Pragmatic Literary Criticism
Pragmatic criticism is concerned, first and foremost, with the ethical impact any literary text has upon an audience. Regardless of art's other merits or failings, the primary responsibility or function of art is social in nature. Assessing, fulfilling, and shaping the needs, wants, and desires of an audience should be the first task of an artist. Art does not exist in isolation; it is a potent tool for individual as well as communal change. Though pragmatic critics believe that art houses the potential for massive societal transformation, art is conspicuously ambivalent in its ability to promote good or evil. The critical project of pragmatic criticism is to establish a moral standard of quality for art. By establishing artistic boundaries based upon moral/ethical guidelines, art which enriches and entertains, inspires and instructs a reader with knowledge of truth and goodness will be preserved and celebrated, and art which does not will be judged inferior, cautioned against, and (if necessary) destroyed. Moral outrage as well as logical argument have been the motivating forces behind pragmatic criticism throughout history. The tension created between this emotional and intellectual reaction to literature has created a wealth of criticism with varying degrees of success. Ironically, much like art's capacity to inspire diligence or decadence in a reader, pragmatic criticism encompasses both redemptive and destructive qualities.
Plato provides a foundational and absolute argument for pragmatic criticism. Excluding poetry from his ideal Republic, Plato attempts to completely undermine the power and authority of art. He justifies his position by claiming that "the power which poetry has of harming even the good (and there are very few who are not harmed) is surely an awful thing" (28). Because artists claim their imitations can speak to the true nature of things, circumventing the need for serious, calmly considered intellectual inquiry, art should not be pursued as a valuable endeavor. Art widens the gap between truth and the world of appearances, ironically by claiming to breach it. The artist promotes false images of truth and goodness by appealing to basic human passions, indulging "the irrational nature which has no discernment of greater and less, but thinks the same thing at one time great and at another small" (27). Art manufactures moral ambiguity, and to Plato this is unacceptable. Because it is deceptive and essentially superficial, all art must be controlled and delegitmized for all time.
Adolescence marks the turning point of an individual's life, establishing the foundation of their development. It is during this phase that individuals leave behind the comfort of childhood and enter a reality beset with new perceptions of life. There are many stages of life, each enclosing its own distinct characteristics. As evident in the short story, The Master of Disaster, written by Guy Vanderhaeghe, adolescence involves growth as an individual, both physically and emotionally. Although each phase has its own challenges and difficulties, adolescence proves to be the most difficult stage of life to overcome. Through examination of the situations in the story, it becomes apparent that adolescence involves experiencing emotional conflicts between friends, searching for one's identity amid a period of change and overcoming the negative influence of peer pressure.
People can have many different opinions depending on a topic, but what is truly difficult is getting a complete level of understanding from every opinion, or understanding the point of view of each opinion. Even accepting the points of view can be difficult for some people, who believe that their opinions are right. Luckily, people can learn about the other person’s frame of reference, and at the very least understand the topic or the person a little better. This particular topic is art, which is known for its multiple possible perceptions or its many different messages that it can send a person or group of people. In this way, people can learn more about the thought processes and feelings of others. Unfortunately, with differing opinions,
Over the decades, art has been used as a weapon against the callousness of various social constructs - it has been used to challenge authority, to counter ideologies, to get a message across and to make a difference. In the same way, classical poetry and literature written by minds belonging to a different time, a different place and a different community have somehow found a way to transcend the boundaries set by time and space and have been carried through the ages to somehow seep into contemporary times and shape our society in ways we cannot fathom.
A final important consideration in the management of IBS patients from a psychiatric perspective revolves around the use of psychopharmacologic agents in treatment. The rationale for use of anti-depressant medications in IBS patients is based not only the observed psychiatric comorbidity in this population, but also on the role of these medications in improving central pain perception and physiologic response of the gut to descending signals. The evidence-based position statement of the American College of Gastroenterology (2008) affirms that both low-dose TCAs and SSRIs are more effective than placebo at reducing global IBS symptoms and abdominal pain. More evidence exists for the benefit of TCAs in IBS treatment, and they have been shown to decrease global symptoms and abdominal pain at lower doses than those required for the treatment of depression (2).
Inflammatory bowel diseases include Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. It can lead to severe bowel problems, abdominal pain and malnutrition. Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis can also be painful and debilitating. Medication can eliminate symptoms, in addition to prevent flare-ups. Surgery may be needed in some cases to repair the colon.
Irritable bowel syndrome (usually referred to as IBS) is a disorder of the large intestine that lasts for a long period of time. People who have IBS experience symptoms like constipation or diarrhea. These symptoms can occur one after another. A person can experience constipation at some times and diarrhea at other times. Occurrences of lower bowel irritation may also be accompanied by mild pain, swelling of the stomach and a lot of digestive gas. Other names for IBS are spastic bowel, spastic colon, irritable colon syndrome, and functional bowel disease.
In existential thought it is often questioned who decides what is right and what is wrong. Our everyday beliefs based on the assumption that not everything we are told may be true. This questioning has given light to the subjective perspective. This means that there is a lack of a singular view that is entirely devoid of predetermined values. These predetermined values are instilled upon society by various sources such as family to the media. On a societal level this has given rise to the philosophy of social hype. The idea of hype lies in society as the valuation of something purely off someone or some group of people valuing it. Hype has become one of the main driving forces behind what society considers to be good art and how successful artists can become while being the main component that leads to a wide spread belief, followed by its integration into subjective views. Its presence in the art world propagates trends, fads, and limits what we find to be good art. Our subjective outlook on art is powered by society’s feedback upon itself. The art world, high and low, is exploited by this social construction. Even when objective critique is the goal subjective remnants can still seep through and influence an opinion. Subjective thought in the art world has been self perpetuated through regulated museums, idolization of the author, and general social construction because of hype.
value of form and thought can be seen throughout many of the works of art. Plato said that
Many people experience symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome or IBS, but many do not see a doctor to get treatment. This common bowel disorder affects millions of people, and is one of the major causes of disability and absenteeism. Although it is not a serious threat to health, it reduces the quality of life and can lead to depression.
In Confronting Images, Didi-Huberman considers disadvantages he sees in the academic approach of art history, and offers an alternative method for engaging art. His approach concentrates on that which is ‘visual’ long before coming to conclusive knowledge. Drawing support from the field of psycho analytics (Lacan, Freud, and Kant and Panofsky), Didi-Huberman argues that viewers connect with art through what he might describe as an instance of receptivity, as opposed to a linear, step-by-step analytical process. He underscores the perceptive mode of engaging the imagery of a painting or other work of art, which he argues comes before any rational ‘knowing’, thinking, or discerning. In other words, Didi-Huberman believes one’s mind ‘sees’ well before realizing and processing the object being looked at, let alone before understanding it. Well before the observer can gain any useful insights by scrutinizing and decoding what she sees, she is absorbed by the work of art in an irrational and unpredictable way. What Didi-Huberman is s...
Works of art such as books, paintings, poems, and sculptures oftentimes are said to express the feelings, personalities, interests, and desires of their creator. One method for interpreting these details from books and other literary works is known as psychoanalytic literary analysis. This analysis seeks to identify the nature of relationships between characters as well as the author’s relationship with the characters. In the analyses the critic will discuss interactions between characters and with the author and often go so far as to make assertions about the author’s conscious and unconscious reasons for telling their story in the way they did. While psychoanalytic criticism is well accepted it is not without its own critics. At times it
...milarly, Plato says that Poetry has the same effect on us when it refers to sex and violence, arousing an array of ‘desires and feelings of pleasure and pain… it waters them when they ought to be left to whither, and makes them control us when we ought, in the interests of our own greater welfare and happiness, to control them.’ What this indicates from a rational perspective is that imitation brings undesirable emotions to our surface, allowing it to cloud our judgement, weaken our psychological stability and change our outlook on life itself. This could therefore have a drastic effect, according to Plato, on the present and future guardians who are required by the rest of us to remain emotionally stable and in full control of their own irrational desires and fears.
Postmodernism attempts to call into question or challenge the notion of a single absolute unified master narrative without simply replacing it with another. It is a paradoxical, recursive, and problematic method of critique.
Poetry, with its focus on mimesis or imitation, has no moral value. While Plato sees reality as a shadow of a realm of pure Ideas (which in turn is copied by art), Aristotle sees reality as a process of partially realized forms moving towards their ideal realizations. Given this idea by Aristotle, the mimetic quality of art is redefined as the duplication of the living process of nature and its need to reach its potential form. Art, then, for Aristotle, does not become the enemy of society if the artist is loyal to the representation of the process of becoming in nature. Horace, like Aristotle and Plato, also brings to view a theory of poetry as mimesis.
First, Plato believed that ideas are the realist things in the world. What we see in our daily life is not reality; sense perceptions are only appearances. And appearances are unreliable material copies of the immaterial pure ideas. Thus to him the world of the ideas is reasonable and fixed and holds the truth. While the world of physical appearances is variable and irrational, and it only bears reality to the extent that it succeeds in capturing the idea. To live the best life that you can and to be happy and do good, as a person you have to strive to understand and imitate the ideas as best as you can. So, with this philosophy in mind we can understand why Plato considered art as just a mindless pleasure. He viewed art as just an imitation.