00050--Discuss Joseph Addison's appraisal of Milton's 'Paradise Lost.'

                                                                                    

            The most important part of Addison's literary criticism is his appraisal of Milton's Paradise Lost.  Addison has devoted eighteen  papers published in the spectator on the appraisal of Paradise Lost.  He has judged Paradise Lost on the basis of classical principles, placing Homer's 'Iliad' and Virgil's  'Aeneid' for his models.  According to Aristotle, the fable or plot of the epic must be single, complete and great.  The plot of Paradise Lost fulfills all these three requirements.

            The fable is single because it has only one action to relate the fall of man from paradise; it is complete because it has a regular beginning, a middle, and an end.  The end is man's expulsion from heaven and his inevitable death.  The action is great because it involves the fate, not of a single person or a nation, but of all mankind.  The characters are equally great; God and His Archangels, Satan and his friends, and our first parents-Adam and Eve.  Milton's style has unparalleled grandeur enriched with classical mythology and Homeric similes.

            There is only one deviation from Aristotle's principles.  The epic, according to Aristotle, must end happily.  But Milton's Paradise Lost ends unhappily with the punishment to Adam and Eve and victory of sin and Death.  All the same 'Paradise Lost' is one of the greatest epics ever produced in the world.

00049--Discuss Addison's concept of imagination and how it gives pleasure to the Reader?

           Addison discusses his concept of Imagination and how it gives pleasure to the reader, in the eleven papers of The Spectator.  He discusses how imagination works and how it gives pleasure.  He makes imagination dependent on the sense of sight.  He says, "it is this sense which furnishes the imagination with its ideas; so that by the pleasure of imagination or fancy I here mean such as arise from visible objects, either when we have them actually in our view, or when we call up their ideas into our minds by paintings tatues, descriptions or any the like occasion".  Therefore, according to Addison, the pleasures of imagination are of two kinds.

a)  primary or those which entirely proceed from such objects as are before  our eyes, and,

b)  secondary ones, which flow from the ideas of visible objects when the objects are not actually before the eye, but are called up in our memory, or formed into agreeable visions of things that are either absent or fictitious.

            It is only the secondary pleasures of imagination that are aroused by works of art or literature.  As we know, the copy of  an object is always more appealing than the original.  The copy is free from any defects or short comings that may be found in the original.  It is natural for imagination to form the image of the ideal.  Imagination gives an aesthetic picture of the real, and therefore it is more appealing and delightful.

00048--How does Addison differentiate between true wit and false wit?

            Wit is an art of expression.  It can be found in the use of words or in the use of ideas.  It is produced by combining similar or congruous ideas or words to produce pleasure and surprise at the same time.  In other words, true wit appears in "the assemblage of ideas wherein can be found any resemblance or congruity to make up pleasant pictures and agreeable visions in the fancy".  Addison further says that this assemblage must give 'Delight' and 'Surprise'.  This will constitute true wit.  If this assemblage gives only one – either Delight or Surprise' – it would produce false wit.  For this, it is necessary that ideas should not lie too near or be very obvious in meaning, otherwise they would produce only false wit.  If we compare a white thing with milk or snow, it produces not wit.  But if something more is added to it, which gives delight and surprise, it will produce wit.  Addison gives an example.  If a poet says that the bosom of his mistress is as white as snow, there is not wit.  But when he adds, with a sigh, that it is as 'cold' too, it is true wit.  False wit generally arises from the resemblance and congruity of letters, words or phrases.  In this case, new words are framed by the rearrangement of letters in a word; or by using words which have the same sound but different meanings (as , rode and road), or one word having two meanings (as 'bat').  They produce false wit.  However, too much use of wit often makes the meaning obscure.

00047--What was Addison's approach to Criticism?

            Addison was basically an essayist and a journalist.  His critical observations are found in many of his essays that appeared in the spectator.  As a critic, therefore, his approach is not that of an established literary critic, but that of a popular observer and analyst of some literary works and literary genres.  His observations were intended, no for the learned readers or the authors themselves, but for the common masses interested in literature as a pastime.  His primary aim was to draw out 'philosophy out of closets and libraries, schools and colleges, to dwell in clubs and assemblies, at tea-tables and in coffee-houses".

            His critical essays were meant 'for those who had yet their rudiments to learn, and found it not easy to understand their mater.'  This gave a new turn to English criticism.  Normally, the classical critics like Dryden, Pope and Dr. Johnson wrote their principles for different literary genres for the help and guidance of poets, dramatists and other authors.  They sought to teach them how to enjoy and appreciate great literary works like The Paradise Lost.  He enlightened the common reader and explained to him the intrinsic beauty and grandeur of a work which might otherwise have escaped his attention and appreciation.  The important critical essays of Addison on popular topics are On True and False Wit, On the pleasure of Imagination, On Tragedy, and On Paradise Lost.