Classicism: Classicism is aesthetic attitudes and principles based on culture, art and literature of

ancient Greece and Rome, and characterized by emphasis on form, simplicity, proportion, and
restrained emotion.

Characteristics of Classicism are belief in reason, civilized, modern, sophisticated, interest in urban
society, human nature, love, satire, expression of acceptance, moral truth, realism, belief in good and
evil, religion, philosophy, generic obstruction, impersonal objectivity, public themes, formal
0correctness, idea of order.

In literature, Classicism values traditional forms and structures. According to legend, the Roman poet
Virgil left orders for his masterpiece The Aeneid to be burned at his death. Virgil tried to show Roman
culture had a meaning identity. He says Roman empire comes from Troy.

Writers who are classicists imitate roman and greek works in terms of their subjects and forms. For
example, Homer’s Iliad is epic and Virgil wrote epic, too. So it is about not only subject but also
structure. Also, tragedy was written by greek writers and adopted by classicists. For example, John
Milton’s paradise lost is a imitation, like Homer’s iliad.

The theories of art developed by ancient writers and were adopted in the following centuries. Poetics
by Aristotle can be the first example of theories of art. Ars Poetica by Horace is the another one.
There are theories on language, character, decarum (choosing the appropriate speech for a single
character). They become the main ideas later on.

What is classicism about? Key words;

Nature and human nature; balance, order, mind, harmony, propertion, reason, rationality, symmetry.

All kinds of regulations, formal discipline, unities, wholeness, control.

Classical thinking; There is no emotions, it must be objective, impersonal.

Classicism is always opposite to romanticism because romanticism is about emotions, feelings,

imaginative power, personal accounts. Throught the centuries, they are opposite, they have different
ways to show literature. It was a response to neo-cla.

Classicism follow the three unities of time, place and action. Romanticism only follows the unity of
action, but does not follow the unities of time, place.

Romanticism uses simple diction of common men from their everyday life. Classicism uses strict,
rigid and logical diction and theme.

Classicists thought of the world as having a rigid and stern structure, the romanticists thought of the
world as a place to express their ideas and believes.

Romanticism emerged as a response to Classicism.

Classicism stressed on reason. Romanticism on imagination.

Ben Jonson, Alexander Pope, John Dryden, Jonothan Swift; they are all classicists.

Poetics is about epic, tragedy, comedy and dithyrambic poetry. It is a kind of lyric in honor of
Dionysus. Celebration of dionysus.

Imitation is the common thing in epic, tragedy, comedy and dithyrambic poetry. (mimesis)

3 ways to distinguish these forms of imitation;

1-Medium; is the way of mimesis. It helps to find what kind of material is being used in imitation.

Rhythm, language, melody are used in tragedy bu music uses also melody and rhythm.

2-Object; what or who is being imitated? Higher or lower? Comedy uses lower, epic and tragedy use
higher.

3-Mode; It is the manner of imitation. 2 ways; narrative or speaking with the help of characters
(dramatic). Whose voice do we hear? There are different mode in epics and tragedies.

Aristotle says versification is not a important part. It is all about mimesis. Poetry must be mimesis. If
it is not, it cannot called poem even it includes verses. A philosopher can use form of verses but it
does not make him a poet.

Gerard Genette; He makes a different between mimesis and diegesis. In mimesis, there is slow-small
telling like dialogue but in diegesis, there is narrator who summarises the story in only one sentence.

Pity and fear; comedy does not include it thats why it is not serious. Tragedy and comedy come from
improvisation. It is root of tragedy. Firstly, Aeschylus increased the number of actors into 2 and
reduces the choral parts and dialogues became center. Second, Sophocles increased the number of
actors into 3 and used the stage design. Third, the subject became more dignified, serious. Later,
iambic verse was adopted (one unstressed, one stressed). How does tragedy develop? That was the
question. Last one, the number of acts increased.

Aristotle’s definition of tragedy;

Tragedy is an imitation of actions not humans. = mimesis

Tragedy goes for better, admirable people. = object

Tragedy should not be too longer or small. = magnitude

Tragedy has pleasure in its language.

In tragedy, characters are talking. = mode

Catharsis= getting rid of unwanted emotions like pity or fear.

6 Component parts for tragedy;

Spectacle; refers to the scene in the play

Lyric poetry; refers to the songs

Diction; language of the play

Characters; heroes

Reasoning; a character must behave in an appropriate way in each situtaion

Plot; part of tragedy

The medium is about part and diction.

The mode is about spectacle.

The object is about character, plot and reasoning.

The imitation does not refer to the character but plot.

Tragedy sways emotion with the help of reversal and recognitions = reversal is about anagnorisis,
means character realizes the truth. Recognition is about peripeteia, means sudden change, reversal
of fortune, from good to the bad. A tragic hero must have tragic flaw, hamartia.

Basic concepts of plot;

Completeness; The whole is what has beginning, middle and end. The beginning does not have an
action that happened before the beginning. The middle is both what comes after something and
something after it. The end follow from something else but there is nothing else after it.

Magnitude; size of tragedy. It could not be too small or long. If it too long, it can be boring for
audience.

Unity; It is about the imitation of a single person, action, time and place.

Determinate structure; There must be single action like unity. It shows the difference tragedy and
epic. Epic has not such understanding because it is longer.

Universality; It is about possibility. Aristotle says historians says what happened but poet says what
would happen.

Defective plot; It is the part of simple plot but they are the worst one = episodic plot, there is no
peripeteia, anagnorisis and cause-effect relationships.

Mytos = plot ethos = character lexis = diction melos = song opsis = spectacle dionoia =
reasoning

Astonishment; If one wants to achive the effect of pity and fear, one must have astonishment. It
means the audience would not be able to guess what will happen. The events shoul come by
surprise.

Simple plots; There are events that linked to each other. Simple events have no peripeteia or
anagnorisis.

Complex plots; It involves peripeteia and anagnorisis. It is about one or both of them. It is a chain of
events.

Suffering or pathos; An action that includes pain.

What is the best kind of tragic plot?

It should be complex so it should include peripeteia and anagnorisis. It should include catharsis. It
should not focus on perfect character, there must be an error, hamartia. It should not have double
reversal, Aristotle refers it like “from good fortune to the bad one.”

Characteristic of a tragic hero?

Goodness; If a character is bad, there should be certain reason for it.

Appropriateness; A character must reflect his/her gender or class.

Likeness; A character must be shown like realistic by writer.

Consistency; A character must behave similarly in different situations.

What is clarity; Express something clearly.

Desis; it means complication. There is a conflict and it leads to the climax.

Lusis; it means resolution. The end of the play that complication is solved.

Difference between epic and tragedy;

Epic is longer than tragedy = magnitude.

Several events in epic, tragedy is just one = unity.

Epic is narrative, tragedy is drama = mode

Time is limited in tragedy but not in epic = unity of time

There is a limit for supernatural things in tragedy, epic has more freedom.

Similarities;

Both deal with heroes so their object is similar.

-Tragedy has melody, spectacle, plot, character, reasoning and diction. Epic has plot, character,
reasoning and diction.

Rhetanic; Persuade sb with the help of powerful speech. Aristetle’s thought is simply related to
rhetanic.

Agon; Debate betwen 2 characters in greek tragedy, a verbal conflict. Agony means mental and
physical suffering.

Trenchant; Strongly movement. These 3 all about reasoning.

Ab ovo; opposite to in medias res.

Decarum; the appropriate rendering of a character, action, speech, or scene.

ARS POETICA- THE ART OF POETRY BY HORACE;

Grotesque; Ars poetica stars with a refence to the grotesque, it means bringing non-human and
human elements.

Horace underlined simplicity and unity. He said “choose your subject all carefully, take a subject
equal to your powers, and consider at length how much your shoulders can bear.” They have to
connect together. If you write an epic, then you should talk about heores. If you write a comedy,
then you should not talk about heroes. They must be related to each other.

He talks about making arrangement; saying what needs to be said, do not involve irrelevant things.

He talks about appropriateness at style; There must be a balance about what you say and how you
say. It shows us the standarts of appropriateness.

He talks about being original. He says “either follow traditions or invent your own.” If you do not
imitate the older writer, the tradition, then you have to invent something original belongs to you.

He says you should begin with climax in your story. Also, he makes reference to the Aristotle about
mode; he says you cannot show everything on stage like Agamemnon’s death.

He talks about ages, too. You must represent what appropriate to your age.
Deus ex machina; It means Gods comes to the stage from above and solve problems quickly. Horace
says do not use this system, do not get help from an outsider, solve it within the play. Gods must be
out of machina.

Satyr plays; a play with the form of a tragedy but has a happy atmosphere

Horace aims to inform or delight. = This is the 2 ways to impressed. Delight means appeal to your
emotions.

For him, poetry must imitate real life and ancient writer and also, include living language.

He says talent and traning are important and a work must include both of them.

Renaissance and humanism

Renaissiance means rebirth, art, literature. English became the main language.

There are rules for poetic style in this era;

Classical learning; Rediscovery of classical sources, classical texts in new ways.

Wordly and materialistic; Having secular culture not pagan.

Optimism, democracy, nationalism, rise of middle class, printing press

Experimentation with forms; poems and dramas.

Sonnets; captured beauty and expressed in it sonnets.

Avant garde; It means something new. The things writers created were avant garde.

Patronage; Court became the center of it. It is a system, who close with the king or queen takes
money from king to write poetry.

Humanism;

The capacity of human being. Taking human into the centre. Humanism is an answer for “what
ronesans is.” Humanists study language and rhetoric, literature, history, ethichs. They rejected
sophisticy religion. They questioned religious text = Faith in reason. Nationality becomes significant.
They found other sources by questioning and tried to change some rules of church bu using reason.

They have 2 motto; men is the measure and humanity can reach perfection bu using reason=
rejecting determinism.

Humanity becomes the centre, there is a focus on the ancient literature, They used Latin words
because they belived if one is study in Latin and Greek, one will be a better personç ethic person.
They became more individual, there was a church which told people what to do but later, people
start to read Bible individual and religion became limited.

NEOCLASSICISM; neo means new.

It is including the idea of classicism. It is the rebirth of that interest so this is also classicism but in a
different way. There are 3 periods; restoration age, augustine age, age of Johnson.

It starts 1660s and continues till the 18th century. After, romanticism became dominating mood.

AUGUSTINE AGE; literature is reaching its peak. Originally, it refers to the reign of the roman
emporer Augustine. It is like the golden age. This period is named like this because because the style
of the writers is based on rediscovery, reinterpretation of the classical writers, they imitated roman
authors. This period is also associated with Enlightenment or age of reason, it is also called
neoclassical period.

Q; “It is wrong that assume that the term neclassicism has an essential feature that is on
oversimplification”

A; The critic believes it is not easy to make a single definition of this term but also he lists some of the
ideas and characteristics that were shaped by Dryden, Pope, Swift, Samuel Johnson.

These 5 ideas for neclassical writers;

Respect; for classical writers and this respect is associated with the sense of traditionalism. These
people believe that the excellence has been captured or reached by the classical writers, they are the
models of imitation to be imitated, imitations of ancients. This is why they are (the writers above)
called neoclassical.

Literature requires a set of skills; This is the belief of neoclassical writers. It is an art form and you
can reach perfection through studying a lot. The rules of poetry are the properties of different
genres for them, they study the ancient writers and they create their rules based on those works. If
you want to write a modern work to reach excellence, you have to take your example from ancients
ones.

Human begins are inseparable parts of social organization; men is primary subject of the literature
because poetry is an imitation of human life, art is for humanity.

The focus is on what human being have in common; Experiences, feelings, thoughts = they are all
common. It is associated with universalism.

Humanity’s position in the world is limited; limited skills, abilities, cannot achieve everything so you
have to know your limitations and you should not have pride. You should avoid from the extremes.
This is related to the ideos of hierarchy in nature. Men or humankind is not the first thing on that
hierarchy so it has limits. You must have measure. Pope says this idea a lot.

Heroic couplet; a form of writing that consists of two iambic pentameter lines rhyming together at
the end. Pentameter means a line with 5 stressed syllables anf 5 are unstressed syllables.

They write poems in different purpose. For example; In renaissance, we have sonnets dealing with
the love relationships. In the 17th century, we have metaphysical poets, they bring religion and
wordly matters.

Neoclassical poetry is always contrasted with romantic poetry. In neo, there are rules, focus on
reason, elevated language, BUT in romanticism, there are freedom in terms of form.

Romanticism; (1798) The word romantic is associated with the wild eccentric and bizarre. Mostly
applied to natural scenery.

It is the opposite of classical understanding. There are freedom, spontaneous literature. William
Blake, Taylor Coleridge, Wordsworth, Shelly, John Keats, Lord Byron are all the romantic poets.

The term itself comes from the word romance. It is originally, referring to the languages spoken in
Roman empire like French or Spanish. The romance word refers to the love, unexpected events.
Later on, in the 18th century, subjects that seemed serious were writing down using Latin.
These people did not call themselves as romantic. They were influenced from different sources. 2 of
them; French revolution and Protestant ideas which is found in the writings of John Milton.

French revoltion was carried out to destroy monarchy, the feudal system. It begins with the
revolutionary ideas but later it turns into a carnage. It influences the first romantic poets a lot
because it was in the beginnig so there a huge effect but later on some of them was disconcerted
from this movement because of the carnage.

The genre gothic is also associated with romanticism. = A story of terror and suspense usually setting
a gloomy old castle or monastery.

In USA, we have another romantic period, there are mostly prose writing but in English, we have
poetry. So, romanticism have 2 different adventures;

The common romantic aims and achievements;

In romanticism, we have innovation. In clacissicism, we have traditionalism. In romanticism, we have

the idea of poetry is not being about a mirror of men in action, it is about feelings. Romanitc poets
also emphasized the details of nature, they were in nature so they were called as nature poets.
Nature was a source of inspriation for them. While neclassical poetry are about other people,
romantic poetry are about poet himself, we can identify the protagonists with the poets.
Imagination, limitless aspiration is the most important source of creation for romantic poets, not
studying a lot like classical poets. Izolation is something that characterizes romantic poets, they
escape into nature, they are isolated, they think they meditate. The team rebellion is so common in
romantic poetry.

“Romanticism is about upper classes but Wordsworth says it must be common language and subject
that are consider low. Rules of decorum are violated.”

Romanticism was challenged by the rise of realism and naturalism.

REALISM;
It started in 19the century in France then it came to England. Writers are Balzac, Dostoyevski,
Tolstoy, Charles Dickiens.

The best medium of expression of realism is novel. Realism is in opposition to romance.

Broad range of views; the realism of each writer is different from the other

Attempt to depict life; this is the true motivation, they try to describe what is happening in real life.

Miraculous events; it means mythical and supernatural. They do not give place for it.

Larger than life character; it refers to a character with incredible abilities. They do not give place for
it, the characters must be true to life.

Supernatural intervention; There no place for supernatural things.

Social position and cultural attitude; Characters must show their social positions.

“Realism describes life as it really is but romance describes life as we would like it to be.”

In realism, the psychology of a character is important. They give us huge descriptions of the
psychological processes of characters. Everyday is describes by using everyday language. Classes
became important because of different people. Objectivity is the primary concern of realist
literature, the writer must be objective.

Factual vs. fanciful = basic dichotomy. Factual means based on or containing facts. Fanciful means
imagination.

Charles Dickens, hard times begins with “now what i want is facts...” = Dickens makes this
character like spokesperson for realism.

Determinism; A characteristic feature of 19th century realism. Realism is an extended question of

the idea of free will becaues it sees the person limited by cultural, environmental and historical
forces. This will be the starting point for naturalism. It is close to realism.

Realism and anti realism; The movement which do not take attention to reality can be called anti
realism. Magic realism brings together realism and anti realism. Magic realism means a kind of
modern fiction in which fabulous and fantastical events are included in a narrative that otherwise
maintains the realiable tone of objective realistic report. = The form is realism but the subject is anti
realism.

The reaction against realism is founded on skepticism; an attitude that shows you doubt whether
something is true or useful.

There is no outside the text = The realism aim is showing the mirror of world outside but there is an
answer for that; it says there is no outside the text = it means a novel or a text can only refer to the
fictional world it has created, it cannor refer to outside.

Some critic think; realism is associated with the 19th century’’s novel. So, the influence of realism
was to establish novel as a major literary genre. Novel became dominant form. They also list the
essential qualities of realism novel; Everyday life, clothes, forniture, food, the catalogue of people
into social types, radical discussions of the economic basis of society, accuracy, completeness.

WEAKNESSES OF REALISM;

The idea of realism can be undermined. They expressed two things to be criticized in the realistic
ideal; First weakness is, realism is obsessed with physical details and so they sound like guidebooks,
social documents, not fictional works. Second one is, realism becomes confuse about the distinctions
between art and history or sociology. The novelist is only incidentally historian but a realist acts like
he is the historian, so he forgets the idea of literature = creation of fictinal works.

All theories of realism rest on the assumption that the novel imitates reality. So, reality is more stable
and accessible but the relationship between art and reality should not be imitation only, it can be
also imaginative creation.

On realism, we have factual details; the representation of life as it really is but on fanciful side, we
have adventures, heroic activities. = it is more useful to identify realism in terms of the intended
effects on the reader. = It must give the effect that it is representing life, and the social world as it
seems to the common reader. = giving a sense that the characters might really exits. For example
robinson crusoe or kafka.

4 THEMES;

Social economic class conflict, industrialization, philosophy and morality, marriage and the family;
There are from all levels of society are included. For example;
In David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, The character talks about his poverty and there is a
reference to class conflicts. The character does not enough money he needs to use his money
carefully. He shows us the downtrodden classes. Writer is trying to show us the difference between
classes in order to evoke class consiciousness.

In Hard times by Charles Dickens; There is a description of city life because we get the sounds of
factory, crowded cities. So there is a special focus on industrialization. Diction in the book shows us
the real purpose; we have a good imagery, we can form a picture in our minds. We have a picture of
the city life and this picture can only be drawn with the materials of realistic fiction.

Dickens works are like a documentary because it shows us aspects of everyday life.

Realist novelist deal with the themes like religion, philosophy, morality.

They focus on the details of the environment.

In Oliver Twist, we have cruel conditions.

In Great Expectations by Charles Dickens; Marriage and the family is one of the center issue here. An
orphan is speaking in this book, he talks about the tombstones of his parents, he expresses the
thoughts he has while looking at the tombstones. It is a common topic for realism. There is
omniscient narrator. In realism, there is an omniscient narrator; the narrator who knows what is
happening into anyone in the story. It is not a character, he is situated about the scene of the novel.
They can access to the feelings and thoughts of the characters. The realistic writers prefer to write in
an omniscient manner, using an objective voice.

Setting is an important element of realisim, it is something cultural. It is a tool to reflect the culture;
If it is the city life, they give a lot of details to show us how the city look, it is called imagery.

In A Christmas Carol by Dickens; There is a character named Scrooge, he was an unpleasant person,
he is rich but he does not share. There is supernatural details because he is visited by 3 spirits. So,
characterization is also important for realism.

NATURALISM; It is an extreme version of realist fiction. Determinism is a part of naturalist

fiction. The ending is not happy. It stars in the 19th century. There are scientific ideas and it came out
of realism.

“The basic effort of naturalism lay in the attempt to produce a scientifically accurate depiction of
life even at the cost of representing ugliness an discord.” = Quinn says = One of Zola’s opinions =
artist must bring scientists objectivity to the depiction of his subject. Each characters’ behavior is
determined by heredity and environment. Heredity refers to ancestors. Environment refers to the
place you are grown up. According to Zola, the task of an artist is to show the roles of heredity and
environment in the lives of characters AND characters are only victims in the face of these larger
social forces.

We have Emile Zola, Stephen Crane, Frank Norris, James Farrell.

Naturalism is a harsh form of realistic fiction.

The actions of characters can only be explained by a set of conditions, not a responsible self. =
everything happen based on this.

You can explain everything with the rules of nature or with cause-effect relationships. = science is
emphasized here.
Naturalistic drama; type of drama that seeks to mirror life with the utmost fidelity.

Sense of philsophical thesis of naturalism; a human being exists enterely in the order of nature, and
does not have a soul. = Naturalist fiction approaches the character as an animal, it does not make a
distinction between human and animal. It regard humans also as animals because humans are also
guided by their instincts. So, human does not have access to spiritual world, only physical world.

Instincts, the family that a character is grown up, the class of that family = all these conditions come
together to create a personality.

The tone is objective like realistic ones. They use natural laws, consistent principles to explain
anything, and characters are more important than the plot because character is the basic part.

THEMES;

The call of the wild by Jack London; There is a dog called Buck. He is a domestic dog, but in the
course of events he found himself in a struggle for life. He learns quickly because his ancestors used
to be fighters. Heritage is coming back to him. There is concept called atavism; It is the reappearance
of some characteristics that belong to one’s ancestors and it is forgetten but after several yerar, it
reappears = heritage.

This book is about struggle for life and ancestors. This is related to theme scientific principle. = it is
used in fiction in naturalism. = There are characters who are put in different environmets and they
are used in experiments.

MODERNITY; Firstly used in 18th century

Modernizm = 1910 – 1920. It is about modern lives. People were in shocked because everthing is
changing aand it effects to literature. Modernist novelist try to show a character’s feelings.

“People are losing the ground”, “Crisis of 20th century” = main topics.

There are so much illusions of modernist text that it is hard to read and put in a complete meaning.

It is mostly about language and writing, stream of consciousness, allusioness, psychonologlysis, city
life, alienation, imagism.

POST MODERNISM; A general term for a movement that is believed to happen after the 1940s. It
is a separated movement. It is a response to modernizm. Questining of the values and ideas. There
are also experimental techniques in here. It is about the development in literature, art, music,
philosophy, it is also about all kinds of art forms. It is non-traditional so we cannot say it is using old
forms of literature. It is against authority, that is why it is associated with the anti-novel.

Eclectic approach; eclectic means choosing or using the ideas from different sources. = this is post
modernizm.

Parody; It uses it.

Pastiche; pastiche can be a combination of multiple genres to create a unique narrative.

Magic realism; It uses it

New modes in science fiction;

Neo gothic and the horror story;

This is also counter-traditional = make of use of traditional things but in a different manner. This is
both a continuation of modernism and a response.

It is taking us to the meaninglessness of existence that is why it is undermining the feeling of security
that we have. It is associated with post structuralism.

It is also a response to rational, scientific, and historical aspects of modern age.

It is concern about language and epistemology. = deconstruction; it is belogs to DERRIDA, it is about

being critical of certain things, questioning the truth, we cannot rely on language.

Critics look for contradictory meanings in the text.

Deconstruction criticism; language is not reliable tool of communication, it is fluid and ambiguous.
For example; times flies like an arrow = timr passes quickly. This sentence could also mean that time
moves in one direction not about only passing quickly. You cannot going back. = each word can have
a lot of different meanings which can contradict the first meaning. Also there is a third possibility;
you can think the first word, time, as a verb, it means measure the speed of flies. The fourth
possibility; you can also accept time flies as a specific type of flies, so this type of flies like an arrow.

“Sign = signifier + signified” = this is about structuralism, saying the language is reliable.

Binary oppositions; we understand the language is shaped based on it, aims to open the reader's
mind to see other meanings and not stick to one thing only. An example of the concept of binary
opposition is between honesty and dishonesty. One is superior. = deconstruction try to show us this
ideology.

THEMES;

Disintegration; the concepts that we assume to be true are disintegrated like languahe and truth.

Schizophrenia; In the novels, there are lots of events but no necessary as cause-effect relationship.
There is no place for unities.

Authorial intrusion; the author is speaking to the character.