صفحه 1:
Moral and Philosophical
Approaches
صفحه 2:
General Observations
» The moral-philosophical approach is as old as classical Greek and Roman critics.
» Some moral-philosophical critics
¥ Plato, emphasized moralism and utilitarianism
Y Horace stressed that literature should be delightful and instructive
¥ most famous exemplars are the commentators of the age of neoclassicism in
English literature (1660-1800), particularly Samuel Johnson. \
» They would interpret literature within a context of the philosophical thought of a
period or group.
Y From their point of view Jean- Paul Sartre and Albert Camus can be read profitably
only if one understands existentialism.
Pope's Essay on Man may be grasped only if one understands the meaning
the role of reason in eighteenth century thought.
صفحه 3:
» Henry Fielding's Tom Jones, illustrates the moral superiority ۵۲ ۵ 0
young man like Tom, whose sexual indulgences are decidedly atoned for by
humanitarianism, tenderheartedness and instinctive honor
» Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter is likewise seen essentially as a study of the effects
secret sin on a human soul
» Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" suggests that duty and
responsibility take precedence over beauty and pleasure.
» Matthew Arnold, the Victorian critic, who insisted that a great literary work must
possess "high seriousness." 1
» The important thing is the moral or philosophical teaching.
» The critic who employs the moral-philosophical approach insists on ascertaining
and stating what is taught.
» Such approaches are less likely to err on the side of over interpretation than are
more esoteric methods.
صفحه 4:
> A dull, pedestrian, uniformly literal approach to literary analysis is the antithe:
of the informed, imaginative, and creative approach
» Daring, inventive readings of metaphorical language must have defensible
rationales if they are to be truly insightful and convincing.
* the traditional approach to literary analysis has tended to be somewhat
deficient in imagination
* the traditional approach to literary analysis has neglected the newer sciences,
such as psychology and anthropology
* the traditional approach to literary analysis has been too content with a
commonsense interpretation of material.
* the traditional approach to literary analysis has in avoiding cultism and faddism,
it has preserved scholarly discipline and balance in literary criticism.
» Readers who intend to employ the traditional approaches to a literary work will
almost certainly employ them simultaneously.
صفحه 5:
MORAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL APPROACHES IN
PRACTICE
To His Coy Mistress
» An examination of what "Coy Mistress" propounds morally and philosophically
reveals the common theme of carpe diem
» This type of poetry naturally exhibits certain fundamental moral attitudes
toward the main issue this poem treats-sex.
» They depict sexual intercourse as strictly dalliance , as solely a means of
deriving physical sensations.
» One more aspect of the historical background of the composition of the poem
may be helpful in understanding its paradoxically hedonistic and pessimistic
stance.
» The seventeenth century, it should be remembered, was not only a period
intense religious and political struggle, but a period of revolutionary scie!
and philosophical thought.
صفحه 6:
* The seventeenth century
¥ Francis Bacon's inductive method was establishing itself as the most reliable way
of arriving at scientific truth
¥ the Copernican theory tended to minimize the uniqueness and importance of the
earth, hence of humankind, in the universe \
¥ Thomas Hobbes's materialism and degrading view of human nature tended to \
outrage the orthodox or reflective Christia
صفحه 7:
» the speaker is honestly reflecting his view of life-pessimism-and advocating
sensuality as the only way to make the best of a bad situation
¥ there is something poignant in the way the man must choose the most exquisite
pleasure he knows, sensuality, as a way of spitting in the face of his grand
tormentor and victorious foe, Time.
» the speaker is simply something of a cad-stereotypically male, conceited, and
superior, employing eloquence, argument, and soaringly passionate poetry merely |
as a line, a devious means to a sensual end. \
¥ his disturbing images of the female body directed at his lady only turn upon him to
reveal his fears and expose his lust. 7
صفحه 8:
Hamlet
» Any discussion of Hamlet naturally center on the character of Hamlet.
» Some explain Hamlet as an idealist temperamentally unsuited for life in a world
peopled by fallible creatures.
» he discovers that some humans are so ambitious for a crown that they are
willing to murder for it
» others are so highly sexed that they will violate not only the laws of decorum
but also the civil and ecclesiastical laws against incest.
» critics see Hamlet's plight as that of the essentially moral and virtuous
intellectual man, certainly aware of the gentlemanly code that demands
satisfaction for a wrong ۲
Hamlet as a kind of transitional figure, torn between the demands and the values,
the Middle Ages and those of the modern world.
صفحه 9:
» The opposed theory maintains that Hamlet Is a man of action, thwarted by such
practical obstacles as how to kill a king surrounded by a bodyguard
» Many modern critics emphasize what they term Hamlet's psychoneurotic state, a
condition that obviously derives from the moral complexities with which he is
faced. /
» Hamlet fulfills the technical requirements of the revenge play as well as the 0
requirements of a classical tragedy
صفحه 10:
Huckleberry Finn
> Important as are its historical and biographical aspects, the chief impact of
Huckleberry Finn derives from its morality.
» Man's inhumanity to man is the major theme of this work, and it is exemplified in
both calm and impassioned denunciation and satire.
» The cruelty may be manifested in attempts
to swindle young ,orphans out of their inheritance “ا
¥ tocon village yokels with burlesque shows
¥ to fleece religion-hungry frontier folk with camp meetings
¥ to tar and feather malefactors extralegally
۷ , the brutal and senselesss laughter of the aristocratic Grangerfords and
Shepherdsons and the murder of a harmless old windbag by another arrogant
aristocrat.
صفحه 11:
» Huck's ultimate salvation comes when of his own choice he rejects the values of
the society of his time and decides to treat Jim as a fellow human being.
» The irony is that Huck has made the right decision by scrapping the "right"
reasons and by following his own conscience.
» He is probably too young to have intellectualized his decision and applied it to
black people as a whole.
» Huckleberry Finn is a living panorama of a country at a given time in history.
صفحه 12:
Young Goodman Brown
> The terror and suspense in the Hawthorne story function as integral parts of th
allegory that defines the story's theme.
> In allegory-a narrative containing a meaning beneath the surface one-there is
usually a one-to-one relationship; that is, one idea or object in the narrative
stands for only one idea or object allegorically.
> Brown is not just one Salem citizen of the late seventeenth century, but rather
seems to typify humankind, to be in a sense Everyman, in that what he does
and the reason he does it appear very familiar to most people, based on their
knowledge of others and on honest appraisal of their own behavior.
» Goodman Brown, like most people, wants to experience evil-not perpetually, of
course, for he is by and large a decent chap, a respectably married man, a
member of a church
> He feels that he can do this because he means to retain his religious faith,
personified in his wife, who, to reinforce the allegory, is even named Faith.
صفحه 13:
overpowering are the fact and universality of evil in the world that Goodman
Brown comes to doubt the existence of any good.
Thomas E. Connolly has remarked that Goodman Brown has not lost his faith;
he has found It
Goodman Brown believes that he understands the significance of the Calvinistic
teaching of the depravity of humans.
this realization makes him doubt and dislike his fellows and in effect paralyzes
his moral will so that he questions the motivation of every apparently virtuous
act
Calvinism stressed the practical and spiritual folly of placing hope or reliance
on human beings and their efforts, which by the very nature of things are
bound to fail, whereas God alone never fails.
he cannot distinguish between appearance and reality.
If a man looks respectable and godly, Brown assumes that he is.
And if the man turns out to be a scoundrel, Brown's every standard crumble:
۲
۲
صفحه 14:
He is in a sense guilty of a kind of idolatry:
human institutions in the forms of ministers, church officers, statesmen, and
wives have been his god.
rather than making a frontal attack on Calvinism, Hawthorne indicted certain
reprehensible aspects of Puritanism:
the widespread holier-than-thou attitude
the spiritual blindness that led many Puritans to mistake a pious front for genuine
religion
the latent sensuality in the apparently austere and disciplined soul
It will perhaps be argued that Calvinism at its most intense, with its dim view of
human nature, is quite likely to produce cynicism and misanthropy.
historically, Calvinists have been dynamic and full of faith
Goodman Brown is of a weaker breed, and the sum of his experience with the
hard realities of life is disillusion and defeat.
faith has been destroyed and supplanted by total despair because Brown is
neither a good Calvinist, a good Christian, nor, in the larger sense, a good
AN
صفحه 15:
Everyday Use
» It is obvious that racism, one of society's most troubling moral issues, underlies
actions in this story.
> It has unjustly reduced the narrator and Maggie to a low socioeconomic position ant
kept them there
» it has bred an innate fear and mistrust of whites in the narrator, an otherwise strong,’
upright, and intelligent woman
» it has alienated Dee, a bright and tal- ented young woman, from whites to a degree
makes reconciliation unlikely /
» it has impelled whites to engage in illegal and threatening action against hardworki
black cattle raisers.
صفحه 16:
» Like most dogmatists of whatever stripe, Dee is frequently obtuse.
She assumes that her mother and sister have "chosen" to live in poverty in a
racist community.
She is too ashamed to bring her friends to her family's home
she snaps numerous Polaroid pictures of the dilapidated shack, her "backward"
family, even the cow wandering through the yard.
Dee is so arrogant and callous that she wants to appropriate for her own use
even the few artifacts her mother and sister do possess that are simultaneously
sacred and practically useful to them.
Though uneducated after the second grade and untraveled except in her
dreams, she is a most remarkable woman, who demonstrates intelligence,
sophisticatiory and a wry sense of humor in her narration.
Her religion, a source of unalloyed joy to her as she worships, is also strength
and guidance for tough living.
صفحه 17:
\deologues like Dee may think the church merely keeps her docile and uninvol خ
promises of "pie in the sky bye and bye."
» As far as the narrator is concerned, her religion has enabled her to rise above he!
oppressors without bitterness and without being obsessed by them.
» When thinking about the persons who poisoned some of the cattle belonging to he
Muslim neighbors, the narrator simply calls them "white folks.“
» The characters-the narrator and Maggie on one side, Dee and Hakim-a-barber on the
other-represent two different points of view. 1
» Dee's trendy pretensions to folk arts and crafts-which would have cruelly robbed her
mother and sister of their most treasured possessions reveal an even uglier aspect of
character
» Dee's condescension self-aggrandizement, and arrogance, evidenced by her relentless
"reading" to her "friends," her mother, and Maggie of material that was over their hea
prevent her from having a clue about her mother's and sister's feelings.
صفحه 18:
> The moralist would maintain that readers may learn valuable lessons from
both groups of characters, but the lessons are far from simple and clear-cut.
» It is too easy to reject Dee's militant individualism and pride with its implicit
reverse racism
» There is certainly nothing in the traditional moral approach that insists on an
all-or-nothing interpretive position.