00113--How does Barthes revolutionise the concept of the text? OR How does Barthes question the existence of an intact meaning in a text?

            Barthes' name is commonly remembered with his conclusion:  "the birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the Author"  According to him, all narratives share structural features that each narrative weaves together in different ways.  Despite the differences between individual narratives, any narrative employs a limited number of organizational structures that affect our reading of texts.  Barthes argues that we should take this plurality of codes as an invitation to read a text in such a way as to bring out its multiple meanings and connotations.  Rather than read a text for its linear plot (this happens, then this, then this), rather than be constrained by either genre or even temporal progression, Barthes argues for what he terms a 'writerly' rather than a "readerly" approach to texts.  According to Barthes, "the writerly test is ourselves writing, before the infinite play of the world is traversed by some singular system like ideology.  This reduces the plurality of entrances, the opening of networks, the infinity of languages.  This closing of the text happens as you read, as you make decisions about a work's genre and its ideological beliefs.  Barthes exemplifies this in 5/2, in which he takes a short story Balzac (Sarrasine) and analyse each individual sentence for its relation to five master codes.  In other words, Barthes' go is to illustrate how "plotting" (plotting) as it is traditionally understood, is in fact a retroactive construction.  We usually see a text as conforming to a plot triangle (an opening exposition followed by rising action, a conflict leading to a climax, then falling action leading to a resolution).

            Barthes compares narrative to a constellation.  According to this logic, there is no necessity that we begin a story at the beginning and proceed to the end; a "writerly text", according to Barthes, has multiple entrances and exists.  Barther's form of criticism ultimately "consists precisely in manhandling the text, interrupting it".

00112--How did Surrealism Contribute to the desacrilization of the image of the Author?

            Surrealism  was a movement launched in France with the publication of Andre Breton's Manifesto on Surrealism in 1924.  The aim the movement was to revolt against all restraints on free creativity, artistic conventions and norms and all control over the artistic process by forethought and intention.  To ensure the unhampered process of creation, Surrealism launched a new method of writing which they called automatic writing.  Through the surrealist jolt, the movement recommended the abrupt disappointment of expectations of meaning.  It entrusted the hand with the task of writing as quickly as possible, meaning what the head is unaware of.  Surrealism accepted the principle of several people writing together.  Through there concepts and practices, Barthes argues, surrealism contributed much to the desacrilization of the image of the Author.

00111--How does Barthes establish that Author is a construct?

            In the 1920s itself, structuralism proved three things about the workings of language and hence literature.  The primary assumption is that meaning occurs through difference.  Meaning is not identification of the sign with object in the real world or with some pre-existent concept or essential reality; rather it is generated by difference among sings in a signifying system.  Saussure argued that there is no natural or innate relation between the signifier and the signified.  Secondly Saussure argued that signs only make sense as part of a formal, generalized and abstract system.  His conception of meaning was purely structural and relational rather than referential:  primacy is given to relationships rather than to things.  Signs cannot be defined in terms of some 'essential' or 'intrinsic nature'.  Signs refer primarily to each other.  The traditional notion has been that language is a medium of communication and it communicates a reality, which is pre-existent.  But structuralism argued that it is language, which constitutes reality.  The critics like Barthes took these findings and applied it in the study of literature.  Once there arguments are applied in the care of literature, the author turns out to be a mere construct.  Barthes does only this.

00110--Explain the term Semiology.

            Semiotics is the science of signs.  Semiology proposes that a great diversity of our human action and productions - our bodily postures and gestures, the social rituals we perform, the  clothes we wear, the meals we serve, the buildings we inhabit - all convey "shared" meanings to members of a particular culture, and so can be analysed as signs which function in diverse kinds of signifying systems.   Linguistics (the study of verbal signs and structures) is only one branch of semiotics but supplies the basic methods and terms which are used in the study of all other social sign systems.  Major figures include.  Major figures include Charles Pierce, Ferdinand de Saussure, Michel Foucault, Umberto Eco, Gerard Genet, and Roland Barthes.  

00109--How do Saussure's views become radical?

            A movement or theory is radical when it is capable of favouring fundamental or extreme change in scientific, social or cultural spheres.  Structuralists argue that the entities that constitute the world we perceive (human beings, meanings, social positions, texts, rituals....) are not the works of God or the mysteries of nature.  It is an effect of the principles that structure us.  The world without structures is meaningless.  It will then be a random and Chaotic continuum.  Structures order that continuum and organise it according to certain set of principles.  And thus we make sense of it.  In this way structures make this world meaningful and real.  Many of the proportions put forward by Saussurian linguistics was radical in substance and result.  The foundational argument about the arbitrariness of the sign is a radical concept because it proposes the autonomy of language in relation to reality.  The Saussurian model, with its emphasis on internal structures within a sign system, can be seen as supporting the notion that language does not 'reflect' reality but rather constructs it.  We can use the language 'to say what isn't the world, as well as what is.  And since we come to know the world through whatever language we have been born into the midst of, it is legitimate to argue that our language determines reality, rather than reality our language' some  later critics have criticised Saussure for 'neglecting entirely the things for which signs stand'.  They have lamented his model's detachment from social context.  Robert Stam argues that by 'bracketing the referent', the Saussurean model 'severs text from history'.  More over, it was the Saussurian concepts that led to the most radical assumptions of Deconstruction.  

00108--Explain the terms 'langue' and 'parole'.

            Language is the whole system of language that precedes and makes speech possible.  A sign is a basic unit of langue.

            Learning a language, we master the system of grammar, spelling, syntax and punctuation.  These are all elements of langue.

            Langue is a system in that it has a large number of elements whereby meaning is created in the arrangements of its elements and the consequent relationships between there arranged elements.

            Parole is the concrete use of the language, the actual utterances.  It is an external manifestation of langue.  It is the usage of the system, but not the system.

            By defining Langue and Parole, Saussure differentiates between the language and how it is used, and therefore enabling these two very different things to be studied as separate entities.

            As a structuralist, Saussure was interested more in langue than in parole.  It was the system by which meaning could be created that was of interest rather than individual instances of its use.

            Subject + present from of the verb .......Langue.

            Prime Minister goes to UN tomorrow....Parole.

00107--Language Constitutes reality, Explain.

            This is a major conclusion from Saussure.   At the very beginning of the essay he writes:  "Some people regard language, when reduced to its elements, as a naming-process only-a list of words, each corresponding to the thing that it names....This conception is open to criticism at several points.  It assumes that ready-made ideas exist before wards".

            Structuralism notes that much of our imaginative world is structured of an structured by, binary oppositions and these oppositions structure meaning.

            Saussure noted that "if words had the job of representing concepts fixed in advance, one would be able to find exact equivalents for them as between one language and another.  But this is not the case".  Reality is divided up into arbitrary categories by every language and the conceptual world with which each of us is familiar could have been divided hp very differently.  Indeed, no two languages categorise reality in the same way.  As John Pass more puts it, 'Languages differ by differentiating differently'.  Linguistic categories are not simply a consequence of some predefined structure in the world.  There are no 'natural' concepts or categories which are simply 'reflected' in language.  Language plays a crucial role in 'constructing reality'.

00106--Language is a system of differences: Explain. OR 'In a language there are only differences'. Explain.

            Saussure's relational conception of meaning was specifically differential.  He emphasized the differences between signs.  Language for him was a system of functional differences and oppositions.  'In a language, as in every other semiological system, what distinguishes a sign is what constitutes it'.  What gives the letter 'C' its meaning is its difference from other letters.  The concept of difference turns very clear once we think it in terms of dress code.  What makes a costume meaningful, fashionable, or respectable is its difference from other clothes.  Advertising furnishes another good example of this notion, since what matters in 'positioning' a product is not the relationship of advertising signifiers to real-world referents, but the differentiation of each sign from the others to which it is related.  In other words relation/difference is a pair of binary opposites.  Saussure's concept of the relational identify of signs is at the heart of structuralist theory.  Structuralist analysis focuses on the structural relations which are functional in the signifying system at a particular moment in history.  'Relations are important for what they can explain:  meaningful contrasts and permitted or forbidden combinations'.  We can safely conclude that 'in a language there are only differences'.

00105--Explain 'binary opposites'? Or The concept of negative differentiation

            In simple terms, binary opposites are pairs of signs with opposite meanings.  Many examples are there in English.  Hot/cold, good/bad, black/white and son.  Saussure thinks beyond this.  He emphasized the negative, oppositional differences between signs, and the key relationships in structuralist analysis are binary oppositions (such as nature/culture, life/death).  Saussure argued that 'concepts ....are defined not positively, in terms of their content, but negatively by contrast with other items in the same system.  What characterizes each most exactly is being whatever the others are not'.  We understand day as what is not night.  A population which hasn't ever experienced the pains of war will not fully understand the sense of the term peace.  The notion may initially seem mystifying.  The concept of negative differentiation becomes clearer if we consider how we might teach someone who did not share our language what we mean by the term "thick".  It is impossible to show them a range of different objects which are think.  Because an object is neither think nor thin until it is differentiated from another one.  Se we could place two books.  One has 100 pages the other 50-0.  The second one is thick.  The listener understands very clearly.  The word 'thick' derives from its meanings from its opposition to the term 'thin'.  As far his 'emphasis on negative differences, Saussure remarks that although both the signified ad the signifier are purely differential and negative when considered separately, the sign in which they are combined is a positive term.

00104--How does Saussure establish that meaning is relational?

Saussure

            Saussure argued that signs only make sense as part of a formal, generalized and abstract system.  His conception of meaning was purely structural and relational rather than referential: primacy is given to relationships rather than to things (the meaning of signs was seen as lying in their systematic relation to each other rather than deriving from any inherent features of signifiers or any reference to material things).  Saussure did not define signs in terms of some 'essential' or intrinsic nature.  For Saussure, signs refer primarily to each other.  Within the language system, 'every thing depends on relations'.

            No sign makes sense on its own but only in relation to other signs.  Both signifier and signified are purely relational entities.  This notion can be hard to understand since we may feel that an individual word such as 'tree' does have some meaning for us, but its meaning depends on its context in relation to the other words with which it is used.

            The 'value' of a sign depends on its relations with other signs within the system-a sign has no 'absolute' value independent of this context.  Saussure uses an analogy with the game of chess, noting that the value of each piece depends on its position on the chessboard.  The sign is more than the sum of its parts.  Whilst signification - what is signified - clearly depends on the relationship between the two parts of the sign, the value of a sign is determined by the relationships between the sign and other signs within the system as whole.

            The meaning of any word depends upon its relation with other words, which are adjoining with it in meaning.  This notion is explained by using the phonemic theory of difference.  We cannot arrive at a definition of the phoneme, 'K' except by means of distinguishing it from other phonemes like 'p, d, b, t' etc.  For example, the meaning of the word house is related with its position in the 'syntagmatic chain'.

            Shed, Hut, Hovel, House, Flat, Mansion, Bungalow, Place....The meaning of anyone of these will be altered if any one of the word is deleted from the chain.  Saussure even pronounced that in language there are only differences without positive terms.  

00103--Explain Saussure's concept of the sign.

            Saussure offered a 'dyadic' or two-part model of the sign.  He defined a sign as being composed of a 'signifier' (the form which the sign takes) and the 'signified' (the concept it represents).

            The sign is the whole that results from the association of the signifier with the signified.  The relationship between the signifies and the signified is referred to as 'signification', and this is represented in the Saussurean diagram by the arrows.  The horizontal line marking the two elements of the sign is referred to as 'the bar'.

            If we take a linguistic example, the word 'Open' (when it is invested with meaning by someone who encounters it on a shop door way) is a sign consisting of:

            -  a signifier :  the word open;

            -  a signified concept:  that the shop is open for business

            A sign must have both a signifier and a signified.  You cannot have a totally meaningless signifier or a completely formless signified.  A sign is a recognizable combination of a signifier with a particular signified.  The same signifier could stand for different signifies.  Similarly, many signifiers could stand for the same signified.  (As in the case of the words, water, vellam, thanni, paani)

            Saussure noted that his choice of the terms  signifier and signified helped to indicate 'the distinction which separates each from the other'.  Saussure stressed that sound and though (or the signifier and the signified) were as in separable as the two sides of a piece of paper.  They were 'intimately linked' in the mind 'by an associative link' 0 'each triggers the other'.  Saussure presented these elements as wholly interdependent, neither pre-existing the other.  Within the context of spoken language a sign could not consist of should without sense or of sense without sound.

00102--Explain Saussure's concept of the arbitrariness of the sign.

            The concept of the arbitrariness of the sign is foundational in Saussurian linguistics.  In the first part of the essay Saussure writes "The bond between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary.  Since I mean by the sign the whole that results from the associating of the signifier with the signified, I can simply say:  the linguistic sign is arbitrary".  Although the signifier is treated by its users as 'standing for' the signified, Saussurean semioticians emphasize that there is no necessary, intrinsic, direct or inevitable relationship between the signifier and the signified.  Saussure stressed the arbitrariness of the sign - more specifically the arbitrariness of the link between the signifier and the signified.  He was focusing on linguistic signs, seeing language as the most important sign system; for Saussure, the arbitrary nature of the sign was the first principle of language.  In the context of natural language, Saussure stressed that there is no inherent, essential, 'transparent', self-evident or 'natural' connection between the signifier and the signified'-between the sound or shape of a word and the concept to which it refers.  Not that Saussure himself avoids directly relating the principle of arbitrariness to the relationship between language and an external world, but that subsequent commentators often do, and indeed, lurking behind the purely conceptual 'signified' one can often detect Saussure's allusion to real-world referents.

            In language at least, the form of the signifier is not determined by what it signifies: there is nothing 'treeish' about the word 'tree'.  Language differ, of course, in how they refer to the same referent.  No specific signifier is 'naturally' more suited to a signified than any other signifier; in principle any signifier could represent any signified.  Saussure observed that 'there is nothing at all to prevent the association of any idea whatsoever with any sequence of sounds whatsoever', 'the process which selects one particular sound-sequence to correspond to one particular idea is completely arbitrary'.

00101--What is the value of poetry according to I.A. Richards,

            Thomas Love Peacock denounced poets and Poetry in his notorious booklet The Four Ages of Poetry.  He wrote that poets were only exploring myths and legends and were thus "wallowing in the rubbish of departed ignorance'.  He further wrote, "A poet in our times is a semi barbarian in a civilized community.  He lives in the ways that are past.  His ideas, thoughts, feelings, associations, are all with barbarous manners, obsolete customs, and exploded superstitions.  The march of his intellect is like that of a crab, backward".  Keeping these absurd allegations in his mind, Richards pleaded that even in this age of science, scepticism and interrogation, poetry has its great value.  It enlivens, ennobles and regenerates our benevolent and humanitarian feelings and emotions.  Thus it plays a vital role in the life of the individual and society.  In the mind and heart so enlightened by poetry there lies the hope of civilization.

            Explaining his point of view, Richards says that experience of life may be both good and bad.  The poet responds to and communicates only the good and pleasurable ones through the medium of his poetry.  Normally, in routine life, mind receives all kinds of experiences, impressions, and reactions.  In course of time the weaker and unpleasant impressions are washed away, and only the deeper, pleasurable and benevolent ones get imprinted in the mind.  The poet enshrines there deeper and nobler experiences in his poetry and unconsciously communicates them to society.  Thus poetic experiences and impulses take the form of highest moral values.  They create and spread currents of hope, delight, refinement, and highest moral values in human environment.  Nothing can be nobler that poetic experience and its dissemination.

00100--Discuss I.A. Richards' theory of Poetic Communication.

Poetic communication, for Richards, is an implied, not vocal, dialogue between the poet and the reader.  He says, "The arts are the supreme form of the communicative activity, since any attempt to harness psychology to the service of criticism is bound to insist upon poetry as a strictly analysable human activity".  However, communication is not the primary function of the poet.  Communication of his experience is no part of the poet's work.  Eliot says, "Communication is an irrelevant or at  best a minor issue, and that what he is making is something which is beautiful in itself, or satisfying to him personally, or something expressive of his emotions, or of himself, something personal and individual.  That other people are going to study it, and to receive experiences from it may seem to him a merely accidental, in essential circumstance".  But this conscious neglect of communication does not in the least diminish the importance of the communicative power.

            The extent to which his work accords with his experience  can be known only by the extent to which it arouses not been accurately embodied in the work.  To that extent the poet has failed in his mission.  Man being accustomed to communication from infancy, each experience of his takes a communicative form.  Eliot says, "the emphasis which natural selection has put upon communicative ability is overwhelming".  The poet uses 'emotive language' i.e, language of emotions, and communicates his experiences 'with his heart on fire'.  Thus communication is inseparable from his poetic experience.

00099--Discuss I.E. Richard's concept of poetry and poetic composition.

            I.A. Richards is the most influential literary theorist of the twentieth century.  He is the pioneer of what has come to be known as New Criticism.  He judges every literary and aesthetic activity in the light of the latest discoveries in the field of psychology and working of human mind.  It is in the same light of human psychology and working of human mind that he gives his theory of poetry and poetic composition.  He says that poetry is a 'system of impulses' produced in the mind by some stimulus leading to the production of poetry.  When the stimulus first occurs, it produces a large number of mixed impulses which pull the mind in different directions.  Gradually these impulses organise themselves in a state of poise and get ready to follow a common course.  In this state of mental and emotional poise poetry germinates.  But it should be remembered that by poetry Richards means not only verse but all imaginative literature.  The poet simply records the happy play of impulses on a particular occasion.  The reader of poetry should not seek any thought from a poem; he should only share the experience, the happy play of impulses working in the mind of the poet.  However, much that goes to produce a poem is, of course, unconscious.  It should be remembered, as the modern psychologists say, that the unconscious processes are more important than the conscious ones.  It is these unconscious impulses that lead the poet or any artist to produce a poetical work or any other work of art.

00098--Discuss I.A. Richard's The Two Uses of Language. The Mental process that accompany the different uses of language.

I.          I.S. Richards, the famous Cambridge Scholar, in his 'Principles of Literary Criticism' introduces a very pertinent observation on language.  Language is used in two ways.  In the 34^th chapter of the book Richards explains the psychological processes underlying the different uses of language.  He begins by affirming that psychological terms like knowledge, belief assertion etc. only tend to blur the distinction between the two uses.  On the other hand an introspection into the causes of mental events would help us to understand how different uses of language occur.  Among the causes of mental events, two sets may be distinguished.  On the one hand, these are the present stimuli and the excitation caused by past stimuli.  On the other hand, there is readiness to respond to these stimuli.  The resulting impulses are conditioned and influenced by these two nets.  So long as an impulse owes its character to its stimulus and remains undistorted, it is a reference.  The independent internal conditions of the organism usually intervene to distort reference.  It is true that many of our needs can be satisfied if the impulses are left undistorted.  The undistorted body of references belongs to science.  If omniscient, all necessary attitudes could be maintained through scientific references.  Since we do not know very much, we are constrained to resort to fiction.  There are innumerable other human activities which require distorted references or fiction.  This is the poetical use of language.

II          Analysing the two uses of language, I.A. Richards make a few pertinent observations.  A statement may be used for the sake of the reference, true or false.  This is the scientific use of language.  Scientific language for Richards is the language that refers to the real world and makes statements, either true or false.  The arts are our store houses of recorded values and they help us equipped for realizing such ends, for its language is not scientific, but emotive . Emotive language wants to produce certain emotional effects and certain attitudes in those to whom it addresses itself.  'Many, if not most of the statements in poetry are there as a means to the manipulation and expression of feelings and attitudes, not as contributions to any body of doctrine of any type whatever'.  Logical veracity often such statements is irrelevant.  Their sole function is to bring about and support responses, dispositions and attitudes.  This is the poetic use of language.  In other words, poetry uses language emotively and connotatively while science uses it referentially and denotatively.

00097--What is 'New Criticism'?

            The Expression 'new criticism' was first used in 1910 by Spingarn, a professor of the University of Columbia.  Different critics, whether of England or of America, evolved new metaphors, which went a long way in strengthening the movement of the new criticism.  T.S. Eliot's popular critical idiom is objective correlative, which is the external equivalent of the emotion of the poet.  Richards is known for his distinction between 'referential' and "emotive" meanings.

            The New Critics at the earlier phase were sharply divided into two groups - the realists and iconoclasts, and the aesthetic rebels.  The realists included Brooks, Bourne, Mencken, Lewis Mumfor, Max Eastmam etc.  The aesthetic rebels, were George Santayana, Lewis Gates, Haneker, and last but not the least J.E. Spingarn.  They were directly influenced by T.S. Elliot and Ezra Pound.

            The influence of Richards on the New Criticism is great.  But no less great is the influence of T.S. Eliot.  Eliot did not set much store by interpretation.  To him comparison, analysis, and elucidation were of supreme importance.  "Any book", says Eliot, "any essay, any note.....which produces a fact even of the lowest order about work of art is a better piece of work than nine-tenths of the most pretentious journalism".

            F.R. Lewis started a literary journal, named The Secretary, in which the scrutinisers proceeded by "a minute and brilliant examination - by a scrutiny-of actual passages".  "No treatment of poetry", he says in the introduction to Revaluation, is worth much that does not keep very close to the concrete: there lies the problem of method...."

            The new critics, with hardly any exception, confined themselves to the exploration of the artist's craftsmanship.  They wanted to rescue art from moralism and academic systems, conventions and abstract dogma.  "Systems become tyrannies overnight".  The New criticism is a challenge to Romanticism, which is an expression of personality and unbridled imagination.

            The New Criticism has been in vogue for the last four decades, and its influence has never been on the wane.  

00096--Write a short note on 'symbolism' in English poetry.

            The symbolist movement may be described as the effort to bring poetry to the condition of music.  The theory of the suggestiveness of words comes from a belief that a primitive language, half-forgotten, half-living, exists in each man.  It is language possessing extra ordinary affinities with music and dreams.

            Words for Mallarme-a member of the French Symbolist movement - were then much more than signs.  Used evocatively and ritualistically, they are the means by which we are inducted into an ideal world.  "Poetry is", as Mallarme defined it in 1886, "the expression by means of human language restored to its essential rhythm, of the mysterious sense of the aspect of existence: it endows our sojourn with authenticity and constitutes the sole spiritual task".

            Such also were the interests of the English-speaking poets and critics who were most powerfully influenced by the French symbolists, literary figures like T.E. Hulme, Ezra Poand, and T.S. Eliot and even men like William Butler Yeats, whose attempt to construct a personal myth in a vision (1925) might seem to argue a different concern.

            Any attempt to summarize symbolist doctrine exposes the vagueness of the pronouncements of the various symbolists and critics, not to mention their frequent contradictions.  One might be forgiven for coming to doubt whether the term "symbolism" has any specific meaning at all, and to conclude that it is, like the term "romanticism", simply the name for a bundle of tendencies, not all of them very closely related.

00095--Discuss T.S. Eliot's views about impressionistic or Aesthetic School of Criticism.

            T.S. Eliot did not approve of the Impressionistic School  of Criticism because it was purely subjective without any definite norms or principles to evaluate a literary work.  Mr.Symons initiated this approach, which was further supported by Pater and Swinburne. T.S. Eliot called it "Imperfect Criticism', explaining his approach.

            T.S. Eliot's objection is that an individual's personal impressions can neither be universal nor unbiased nor unprejudiced.  They cannot set a standard of evaluation for others.  They would differ from person to person according to one's taste, level of sensitivity, and power of discrimination.  Eliot says that a critic is concerned only with the principles and precepts of poetic communication, not with the man behind a work of art.  The main objective of criticism is "the common pursuit of true judgement", unconditioned by any 'personal prejudices or cranks'.  A true critic encounters in a work of art its intrinsic vision, embodied on a well-organised system.  In brief, T.S. Eliot launches a violent attack on all impressionistic critics who seek a kind of "self-gratification through their subjective pronouncements on writers and their works".

00094--Which is superior between creative faculty and critical faculty according to T.S. Eliot?

            T.S. Eliot does not agree with the general view that creative faculty is better and higher than critical faculty.  He holds the view that the creative and critical faculties are complementary to each other.  While criticism cannot exist without creative literature, creative literature cannot flourish without critical principles and evaluation.  Neither of them can exist and flourish without the other.  True criticism is the institution of a scientific enquiry into a work of art to see it as it really is.  The artist would learn much from the analysis and evaluation of his work by a critic.  Thus Eliot perceives the important role played by critical faculty in the creative process.  This invalidates the romantic notion of creation as being purely inspirational

            Eliot upholds the importance of subtle manipulation of material by an ever-vigilant judgement of a critic.  Thus Eliot refutes Arnold's contention that creative faculty is higher and nobler.  He establishes the "capital importance of criticism in the work of creation itself".  Eliot goes on to say that the "criticism employed by a trained and skilled writer on his own work is the most vital, the highest kind of criticism".  He concludes that "some writers are superior to others solely because their critical faculty is superior".

00093--Explain T.S. Eliot's Theory of Objective Correlative.

            T.S. Eliot enunciates his Theory of Objective Correlative in his famous essay Hamlet and His problem.  Eliot calls 'Hamlet' "an artistic failure" because it is wanting in Objective Correlative.  Eliot says that every powerful character in a play has a flood of powerful feelings and emotions within his heart which force to express themselves.  If the character raves or laments loudly all atone on the stage, the scene would appear to be highly crude and inartistic.  His powerful emotions must express themselves through some suggestive objective symbols.  These symbols  may be objects or unconscious actions.  These objective or actions are called objective correlative.  Eliot says:  "The only way of expressing emotion in the form of art is by finding an objective correlative; in other words a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events which shall be the formula of the particular emotion; such that when the external facts which must terminate in  sensory experience, are given, the emotion is immediately evoked".

            The innermost feelings of the character are objectified and externally presented on the stage through these objective correlatives.  The best example of objective correlative is found in the "Sleep Walking' scene in Macbeth, where lady Macbeth walks holding a candle and rubbing her hands, as if washing them, and murmuring "all the perfumes of Arabia will not be able to sweeten this little hand".  She does over again what she had done before in the scene of king Duncan's murder.  These actions of hers are objective correlative of her deeply suppressed feelings of spiritual agony and repentance.  In other words, the agony, unexpressed as such, is made so objective here that it can be as well seen by the eyes as felt by the heart.

00091--What is T.S. Eliot's meaning of Tradition, and what is the individual talent in it?

            The terms 'Tradition' and 'Traditional' are generally used in the derogatory sense.  But with T.S. Eliot they are hallowed with historical and cultural stream from antiquity to the modern times.  It is a stream that connects the past with the future through the present.  So Eliot says, "It involves, in the first place, the historical sense, which we may call nearly indispensable to anyone who would continue to be a poet beyond his twenty-fifth year; and the historical sense involves  a perception, not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence".  He continues to say, "This historical sense, which is a sense of the timeless as well as of the temporal, and of the timeless and of the temporal together, is what makes a writer traditional".

            A great poet can conspicuously show his talent in this stream of tradition.  No poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaning alone.  His significance can be judged only when he is placed and evaluated in the stream of the great poets of the past.  So Eliot says, "You cannot value a poet alone; you must set him, for contrast and comparison among the dead.  This is a principle of aesthetic, not merely historical criticism".  A poet must know that he has to be judged by the standards of the past.  It is a comparison in which two things are measured by each other.  The poet must be very conscious of the main currents, past as well as the present.  A great poet must set himself in this tradition coming down since antiquity.

00090--What are the essential qualifications of a perfect critic according to T.S. Eliot ?

            According to T.S. Eliot, an ideal critic performs two basic functions - 'elucidation of a work of art under his review' and 'correction of taste'.  A perfect critic must possess a highly trained mind and refined literary taste to be able to perform these two basic functions.  He must have the taste and talent to understand the true nature of poetry.  He must possess a disciplined and analytical mind to 'elucidate' a work of art through 'comparison and analysis'.  Further more, his judgements must be balanced and impartial, unaffected by any kind of bias or prejudice.  "Honest criticism and sensitive appreciation is directed not upon the poet, but upon the poetry".

            A perfect critic must not belong to any particular literary school or movement.  He must make disinterested endeavour to know and propagate the best that is known and thought in the world.  He must be able to overcome all his prejudices and also refrain from an excessive quest for 'sources', 'influences' and such other extraneous information.  For him a work of art must be complete in itself.  He must be able to 'bring permanent artistic values to bear upon contemporary art'.  He must also have the moral courage to reject the wrong and uphold the true and genuine element in a work of art.  It is true that some biographical information about the author may be useful, but it should not be explored too much.  In his concluding remarks, Eliot says that a perfect critic should not merely be a technical expert, but also "the whole man, a man with convictions and principles, and knowledge and experience of life".

00089--What is the function of Criticism according to T.S. Eliot?

            In his essay The Function of Criticism, T.S. Eliot discusses the basic concept of literary criticism and its function.  He says that the primary function of criticism is an objective and impersonal 'commentation and exposition of works of art by means of written words'.

            True criticism is a system of scientific enquiry in to the essential spirit of a work of art .  The function of the critic is to see a work of art as it is, and to present before the reader what he sees in it.  Thus criticism is 'a disinterested exercise of intelligence' bearing on a work of art.  A good critic must aim at the clear 'elucidation of works of art and the correction of taste.  'Elucidation is needed because most of the readers are prone to 'confuse issues' implied in a work of art.  Similarly, 'correction of taste' is needed because every critical effort must act 'as a kind of cog regulating the rate of change in literary taste'.

            With his attention fixed solely and steadfastly on the work before him, he has to dig deep into it for the law that can account for it fully.  T.S. Eliot further says that the most important critic of a creative artist is the author himself.  No author can produce a great literary work if he does not have an inherent critical faculty in himself.  T.S. Eliot says, "I maintain even that the criticism employed by a trained and skilled writer on his own work is the most vital, the highest kind of criticism; and some creative writers are superior to others solely because their critical faculty is superior".

00088--What are the salient features of good style according to Walter Pater?

                                                                                        

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            Effective style is an essential feature of good and great literature.  However, noble and sublime the thoughts and emotions of the author may be, he will not be able to produce great literature if his style of writing is weak or inartistic.  Pater says that there are three factors which determine the style of an author.  They are:  Diction, Design and Personality.

            By diction Pater means vocabulary and choice of fitting words.  The author must be able to apply 'a vocabulary faithful to the colouring of his own spirit'.  He must be able to express his thoughts and sentiments through correct, precise and accurate words befitting the context of the mental situation.  He should not use obsolete and worn-out words.  At the same time he should be economical in the use of words.  He should be cautions against using a single superfluous or out-of-the context word.  He should also avoid using uncommon, high-sounding and difficult words.      

            Then comes the design of the whole work and its chapters.  He should conceive of the total design and structure of the work before starting it.  He should have an architectural design before his mental eye.  He should "foresee the end in the beginning and never lose sight of it, and in every part remain conscious of all the rest, till the last sentence occurs, with undiminished vigour unfold and justify the first".

            In the end comes the role of the personality of the author.  The author should have a large heart, a broad mind, and generous personality.  It is rightly said the style is the man himself.  A mean  mind cannot conceive of sublime thought or expressions.  A man's  soul peeps out through his style.  The author should have 'the soul of humanity' in him. 

00087--Discuss Walter Pater's Theory of Art OR Discuss Walter Pater's Theory of Art for Art's Sake

            On the question of the function of Art in general, and of poetry in particular the Victorians were divided into two campuses.  One camp represented by Carlyle and Ruskin who advocated the theory of Art for Life's Sake, and the other camp represented by Oscar Wilde and Walter Pater pleaded for Art for Art's Sake.

            

Pater became the champion of the theory of 'Art for Art's Sake.'  The central point of this theory was that the only function of Art should be to 'give aesthetic pleasure' 'to give rapture to the soul', 'to give an elevating excitement to the soul.'  Art should have nothing to do with moral preaching or teaching man 'how to live.'  Art should have no exterior motive beyond the aesthetic pleasure of the highest order that it must give.  Pater says that the true function of art is 'to give nothing but the highest quality of aesthetic excitement to the moments of life as they pass'.  That Art delights and enriches the soul is its sufficient justification.  Thus art is its own reward:  it beholds the spectacle of life 'for the mere joy of beholding' and for no other purpose.  It is a delightful experience in itself.  When applied to literature, it means literature of power, as against the literature of knowledge.  Literature of power gives new and beautiful shape to the facts of life.  Whether written in prose or verse, it must add to the grandeur of thought, to the nobility of emotions, and to the elevation of the soul.  This approach would make art 'not only good art, but also great art.'