58-462: William Warburton (24 December 1698 – 7 June 1779) was an English writer, literary critic and churchman, Bishop of Gloucester from 1759 until his death. He edited editions of the works of his friend Alexander Pope , and of William Shakespeare . Warburton was born on 24 December 1698 at Newark , Nottinghamshire, where his father, George Warburton was town clerk . He was educated at Oakham and Newark grammar schools , and in 1714, he
116-506: A 1743 edition of the Dunciad published under Warburton's editorship, Pope persuaded Warburton to add a fourth book, and encouraged the substitution of Colley Cibber for Theobald as the "hero" of the poem. On his death in 1744, Pope's will bequeathed half of his library to Warburton, as well as the copyright to all his printed works. Warburton would subsequently publish a full edition of Pope's writings in 1751. In 1747 his edition of Shakespeare
174-623: A child from his father's cleaver. All his relations were Dissenters , and, after attending the Royal Free Grammar School of Newcastle , and a dissenting academy in the town, he was sent in 1739 to the University of Edinburgh to study theology with a view to becoming a minister, his expenses being paid from a special fund set aside by the dissenting community for the education of their pastors. He had already contributed The Virtuoso, in imitation of Spenser 's style and stanza (1737) to
232-450: A considerable literary reputation when he came to London about the end of 1743 and offered the work to Robert Dodsley for £120. Dodsley thought the price exorbitant, and only accepted the terms after submitting the manuscript to Alexander Pope , who assured him that this was "no everyday writer". The three books of this poem appeared in January 1744. His aim, Akenside tells us in the preface,
290-548: A contributor to Dodsley's Museum, or Literary and Historical Register . He was now twenty-five years old, and began to devote himself almost exclusively to his profession. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1753. He was an acute and learned physician. He was admitted M.D. at the University of Cambridge in 1753, fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in 1754, and fourth censor in 1755. In June 1755 he read
348-525: A form of hermeneutics : knowledge via interpretation to understand the meaning of human texts and symbolic expressions – including the interpretation of texts which themselves interpret other texts. In the British and American literary establishment, the New Criticism was more or less dominant until the late 1960s. Around that time Anglo-American university literature departments began to witness
406-444: A gentleman of Cambridge (1757) from Warburton, in which his friend and biographer, Richard Hurd , had a share. In 1762 he launched a vigorous attack on Methodism under the title of The Doctrine of Grace . He also engaged in a keen controversy with Robert Lowth , later bishop of London, on the book of Job , in which Lowth brought home charges of lack of scholarship and of insolence that admitted of no denial. His last important act
464-463: A month he had completed the necessary dissertation, De ortu et incremento foetus humani , and received his diploma. Returning to England, Akenside unsuccessfully attempted to establish a practice in Northampton. In 1744, he published his Epistle to Curio , attacking William Pulteney (afterwards Earl of Bath) for having abandoned his liberal principles to become a supporter of the government, and in
522-617: A rise of a more explicitly philosophical literary theory , influenced by structuralism , then post-structuralism , and other kinds of Continental philosophy . It continued until the mid-1980s, when interest in "theory" peaked. Many later critics, though undoubtedly still influenced by theoretical work, have been comfortable simply interpreting literature rather than writing explicitly about methodology and philosophical presumptions. Today, approaches based in literary theory and continental philosophy largely coexist in university literature departments, while conventional methods, some informed by
580-471: Is a matter of some controversy. For example, The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism draws no distinction between literary theory and literary criticism, and almost always uses the terms together to describe the same concept. Some critics consider literary criticism a practical application of literary theory, because criticism always deals directly with particular literary works, while theory may be more general or abstract. Literary criticism
638-576: Is caricatured in the republican doctor of Tobias Smollett 's The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle . He was elected a member of the Medical Society of Edinburgh in 1740. His ambitions already lay outside his profession, and his gifts as a speaker made him hope one day to enter Parliament . In 1740, he printed his Ode on the Winter Solstice in a small volume of poems. In 1741, he left Edinburgh for Newcastle and began to call himself surgeon, though it
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#1733093433841696-507: Is doubtful whether he practised, and from the next year dates his lifelong friendship with Jeremiah Dyson (1722–1776). During a visit to Morpeth in 1738, Akenside had the idea for his didactic poem, The Pleasures of the Imagination , which was well received and later described as 'of great beauty in its richness of description and language', and was also subsequently translated into more than one foreign language. He had already acquired
754-580: Is often published in essay or book form. Academic literary critics teach in literature departments and publish in academic journals , and more popular critics publish their reviews in broadly circulating periodicals such as The Times Literary Supplement , The New York Times Book Review , The New York Review of Books , the London Review of Books , the Dublin Review of Books , The Nation , Bookforum , and The New Yorker . Literary criticism
812-428: Is the study, evaluation , and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory , which is the philosophical analysis of literature's goals and methods. Although the two activities are closely related, literary critics are not always, and have not always been, theorists. Whether or not literary criticism should be considered a separate field of inquiry from literary theory
870-681: Is thought to have existed as far back as the classical period. In the 4th century BC Aristotle wrote the Poetics , a typology and description of literary forms with many specific criticisms of contemporary works of art. Poetics developed for the first time the concepts of mimesis and catharsis , which are still crucial in literary studies. Plato 's attacks on poetry as imitative, secondary, and false were formative as well. The Sanskrit Natya Shastra includes literary criticism on ancient Indian literature and Sanskrit drama. Later classical and medieval criticism often focused on religious texts, and
928-521: The Alliance between Church and State (1736). The book brought Warburton into favour at court, and he probably only missed immediate preferment by the death of Queen Caroline . A series of articles defending the writings of Alexander Pope against charges of religious unorthodoxy, led to a friendship with the poet which contributed greatly to Warburton's social advancement. Pope introduced him to both William Murray , later Lord Mansfield, who obtained for him
986-685: The Gentleman's Magazine , and in 1738 A British Philippic, occasioned by the Insults of the Spaniards, and the present Preparations for War (also published separately). After one winter as a theology student, Akenside changed to medicine as his field of study. He repaid the money that had been advanced for his theological studies, and became a deist . His politics, said Dr. Samuel Johnson , were characterized by an "impetuous eagerness to subvert and confound, with very little care what shall be established," and he
1044-692: The Gulstonian lectures before the College, in September 1756 the Croonian Lectures , and in 1759 the Harveian Oration . In January 1759 he was appointed assistant physician, and two months later principal physician to Christ's Hospital, but he was charged with harsh treatment of the poorer patients, and his unsympathetic character prevented the success to which his undeniable learning and ability entitled him. At
1102-738: The New Critics , also remain active. Disagreements over the goals and methods of literary criticism, which characterized both sides taken by critics during the "rise" of theory, have declined. Some critics work largely with theoretical texts, while others read traditional literature; interest in the literary canon is still great, but many critics are also interested in nontraditional texts and women's literature , as elaborated on by certain academic journals such as Contemporary Women's Writing , while some critics influenced by cultural studies read popular texts like comic books or pulp / genre fiction . Ecocritics have drawn connections between literature and
1160-462: The history of the book is a field of interdisciplinary inquiry drawing on the methods of bibliography , cultural history , history of literature , and media theory . Principally concerned with the production, circulation, and reception of texts and their material forms, book history seeks to connect forms of textuality with their material aspects. Among the issues within the history of literature with which book history can be seen to intersect are:
1218-451: The "pestilent herd of libertine scribblers with which the island is overrun," it is no surprise that the publication of the book created many bitter enemies. Either in quest of paradox , or unable to recognise the real tendencies of Alexander Pope's Essay on Man , Warburton defended it against the Examen of Jean Pierre de Crousaz through a series of articles he contributed to The Works of
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#17330934338411276-494: The 9th century, notably by Al-Jahiz in his al-Bayan wa-'l-tabyin and al-Hayawan , and by Abdullah ibn al-Mu'tazz in his Kitab al-Badi . The literary criticism of the Renaissance developed classical ideas of unity of form and content into literary neoclassicism , proclaiming literature as central to culture, entrusting the poet and the author with preservation of a long literary tradition. The birth of Renaissance criticism
1334-459: The Enlightenment theoreticians so that the business of Enlightenment became a business with the Enlightenment. This development – particularly of emergence of entertainment literature – was addressed through an intensification of criticism. Many works of Jonathan Swift , for instance, were criticized including his book Gulliver's Travels , which one critic described as "the detestable story of
1392-465: The Learned in 1738–9. Whether Pope had really understood the tendency of his own work has always been doubtful, but there is no question that he was glad of an apologist, and that in the long run Warburton's jeu d'esprit helped Pope more than all his erudition. This led to a sincere friendship between the two men, with Pope fostering Warburton as a literary collaborator and editor. As part of this effort, in
1450-606: The Rev. Martin Stafford Smith . His works were edited in seven volumes (1788) by Richard Hurd with a biographical preface, and the correspondence between the two friends—an important contribution to the literary history of the period—was edited by Samuel Parr in 1808. Warburton's life was also written by John Selby Watson in 1863, and Mark Pattison made him the subject of an essay in 1889. Literary critic A genre of arts criticism , literary criticism or literary studies
1508-544: The Yahoos". The British Romantic movement of the early nineteenth century introduced new aesthetic ideas to literary studies, including the idea that the object of literature need not always be beautiful, noble, or perfect, but that literature itself could elevate a common subject to the level of the sublime . German Romanticism , which followed closely after the late development of German classicism , emphasized an aesthetic of fragmentation that can appear startlingly modern to
1566-507: The accession of George III both Dyson and Akenside changed their political opinions, and Akenside's conversion to Tory principles was rewarded by the appointment of physician to the queen. Dyson became secretary to the treasury, lord of the treasury, and in 1774 privy councillor and cofferer to the household. Akenside died at his house in Burlington Street , where he had lived from 1762. His friendship with Dyson puts his character in
1624-412: The alleged heresies of Conyers Middleton . The book aroused much controversy. In a pamphlet of "Remarks" (1742), he replied to John Tillard , and Remarks on Several Occasional Reflections (1744–45) was an answer to Akenside , Conyers Middleton (who had been his friend), Richard Pococke , Nicholas Mann , Richard Grey , Henry Stebbing and other critics. As he characterised his opponents in general as
1682-525: The attacks on his Divine Legation from all quarters, by a dispute with Bolingbroke respecting Pope's behaviour in the affair of Bolingbroke's Patriot King , and by a vindication in 1750 of the alleged miraculous interruption of the rebuilding of the temple of Jerusalem undertaken by Julian , in answer to Conyers Middleton . According to the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition , "Warburton's manner of dealing with opponents
1740-524: The author of the Pleasures of the Imagination —which was published anonymously—in a scathing preface to his Remarks on Several Occasional Reflections, in answer to Dr Middleton ... (1744). This was answered, nominally by Dyson, in An Epistle to the Rev. Mr Warburton , in which Akenside probably had a hand. It was in the press when he left England in 1744 to secure a medical degree at Leiden . In little more than
1798-478: The author was engaged at his death. Akenside's verse was better when it was subjected to more severe metrical rules. His odes are rarely lyrical in the strict sense, but they are dignified and often musical. By 1911 his works were little read. Edmund Gosse described him as "a sort of frozen Keats". The authoritative edition of Akenside's Poetical Works is that prepared by Robin Dix (1996). An important earlier edition
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1856-514: The author's psychology or biography, which became almost taboo subjects) or reader response : together known as Wimsatt and Beardsley's intentional fallacy and affective fallacy . This emphasis on form and precise attention to "the words themselves" has persisted, after the decline of these critical doctrines themselves. In 1957 Northrop Frye published the influential Anatomy of Criticism . In his works Frye noted that some critics tend to embrace an ideology, and to judge literary pieces on
1914-516: The basis of their adherence to such ideology. This has been a highly influential viewpoint among modern conservative thinkers. E. Michael Jones, for example, argues in his Degenerate Moderns that Stanley Fish was influenced by his own adulterous affairs to reject classic literature that condemned adultery. Jürgen Habermas , in Erkenntnis und Interesse [1968] ( Knowledge and Human Interests ), described literary critical theory in literary studies as
1972-420: The development of authorship as a profession, the formation of reading audiences, the constraints of censorship and copyright, and the economics of literary form. Akenside Mark Akenside (9 November 1721 – 23 June 1770) was an English poet and physician . Akenside was born at Newcastle upon Tyne , England , the son of a butcher. He was slightly lame all his life from a wound he received as
2030-465: The difficulties inherent in a poem dealing so largely with abstractions; but the work was well received. Thomas Gray wrote to Thomas Warton that it was "above the middling", but "often obscure and unintelligible and too much infected with the Hutchinson jargon". William Warburton took offence at a note added by Akenside to the passage in the third book dealing with ridicule. Accordingly, he attacked
2088-457: The doctrine of a future life an objection to the divine authority of the Mosaic writings . Warburton boldly admitted the fact and turned it against the adversary by maintaining that no merely human legislator would have omitted such a sanction of morality. Warburton's extraordinary power, learning and originality were acknowledged on all sides, though he excited censure and suspicion by his tenderness to
2146-406: The first full-fledged crisis in modernity of the core critical-aesthetic principles inherited from classical antiquity , such as proportion, harmony, unity, decorum , that had long governed, guaranteed, and stabilized Western thinking about artworks. Although Classicism was very far from spent as a cultural force, it was to be gradually challenged by a rival movement, namely Baroque, that favoured
2204-587: The king in 1754, prebendary of Durham in 1755, Dean of Bristol in 1757, and Bishop of Gloucester in 1759. By 1727 Warburton had written the notes he contributed to Lewis Theobald 's edition of Shakespeare , published a Critical and Philosophical Enquiry into the Causes of Miracles , and contributed anonymously to a pamphlet on the jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery , The Legal Judicature in Chancery stated (1727). This
2262-406: The more controversial criteria of the author's religious beliefs. These critical reviews were published in many magazines, newspapers, and journals. The commercialization of literature and its mass production had its downside. The emergent literary market, which was expected to educate the public and keep them away from superstition and prejudice, increasingly diverged from the idealistic control of
2320-414: The most amiable light. Writing to his friend so early as 1744, Akenside said that the intimacy had "the force of an additional conscience, of a new principle of religion", and there seems to have been no break in their affection. He left all his effects and his literary remains to Dyson, who issued an edition of his poems in 1772. This included the revised version of the Pleasures of Imagination , on which
2378-399: The natural sciences. Darwinian literary studies studies literature in the context of evolutionary influences on human nature. And postcritique has sought to develop new ways of reading and responding to literary texts that go beyond the interpretive methods of critique . Many literary critics also work in film criticism or media studies . Related to other forms of literary criticism,
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2436-539: The neighbourhood. But Akenside's arrogance and pedantry frustrated these efforts, and Dyson then took a house for him in Bloomsbury Square, making him independent of his profession by an allowance stated to have been £300 a year, but probably greater, for it is asserted that this income enabled him to "keep a chariot", and to live "incomparably well". In 1746 he wrote his much-praised "Hymn to the Naiads", and he also became
2494-630: The new direction taken in the early twentieth century. Early in the century the school of criticism known as Russian Formalism , and slightly later the New Criticism in Britain and in the United States, came to dominate the study and discussion of literature in the English-speaking world. Both schools emphasized the close reading of texts, elevating it far above generalizing discussion and speculation about either authorial intention (to say nothing of
2552-479: The next year he produced a small volume of Odes on Several Subjects , in the preface to which he lays claim to correctness and a careful study of the best models. His friend Dyson had meanwhile left the bar, and had become, by purchase, clerk to the House of Commons . Akenside had come to London and was trying to make a practice at Hampstead . Dyson took a house there, and did all he could to further his friend's interest in
2610-514: The preachership of Lincoln's Inn in 1746, and to Ralph Allen , who, in Dr Johnson 's words, "gave him his niece and his estate, and, by consequence, a bishopric." Warburton married Gertrude Tucker, in September 1745, and from that time lived at Allen's estate at Prior Park , in Gloucestershire , which he eventually inherited in 1764. He became prebendary of Gloucester in 1753, chaplain to
2668-447: The reader of English literature, and valued Witz – that is, "wit" or "humor" of a certain sort – more highly than the serious Anglophone Romanticism. The late nineteenth century brought renown to authors known more for their literary criticism than for their own literary work, such as Matthew Arnold . However important all of these aesthetic movements were as antecedents, current ideas about literary criticism derive almost entirely from
2726-416: The several long religious traditions of hermeneutics and textual exegesis have had a profound influence on the study of secular texts. This was particularly the case for the literary traditions of the three Abrahamic religions : Jewish literature , Christian literature and Islamic literature . Literary criticism was also employed in other forms of medieval Arabic literature and Arabic poetry from
2784-514: The small living of Greasley , in Nottinghamshire , exchanged next year for that of Brant Broughton in Lincolnshire. He was, in addition, rector of Firsby from 1730 until 1756, although he never lived in the village. In 1728, he was made an honorary M.A. of the University of Cambridge . At Brant Broughton for 18 years he spent his time in study, the first result of which was his treatise on
2842-608: The transgressive and the extreme, without laying claim to the unity, harmony, or decorum that supposedly distinguished both nature and its greatest imitator, namely ancient art. The key concepts of the Baroque aesthetic, such as " conceit ' ( concetto ), " wit " ( acutezza , ingegno ), and " wonder " ( meraviglia ), were not fully developed in literary theory until the publication of Emanuele Tesauro 's Il Cannocchiale aristotelico (The Aristotelian Telescope) in 1654. This seminal treatise – inspired by Giambattista Marino 's epic Adone and
2900-521: The work of the Spanish Jesuit philosopher Baltasar Gracián – developed a theory of metaphor as a universal language of images and as a supreme intellectual act, at once an artifice and an epistemologically privileged mode of access to truth. In the Enlightenment period (1700s–1800s), literary criticism became more popular. During this time literacy rates started to rise in the public; no longer
2958-413: Was "not so much to give formal precepts, or enter into the way of direct argumentation, as, by exhibiting the most engaging prospects of nature, to enlarge and harmonize the imagination, and by that means insensibly dispose the minds of men to a similar taste and habit of thinking in religion, morals and civil life". His powers fell short of this ambition; his imagination was not brilliant enough to surmount
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#17330934338413016-478: Was an answer to another anonymous pamphlet, written by Philip Yorke , later Lord Chancellor. After Alliance between Church and State , his next and best-known work, Divine Legation of Moses demonstrated on the Principles of a Religious Deist (1738–41, in two volumes), preserves his name as the author of the most daring and ingenious of theological paradoxes. The deists had made the absence of any inculcation of
3074-526: Was articled to Mr Kirke, an attorney, at East Markham . In 1719, after serving his articles he returned to Newark, where he began to practise as a solicitor, but, having studied Latin and Greek , changed his mind and was ordained deacon by the Archbishop of York in 1723. He was ordained as a priest in 1726, and in the same year began to associate with literary circles in London. Sir Robert Sutton gave Warburton
3132-523: Was both insolent and rancorous, but it did him no disservice." He continued to write for as long as the infirmities of age allowed, collecting and publishing his sermons, and attempting to complete the Divine Legation , further fragments of which were published with his posthumous Works . He wrote a defence of revealed religion in his View of Lord Bolingbroke's Philosophy (1754), and Hume 's Natural History of Religion called forth some Remarks ... by
3190-434: Was in 1498, with the recovery of classic texts, most notably, Giorgio Valla 's Latin translation of Aristotle 's Poetics . The work of Aristotle, especially Poetics , was the most important influence upon literary criticism until the late eighteenth century. Lodovico Castelvetro was one of the most influential Renaissance critics who wrote commentaries on Aristotle's Poetics in 1570. The seventeenth-century witnessed
3248-426: Was published, incorporating material from Pope's earlier edition. He had previously entrusted notes and emendations on Shakespeare to Sir Thomas Hanmer , whose unauthorised use of them led to a heated controversy. He also accused Lewis Theobald, with whom he had corresponded on Shakespearean subjects as early as 1727, of stealing his ideas, and denied his critical ability. Warburton was further kept busy by replying to
3306-407: Was reading exclusive for the wealthy or scholarly. With the rise of the literate public, the swiftness of printing and commercialization of literature, criticism arose too. Reading was no longer viewed solely as educational or as a sacred source of religion; it was a form of entertainment. Literary criticism was influenced by the values and stylistic writing, including clear, bold, precise writing and
3364-560: Was to found in 1768 the Warburtonian lecture at Lincoln's Inn, "to prove the truth of revealed religion ... from the completion of the prophecies of the Old and New Testament which relate to the Christian Church, especially to the apostasy of Papal Rome." Warburton died at Gloucester on 7 June 1779. He left no children, his only son having predeceased him. In 1781 his widow, Gertrude, married
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