Summary Series: Peter Barry’s Beginning Theory- Theory before Theory (chapter 1)

Theory before Theory – Liberal Humanism 

The History of English Studies

English (language) became a subject of study only in 1828 at the London University College, following the charter (1826) to award degrees to men and women of all religions or none. Before that, education was a monopoly of the Church of England. English was first taught at King's College (later became London University) in 1831.

Edward Freeman:

•  Professor of history Edward Freeman questioned the necessity of learning English and inquired, "What exactly is its knowledge component?"
• Citing how the advocates of English wanted to separate literature and language study, he questioned the logic in distinguishing literature from language in his convocation address in 1884.
• Although it prevented the creation of an English chair at Oxford, it made the English supporters reconsider their position.
• Freeman ultimately prevailed in the debate, and it was determined that in order for literature to be regarded as an academic subject, it must be studied alongside language.
• As a result, the syllabus for the English course that Oxford approved in 1894 included a study of historical languages from Anglo-Saxon to Middle Ages.

Cambridge Scholars

Cambridge only gave the course its approval in 1911. The researchers focused exclusively on textual and linguistic elements in their systematic study of English literature and language. A method known as practical criticism was employed by I. A. Richards, William Empson, and F. R. Leavis, who began teaching English at Cambridge.

Practical Criticism

• In his book Practical Criticism (1929), the founder of the method, I. A. Richards, argued for a close reading of literature by separating the text from context and history. He specifically urged against studying "the Renaissance as a distinct historical moment" and instead to analyse "the words on the page".
• In his 1930 book Seven Types of Ambiguity, Richards' pupil William Empson listed seven categories of verbal difficulty in poetry and provided examples and worked analyses of each.
• F. R. Leavis, another critic from Cambridge, pointed out that Empson was using "intelligence on poetry as seriously as if it were mathematics".
• T.S. Eliot referred to it as "the lemon squeezer school of criticism".

Leavis as a Critic in his Scrutiny 

• In their doctoral studies, F.R. Leavis examined the connection between literature and journalism, while his spouse, Q.D. Roth Leavis, focused on popular fiction. 
• In 1932, they also started a journal called Scrutiny. 
• In addition to poetry, the journal aimed to apply Richard's close reading method to novels and other texts.
• F.R. Leavis often included lengthy quotations in his close readings and paraphrased them rather than providing appropriate commentary. 
• With a strong moral stance and no definition for his critical terms, he aimed to propagate humane values. 
• He famously turned down Rene Wellek's invitation to talk about his critical beliefs.

 Study of Literature

It was necessary to isolate literature from linguistics, history, and philosophy in order to study works from the 1930s through the 1960s. Literary theory began to re-establish the broken ties with these three academic disciplines in the 1960s.

Liberal Humanism

In the 1970s, "liberal humanism" gained popularity, which held that human nature was constant and unchanging and never carried any political opinions. This term is automatically applied to theorists who never identify as practitioners of a particular type, such as Marxism, feminism, or formalism.

The English professor at King's College, F. D. Maurice, introduced a series of books that began the criticism of literature that is now known as liberal humanism because he believed that learning English would liberate the middle class and establish a political status quo without a redistribution of wealth. This traditional study of English was initiated by Matthew Arnold in the 1850s, and it reached its zenith with the Newbold Report on the Teaching of English in England in the 1920s.

Tenets of Liberal Humanism

• The idea that literature is timeless—"not for an age, but for all time."
• The text has inherent meaning and only requires close reading rather than contextual analysis (historical, literary, sociopolitical, or autobiographical).
• Studying the text in isolation (without ideological assumptions, political preconditions, or specific expectations, as opposed to Matthew Arnold's definition of criticism).
• Human nature is unchanging; literature explores the same emotions, passions, and situations—"what was often thought but never so well expressed."
• Individuality is a prepossession. It is malleable but not transformable, implying that it is a transcendent subject and antecedent to societal, experiential, and linguistic influences.
•  Literature aims to improve life and spread compassionate ideals, but not in a systematic way. - 'We distrust literature which has a palpable design upon us' (Keats).
• Literature is a fusion of form and content (an organic whole). Like imagery, any detachable form is a mere decoration externally applied.
• Sincerity in text (i.e., comprising truth-to-experience and capacity for human empathy and compassion) is achieved by avoiding clichés and exaggerated forms of expression and using language that enacts what it portrays.
• The value of literature lies in the silent showing and demonstrating of something, not in the saying or explaining – i.e., words should mime, act out, sound out (Peter Barry calls it Enactment Fallacy)
• Instead of reading the text theoretically, as English empiricism (John Locke) does, criticism seeks to interpret the text and act as a bridge between the reader and the text.

Liberal Humanism in Practice 

(Leavisite Approach)

• Focus on the evident conflict of values 
• moralist argument that true value is in the lived life of the unique individual 
• Driven by moral convictions rather than by any model of what constitutes a systematic approach to literary criticism 
• Bypass matters of form, structure, genre and so on and launches straight into the discussion of matters of content

Literary Theorising from Aristotle to Leavis—Some Key Moments 

• Aristotle's Poetics—the first reader-centered critic to define the cathartic effect of drama on the audience. [moral principle]
• Sir Philip Sidney's Apology for Poetry—the aim of literature is to teach by delighting (Ovid & Horace). [pleasure principle]
• Samuel Johnson's Lives of the Poets and Preface to Shakespeare—Practical criticism (development of secular humanism)
• William Wordsworth's Preface to Lyrical Ballads—on avoiding the conventions of diction and verbal structure and using 'common language' [the relationship between poetic and ordinary language and that between literature and other kinds of writing]
• S. T. Coleridge's Biographia Literaria argues against the use of "common" language in poetry, which detracts from the poetic effect because the fictive qualities of language are the source of the aesthetic effect.
• Shelley's Defence of Poetry—poetry 'strips the veil of familiarity from the world' (anticipates defamiliarization) and 'compels us to feel that which we perceive and to imagine that which we know (anticipates impersonality).
• John Keats's letter to Bailey has the idea that the silent working of the mind is the unconscious, and the spirit into which it erupts is the conscious (idea of the unconscious and negative capability)
• George Eliot (Refer: Essays in Westminster Review, The Spanish Gypsy) - advocated realism in literature, moral responsibilities of the writer and the interconnectedness of lives (individual actions have broader social implications)
• Matthew Arnold's Culture and Anarchy, Literature and Dogma, The Study of Poetry (touchstone method), Essays in Criticism, The Function of Criticism at the Present Time, etc.
• Henry James's The Art of Fiction, The Art of Criticism, The Future of the Novel, etc.

Tracks of Criticism

Text-led (practical Criticism)

• Samuel Johnson
• Matthew Arnold
• T.S. Eliot
• Leavis
• I. A. Richards
• William Empson

Ideas-led (theory) 

• Sydney
• Wordsworth
• Coleridge
• George Eliot
• Henry James

The Transition to Theory

• All aimed against liberal humanism (1930s-1950s)
• The first two theories—Marxist criticism and psychoanalytic criticism (began in the 1930s and were reborn in the 1960s)
• The next two theories—linguistic criticism and feminist criticism (began in the 1960s)
• The latest two theories—structuralism and poststructuralism (began in the 1970s)
• new forms of political and historical criticism—new historicism and cultural materialism (began in the 1980s)
• Finally, post-colonialism and postmodernism (began in the 1990s)

Recurrent Ideas in Critical Theory

• The given identities of all kinds are socially constructed, contingent categories [human nature is a myth]
• Against the essentialist view—anti-essentialist 
• All thinking and investigation is necessarily affected, and largely determined by prior ideological commitment—disinterested enquiry is untenable [truth is provisional]
• All practical procedures presuppose a theoretical perspective - relativism 
• language conditions, limits, and predetermines what we see—everything is a linguistic/textual construct [language is constitutive]
• Meaning is not fixed or reliable but always  shifting, multifaceted, and ambiguous—language generates a self-contradictory and infinite web of meaning [Meaning is contingent]
• A book is born out of a specific sociopolitical situation - a totalizing concept. i.e., eurocentric, androcentric [politics is pervasive]

[summary of Peter Barry's "Theory before 'Theory'—Liberal Humanism", Beginning Theory. Viva Books, 2015.]