Literature in General

Introduction
Literature is one of Fine Arts, like Music, Dance, Painting, Sculpture, as it is meant
to give aesthetic pleasure rather than serve any utilitarian purpose. It consists of great
books which, whatever their subject, are notable for literary form or expression. It is the
aesthetic worth alone, or aesthetic worth combined with general intellectual excellence,
which entitles a book to be considered as literature.
In the realms of poetry, drama and fiction, the greatest works are selected on the basis
of aesthetic excellence or the beauty of expression. Books dealing with other subjects, as
History, Biography, Natural Science, Religion, Politics, etc. are considered as literature
for their reputation of intellectual eminence combined with aesthetic worth in the form
of style, composition and general force of presentation. This is a general definition of
literature. When we say that a book is not literature, we generally mean that it has no
aesthetic worth; while when we call a book on history, politics, religion etc., as literature,
we mean that it has got aesthetic value. This definition excludes from literature scientific
types of writing in which the writer uses language for a logical, purely intellectual
exposition of matters of fact and generalization from facts. It also excludes utilitarian
type of writing in which the writer uses language for furthering his own or other people’s
interests in the business of earning a living.

There are two types of literature—applied literature and pure literature. The two
terms can be properly explained by studying Darwin’s The Origin of Species,and
Keats’ Ode on a Grecian Urn. The Origin of Species has certainly some literary merit in
the form of expressive power, as Darwin has communicated certain information to the
reader in an appropriate style. But in this case the expression is not so important as the
information. Darwin expressed himself for the purpose of putting his readers in
possession of a certain body of information, and thus persuading them of the cogency of
a certain line of argument. Even if the expression were clumsy, the information
nevertheless might be true and the argument reasonable. The literary quality of the book
has served a certain specific purpose, and there are two elements in the book—the merit
of Darwin’s purpose, and the merit of expressive power, which are easily
distinguishable. But these two elements cannot be distinguished in Keats’ Ode on a
Grecian Urn. It gives us no information which may be true or false and no argument
which may or may not be cogent. In this case the expression satisfies us simply by
existing as expression, and not as a means to an end. Here art does take us beyond the
domain of art. This is what is called pure literature. In applied literature we have to
ignore the purpose of the writer in order to appreciate its literary value as in the case of
Darwin’s The Origin of Species and Gibbon’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire. But in pure literature we need not exclude the author’s purpose, because here
the writer had no purpose except that the expression should exist for the mere sake of
existing itself. Ordinarily when we speak of literature, we refer to pure literature.
Expression thus is the fundamental thing in literature. But what does the author
express? It is his experience of life. Now as experience is the substance of literature,
everything that can be experienced by man in life for the sake of experience becomes the
subject-matter of literature. Thus the scope of literature is illimitable; and wherever
there is life, there is the possibility of pure experience, and so of literature. This
experience can be intellectual as well as emotional—the main criterion is that it must be
satisfying in itself, and not cater for something beyond and outside it. In applied
literature the experience of the author has to be excluded or transformed into something
pleasant, in order to enjoy it; in pure literature experience is expressed as enjoyable
merely by virtue of being expressed.
But the mere expression of experience is not enough; it has to be communicated to
the reader. Literature communicates experience. In other words, the experience which
lived in the author’s mind must live again in the reader’s mind. The writer has not
merely to give to the reader what he has experienced, or how the experience has been
taken, but he must give to the reader his own experience, and transplant it from his own
mind to the reader’s. In other words, the experience, whole and entire, must be
communicated to the reader. This is not easy to attain, as the writer’s experience is his
own—a part and parcel of his life. It is the very process of his own life, and by no
possibility can it be shared by another person. But the writer can do so by the power of
imagination. His experience may be actual or a sort of day-dreaming, but imagination
can transform it into something, as a whole, to the reader. By means of his imagination
the writer can continue the existence of his experience and communicate it to the reader
as if he has recently plucked it out of the flux of life.
In order to achieve this the writer must arouse the same imagination in his reader,
and control it in such a manner that the reader may also imitate that experience. This he
achieves by means of words which should act as symbols of his experience, so that it can
be properly represented to the reader. The writer must translate his experience in such
symbolic equivalence of language, that the symbol may be translated back again by the
reader’s imagination into a similar experience. It is here that the skill of the artist lies;
and his highest artistic power is called into play, because the medium of language at his
disposal is limited, while there is no limit to the possibility of imaginative experience.
His language must not only express his experience, but also represent the same
experience to the reader. The writer has to rely on his reader’s ability to respond to what
his language can only suggest, and for this he must have the sense of language. In fact, it
is this sense of language which distinguishes a literary artist from his fellows.

Relation of Literature to Life

There is an intimate connection between literature and life. It is, in fact, life which is
the subject matter of literature. Life provides the raw material on which literature
imposes an artistic form. Literature, as we defined in the previous section, is the
communication of the writer’s experience of life. But this connection between literature
and life is not so simple as it seems. This problem has been discussed by some of the
greatest literary critics of the world, and their conclusions have been sometimes
contradictory.
Plato, the great Greek philosopher, was the first to give a serious thought to this
problem—the relation of literature to life. In his discussions he referred mainly to
poetry, but what he said about poetry can be equally applied to literature as a whole. He
regarded poetry as a mere ‘imitation’ of life, and thus he condemned the poets. His
opposition to poetry was based on his theory of knowledge. According to him, true
reality consists in the ideas of things, of which individual objects are but reflections or
imitations. For example, when we say a black dog, a good dog, a lame dog etc., we are
comparing the dog which we actually see with the ideal dog, our idea of the dog, which is
the true, unchanging reality, while the dogs which we name as black, good, lame etc. are
mere reflections and imitations of that reality. Thus the poet, who imitates those objects
which are themselves imitations of reality, is obviously producing something, which is
still further removed from ultimate reality. Plato developed this argument first with
reference to the painter. Painting is an imitation of a specific object or group of objects,
and if it is nothing but that, if reality lies not in apprehending reality, the painter is not
doing anything particularly valuable. Just as the painter only imitates what he sees and
does not know how to make or to use what he sees (he could paint a bed, but not make
it), so the poet imitates reality without necessarily understanding it. Poetry or literature
as a whole is an imitation of imitation and thus twice removed from truth.
There is an obvious error in Plato’s reasoning. Being too much of a philosopher and
moralist, he could not see clearly the relation between literature and life. He is right
when he says that the poet produces something which is less than reality it purports to
represent, but he does not perceive that he also creates something more than reality.
This error was corrected by Plato’s pupil, Aristotle. In Poetics he undertook to examine
the nature and qualities of imaginative literature with a view to demonstrating that it is
true, and not false as Plato had shown it. He agreed with Plato that poetry is an
imitation of reality, but according to him, this imitation is the objective representation
of life in literature or, in other words, the imaginative reconstruction of life. Poetry is
thus not connected with the outside world in the simple and direct fashion supposed by
Plato. The poet first derives an inspiration from the world by the power of his
imagination; the art of poetry then imitates this imaginative inspiration in language.
The art of poetry or literature as a whole exists to give shape and substance to a certain
kind of imaginative impulse; the existence of the art implies the existence of the
impulse. Now it is just possible to imagine life exactly as it is; but the exciting thing is to
imagine life as it might be, and it is then that imagination becomes an impulse capable
of inspiring poetry. This is true even in the case of what we call realism in literature; it is
true even when the life imagined was originally an actuality of some highly exciting
nature in itself. Imagination may no more than concentrate the actuality, by dropping
out all its insignificant passages. But that will be enough to make the resultant poetry, or
literature, something different from the copy of the world which Plato’s condemnation
assumed it to be. This was Aristotle’s reply to Plato. Art or literature is not a slavish
imitation of reality twice removed from truth. Presenting as it must do individual men
or women in the trappings and circumstances of life, it does not leave them there, but
pierces to what is significant in action and character, expressing through their words
and action that is true for all human nature—the poet’s truth, the universal truth. The
poet is concerned with truth—but not the truth of the annalist, the historian, or the
photographer. The poet’s business is not to write of events that have happened, but of
what may happen, of things that are possible in the light of probability or necessity. For
this reason poetry is a more philosophical, a more serious thing than history. For whilst
history deals with the particular only—this event or that event—poetry deals with the
universal. The poet selects from life according to the principle of poetic unity and poetic
truth. He seeks to draw out what is relevant and representative, and to present it
harmoniously, in a self-contained situation. The truth with which he deals is not that
which the anatomist may lay bare on the dissecting-table, but that which a poet divines
and translates.
Aristotle, thus, met Plato’s charge that poetry is imitation of an imitation by
showing that the poet, by concerning himself with fundamental probabilities rather
with casual actualities, reaches more deeply into reality than the annalist or historian.
Sir Philip Sidney, who next took up the question of the relation of literature to life also
refuted Plato’s contention that literature is a mere imitation of an imitation. According
to him, the poet does not imitate, but creates; it is the reader who imitates what the poet
creates. Taking his material from the actual world, the poet creates an ideal world by
means of his imagination. For Sidney the ideal world of the poet is of value because it is
a better world than the real world and it is presented in such a way that the reader is
stimulated to try and imitate it in his own practice.
The problem of literature’s relation to life was next taken up by Dryden who pointed
out that imaginative literature gives us a ‘just and lively’ image of human nature by
representing its ‘passions and humours’. This point was further developed by Dr.
Johnson who expressed the view that the poet ‘holds up a mirror to nature”. According
to him, “Nothing can please many, and please long, but just representation of general
nature.” The way to please the greatest number over the longest period of time, which is
the duty of imaginative literature, is to provide accurate pictures of nature. Explaining
his view that the poet is the illuminator of human nature Dr. Johnson wrote:
“The business of the poet is to examine, not the individual, but the species… He
must exhibit in his portraits of nature such prominent and striking features as recall the
original to every mind, and must neglect the minute discriminations, which one may
have remarked and another have neglected, for those characteristics which are alike
obvious to vigilance and carelessness.
“But the knowledge of nature is only half the task of a poet; he must be acquainted
likewise with all the modes of life. His character requires that he estimates the
happiness and misery of every condition, observe the power of all the passions in all
their combinations, and trace the changes of the human mind, as they are modified by
various institutions and accidental influences of climate or custom, from the
sprightliness of fancy to the despondence of decrepitude. He must divert himself of the
prejudices of his age or country; he must consider right and wrong in their abstracted
and variable state; he must regard present laws and their opinions and rise to general
and transcendental truths, which will always, be the same. He must, therefore, content
himself with the slow progress of his name, condemn the applause of his own time, and
commit his claims to the justice of posterity. He must write as the interpretator of
nature and the legislator of mankind and consider himself as presiding over the
thoughts and manners of future generations, as being superior to time and place.”
According to Dr. Johnson, the poet must know the manners and customs of men of
all times and conditions, not because it is his duty to make vivid to the reader the
different ways in which men hove lived and behaved, but so that he is not taken in by
surface differences and is able to penetrate to the common humanity underlying there.
 Walter Pater, a critic of the later nineteenth century, who discussed the relation of
literature and life in detail, remarked in his essay on “Style”: “Just as in proportion as
the writer’s aim, consciously or unconsciously, comes to be the transcribing, not of the
world, not of mere fact, but his sense of it, he becomes an artist, his work fine art; and
good art in proportion to the truth of his presentment of that sense.”
Thus, according to Pater, the literary artist does not give us a photographic
‘imitation’ of reality, but a transcription of his vision of it. It is from reality or life from
which the artist starts, but he tries to reconstruct it when he would ‘see it steadily and
see it whole’.
Taking into consideration the views of Plato, Aristotle, Sidney, Dryden, Johnson and
Pater, we conclude that the notion that literature is not concerned with real life is
wrong. All great pieces of literature are ‘true to life’. But the literary artist is not content
to ‘hold the mirror upto nature’, because his business, as Matthew Arnold has pointed
out, is a ‘criticism, of life’. He concentrates on those characteristics and aspects of life
which are permanent, but which might easily pass unobserved. He clutches at anything
which promises some permanence among what is always fleeting. That is why he gives
us a picture of reality which is more characteristic of life than anything which we
discover by our own day-to-day observation. The images which we are creating by our
own observation of life at every moment of our working experience are hazy, half-
finished and unrelated. It is the literary artist who finishes them, makes them clear and
puts them in their wider setting, and to that extent makes life less obscure, because he
knows more about life than anyone can know without regarding life with his eyes.

The Functions of Literature

Critics have been discussing from very early times about the function or functions of
literature. Though they differ among themselves regarding the other functions of
literature, they are all agreed on one point—that the main function of literature is to
entertain the readers, or, in other words, to give them pleasure. Longinus was the first
critic to lay down his thesis that loftiness or sublimity in literature has its end-ecstasy,
transport, ‘lifting out of onself”.

The value of a work of literature can be assessed, according to Longinus, by

introspection on the part of the reader or hearer: if he is carried away, transported,
moved to ecstasy by the grandeur and passion of the work, then the work is good. The
Greek word which it has become traditional to translate as sublime in English means
literally height or elevation, and Longinus, in his essay On The Sublime,refers to those
qualities in a work of literature which instantaneously create in the reader a sense of
being carried to new heights of passionate experience; sublimity is the greatest of all
literary virtues, the one which makes a work, whatever its minor defects, truly
impressive. The ultimate function of literature, and its ultimate justification, is to be
sublime, and to have on its readers the effect of ecstasy or transport that sublimity has.
The sublime effect of literature, for Longinus, is attained not by argument, but by
revelation, or illumination. Its appeal is not through the reason, but what we should call
imagination. Its effect upon the mind is immediate, like a flash of lightning upon the
eye.

Sidney voiced the opinion of Longinus when he said that the chief function of
literature is to “move” “I never heard the old song of Percy and Douglas,” he declared,
“that I found not my heart moved more than with a trumpet”. Dryden was the next critic
who cleared away the ancient stumbling block of criticism—the doctrine that the aim of
the writer is to instruct or “make men better in some respect”. He asserted that the aim
of the writer is, not to teach, but to please, and he distinguished between literature
which is art and literature which is didactic. Instruction may result from the reading of
poetry, but it is not the end: for ‘poesy only instructs as it delights”. Referring to the
function of literature to delight and to move, De Quincey made the distinction between
the literature of knowledge, and the literature of power—“The function of the first is to
teach” the function of the second is to move.”
Besides giving pleasure or entertaining or moving the readers, literature is supposed
to have other functions as well. One important function is to heighten the awareness of
the reader to certain aspects of life. The dramatic poetry of the Greeks, the works of
Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides were created for festival and ceremonial occasions.
They reminded the great concourse of Athenian citizens of the traditional gods and
heroes of history. They were a civic drama expressive of the place and power of the
Greek City States and suggested that past history and the powers above them were with
them. In the original sense of the word they were ‘political’. The outcome was to
heighten the awareness of the Greek citizen to what were then regarded as significant
aspects of Greek city life. Again, if we look at the ballad writers and singers at a later
date, we see that in their own way and in their own times, in traditional fashion, each
celebrated events of social significance or the so-called ‘heroic’ exploits. They brought
news, recounted history, and reconstructed the past of which they had learnt by word of
mouth passed on from generation to generation. Their original purpose was to entertain
and to receive payment for it; but seen in retrospect their effect, their function was then
regarded as significant and of importance. The same is the case with all great works of
literature; they make us aware of the various aspects of life which lay hidden from us.
After readingHamlet, Macbeth, King Lear we begin to understand more about life and
its intricate problems than we could do before.
Thus the main functions of literature are to entertain and give pleasure to the
reader, and to heighten his awareness of certain aspects of life. Besides these two
primary functions, literature also performs three subsidiary functions—‘propaganda,’
‘release’ and ‘escape.’ Propaganda literature’ must be distinguished from mere
propaganda in which there is nothing creative. The writer of mere propaganda is simply
concerned to popularize facts, ideas, and emotions with which he is familiar. But
propaganda that is literature is a creative influence irradiating and transforming the
writer’s experience. The idea to be propagated is still alive and growing in his mind. It is
this living and growing idea which the artist communicates to his reader and thereby
transforms his whole attitude to life. He can do so by the direct method of exposition
and exhortation, as Ruskin did, or the indirect method of fiction like Dickens’.
 ‘Release literature’ is that in which the dominant motive of the writer is simply the
assuagement of starved needs, the release of pent-up forces in the personality.
Romances, detective stories, thrillers, poems etc. which are written with such originality
of perception and expression that they have a quickening effect on the reader, belong to
this category. Literature of the higher sort which is dominated by ‘release’ may be
wholesome for the writer and the reader, as it effects purgation or purification.
Literature also provides ‘escape’ from the grim realities of life, and many people
read to escape boredom. The higher type of literature helps the reader to escape from
trivial reality into significant reality.
To sum up, the primary functions of literature are to delight the reader, and
heighten his awareness of life. The subsidiary functions are ‘propaganda’, ‘release’ and
‘escape’; but they are subordinated to the primary creative functions of literature.

Literature and Society

Literature is intimately related to society. Viewed as a whole, a body of literature is
part of the entire culture of a people. The characteristic qualities that distinguish the
literature of one group from that of another, derive from the characteristic qualities of
that group. Its themes and problems emerge from group activities and group situations,
and its significance lies in the extent to which it expresses and enriches the totality of
culture. It is an integral part of entire culture, tied by a tissue of connections with every
other element in the culture.
Society influences literature in many ways, and the connections of literature with
society are integral and pervasive. In fact, the range for social influences on literature is
as broad as the entire range of operative social forces: the prevailing system of social
organization—including the class structure, the economic system, the political
organization and the deeply rooted institutions; the dominant ideas; the characteristic
emotional tone; the sense of the past and then pattern of the contemporary realities.
There is nothing in the compass of social life that does not play its part—small or large,
directly or by deflection, giving literature the impress of its surroundings.
The relation between literature and society is highly complex, and it is very difficult
to determine which element of society has exerted what influence on literature. We
cannot, therefore, afford to isolate a single element in society—whether economic or
ideological—and assign to it a causal role in the final determination of literature. The
whole of the social process—including material, conceptual, emotional and institutional
elements—may be regarded as containing the potential influences determining the
direction and character of literature of a period. In each period in the history of a nation,
a certain social situation is brought into the area of operative influence, which is
different from any other social situation. The writer of that period selects those elements
of that social situation which have managed to produce an impact on him, and weaves
them into a pattern which is compatible with his own standards of art and his view of
human life.
 A very fine example of the effect of social conditions on the literature of the period is
provided by the literature of Shakespeare’s time. The thing that strikes every reader to-
day, is the difference between the vivid Elizabethan drama—which, in its best examples,
stands still as nobly as on its first day, speaking directly to us, and appearing
imperishable on account of its psychological vitality and true representation of life—and
the poetic literature, or the narrative literature, of the same period, which in spite of the
poetic talent it reveals, seems to us centuries older, because it lives in a world of ideas
that no longer has anything in common with our own. The main reason for this is that
the determining sociological factors differ in two cases. Pure literature was dominated at
the time by the social group of the aristocracy. Any one who wished to get his works
printed had to seek the patronage of a great lord; anyone who wished to secure any
return from the printing secured it only in the form of the gracious presents made in
return for enthusiastic and fulsome dedications. The poets of that epoch largely
obtained their sustenance in their patron’s castles, where they did not occupy a place of
honour, and were considered among the servants.
Thus Spenser, the greatest poet of that age, says of his greatest work, The Faery
Queene, that its aim is “to fashion a gentleman or noble person in virtuous and gentle
discipline”. The didactic tendency aimed at by him has only an aristocratic world in
view. Quite different was the position of the theatre in that period. The Elizabethan
playwright was no longer dependent on the benevolence of a single patron. It is true that
the various companies of actors described themselves as in the service of great
aristocrats, but this was no more than a formality rendered necessary by certain
provisions of law.
The influence on literature of the social power of the aristocratic group, restricted to
some extent only in the theatre, continued plainly in English literature down to the
eighteenth century. Only then did a real reading public develop on a wider scale. In
place of patron came the publisher, who for a long time used to fleece the writer. It was
only in the nineteenth century that the writer could liberate himself from the oppressive
and humiliating dependence on the great, and win for him the dignity of independence.
Thus we see that the sociological conditions exert a great influence on the writer.
But the writer is not only influenced by society: he influences it also. Literature not
merely reproduces life, but also shapes it. People may model their lives upon the pattern
of fictional heroes and heroines. They have made love, committed crimes and suicide
according to great books like Goethe’s Sorrows of Werther and Dumas’ The Three
Musketeers. Addison, by means of his satirical writings, changed, to some extent, the
manners of his society; and Dickens’ novels incited reforms of debtor’s prisons, boys’
schools, and poor houses.
Literature is a social activity. Every civilised society has its literature. Greek society
and Roman society left their distinctive imprint upon their literatures. Their pattern of
literary development was interwoven with the fabric of their societies. It was born with
them, reached its greatest height with them, and faded out with them on their collapse.
When we study the modern writers, we find that it is correct that they are expressing
their own individual awareness to life through their work, and that naturally they are
applying their special technique to those things that seem vital to them. All this is the
case, but it is also true that they are producing a social document. They are not only
bringing to light the ideas, feelings, emotions and judgments of human beings they
describe, including themselves, but they are also exhibiting for future readers what
writers regarded as of vital importance in their own day.

Literature and Morality

There are two schools of thought holding opposite views about Literature or Art in
general. The view of the moralists, philosophers and Puritans is that the writer does, and
inevitably does, influence the lives and character of his readers; and therefore he should
try to be a good influence. The view of aesthetes, who believe in the theory of Art for
Art’s sake, is that, on the contrary, the writer cannot influence his readers; or,
alternatively, that he can, but must never try. For them literature is wine. Only its
pleasure-value matters.

The theory of Art for Art’s sake came into prominence in the nineteenth century
in France. Its important champion was Gautier who believed that Art is not merely
amoral, but anti-moral. Flaubert, a great novelist of France, who also believed in this
theory, remarked: “No great poet has ever drawn conclusions”. Baudelaire, another
great writer, pronounced: “Poetry has no end beyond itself. If a poet has followed a
moral end, he has diminished his poetic force and the result is most likely to be bad.”
In England the theory of Art for Art’s sake did not move so fast or so far as inFrance,
though it went quite far enough. It was started by Swinburne, but the most important
figure was Walter Pater, who could claim to be the major prophet of English
Aestheticism. In his Studies in the History of the Renaissance, he made a significant
remark: “Every moment some form grows perfect in hand or face; some tone on the hills
or the sea is choicer than the rest; some mood of passion or insight or intellectual
excitement is irresistibly real and attractive for us—for that moment only. Not the fruit
of experience, but experience itself is the end”. Pater’s heir was Oscar Wilde, who went a
good deal further. He remarked: “There is no such thing as a moral or immoral book.
Books are well written or badly written; that is all;” “No artist has ethical sympathies. An
ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism;” “All art is quite useless.”
On the other hand, the protagonists of the theory that Literature or Art has a moral
purpose are of a far larger number than those who believe in the Art for Art’s sake
theory, and in fact it is the former who at present hold the field. Plato and Aristotle both
lay emphasis on the moral value of literature. Sir Philip Sidney in his Apologie for
Poetrie argued that the value of creative literature lies in the fact that by adding
emotional appeal to the finer human qualities, it can do more to make men finer than
the philosophers can. Spenser wrote The Faery Queene in order to “fashion a gentleman
or noble person in virtuous and gentle discipline”. Miltonwrote Paradise Lost with a
view to “justifying the ways of God to man”. Dryden, a great poet and critic, expressed
his view of the moral value of literature. He remarked: “Delight is the chief, if not the
only end of poesy…The first rule for heroic or dramatic poet is to lay down to himself
what that precept of morality shall be which he would insinuate into the people.”
 Dr. Johnson seems to fluctuate in his view about the moral value of literature. From
Shakespeare, he thought, one might collect ‘a system of civil and economical prudence”,
and yet, he feels, Shakespeare “seems to write without any moral purpose”. But one
sentence of Johnson summarises the truth admirably: “The only end of writing is to
enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.” Endurance, of course,
involves qualities of characters.
In the Romantic period Shelley remarked: “Shakespeare, Dante, and Milton are
philosophers of the loftiest power”. Wordsworth emphasised the didactic element in
literature when he remarked: “I am nothing if not a teacher”. Keats also, who was a
worshipper of Beauty, wrote in Sleep and Poetry, that the great end of poesy is
that it should be a friend
To soothe the cares and lift the thoughts of men.
And in Hyperion he said that only those can be true poets “to whom the miseries of
the world are miseries, and will not let them rest”.
In the Victorian period Matthew Arnold made a slight concession to the ethical
demands of his age by defining poetry as the “criticism of life”; but Ruskin was the most
emphatic in his view of the moral value of Art and Literature. According to him Art in
the higher sense is supremely useful, in that it enables man to fulfill his real function,
which is to be “the witness of the glory of God and to advance that glory by his
reasonable obedience and resultant happiness.”
Another great writer of the nineteenth century who laid great stress on the moral
aspect of Art and Literature was Tolstoy. According to him Art is “a means of union
among men, joining them together in the same feeling, and indispensable for the life
and progress towards well-being of individuals and humanity”. Some twentieth century
writers have followed Tolstoy’s views in a milder form. H. G. Wells remarked that the
writer should class himself “not with the artists, but with the teachers, the priests, and
the prophets”.

Bernard Shaw remarked: “Art for Art’s sake means merely success for Money’s
sake…Good art is never produced for its own sake. It is too difficult to be worth the
effort.” Mr. Somerset Maugham is another modern writer who belongs to this group. He
remarked: “The value of art is not in beauty, but in good action…Little as I like the
deduction, I cannot but accept it; and this is that the work of art must be judged by its
fruits, and if these are not good, it is valueless.”

If we look at this problem dispassionately, and weigh the arguments on both sides,
we find that there is an element of exaggeration on both sides. The main purpose of
literature, as we have already pointed out, is to give aesthetic pleasure, but it is wrong to
say that literature should be amoral or anti-moral. On the other hand, the business of
the literary artist is not to teach, but to exhibit. “Life ought to be like that,” says the
moralist. “Life looks like that”, says the artist. Having had his intuition and being
satisfied with that, the artist has no other duty except that of expressing it as perfectly as
he can and communicating it to others. But we admit that moral considerations cannot
fail to enter into the subject-matter of every artist who is handling life and character. A
moral issue may characterise the theme which has been chosen—as it does in Hamlet,
in Macbeth, and in most of the great tragedies of the world. Characters will often be
lovable or the reverse according to the manner in which their moral attributes have been
sympathetically treated. Morality being one of the principal issues in life belongs to the
very fibre and texture of all literature. It cannot be otherwise, for life is its subject-
matter.

Literature and the Writers’ Personality

Every work of literature is intimately connected with the personality of the author
who produces it. There is always a man behind a book, and the judging of the quality of
literature becomes vital to us if we try to think of the author not as a mysterious
disembodied force but rather as a man who wrote to satisfy needs and to resolve
difficulties which are common to us. Literature does not grow by spontaneous
combustion; it is the product of men and women who wrote it out of their lives. They
were real persons of flesh and blood who loved and worked and agonized as men have
done in all ages.
Expressing the view that every book is a reflection of the personality of the author,
Matthew Arnold wrote: “What is really precious and inspiring in all that we get from
literature, except the sense of an immediate contact with genius itself? Objects could
never be described except for the purpose of describing the feelings which they arouse in
us, for language ought to represent at the same moment the thing and the author, the
subject and the thought. Everything that we say ought to be dyed with us. This process is
a long one, but it immortalizes us. For language is formed to convey not the object alone,
but likewise the character, mood and intentions of the person who is representing it.”
Goethe has also expressed at many places in his writings the danger of forsaking the
inner light, of relying on something external, something which is not the language of the
heart’s experience, the danger, or rather the impossibility, of severing expression from
personality. Thus he remarked: “The style of a writer is a true impression of his inner
self: If any one could write a clear style, let him first have clearness in his soul, and if
anyone would write a great style, let him see to it that he has a great character.” And
again, “It is the personal character of the writer that brings his meaning before his
readers, not the artifices of his talent.” And in another passage he says: “The artist must
work from within outwards, seeing that, make what contortions he will, he can only
bring to light his own individuality…Only in this way is it possible to be original.”
Expressing the same view that in every great work of literature there must be fidelity
to the personal vision of the artist, Pater wrote in his Essay on Style: “Truth—there can
be no merit, no craft at all without that. And further, all Beauty is in the long run
only fineness of truth, and what we call expression, the finer accommodation of truth to
that vision within.” And again, “To give the phrase, the sentence, the structural member,
the entire composition song or essay, a similar unit with the subject and with itself—
style is in the right way when it tends towards that. All depends on the original unity, the
vital wholeness and identity, of the initiatory apprehension or view.”
 What Matthew Arnold, Goethe and Pater have expressed may be called the personal
or subjective view of literature, which lays emphasis on the personal factor in all
literature. But there are some critics who hold the opposite view—the impersonal or
objective view about literature i.e., the personality of the author should have nothing to
do with his writings; the author who like Shakespeare expresses the personality of
others is greater than the one like Byron who projects his own personality in his
writings. Flaubert, the great champion of this view, wrote in one of his letters: “There
are two kinds of poets. The greatest, the rare ones, the true masters, sum up humanity:
they are not preoccupied with themselves or their own passions, they put their own
personality into the background in order to absorb themselves in the personalities of
others; they reproduce the universe, which is reflected in their works with all its glitter
and variety and multiplicity…There are others who have only to create, and they achieve
harmony; to weep, and they move us; to think about themselves, and they are immortal.
Possibly if they were to do anything else they might not go quite so far; but while they
lack breadth, they have ardour and dash: in short, if they had been born with a different
temperament probably they would not have had genius at all. Byron was of this family,
Shakespeare of other: who can tell me what Shakespeare loved, betrayed, or felt.”
There is no doubt that Shakespeare hides his personality in his plays, but what
about his Sonnets which are by universal admission among the most intimate of
personal utterances? If we look at this problem of the relation of the personality of the
author to his works, we come to the conclusion that ultimately they must bear the
impress of his personality in some form or the other. Though Milton wroteParadise
Lost with the purpose of subduing to the strict form of Epic, all things in heaven and
earth and hell, he could not rule out his own personality out of it. In fact it becomes a
reflection of his own personality. We find in this great poem Milton as Man, Milton
as Archangel, Milton as God—but the most characteristic voice of all is that of Milton as
Satan, truly a double personality.
‘Is this the region, this the soil, the clime’,
Said then the lost Archangel, ‘this the seat
That we must change for Heaven? This mournful gloom
For that celestial light?
Farewell, happy fields
Where joy forever dwells: hail horrors, hail
Infernal world, and thou profoundest Hell,
Receive thy new possessor; one who brings
A mind not to be changed by place or time.
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.’
Romanticism and Classicism
There are two distinctive tendencies in the history of literature—Classic and
Romantic. At some period in the history of Literature one tendency dominates, and then
it is followed by the predominance of the other tendency, and in this manner they
appear alternately, one following the other. In the history of English literature, the
Elizabethan period may be called the first Romantic period, dominated by Marlowe,
Shakespeare, Spenser and others. It was followed by the Classical period in the
eighteenth century whose important literary figures were Dryden, Pope, Addison, Swift
and Dr. Johnson.
The later part of the eighteenth century and the early part of the nineteenth century,
whose prominent poets were Wordsworth, Coleridge, Scott, Byron, Shelley, Keats, was
dominated by the romantic tendency, and hence it is called the Romantic period. During
the Victorian period in English the romantic tendency continued to dominate literature,
but the twentieth century literature shows signs of the Classical tendency.

The distinctive symptoms of Classicism are: belief in reason: emphasis on the

civilized, modern and sophisticated modes of life; interest in urban society;
preoccupation with human nature; love for mundane actuality; satirical tendency;
expression of accepted moral truth; realistic recognition of things as they are; belief in
good and evil; acceptance of established religious and philosophic creeds; attachment to
normal, generic abstraction; impersonal objectivity; interest in public themes; emphasis
on formal correctness, and the ideal of order; popularity of poetry of prose statement;
use of formal poetic diction; self—conscious traditionalism; and rational sobriety of
Latin literature. On the other hand, the symptoms of Romanticism are: belief in
feelings, imagination and intuition; emphasis on the primitive, medieval and natural
modes of life; interest in rural solitude; pre-occupation with the aesthetic and spiritual
values of external nature; love for visions of the mysterious, the ideal and the infinite;
tendency of myth-making; discovery of the beauty that is truth; faith in progress; belief
in man and goodness and individual speculation and revelation; attachment to concrete
particulars; subjectivism; interest in private themes; emphasis on individual
expressiveness, and the ideal of intensity, popularity of image and symbol: use of
common language; self-conscious originality and romantic Hellenism.
But the terms Classical and Romantic are not so strictly opposed to each other as
has been pointed out; in fact, one grows out of the other and they overlap each other. In
reality both the tendencies are present in great works of literature, though in varying
proportions. In this connection Pater has observed in his book. Appreciations: “The
words, classical and romantic, although like many other critical expressions, sometimes
abused by those who have understood them too vaguely or too absolutely, yet define two
real tendencies in the history of art and literature. Used in an exaggerated sense, to
express a greater opposition between these tendencies than really exists, they have at
times tended to divide people of taste into opposite camps. The terms classical, fixed as
it is, to a well-defined literature is clear indeed; but then it has often been used in a hard,
and merely scholastic sense, by the praisers of what is old and accustomed, at the
expense of what is new, by critics who would never have discovered for themselves the
charm of any work, whether new or old, who value what is old, in art or literature, for its
accessories, and chiefly for the conventional authority that has gathered about it.
“And as the term classical has been used in a too absolute, and therefore, in a
misleading sense, so the term romantic has been used much too vaguely, in various
accidental senses. The sense in which Scott is called a romantic writer is chiefly this:
that in opposition to the literary tradition of the eighteenth century, he loved strange
adventure, and sought it in the Middle Ages…But the romantic spirit, is, in reality, ever
present, an enduring principle, in the artistic temperament; and the qualities of thought
and style which, that and other similar uses of the word romantic really indicate, are
indeed but symptoms of a very continuous and widely working influence…
“The charm of what is classical, in art or literature, is that of a well-known tale, to
which we can, nevertheless listen over and over again, because it is told so well. To the
absolute beauty of its artistic form, is added the accidental, tranquil charm of
familiarity…It is character in art; and the desire of beauty being a fixed element in every
artistic organization, it is the addition of curiosity to the desire of beauty, that
constitutes the romantic temper…The essential elements, then, of the romantic spirit are
curiosity and the love of beauty; and it is only as an illustration of these qualities that it
seeks the Middle Ages; because, in the overcharged atmosphere of Middle Ages, there
are unworked sources of romantic effect, to be won, by strong imagination, out of things
unlikely and remote…
“But however false these two tendencies may be opposed by critics, or exaggerated by
artists themselves, they are tendencies really at work at all times in art, moulding it,
with the balance sometimes a little on one side, sometimes a little on the other,
generating, respectively as the balance inclines on this side or that, two principles, two
traditions in art and literature.”
Classical and Romantic tendencies, when carried to the extreme do much damage to
genuine literature. The former degenerates into rigid formalism and slavish obedience
to rules, which suppress and undermine all initiative and originality of the writer, as was
the case during the eighteenth century in England. The latter turns itself into license,
extravagance and lack of restraint, which lead to chaos, as it happened in the later
phases of Elizabethan romanticism. The best type of literature combines in equal
proportion both the Classical and Romantic elements. In it we find strength exercised
with restraint, disciplined imagination, perfect harmony, originality in conformity with
the highest standard of literary excellence and, above all, ‘nothing too much’. Great
writers like Chaucer, Milton, Shakespeare, exhibit in their work both the tendencies
harmoniously blended.

The Restoration Period (1660-1700)

After the Restoration in 1660, when Charles II came to the throne, there was a
complete repudiation of the Puritan ideals and way of living. In English literature the
period from 1660 to 1700 is called the period of Restoration, because monarchy was
restored in England, and Charles II, the son of Charles I who had been defeated and
beheaded, came back to England from his exile in France and became the King.
It is called the Age of Dryden, because Dryden was the dominating and most
representative literary figure of the Age. As the Puritans who were previously controlling
the country, and were supervising her literary and moral and social standards, were
finally defeated, a reaction was launched against whatever they held sacred. All
restraints and discipline were thrown to the winds, and a wave of licentiousness and
frivolity swept the country. Charles II and his followers who had enjoyed a gay life
in France during their exile, did their best to introduce that type of foppery and
looseness in England also. They renounced old ideals and demanded that English poetry
and drama should follow the style to which they had become accustomed in the gaiety
of Paris. Instead of having Shakespeare and the Elizabethans as their models, the poets
and dramatists of the Restoration period began to imitate French writers and especially
their vices.

The result was that the old Elizabethan spirit with its patriotism, its love of
adventure and romance, its creative vigour, and the Puritan spirit with its moral
discipline and love of liberty, became things of the past. For a time in poetry, drama and
prose nothing was produced which could compare satisfactorily with the great
achievements of the Elizabethans, of Milton, and even of minor writers of the Puritan
age. But then the writers of the period began to evolve something that was characteristic
of the times and they made two important contributions to English literature in the form
of realism and a tendency to preciseness.
In the beginning realism took an ugly shape, because the writers painted the real
pictures of the corrupt society and court. They were more concerned with vices rather
than with virtues. The result was a coarse and inferior type of literature. Later this
tendency to realism became more wholesome, and the writers tried to portray
realistically human life as they found it—its good as well as bad side, its internal as well
as external shape.
The tendency to preciseness which ultimately became the chief characteristic of the
Restoration period, made a lasting contribution to English literature. It emphasised
directness and simplicity of expression, and counteracted the tendency of exaggeration
and extravagance which was encouraged during the Elizabethan and the Puritan ages.
Instead of using grandiloquent phrases, involved sentences full of Latin quotations and
classical allusions, the Restoration writers, under the influence of French writers, gave
emphasis to reasoning rather than romantic fancy, and evolved an exact, precise way of
writing, consisting of short, clear-cut sentences without any unnecessary word. The
Royal Society, which was established during this period enjoined on all its members to
use ‘a close, naked, natural way of speaking and writing, as near the mathematical
plainness as they can”. Dryden accepted this rule for his prose, and for his poetry
adopted the easiest type of verse-form—the heroic couplet. Under his guidance, the
English writers evolved a style—precise, formal and elegant—which is called the classical
style, and which dominated English literature for more than a century.
(a) Restoration Poetry
John Dryden (1631-1700). The Restoration poetry was mostly satirical, realistic and
written in the heroic couplet, of which Dryden was the supreme master. He was the
dominating figure of the Restoration period, and he made his mark in the fields of
poetry, drama and prose. In the field of poetry he was, in fact, the only poet worth
mentioning. In his youth he came under the influence of Cowley, and his early poetry
has the characteristic conceits and exaggerations of the metaphysical school. But in his
later years he emancipated himself from the false taste and artificial style of the
metaphysical writers, and wrote in a clear and forceful style which laid the foundation of
the classical school of poetry in England.
The poetry of Dryden can be conveniently divided under three heads—Political
Satires, Doctrinal Poems and The Fables. Of his political satires, Absolem and
Achitophel and The Medal are well-known. In Absolem and Achitophel, which is one of
the greatest political satires in the English language, Dryden defended the King against
the Earl of Shaftesbury who is represented as Achitophel. It contains powerful character
studies of Shaftesbury and of the Duke of Buckingham who is represented as Zimri. The
Medal is another satirical poem full of invective against Shaftesbury and MacFlecknoe.
It also contains a scathing personal attack on Thomas Shadwell who was once a friend of
Dryden.
The two great doctrinal poems of Dryden are Religio Laici and The Hind and the
Panther. These poems are neither religious nor devotional, but theological and
controversial. The first was written when Dryden was a Protestant, and it defends the
Anglican Church. The second written when Dryden had become a Catholic, vehemently
defends Catholicism. They, therefore, show Dryden’s power and skill of defending any
position he took up, and his mastery in presenting an argument in verse.
The Fables, which were written during the last years of Dryden’s life, show no
decrease in his poetic power. Written in the form of a narrative, they entitle Dryden to
rank among the best story-tellers in verse in England. The Palamon and Arcite,which is
based on Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale, gives us an opportunity of comparing the method and
art of a fourteenth century poet with one belonging to the seventeenth century. Of the
many miscellaneous poems of Dryden, Annus Mirabilis is a fine example of his
sustained narrative power. His Alexander’s Feast is one of the best odes in the English
language.
The poetry of Dryden possess all the characteristics of the Restoration period and is
therefore thoroughly representative of that age. It does not have the poetic glow, the
spiritual fervour, the moral loftiness and philosophical depth which were sadly lacking
in the Restoration period. But it has the formalism, the intellectual precision, the
argumentative skill and realism which were the main characteristics of that age. Though
Dryden does not reach great poetic heights, yet here and there he gives us passages of
wonderful strength and eloquence. His reputation lies in his being great as a satirist and
reasoner in verse. In fact in these two capacities he is still the greatest master in English
literature. Dryden’s greatest contribution to English poetry was his skilful use of the
heroic couplet, which became the accepted measure of serious English poetry for many
years.
(b) Restoration Drama
In 1642 the theatres were closed by the authority of the parliament which was
dominated by Puritans and so no good plays were written from 1642 till the Restoration
(coming back of monarchy in England with the accession of Charles II to the throne) in
1660 when the theatres were re-opened. The drama in Englandafter 1660, called the
Restoration drama, showed entirely new trends on account of the long break with the
past. Moreover, it was greatly affected by the spirit of the new age which was deficient in
poetic feeling, imagination and emotional approach to life, but laid emphasis on prose
as the medium of expression, and intellectual, realistic and critical approach to life and
its problems. As the common people still under the influence of Puritanism had no love
for the theatres, the dramatists had to cater to the taste of the aristocratic class which
was highly fashionable, frivolous, cynical and sophisticated. The result was that unlike
the Elizabethan drama which had a mass appeal, had its roots in the life of the common
people and could be legitimately called the national drama, the Restoration drama had
none of these characteristics. Its appeal was confined to the upper strata of society
whose taste was aristocratic, and among which the prevailing fashions and etiquettes
were foreign and extravagant.
As imagination and poetic feelings were regarded as ‘vulgar enthusiasm’ by the
dictators of the social life. But as ‘actual life’ meant the life of the aristocratic class only,
the plays of this period do not give us a picture of the whole nation. The most popular
form of drama was the Comedy of Manners which portrayed the sophisticated life of the
dominant class of society—its gaiety, foppery, insolence and intrigue. Thus the basis of
the Restoration drama was very narrow. The general tone of this drama was most aptly
described by Shelley:
Comedy loses its ideal universality: wit succeeds humour; we laugh from self-
complacency and triumph; instead of pleasure, malignity, sarcasm and contempt,
succeed to sympathetic merriment; we hardly laugh, but we smile. Obscenity, which is
ever blasphemy against the divine beauty of life, becomes, from the very veil which it
assumes, more active if less disgusting; it is a monster for which the corruption of
society for ever brings forth new food, which it devours in secret.
These new trends in comedy are seen in Dryden’s Wild Gallant (1663), Etheredge’s
(1635-1691) The Comical Revenge or Love in a Tub (1664), Wycherley’sThe Country Wife
and The Plain Dealer, and the plays of Vanbrugh and Farquhar. But the most gifted
among all the Restoration dramatist was William Congreve (1670-1720) who wrote all his
best plays he was thirty years of age. He well-known comedies are Love for Love (1695)
and The Way of the World (1700).
It is mainly on account of his remarkable style that Congreve is put at the head of
the Restoration drama. No English dramatist has even written such fine prose for the
stage as Congreve did. He balances, polishes and sharpens his sentences until they shine
like chiselled instruments for an electrical experiment, through which passes the current
in the shape of his incisive and scintillating wit. As the plays of Congreve reflect the
fashions and foibles of the upper classes whose moral standards had become lax, they do
not have a universal appeal, but as social documents their value is very great. Moreover,
though these comedies were subjected to a very severe criticism by the Romantics like
Shelley and Lamb, they are now again in great demand and there is a revival of interest
in Restoration comedy.
In tragedy, the Restoration period specialised in Heroic Tragedy, which dealt with
themes of epic magnitude. The heroes and heroines possessed superhuman qualities.
The purpose of this tragedy was didactic—to inculcate virtues in the shape of bravery
and conjugal love. It was written in the ‘heroic couplet’ in accordance with the heroic
convention derived from France that ‘heroic metre’ should be used in such plays. In it
declamation took the place of natural dialogue. Moreover, it was characterised by
bombast, exaggeration and sensational effects wherever possible. As it was not based on
the observations of life, there was no realistic characterisation, and it inevitably ended
happily, and virtue was always rewarded.
The chief protagonist and writer of heroic tragedy was Dryden. Under his leadership
the heroic tragedy dominated the stage from 1660 to 1678. His first experiment in this
type of drama was his play Tyrannic love, and in The Conquest of Granada he brought
it to its culminating point. But then a severe condemnation of this grand manner of
writing tragedy was started by certain critics and playwrights, of which Dryden was the
main target. It has its effect on Dryden who in his next play Aurangzeb exercised greater
restraint and decorum, and in the Prologue to this play he admitted the superiority of
Shakespeare’s method, and his own weariness of using the heroic couplet which is unfit
to describe human passions adequately: He confesses that he:
Grows weary of his long-loved mistress Rhyme,
Passions too fierce to be in fetters bound,
And Nature flies him like enchanted ground;
What verse can do, he has performed in this
Which he presumes the most correct of his;
But spite of all his pride, a secret shame
Invades his breast at Shakespeare’s sacred name.
Dryden’s altered attitude is seen more clearly in his next play All for Love(1678).
Thus he writes in the preface: “In my style I have professed to imitate Shakespeare;
which that I might perform more freely, I have disencumbered myself from rhyme.” He
shifts his ground from the typical heroic tragedy in this play, drops rhyme and questions
the validity of the unities of time, place and action in the conditions of the English stage.
He also gives up the literary rules observed by French dramatists and follows the laws of
drama formulated by the great dramatists of England. Another important way in which
Dryden turns himself away from the conventions of the heroic tragedy, is that he does
not give a happy ending to this play.
(c) Restoration Prose
The Restoration period was deficient in poetry and drama, but in prose it holds its
head much higher. Of course, it cannot be said that the Restoration prose enjoys
absolute supremacy in English literature, because on account of the fall of poetic power,
lack of inspiration, preference of the merely practical and prosaic subjects and approach
to life, it could not reach those heights which it attained in the preceding period in the
hands of Milton and Browne, or in the succeeding ages in the hands of Lamb, Hazlitt,
Ruskin and Carlyle. But it has to be admitted that it was during the Restoration period
that English prose was developed as a medium for expressing clearly and precisely
average ideas and feelings about miscellaneous matters for which prose is really meant.
For the first time a prose style was evolved which could be used for plain narrative,
argumentative exposition of intricate subjects, and the handling of practical business.
The elaborate Elizabethan prose was unsuited to telling a plain story. The epigrammatic
style of Bacon, the grandiloquent prose of Milton and the dreamy harmonies of Browne
could not be adapted to scientific, historical, political and philosophical writings, and,
above all, to novel-writing. Thus with the change in the temper of the people, a new type
of prose, as was developed in the Restoration period, was essential.
As in the fields of poetry and drama, Dryden was the chief leader and practitioner of
the new prose. In his greatest critical work Essay of Dramatic Poesy,Dryden presented
a model of the new prose, which was completely different from the prose of Bacon,
Milton and Browne. He wrote in a plain, simple and exact style, free from all
exaggerations. His Fables and the Preface to them are fine examples of the prose style
which Dryden was introducing. This style is, in fact, the most admirably suited to strictly
prosaic purposes—correct but not tame, easy but not slipshod, forcible but not
unnatural, eloquent but not declamatory, graceful but not lacking in vigour. Of course, it
does not have charm and an atmosphere which we associate with imaginative writing,
but Dryden never professed to provide that also. On the whole, for general purposes, for
which prose medium is required, the style of Dryden is the most suitable.
Other writers, of the period, who came under the influence of Dryden, and wrote in
a plain, simple but precise style, were Sir William Temple, John Tillotson and George
Saville better known as Viscount Halifax. Another famous writer of the period was
Thomas Sprat who is better known for the distinctness with which he put the demand
for new prose than for his own writings. Being a man of science himself he published
his History of the Royal Society (1667) in which he expressed the public demand for a
popularised style free from “this vicious abundance of phrase, this trick of metaphors,
this volubility of tongue.” The Society expected from all its members “a close, natural
way of speaking—positive expressions, clear senses, a native easiness bringing all things
as near the mathematical plainness as they can, and preferring the language of artisans,
country men and merchants before that of wits and scholars.”
Though these writers wrote under the influence of Dryden, they also, to a certain
extent, helped in the evolution of the new prose style by their own individual approach.
That is why the prose of the Restoration period is free from monotony.
John Bunyan (1628-1688). Next to Dryden, Bunyan was the greatest prose-writer of
the period. Like Milton, he was imbued with the spirit of Puritanism, and in fact,
if Milton is the greatest poet of Puritanism, Bunyan is its greatest story-teller. To him
also goes the credit of being the precursor of the English novel. His greatest work is The
Pilgrim’s Progress. Just as Milton wrote his Paradise Lost “to justify the ways to God to
men”, Bunyan’s aim in The Pilgrim’s Progress was” “to lead men and women into God’s
way, the way of salvation, through a simple parable with homely characters and exciting
events”. Like Milton, Bunyan was endowed with a highly developed imaginative faculty
and artistic instinct. Both were deeply religious, and both, though they distrusted
fiction, were the masters of fiction. Paradise Lost and The Pilgrim’s Progress have still
survived among thousands of equally fervent religious works of the seventeenth century
because both of them are masterpieces of literary art, which instruct as well please even
those who have no faith in those instructions.
In The Pilgrim’s Progress, Bunyan has described the pilgrimage of the Christian to
the Heavenly City, the trials, tribulations and temptations which he meets in the way in
the form of events and characters, who abstract and help him, and his ultimately
reaching the goal. It is written in the form of allegory. The style is terse, simple and
vivid, and it appeals to the cultured as well as to the unlettered. As Dr. Johnson
remarked: “This is the great merit of the book, that the most cultivated man cannot find
anything to praise more highly, and the child knows nothing more amusing.” The
Pilgrim’s Progress has all the basic requirements of the traditional type of English
novel. It has a good story; the characters are interesting and possess individuality and
freshness; the conversation is arresting; the descriptions are vivid; the narrative
continuously moves towards a definite end, above all, it has a literary style through
which the writer’s personality clearly emanates. The Pilgrim’s Progress is a work of
superb literary genius, and it is unsurpassed as an example of plain English.
Bunyan’s other works are: Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners (1666), a kind of
spiritual autobiography; The Holy War, which like The Pilgrim’s Progress is an allegory,
but the characters are less alive, and there is less variety; The Life and Death of Mr.
Badman (1680) written in the form of a realistic novel, gives a picture of low life, and it
is second in value and literary significance to The Pilgrim’s Progress.
The prose of Bunyan shows clearly the influence of the English translation of the
Bible (The Authorized Version). He was neither a scholar, nor did he belong to any
literary school; all that he knew and learned was derived straight from the English Bible.
He was an unlettered country tinker believing in righteousness and in disgust with the
corruption and degradation that prevailed all around him. What he wrote came straight
from his heart, and he wrote in the language which came natural to him. Thus his works
born of moral earnestness and extreme sincerity have acquired true literary significance
and wide and enduring popularity. It is quite true to call him the pioneer of the modern
novel, because he had the qualities of the great story-teller, deep insight into character,
humour, pathos, and the visualising imagination of a dramatic artist.