The Nature of Criticism - Herbert Read

The Nature of Criticism

           -Herbert Read

The Nature of Criticism is an essay which talks about the inclusion of scientific elements for emotional appreciation.

There are many weapons which are used in order to criticize a work of art. It was perhaps only Coleridge who tried to give literary criticism a scientific approach by relating it to the technical process of philosophy. To evaluate literature scientifically the hard work from every corner is necessary. Any science covers a large variety of every field and it evaluates literature from that point of view in order to analyze literature aesthetically you have to consider all their implication which are social or ethical in nature. So there is need of differentiating one literature from another one.

The discipline of Psychology it is only concerned with the process of mental activity where as literary criticism takes into consideration the product. According to psychologist art is only an expression of mentality and he does not take into consideration the literary values. Whereas psycho analysis involves the reeducations of the symbols to its proper origin. In art there are many symbols and according to Alfred Alder is ‘the attraction of a work of art arises from its synthesis. These were the general limitations of psychological criticism. Moreover the relation of psycho analysis with literary criticism, it is more concern with literature than criticism.

On this basis there are three questions such as:

What general function does psychoanalysis give to literature?

How does psychoanalysis explain the process of poetic creation or inspiration?

According to Herbert Read there are three people who answers psycho-analysis is the best way they are first, Freud, Juang, and Adler. In the matter of general function of literature Juang is only one of all the three to write about in this detail as he talks about the general principle of contrasted attitude. The contrasting attitudes are none as introversion and extraversion.

Any contrasted attitude is an outcome of a specific activity which unites and separates them. This activity is according to Juang phantasy. This situation is none as antitheses as a result any work of art requires phantasy for optimum imagination. Coming to the second aspects, the social validity of a particular symbol is very important. Symbol in literature is more intelligent than the normal symbol or the normal unconscious symbol of psychology. Any creative mind is capable of psycho analysis and in any mind there are two contrary tendencies in one of them it is being conscious and in the second being imagination perhaps subconsciously.

Part- 2

The main problem of the literary criticism is the question between Romanticism and Classicism and also the complexity between Classicism and Romanticism gives birth to inspiration which he sometimes not at all conscious in nature. Moreover the idea is the activity of inspiration which is explain by modern psychologist which are combine together satisfactorily to give the poetic inspiration but it does not have any format to understand the emotional state. Any inspiration is an outcome of an effective procedure first there is thought which gets converted into an idea, it getting converted to a mental image which turns into physicality which will latter on be selected or rejected.

 The conception of inspiration is beautifully illustrated by PLATO who says that a poet creates a poetry not by art but by inspiration and possession. Through this Read wants to suggest that poetry, painting, and sculpture cannot be merely developed by skills, it also requires lot of inspiration which is very spiritual in nature. It is also believe that inspiration has not been religious at all. It has become an aesthetic turn. The Classical and the Romantic writer were totally different in their attitude but Romantic writer always had to be subjective and which required psycho-analysis to be done.

 Freud in his study said that the phantasis turn in imagination and that turns into creation which is of optimum aesthetic value and subliming in nature. The artist has the capacity to turn phantacy into positive pleasure which is extremely independent in nature. On the basis of this Freud explained the individual in three levels: ID, EGO, and SUPER EGO.

In order to become an artist or to study an artist on has to do that through psycho analysis because you may have to understand the neurotic tendency of the artist. Psycho analysis finds in art a system of symbols which represent a hidden reality and by analyzing them you can understand and testify the genuiness symbol.

Part- 3

It talks about the question that does psycho analysis modify in any way our conception of the critic function?

It is used to find out the difficult answers of questions.

For example- “Hamlet”- The case of Hamlet who hesitate in taking the revenge of his father’s murder.

According to Coleridge Hamlet was a very kind hearted person and as a result he was not capable of taking any decision. Robertson says that the play Hamlet cannot be understood from within but there are no outside materials which can give a concrete answers to give but according to Dr. Jones a psychological explanation can give this answer. Through the understand of complex none as Oedipus complex with the use of hypothesis. He can in away give answer to the reasons of his father murdered. One can apply this theory to literary criticism and discover the strange and unfamiliar tracts of the human mind. In this way psycho analysis tries to resolve to the conflict and allows us to come to a common stand point.

According to Juang there are two fundamental types- the extroverted and the introverted. One is visible and another is imaginary. Therefore the psychologies should take up the position and he must try to expand the horizons of criticism.

Understanding is an outcome of the experience which can be both individual and collective but according to Juang the mind builds up primordial images which eventually turn into some kind of myths or religions through which they find expression in literature.

Conclusion:

Therefore we can say that psycho analysis has to look into myths for actual understanding the poetic imagination and it can only we done by building a hypothesis. The mind of the psycho-analysis has to unite everything in order to criticize any particular work and to solve the problem.