CRITICISM (Fr. criticisme, from Lat. criti ens, Gk. ripmK4c, kritikos, critic, from Kpiveiv, krint-in, to judge). Criticism, as the art of ,judg ment, whether favorable or adverse, is applicable in all fields of human accomplishment, and all in ventions, all institutions, all life are. broadly speaking, within its scope. it is, however with literature and with art that criticism has most significantly busied itself, with the result that the term has come to mean the interpretative study of these greatest expressions of man's na ture. The Poetics of Aristotle has for centuries been regarded as the first important work of criticism, and the rules there laid down have maintained their value to this day. Aristotle's manner of approach was the scientific method of induction, and his understanding of the funda mental laws of human nature, his perception of those traits, emotions, and desires which, tran scending any one age. belong to the men of all ages, underlaid and formed the firm basis of his criticism. Briefly summarized. Aristotle's chief doctrines were that all art and literature should have as function the pleasure-giving representa tion or 'imitation' of what was universal—apper taining to all human nature, and not partioularly or insignificantly individual; and that great art was measured by the high and lasting pleasure it afforded to society. To study the impressive works that have stood the test of time—theBible, Homer, Vergil, Dante, Shakespeare, .11lilton, and lesser but well-loved poets—in the light of Aris totle's illuminating laws, is to discover how strik ing in its essence is the similarity in the greatest art; the sameness of man's soul, its passions and aspirations, remaining the keynote of art as it is of life.
The technical side of criticism—questions of metrical and dramatic construction and minor points of style—was approached by Aristotle, and the systematic nature of the Poetics is probably the chief reason for the reaction that has now and again set in against what is sometimes termed purely academic criticism. Yet it is just because Aristotle appreciated and showed that all artmust have laws that the student will find him so use ful: more so even than Plato, whose lightning flashes of interpretation must be ranked with the highest creative critical literature. The critical writers after Aristotle are so numerous—Greek, Byzantine, Latin—and for the most part so oc cupied with the linguistic phase of composition, that one is glad to pass swiftly by all their rhe torical treatises until there looms up in the third century the figure of Longinus, whose refreshing enthusiasm for the beauty of letters places him above the mechanical student of rules. The most important of his successors were Cicero, Horace, and Quintilian, whose observations on style have been of permanent service. From the time of Quintilian to Dante there is no great name in criticism; nor is this to be wondered at when one reflects that the media.val attitude toward lit erature was, on the whole, that of distrust and disapprobation. Dante's poetry has so overshad owed his critical treatises that there are probably many lovers of the Divine Comedy who have no conception of the interest of the master's reflec tions on poetic form and beauty, nor any knowl edge of his limitations of the subject-matter of great poetry to love, war, and virtue, or moral philosophy. Of more service than Dante's trea tises were the writings of the poets and critics of the Italian Renaissance. Through them the classical tradition was passed on to England and to the rest of Enrope; in art and literature, as in science and in politics, the Italy of the Renais sance was the great rejuvenator and originator in the realm of the intellect.
In more modern times the names of Corneille, Boileau, Voltaire, Diderot, Hugo, and Sainte Bettye in France; of Kant, Schiller. and Les sing in Germany; of Sidney, Pope, Addison, Dryden, Wordsworth, and Shelley in England, represent differing views and opinions. Boileau's Art imetique. reminiscent of Horace's Acs Poe tics, and Pope's Essuy on Criticism have their distinct value as volumes of often authoritative formal instruction furnishing useful analyses of the different kinds of verse compositions. Of far more worth is Sir Philip Sidney's Defence of Poesie (an essay richly reminiscent of the Ital ian Renaissance), wherein lie quaintly reminds us that "though the poet cometh to you with words set in delightful proportion," yet "it is not rhyming and versing that maketh a poet." Lessing's great achievement was to disperse the fog that Corneille had raised around the dra matic principles of Aristotle, and by clarifying the classic doctrines, to make possible their ap plication to all art under modern condi tions. And here, without going into any
details concerning any present-day doctrines, even though they be so interesting is the evolutionary theories with which we read ily connect the name of AI. Brunet iere, it may be well to suggest the wider paths open to criti cism through modern conditions. The (,reek and Roman critics had only their own work to study. We of to-day have the dramas, the epics, the novels of many nations and ages. The study of comparative literature. now possible, opens up opportunities for tracing those influences which affected the literatures of all Europe, and affords the student the chance of building up from vary ing yet interrelated sonrces a standard of criti cism. The differences due to national character and individual genius will teach him the limita tions of hard and fast formal rules, while his faith in the fundamental callous of great, art can only be made firmer by such comparative study. He will learn that criticism is of use as a method of judgment for the reader, rather than an inspiring guide to the poet, whose highest achievements are never the result of the rules whose vitality they attest. The critic who disre gards the universal message of great art, and, maintaining that there is no disputing concern ing taste, claims for his personal opinion as much value as can attach to any Judgment, rejects for his impressionistic mess of pot tage the birthright of many ages of culture. The subjective element of criticism is not, however, precluded by the positive laws revealed through the inductive method applied to works of art. As Lowe]] pointed out in his essay on Don Quixote, a book is great in proportion to what can be gotten from it, and many an artist has huilded better than he knew. The individual critic can be so keen and yet true in his interpre tations and so inspiring in his expression as to make his criticism itself creative literature. The qualities which are necessar to the ideal critic are, therefore, not alone knowledge of human na ture and of the characteristics of the literature which has endured; lie must himself have true power of intuition, sympathy combined with im partiality in judgment, a rational appreciation of the relative importance of form and content, the sense of beauty which will enable him to judge style. and the capacity for making others see what he sees. :Method and technique are al ways valuable, and we of America have much reason to thank Child and Ticknor and Longfel low, who introduced scholarship into mil. coun try; for we must think of criticism first of all, not as a formidable and narrowing system, but in deed as a broad view-point, oecupying the same relation to literature that literature holds to life; and as law is the condition of true liberty in life, so criticism is the bar to anarchy in lit erature. "We do not what we do not un derstand," said Goethe. The true critic, like the rhapsodist of old, can be the connecting link be tween the artist and the public, leading his ers to understand the beauty of a work, and so to possess it. The technical beauty may well be a matter of formal development, but the emotional beauty and appeal rest on the basis of the essen tial oneness of human nature. whether in the days of Athens, of Rome, of London, or of New ork.
Critieism thus understood is freed from the charges to which certain critics have exposed it. It is not, on the side of form, a narrowing method of petty rules, but a rational study of fitting construction and adequate expression: on the side of content, its most lasting dicta are opposed to the contention of those who, like Ruskin, would make art a handmaiden of moral ity. It does not restrict genius, because genius precedes it, and genius connotes the sense of form and beauty, and can but be aided by ref erence to the simple laws of formal beauty. As the art of judgment concerning the fairest flowering of the human spirit. criticism has one of the highest of judicial functions; as the art of interpretation, admitting individual intuition and inspiring teaching, it has a creative function of wide and lofty worth. Consult : Aristotle, Poetics; Horace, Ars Poetica: Names, Elements of Criticism, latest ed. (London, 1895) ; Gayley and Scott. Introduction to the Methods and Ma of Literary Criticism (Boston, 1899) ; Saintsbury, History of Criticism (London, 1900 et seq.) ; Courthope. Life in Poetry, Law in Taste (London, 19011; Woodberry, Defence of Poetry (New York, 1900).