hello this presentation is meant to introduce critical theory and critical theory is an area that is supposed to introduce a variety of ways to approach a literary narcissistic production it means that there are many ways to approach a piece of art and the richness of literature needs a variety of ways to consider this literary literature and before we deal with these approaches in their diversity in their complexity we are going to introduce the premises upon which they are based the strategies that you are dealing with and discuss their limitations and before that my point in this introduction is to question the significance of art in itself the nature of art in itself and art as a complex invention of human imagination has been considered throughout centuries through by philosophers thinkers and artists up to now and i'd like to draw you back to the the question of art and the nature of art through the greek philosophers aristotle and plato and my question is what is art what is the nature of art what is the function of art before we see how to deal with art and in the greeks they believe that the muses were goddesses of inspiration they are protectors of art and they are the source of knowledge included in poetry lakes and myths this was the belief that these goddesses protect and inspire back to the greek times the reference to the dallas himself as a mythical figure a prototype of the skillful artists and davos means carefully wrote and is an epitome of creativity and imagination and this dreadlocks just as a matter of fact when you read for example uh james james joyce in the 20th century uh novel of portrait of the artist of the young man you will see that this novel is based on the myth of the idols as a source of creativity and the myth of the dallas shows that daedalus was escaping from place to place from present to prison until he is filled up with escape and at the end he imagined wings to fly with as an example of freedom so creating wings are the example of the creating ways to escape from imprisonment and in james joy's support of the artists as young men we find that the protagonist was escaping from series of seclusions and imprisonment whether they were familial religious education until he managed to escape from the shackles which he considered as stifling the human imagination and he said at the end that he was escaped through imagination language silence and scanning so what i want to say here is that literature is art it is first a body of written works it is imaginative work of poetry prose and distinguished and perceived for their aesthetic excellence so when i see art i ask question is it history is it philosophy is it knowledge is it sociology is it anthropology it is all of these and none of these one thing that i maintain from this definition of art that it is based on aesthetic criteria when i define art i go back to plato and aristotle and platon resources are the fathers of critical theory though they disagree on the definition on the concept of art one thing that you agree on that is that plato do agree on the fact that art is based on nemesis that is imitation a representation though plato objects to poetry and we'll see why aristotle defend the art devote agree.art is essentially an imitation of nature so the source of art according to them is imitation and the basic points that is debated in mimics is that it is a basic theoretical principle in the creation of art and nemesis means imitation but it includes also the sense of representation rather than copying a plato and aristotle mimics is as represent of nature but plato sees imitation as a mere copy of life it is a copy of a copy because uh it is based on his philosophical uh percept that life it is just a shadow of an ideal life an ideal reality that exists somewhere else but aristotle says that imitation is not a mere copy of life or the word but it is a recreated ideal copy of the word now from beginning we find this disagreement between these two philosophers of course plato was utopian an idealist he believed that everything had an ideal form that is to say the word that we live in it is just a copy or a shadow of a real word that exists somewhere else so it's difficult to copy a word that we cannot see so it is for him copying and imitating is dangerous and an obstacle to the contemplation of truth it doesn't lead to conceived truth while aristotle disagreed with much of plato's philosophy and he believed in looking at the real world and studying it so according to plato aristotle the imitation is a reflection of reality now plato's objections uh is based on the fact that art imitates the word as it appears not as it is or such warfarin it is force art is a copy of particular object which are themselves copy of higher earthings that's why i see according to plato the artist cannot reach the truth and he is only living in the realm of illusion and images and so forth plato here the function of art is to deceive from reality and to guide the observer the reader into religion of illusion and false images while our artists produce for him but fiction for stories that have bad effects on their listeners and create fear of that that's why uh he said that art should be censored and so he was the first uh philosopher to censor art example uh uh homers and lions and odysseys were banned for him because they are telling four stories and they are not good for the next generation also the epistemological epistemological objection of plato is that the work of art does not give us any knowledge of the word so since he says it is a false so for him as a philosopher he is for the truth and for him the artist do not know what they are doing so they are just presenting something which is the cannot see he cannot perceive that the imagine and which is force i also since i say i talked about censorship his moral objection lies on the fact that art the pursuit of knowledge is the pursuit of the good and if art produces ignorance then art is immoral and for him art does not appeal to the highest party of the soul which is pure reason and it only appears to the senses the desire for pleasure rather to reason and the desire for knowledge so according to plato the pursuit as a philosopher the pursuit of truth and knowledge is a priority that's why he attacks art and artists and because it appears only to desires and pleasure and here he he reminds me of the opposite view of the romantics i have in mind wordsworth as you know that wordsworth is that the spontaneous overflow of feelings that he defends so and plato is against such thing in his utopian world so uh plato's objection is on arts is first of artists is based on falsehoods for him philosophy is better than poetry and because the philosophy is very idea and truth he is well he is welcome and for him the poet cannot reach the truth and he deals only with what appears to him so he is only in the realm of illusion not the truth not reality and since the the ordeal deals with illusion they are imitation of an imitation and the artist according to him is twice removed from reality so how can he represent something he doesn't know and though plato's uh reject the voice and art his inquiries are highly eliminating and provocative because he initiates the debate here and that's what pushes aristotle to respond and to produce a theory of art plato is of course a philosopher as a moralist he disapproves of poetry it is as i said is immoral as a philosopher he disapproves of it because it is based on falsehoods philosophy is better than poetry philosopher according tears with the truth and ideas where i put would appear that the poet is with what appears to him the truth of philosophy is more important than the pleasure of poetry here so he associates philosophy with roots while poetry with pleasure and illusion and falsehood so because and it's true because plato plato's chief interest is philosophy and philosophically investor investigation here which formed the subject of his great work in the dialogues not a profound critic of literature unlike aristotle as will see and his critical ideas are scattered in his dialogues the same thing here i repeat that ideas are the ultimate realities things conceived as i did before they take practice practical shapes and the artists and the poet takes men away from reality and towards it and the same ideas that it is with illusion the three objections of plato is that poet is not ethical not philosophical or pragmatic either on the level of education philosophy or moral point of view so his arguments are based on a philosophical dimension and also on the fact that he is building a utopia which is governed by philosophers and when you say that his republic we have philosophers soldiers and slaves we can have the mind and the muscles and artwork so there is no room for art accordion to plato why not critical because it promotes undesirable passions not philosophically it does not provide true knowledge not pragmatic it is inferior to the practical arts and therefore has no educational value uh i quote here plato uh for his objection uh if we mean our future guardians to regard the habit of quran among themselves as of all things the basis no word should be said to them of the wars in the heaven of the plots and fighting of the gods against one another for they are not true and you can see here there is an illusion to hammer the lion and odyssey we have fighting of the gods and we have uh plots wars between gods and the amateur koreans so he objected in the ground that party does not cultivate good habits among children so art for him should be if it is to be introduced it should be morally defined the his objection also to nemesis is that the imitator or maker of the image knows nothing of their existence he knows only appearance and since he knows appearance he cannot go in depth into the truth poetry like all forms of art appears to the inferior part of the soul the irrational and the emotional part so that's why i play to here is for the reason the irrational demotion is eliminated and an appreciation of poetry is incompatible with an appreciation of reason justice and the search for the truth and for him uh poetry only arouses emotions imagining sorrows and unhappiness so that's why it's not accepted the same thing for in this code here is that is the same thing is that there is an ancient quarrel between philosophy and poetry of which there are many proofs and there are innumerable other signs of ancient enmity between them notwithstanding this let us assure our sweet friend and the sister arts of imitation that if she will only prove her title to exist in well ordered state we shall be delighted to receive her we are very conscious of her charms but we may not on that account betray the truth so ironically the charms of art is not accepting this well-ordered style state because it is betraying the truth on which he is wasting his ordered well-ordered state that is based on reason and the truth poetry fields and waters the passions instead of drying them up she lets them rule although they ought to be controlled if mankind are ever to increase in happiness and virtue no room for poetry because it waters arouses feeling and passions and also it does not make people happy of course these ideas here are completely refuted first because plato fails to understand that arts also gives something more which is obtained in the actual world and the artist does not simply reflect the real in the manner of a mirror art is not a passive or superficial imitation of reality but it reproduces life in all its study and it is an addition there are views there are vision introduced by the human imagination r.a scott james observed that's but though the poet creates something less than that reality as plato maintains he also creates something more he posts he puts an idea into it he puts his perception into it he gives us his intuition of certain distinctive and essential qualities so very important here there is an additional uh points a point that is added by the creator with the poet that is he starts from the truth from reality in order to make it but he produced something superior to this reality as we'll see with aristotle again plato said that art is bad it does not inspire virtue does not teach morality and one of the questions that we are accustomed to but is teaching the function of the arts is the aim of the art is it the aim of the artist so art is not to teach it has other function the function of art is to provide aesthetic delight communicate experience express emotion represent life it should never be confused with the function of ethics which is simply to teach morality and morality and ethics is another area is not a realm it is the role of religious people it is role of the moralist it's not the role of the artist the artist is concerned with something else seeing these points by plato and plato when he objects to arts on the opposite aristotle defends arts and says that imitation is very important because it is one instinct of nature or nature and the object committees are men in action and for him comedy is an imitation of characters of a lower kind while strategy is tragedy is an imitation of action that is serious complete and of a certain magnitude and you can see that aristotle defends strategy much more because it represents the noble human aspiration man's with noble aim defending himself trying to control his faith though at the end in the trajectory but it represents the nobility of a human quest for the truth and the function of tragedy according to rs again is to arouse the emotion of pity and fear and that is why the to affect the cartosis of these emotions irrigation purification clarification and providing the audience with pleasure you can see that aristotle defense tragedy for its cathartic pleasure and qatar is very important as we'll see here when we deal with the psychological it is psychologically relieving this is the psychological dimension of art according to aristotle besides presenting a certain reality and according to our aristotle here art is an attempt to grasp universal truth in addition to this catharsis cathartic dimension we have universality as we'll see the nature of poetry here it is poetic inspiration so with aristotle we start to think about inspiration and where does this camera this inspiration come from it's divine it is human it is natural it is multiple he agrees with plato in colindo port an imitator and creative art but he me and according to aristotle the poet imitates one of the three objects things as they were or are things as they are said taught to be or things as they ought to be so present past and probably future in conclusion we find that the point image what is past or present what is commonly believed and what is ideal extend the range of periods from past to present the future never limitlessness of the presentation of the r the poet and there is a natural according to our natural pleasure in imitation which is instinctive it enables the child to learn as well here so we can see that it is against plato's objection to art and the poets the instinct for harmony and rhythm what we imitate it is life the sound the things that we live with aristotle also in addition to this mimetic dimension of art he compares the artists with the historian and the poets and the historian according differ not by their medium but the true difference is that the historian relates what has happened events people in a certain limited period with real name but the poets release what may or may ought to have happened the ideal and if i have to compare the poets with the historian the poet starts where the historian ends or stops and if the historian relates real events in so the point is going to question the motivation and this motivation can be cognitive can be emotional can be spirit can be whatever so here the void is going to reflect on human motivation that is we say he is in quest for the idea and according to aristotle poetry is more philosophical and a higher thing than history which expresses the particular and you can see that if plato is put in philosophy in a higher degree and art in a lower degree we see that aristotle defends uh poetry because it's more than history more than philosophy more than the particular but it moves beyond that and it gives the poet a higher status and because poetry coding expands to express the universal therefore the picture of poetry pleases all and all the times and with aristotle we we find the timelessness of art and universality that is to say puts art and artists in a higher position aristotle doesn't agree with plato in the function of poetry to make people weaker and emotional or too sentimental according to aristotle catharsis is in noble and very positive and the end according for him to of poetry is to please however if it pleases it teaches and such pleasing is superior to the other pleasure because it teaches civic morality therefore for aristotle all good literature gives pleasure that is not diverse from moral lessons so it's not directly moral teaching but we learn we know we through uh pleasure david daichi summarizes aristotle's views in reply to plato's treasures tragedy art gives new knowledge yields aesthetic satisfaction and produces a better state of mind very important positive impression about expression of art according to aristotle because it is a source of knowledge it is it has an aesthetic value and it produces a very important situation unified action also we did several incidents so closely connected that the transposal or withdrawal of any one of them will disjoin and dislocate the whole organic unity apart from these things aristotle thinks that art has disunity which gives a certain pleasure and which is a certain aim and here you can see that since we are talking about tragedy tragedy is based on five acts exposition arising action climax and foreign action and the catastrophe which lead to what you have do do you want and catharsis and so once and so on you can see that it's pointing we have stencils and the form and so on so it is unity so it is the organic unity which is meant by this and this is what gives out this unity uh according to aristotle here more philosophy uh poetry is more philosophical than history as we said we have a code here poetry is something more philosophical and of grave very important than history since his statement are of the nature rather of universals whereas those of history the particular versus this universal the poet will start from the particularity of historical events and move toward universality of the event and the poetry describes not the thing that has happened as aristotle imagine history does but thinks that what might happen thus it is a mirror of history and art is necessary conceptual and cognitive that is to say it tries to conceptualize what is there meant from starting from a historical movement into reflection on that moment and the ideas that is produced by this moment so we have had to sum up aristotle poetics you can see varying important points here very similar to art is similar to reality to the truth catharsis the emotional emotional aspect of art history difference between historian art artists philosophy it is philosophical universality unity these are some of the principles introduced by aristotle and when i mention these points especially when i say catharsis history history philosophy university you can see that probably i am introducing some of the approaches that will deal when i say qatar since i am in the psychological approach and the text can be approached psychologically a historical approach philosophical moral approach and also the a formalist approach you can see that these elements give us hints to the types of approaches that we can use in order to deal with the piece of art starting from the philosophers the greek philosophers we move to the the dark ages and the middle ages where art was in the service of the church and the condemnation of art because it is immoral and which goes with the britannical view which goes again with plato's view that art is should be censored by because it rouses the emotions after the renaissance we have sydney in his defense poetry against dependence and you can say the argument between sydney and the puritans is similar to that of aristotle and plato and after the renaissance sydney defends the poet as the maker as an enchanter so he gives idea of creator and also someone in chance bringing pleasure chilling with romantics for him art awakens and enlarges mind we have the poet as a religious leader of the word poetry is a mirror which makes beautiful that which is distorted that poetry can change something the sort into something which is beautiful samuel johnson point is the art of uniting pleasure with truth byron from again from the romantic periods poetry is the lover of the imagination whose eruption prevents an earthquake very important reflection on the power of imagination so all these from aristotle to the uh after the origins of the new class is the classicist until the romantics there is the defense of poetry and art and you all agree that poet search truth elevated art form and result pleasure with the purpose of morality a very an amalgam of objectives apart from the truth and the prayer and morality there is pleasure wordsworth man speaking to men makes the poet as a man speaking to man more like with more lively sensibility uh with college in his medical values as you know that is the power of imagination knowledge of the human soul knowledge of human nature very important reflection on the importance of art and for him poetry is the spontaneous overflow of poor feelings emotions recollected in tranquility recollection contemplation it follows the idea of the aristotle's catharsis it it is important to emotions which plato refused and doesn't like object 2. after this brief i bird view of conception of arts the meaning of art i ask question what is the nature of art is it science is it knowledge is it philosophy it is all of these and it is none of these of course literature is imaginative and probably the thing that we can do to distinguish a piece of art from a piece of non-art is aesthetic criteria and the tool of the arts and literature is language language of course is the material of literature and this language of course is different from science and everyday language when we take a piece of text and we read it we can distinguish if it is science or arts why because the language of arts and literature is different from that of science because it is quantitative metaphorical full of associations and ambiguities and also it is defended in genres lyric epic drama novel also a piece of art it is distinguished by order organization and unity so if i have to define art an age of art these are some of the elements we can take into account in order to see what's so if we distinguish ata's language in a different way what is the function of art what is functional literature of course it is difficult to decide from other fields of knowledge in art we have philosophy we have religion we have history we have sociology it is also a source of knowledge it is high it includes also the general under probable it can be the source of change which is a politically engaged and also it is changing society it can insert insight to social and political change and it is also a source of relief and gratification we have catharsis and psychological it can be just art for our sake it can be just a writer writing for the art the sake of art so it is the function of art is very large and wide and it can incorporate all of these because art is produced by the human mind in a certain time with a certain aim and that's why it can be approached from different angles and then i come to the last question here how to deal with literature and here i come to critical theory and critically here it's a provide a range of our approaches to read and study explain and analyze and examine a piece and in order to sum up these approaches i can say that critical approaches can take two general directions extrinsic intrinsic and from the adjective x you can see external that is an extrinsic approach means that they go outside literature and they borrow from other fields to criticize the text and they can go to biography that is the biography of the author and i can analyze the piece of text from the biography author and here i have the biographical approach sociology the theoretical approach philosophical approach psychological approach medical archetypal approach that is to say i go to other areas whether it is biography sociology philosophy psychology mythology and try to apply some of the premises and try to bring light into the text when i go outside the text and come back to text and here we are going to see each approach and we will see the premises upon which it is based the strategy we can adopt and the limitations that that can be said or can be dealt with while the other option which is intrinsic approach it is the focus on the text intrinsic in turn that is the focus on the text per se in itself that is to say when i say an intrinsic no need to go beyond the texts that is to say we focus only on language form imagery metaphor associations internal organization rhythm meter and here we have what you call the formalist approach and so in critical to in general critical theory is a way to deal with a piece of art maybe we're dealing with literature and there are possibilities and every approach has its strong points and it has its limitations and the next point is that we're going to see some of these approaches