trying position of the protagonist and discovered something about ourselves in the process.
The Birth of Theory
When most academics speak about literary theory, they are referring specifically to the various theoretical schools and approaches that have been developed throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. This is certainly a sound approach, since this period has seen a true explosion of theory, the professionalization of the discipline of literary studies, and the introduction of literary forms that, more than any other time, have required the creation of new theoretical approaches to deal with them. However, although I too will be focusing on this fairly recent period of literary history, something must be said about the prime ancestor of theory, without whom the current manifestations would not be possible, certainly not in their present forms and advanced levels of development.
The acknowledged father of literary theory is none other than Aristotle, who, aside from writing works on many other non-literary topics that resound in philosophy to this day, took some time to write his landmark Poetics, which serves as the seminal, original text of literary theory. Because he lived more then 2000 years ago (384-322 B.C.), his works have come down to us in a rather fragmentary fashion, and much of the bulk of what he wrote has been lost. However, even with only a handful of extant texts, he has defined the shape of theory up till the present day, and much of the course of literary theory is generated by responses to his work.One of the most important and lasting theoretical positions Aristotle defines is the role of mimesis in literature. Mimesis, most basically defined, is comparable to the term verisimilitude, which refers to how 'realistic' a given literary text is. It has to do with presenting literature, or art in general, in a way that people will find believable, and reflective of actual human experience. One need only go to a movie theatre and listen to the comments of those exiting an action movie to see how important this idea still is. Many will be well pleased and still excited, but some will comment on how far-fetched and unrealistic it was. But, of course, we all know that movies, like literature, are not real life, so why do we complain about it? Where do our demands for realistic representation come from?
Aristotle believed that mimesis, in the sense of imitation, is central to human thought and action, and he refers to humans as the most mimetic of animals. After all, most of our ways of knowing, especially from our earliest childhood, have to do with imitation and copying, reproducing and reenacting what we observe so that we can learn this action or behavior and later perform it independently. Aristotle also notes that we derive pleasure from this activity, and that this pleasure comes from the enjoyment of learning something new, and undergoing a satisfying intellectual experience. Here, he differs from his teacher, the great Plato, who believed that artistic mimesis, since it portrayed a false reality, encouraged the spectator or reader to entertain a false reality rather than the actual one. This misdirected engagement was equivalent to endorsing lies for people to believe in, and so it was a corrupting influence which should be avoided. Needless to say, Plato was no fan of literature in any of its creative forms.
Aristotle saw the role of mimesis in literature as central, and he had definite ideas for how it could best be displayed. Stories should have a definite beginning, middle and end (which sounds quite obvious and basic to us now, but which at the time was an important statement of the progress a work should take), which are all motivated by identifiable causes. Actions which have no apparent cause within the frame of the story, or which do not follow as the consequence of some other action in the story, are unmotivated and seem to go against our natural sense of causation. There is a definite amount of satisfaction that is lost if actions seem to be happening at random, or if the story is highly episodic, which each scene or act being independent of what had come before. Ties that bind them tightly are needed. There should be a reversal of fortune as well, where a character goes from an unfortunate to a fortunate state, or vice versa, and this should be accompanied, at some point, by a recognition of something which was previously not visible or obvious to the protagonist or those closest to him (but which the audience may be fully aware of, which allows for the creation of dramatic irony - the tension created when the readers or spectators know something a character does not).
All of this needs to be in place in order for the work to achieve its dramatic trajectory, taking the audience on a journey through pity and fear to an eventual catharsis, a key term which can be translated as an emotional purge or release, or as a dawning awareness or a coming to know and understand. Aristotle defines pity as the emotion we feel when we come across a character who suffers some great misfortune undeservedly. Fear, acting as a related counterpart to pity in this formula, is the emotion we experience when we realize that the character who is suffering this fate is very much like ourselves. In order for this kind of identification or empathy to take place, the character should be virtuous, but not completely or perfectly. If the character were a terrible, immoral, pig of a human being, we would experience neither pity nor fear, for we would feel he deserved what he got, and we would fail to identify with him. If the character were morally perfect, we would fail to see our faults in him, and thus would once again fail to identify.
This character, whom we see as much like ourselves, falls victim to hamartia, which can be defined as either a tragic character flaw, or a mistake in judgment. This can be a major or minor error, and is usually not made obvious to the character till near the end, when he has his sudden realization, by which time the reversal of fortune has occurred, and it is too late to do anything about it. We become involved in the unfolding events, and go through the emotional experience, but, thankfully, we are able to emerge from the experience unscathed, perhaps emotionally drained, but buoyed up by the cathartic experience we have undergone. It is almost as if we have seen a fate that could be our own (like in a nightmare, for instance) and have awoken to find that it was just a dream. We are a little wiser, as well, for the experience, as we have learned something about human nature, and have, knowingly or not, put ourselves in the trying position of the protagonist and discovered something about ourselves in the process.