Liberal Humanism:

opening The English reciprocation theory is derived from a technical marches of doctrine in ancient Grecian. It gos from the word theria which he blind a looking guile, viewing or assureing. In to a greater extent(prenominal) than(prenominal) technical context, it comes to collig have to speculative souls of native things. Pythagoras for the origin season establishes the meaning of theory. To him the word means a passionate, sym courseetic contemplation of mathematical and scientific pick outledge. On the diametric book Aristotle believes that theory is contrasted with praxis or practice. For him both(prenominal) practice and theory involve opinion plainly the repels argon different.Theoretical contemplation considers things which artistic creation end patient of organisms plainlyt barricade non move or agitate and which has no homophile aim ap ar dickensrk from itself. On the contrary, praxis involves thinking al fashions with an aim to desired actions whereby domains deliver change or movement themselves for their own ends. possible action is actu anyy a complex persona beca pulmonary tuberculosis it incorporates different beas such as theory of the lit, light, technology, politics and so on. It is usually though that theory is the trunkatic account of the character of any field and how this temper enkindle be analyzed. CHRONOLOGICAL DEVLOPMENT OF THEORY unity theory gives birth to an separate(prenominal) theory. The growing of scathing theory in the post-war stoppage seems to comprise a series of waves being associated with a specific decade and all aimed against the liberal homoist consensus. In mid-sixties, dickens wise terms were appe ard. Marxist animadversion, which had been pi unrivaledered in the 1930s, reborn in the 1960s and psychoanalytic Criticism came in the 1960s. In 1970s nakeds sp aim in literary critical circles in Britain and U. S. A. except or so specific structuralism and post-str ucturalism, both of which originated In France.In the early 1980s two wise regulates political and historical reproof emerged new historicism. Finally, in the 1980s, a grand rendering seemed to be taking come forward in that respect was a decisive drift towards dispersal, eclectic method and special- chase forms of criticism and theory. gum olibanum, post-colonialism rejects the vagary of universally relevant Marxist descriptions. Likewise post- innovationalism stresses the fragmented temper of a good deal contemporary experience. Feminism interchange suitablewise shows signs of dissolving gender studies, with gay and homosexual texts emerging as distinct handle of literature, and hence implying and generating ppropriate and distinct critical approaches. crowing HUMANISM Liberal compassionateitarianism refers to the idea that we clear understand or develop our adult male through with(predicate) keen-witted enquiry. It rejects explanations found on the super inseparable or worshipful forces. This idea became the basis for the development of science on the Western land. Its a form of philosophy concentrated on the matinee idol of a service servicemanly life, alternatively than on the preparation for an perpetual and ghostly life. In philosophy and societal science, homosexualitarianism refers to a perspective that affirms some tactile sensation of a humans temper.The word humanist derives from the 15th-century Italian term umanista. The term liberal humanism denotes the ruling assumptions, values and meanings of the ripe epoch. It claims to be both vivid and universal. The common land feature of liberal humanism is granting immunity. It is not associated with supernatural things. Rather it believes that our notice ordure be explained by human investigation and public opinion. The doctrines of liberal humanism argon * To know unknown and to cause uncreated * Having rational faculty * Being self reliant * Superiority of human beings Absolute immunity of human psyche *Having the right and accountability to give meaning and shape to our lives. outgrowth OF LIBERAL HUMANISM Liberal Humanism inaugurates rational enquiry and rejects the supernatural or the realm of sensations. It was a reception to the wickedness Ages when the great unwashed believed in holiness blindly. The attach of the Church was so strong that regular the king had to bow strike down to its decisions. At that time, slew were told that they mustiness accept their place in the order of religion. Afterwards, humanism came with a popular opinion in the freedom of human beings to control their own destinies.It developed during the ordinal and the beginning of the fifteenth centuries, and was a response to the challenge of mediaeval scholastic genteelness emphasizing practical, pre-professional and scientific studies. Gradually, people started speculative the teachings of the church. Martin Luther King asseverateed on r eading the give-and- father preferably than following the interpretations of the priest. He argued that we must follow religion rationally. Many people started questioning the rigid ritualistic aspects of religion too. Even scientists comparable Galileo argue that 1 must read the book of nature.Such ideas farm the growth of science and reinforce the belief in observation and rational analysis. It is in such a context that humanism emerges. With this, we likewise see a revival meeting in the study of Classical Grecian and Roman texts. We see the emergence of opinion in human rather than divine. In this way, liberal humanism has made human mind free from the lasting thralldom of religion in Middle age. PLATO (427-347) Plato is the ease up of philosophy in ancient Greece get a line FACTS *The substantial we perceive through our organic structure and our senses is not the real ball b argonly an imperfect transcript of an perfect military man. marchmanic creation w orks to reproduce or maintain the perceivable secular world. * belles-lettres is all heavy(predicate) and needs to be regulated or supervised because it has a tycoonful core group on its readers. *The content of literature is more eventful than the form it comes in. fit in to Platos philosophy, causation was the highest form of thought and the chooseite(a) means for convincing cultural knowledge. For Plato, debate is a process of crystal clear deduction. Stories, verse line and drama appeal to their auditions emotion more than to the rational minds.As art arouses emotions, it thunder mug never be true. He said that uprightness give notice hardly be understand through rational thought, as exemplified in Mathematics. Plato and his followers ignored the fact that we can perceive with our physical senses. In this realm, things stay on in their nearly perfect form and never change. Their unchanging condition stigmas them eternal and therefore the substance of all the things that personify in our material world are merely copies of the form that exist in the ideal world. As they are copies, they are necessarily less(prenominal) perfect than the accredited forms.According to Plato, we can understand the world of forms simply through source and the process of logical argument. Philosophers use logic and intellectual to release unslopedness. By contrast, operatives evoke emotions by reservation meanss of the world. Plato considered all arts as re surrenderational. craft creates picture of the material perceivable world which Plato called nature. merely nature is itself only a reproduction, a copy of what exist in the perfect form in the realm of the ideal. So, any art that reproduces nature is merely copying from a copy. An artists work is al slipway take from the world of truth and ideal perfection.As their creations are copies of copies and these copies excite feelings rather than earth, Plato unhinged that art and artist mig ht threaten social order, and the eternal truths. In book X of The republic, Plato points specifically to poets and verse line in warn that all poetic put ons are blaring to the understanding of the hearers, unless as an antidote they accept the knowledge of the true nature of the knowledge. Plato worried that art, including literary art like song and drama tell lies and influence their audience in irrational ways.This didactical criticism argues that literature is a powerful mean(a) for a stimulation emotions, without necessarily haveing any rational judgement that it can present a everlasting danger to its audience. Moral criticism contractes on the content of a work of literature, communicate whether its force play is good or evil rather than paying emotions to its artistic or formal values. Aristotle (384-322 BCE) Aristotle, one of the ancient Greek philosophers, is the founding father of western thought. pigment FACTS *Aristotles main concern was in the form and unity of an artistic work. ruse is not binary to the reason and intemperate to logic and rationality. *Reality resides in the mutable world of sense cognizances or, the physical, material world. * Form of ensample can only exist in tangible examples of that form. Aristotle was less interested in the content of literature than in its forms. According to Aristotle, art is not an imitation or a reproduction of nature of the world we perceive with our senses. So it is not an deficient reproduction or copy of nature rather it is a process of place the events of nature into words or pigment which helps to improve or complete nature.For example, when an artist paints a picture of a flushed channelize or writes a metrical composition about it, he or she does not just copy the tree save creates a new version of the tree through the process. With the help of colors or words the artist re-creates it. Artists are grievous because art imposes order on a disordered and chaotic natura l world. Literature particularly imposes a particular kind of narrative order on events. For that reason there is a beginning, middle and an end what is described in words. Aristotle believes that art and literature complete a process which the natural world leaves incomplete. temper merely exhibits us with events and sensational experiences while art provides us with their meaning. Thus art and literature are a positive social force which is separate to Platos view. Aristotles arts, creating order and system help to find out pastime in the bureau of an understandable and meaningful reality. The joyfulness people take in even upations conveys an opposite type of truth. For Aristotle, reality does not reside in a static eternal world of perfect ideal forms rather reality is the ever-changing world of appearances and perceptions.Platos concept was that any particular chair was only an small copy of the ideal form of soften that could not be perceived through our senses. By co ntrast Aristotle puts logic that the only way we can know the essence of Chair the true meaning of chair is through individual instances of chairs. Form exists only in the concrete examples of that form Aristotles truth resides in discovering the rules and principles that govern how things work and take on meaning in our material world. Aristotle treats rime and all arts forms, like biology.He is interested in discovering or creating ways to identify characteristics of various forms of song and create systematic categories through which to classify these forms. Plato founds the customs duty of virtuous criticism about what a work of verse line does to its audience, on the other hand, Aristotle founds the tradition of genre criticism by investigating what a particular work is, rather than what it does. HORACE (65 BCE- 8BCE) Quintus Horiatius Flaccus was a Roman poet, normally known as Horace. He is outflank known for his satires and his lyric odes. describe FACTS *Horace focu ses on the take of poetry, or literature in general. *The hit of poetry is highlighted. * twain comes of poetry are nature and other authors. In the traditions of literary theory, Horace has contri furthered through his articulation of the purpose of poetry. pursual Plato, he said that literature serves didactic purpose and it provides pleasure. According to him poetry is a useful teaching tool as it is pleasurable. Its lessons can be learned because the pleasure of poetry makes it popular.Horace also views nature as the primary source of poetry like Plato, still his concept is that poets should follow other authors too. In this way, Horace establishes the necessity of a poet to know tradition, and respect inherited forms and conventions as intimately as creating new works. Sir Phillip Sidney (1554-86) One of the nearly prominent figures of the Elizabethan age, Sir Philip Sidney is most far-famed for his The Defence of meter. list FACTS *Sidney powerfully urges that poetr y serves both charge and pleasure. * poetry gives a shape to nature so that we can get close to nature. poetry reveals the meaning lying beneath everything in this external world. Sidney in a flash attacked Plato for his thoughts on poetry. The essence of Sidneys defence in favour of poetry by combining the life story of record with the ethical focus of ism is more effective than either narration or philosophy in rousing its readers to virtue. To him, poetry serves the dual purpose of instruction and pleasure. It provides a vehicle for instructing readers in the graceful ways to be, think, act, believe and do just as sermon or histories. It provides enjoyment.Following Aristotle, he protected the puritan accusations Poetry is the start out of lies. He answered that if a mere imitation of nature is in poetry, it is an inferior copy or a form of fraud but if poetry is an act of creation, it can help us to understand the versed of this external material world. These so-called inferior copy, or mimetic, in fact presents a higher level of reality. Sidney says that poetry is the source of all learning. The final purpose of poetry is to lead us to high perfection as we are capable of. Sidney also quotes that a meter is a public intercommunicateing picture with this end, to teach and delight.Its primary aim to give pleasure. Poets ate superior to philosophers. It deals with the experience of many ages. If the philosopher is the guide, the poet result be the light. SIR FRANCIS BACON Sir Francis Bacon, a contemporary of Sidney and Shakespeare, he not only refers back to Elizabethan tradition, but bear outs it passionately. KEY FACT *Poetry does not present an inferior representation of the world we live in. *Imagination can create realities. *poetry does not pull strings and lie to the reader. *poetry is great than rationalityIn philosophy Bacon followed Aristotles theory, which thought that poetry or in general, art is not merely a copy of real world, or called inferior. But rather that it presents a better world than the one we live in. In The advance of Learning, Bacon argues that narrative, fact, and reason can only present the world which describes with our sense, our own real experience. He disagrees with Plato on the fact that poetry manipulates and lies to the reader, but instead Sir Francis Bacon says that poetry presents a pretend history which speaks directly to the human soul.Bacon wants to present that as human soul is greater than the sworld, so the imagined world is greater than clear material world. Even more importantly, poetry is greater than reason because reason can only present pre-existing material world, not alter it, but poetry is able to create a new world, and to rule over it. Joseph Addison 1672-1719) He followed Plato. So, like Plato he was concerned with how literary work affects ifs reader. *Addison explores the question how poetry creates pleasure. * Two kinds of pleasure in desire- Primary and secondary coil pleasure. The power of conception and power of reason have been distinguished . * Reason investigates the cause of things and imagination experiencing them either directly or through representation. *Art is not just an imitation of nature. Addison was more interested in what a numbers delights than in how, or what it instructs. Addison described two kinds of pleasure in imagination. One is primary pleasure and the other is secondary pleasure. Primary pleasure comes from the ready experience of objects through sensory perception and secondary pleasure comes from the experience of ideas from the representation of objects.For example we can take The Simpsons and Shakespeares classical drama juncture. Even though majority thought that The Simpsons can create more pleasure than Hamlet but if they have to choose one of them, most of people would rather choose Hamlet than The Simpsons. They supported that the pleasure of Hamlet come from representation of it. It is much better than The Simpsons because people get pleasure immediately but if they thought about it deeply, they would find that it is actually boring. Addison distinguishes the power of imagination from the power of reason.According to him, reason investigates the cause of things and imagination experiences them, either directly or through representations. The imagination is less refined than the faculty of reason. The pleasure of imagination is thus more easily acquired than those of reason and widely unattached to untrained mind. Addison says that art is not just an imitation of nature, but an improvement or completion of it. He points out that the secondary pleasure of imagination makes it possible for an experience which would be teasing in actually to be stand for in pleasurable form.SAMUEL JOHNSON (1709-84) One important aspect to keep in mind while examining the thoughts of Samuel Johnson is that of the birth of parable just about the 18th century, following the rise of the brisk as an important element of literature. KEY FACTS *Fiction depends on the idea of mimesis, presenting stories which imitate nature or real life, foreign poetry or drama. *Fiction deals with the stories to readers as though these individuals were real people. *Johnson is concerned with the ethical motive of literature. Like other art works, manufacturing is also an imitation of nature or real life.Actually, art works are imitations of nature. However, they are not merely copies. It is a important conception. Unlike drama or poetry, manufacture depends on the principle of naturalism. When readers read simile, they would consider that these story or history sincerely happened around our life. The realism of legend blurred the distinction between the imagined world of art and the real world of history and biography. As a result, the manner of speaking which is utilize to write fabrication is very different from drama or poetry.The voice communication of fiction is usua lly common language, rather than the language of art, or artifice. Writers use common language to make the work more natural, more real. Johnson agreed with some parts of Platos thought. He also paid attention to the moral effect of fiction. He insisted that the fiction, such as novel, or fairy tale, is more sober than poetry or drama because in contrast of other kinds of art works, fiction is more real. Good art is that art which has a positive moral subject matter and ruinous art has a bad message that encourages readers to create prohibit or annihilative behavior.Thus, people who read these works would believe it more easily because of realism. The realism of fiction, according to Johnson, also ties the genre more close to the realities of human existence because fiction comes from authors who have the direct knowledge of human nature. Moreover, as the source of fiction is natural and events or characters are easily recognizable and the language of fiction is general, ficti on is able to affect people widely. Johnson warns that if writer cannot use it wholly, fiction would bring up so many negative or destructive problems.Johnson suggests to present the proper outcome of fiction where wickedness is punished and virtue rewarded. In Johnsons opinion, ancient Greek and Roman writers presented the beat models of literary arts. Those works have withstood mental testing of time, have proved themselves useful. WILLIAM WORDSWORTH From Sir Philip Sidney to Sir Joshua Reynolds, the theorists and critics by and large represent the thinking of Age of Enlightenment, and its debates about the sexual intercourse importance of reason and imagination. But William Wordsworth , the first English Romantic poet wholly created a new world of art. KEY FACTS Wordsworth broadly follows Aristotelian thought and also reflects the ideas of the initiate of romanticism, stating that anything closer to nature was superior to anything artificial. *Nature is needs importance. *He is very much careful of composing a song with feelings. The Romantic conception of Wordsworth endangered on the beliefs about the superiority of all things natural over anything artificial. According to Wordsworth poet is a man speaking to a man and that is wherefore poet must use common language, rather than the artificial convention of meter and rhyme which had been a standard since the ancient Greek.Wordsworth get up a system which believes that the homespun is better than urban, the nature is better than the gardening, the unskilled thoughts are closer to nature, and better than meliorate and complex. In stating that the child is father of the man, Wordsworth declares that children have the sensibility which adults have lost. Children are close to nature and we go outdoor(a) from nature becoming civilized adults. Wordsworth is more concerned with the relation between the poet and the meter than with the relation between the poem and its reader.His interest is not in th e moral effect of poetry. He examined what the poem is, how it is made, and who makes it, rather than what it does. For Wordsworth, poem is not a product of reason, or of art and artifice, but is the spontaneous inundation of powerful feelings which takes its origin form emotion recollected in tranquility. Since then, Feeling was set up as the central element of a poem and became more important than the action, situation, character, or mimetic accuracy. A good poem must have authentic preparation of feelings generated in natural setting.JOHN KEATS (1795-1821) Keats followed the romantic path established by William Wordsworth and Coleridge. He is a great English poet and played an important role in Romanticism, in nineteenth century. KEY FACTS * cerebral though breaks the world into two- subject and object. *Keats argued that empathic and reason, poetry and science, are incompatible and oppositional which being combined can break the boundaries between subject and object. *For a g ood poet, Keats thought that it must accept have negative capability.According to Keats, Rational thoughts break the world into subject and object for the reasons of classification and analysis in the Aristotles Science Processes. Keats speaks about on interplay in the sense that sensations and empathetic experiences, including poetry, break down the barriers between subject and object and insist on this interaction between the two entities. However, Keats also feels that poetry and science, empathy and reason are two incompatible elements which are also oppositional.The most important key to understanding Keats in this context is negative capability, which in essence is the ability to stay soft with uncertainty and doubt without the need to find certainty. It became the central conflict in literary studies in the twentieth country. Formalist cristism argues that for a poem, they would focus on the resolution or an explanation for the unity of elements, while poststructuralism wou ld recall Keats negative capability instead of answers.MATHEW ARNOLD (1822-1888) The last one is Matthew Arnold. He is the critic most closely associated with humanist perspective, with the establishment of the humanities, and especially literary. KEY FACTS *Preference on literary program line *result of good poetry on human beings In his main critical work, The Function of Criticism at the accede Time, he argues about the heart of novel Criticism and the goal of criticism is to see the object as in itself it really is, free of agendas, and preconceptions.According to Arnold, a literary education in the outperform texts will make us all better human beings, and make our world an easier and more tender-hearted place to live. He sought to defend art on the basis of what art can do to society and culture. He was the first cultural critic who claimed that to speak about literature, one has to speak about culture. He proposed that philosophy and religion could be replaced by poetry in modern society. He held that culture representing the best that has been thought and said in the world was available through literature.Mathew saw culture as the moral attributes to literature. To him, poetry has the unique power of making sense of life and culture allows us to be complete human beings. Literature has the power to create what he calls sweetness and light. These art the hallmarks of acculturation and the citizens who have been educated to appreciate the best will develop taste, sensibility, a note which Arnold calls high seriousness, and will be productive and peaceful members of their society.