explanation about the rise of english in literary theories

1. Literary Theories
The Rise of English
By Eagleton

2. 2nd
Groups
1. Ardika Rizki Prihantoro
2. Siti Aisyah
3. Malihatun Badroh

3. THE CHART OF THE RISE OF ENGLISH

4. 18th
Century
In eighteenth-century England, literature was considered to be
that which conformed to the standards of ‘polite letters’,
meaning that which embodied the values and tastes of the
upper classes (usually). After the bloody civil war of the
previous century, literature became even more important in
bringing the middle classes into unity with the upper classes.

5. 19th
Century
Literature, in the modern sense, really emerged around the
nineteenth century during the Romantic period; the idea
that literature is something imaginative or inventive while
prosaic writing is dull or uninspiring is a relatively new
concept in history.

6. During the Romantic period, types of literature like
poetry no longer were simply a technical way of
writing, they had significant social, political, and
philosophical implications (many major Romantic
poets were political activists themselves).

7. The stress upon the sovereignty and autonomy of the
imagination was another emphasis finding its way into the
concept of literature. The rise of the ‘symbol’ also came
towards the end of the eighteenth century; with it, various
contradictory concepts could finally be captured together.

8. Literature, as defined by Eagleton earlier, is an ideology.
Eagleton suggests that the growth of English studies in the
later nineteenth century was caused by the failure of
religion, something he believes was a very simple yet
powerful form of ideology that was above all else a pacifying
influence.

9. Apparently, English literature worked as a suitable
replacement. English became a subject used to cultivate the
middle class and infuse them with some values of the leftover
aristocracy; thus English literature became the new way to
pacify the working and middle classes.

10. Literature would convey timeless truths and distract the masses
from their present commitments and c0nditions. In addition,
English became the new vehicle for transferring the moral law,
which was no longer taken from religion.

11. However, as the century drew on, English took on more of a
masculine aspect. It still took a while for the study of English
to be taken seriously, but finally English literature came into
power, mostly because of wartime nationalism. The new
subject was created by the offspring of the bourgeoisie, rather
than those who currently held social power.
20th
Century

12. Literature was also perhaps the only place where creative
language was allowed to flourish. In addition, those
studying felt that they were a part of a larger movement that
was moving civilization back to the way it should have been,
as in the seventeenth century.

13. “Scrutiny” didn’t seek to change society in any way; rather, their
goal was to withstand it. Teaching children about the corrupt
culture they lived in was very important, instead of making them
memorize pointless passages of literature.

14. Eagleton said that the Scrutiny project was “hair-raisingly
radical and really rather absurd.” In the end, Scrutiny was
simply a project of the elitists. The ‘organic’ society desired
by Scrutiny was unobtainable, nothing more than a lofty
desire to reclaim the golden days of the past.

15. Some types of English were considered more English than others,
which ironically reminds one of the types of arguments given by
the upper class before.

16. When T.S. Eliot came to England, he upgraded the status of the
poets and dramatists while toppling Milton and the Romantics.
Literature becomes that which has the Tradition flowing through
it; all poetry may be literature, but not all poetry may be
Literature.

17. Eliot thought that middle-class liberalism had failed in
light of the war, and a poet must develop a new type of
sensory language in poetry that would speak to a person’s
senses rather than their intellect. Many contradictions
began showing up in the ideas that the ‘big wigs’ of
Literature of that day came up with.

18. Practical criticism meant a method that was unafraid to take
a text apart, but also assumed that you could judge literary
greatness by focusing on pieces of poetry or prose isolated
from their cultural contexts.

19. Richards, an advocate of modern science, felt that, even
though he himself felts questions such as ‘what?’ or ‘why?’
were not valid, if pseudo-answers were not given to such
pseudo-questions, society would fall apart. Poetry’s role is to
supply such answers.

20. New Criticism was not too different from Scrutiny: it
reinvented in literature what it couldn’t find in reality. They
came up with something called the Great Man theory of
literature, which says that even if the author’s intentions in
writing were recovered, they were of no relevance to the
interpretation of his or her text.

21. At the same time, neither could the emotional responses of
readers be confused with the poem’s true. Ultimately, reading
poetry in the New Critical way meant committing yourself to
nothing, a rejection of anything in particular.