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England HP 10 SHR 7824612 SCOTT, BARBARA KERR AN analysis of c r it ic a l AND AESTHETIC IDEAS IN e ig h t e e n t h- century BRITAIN* AN ORIENTATION APPROACH, THE u n iv e r s it y OF OKLAHOMA, PH.D,, 1978 U n iv e rs i^ MiciOTlms International s oon z é e b b o a o . a n n a r b o r . m i 4s iü6 © 1978 BARBARA KERR SCOTT ALL RIGHTS RESERVED THE UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA oRAUuaic, uuLLbUb AN ANALYSIS OF CRITICAL AND AESTHETIC IDEAS IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY BRITAIN: AN ORIENTATION APPROACH A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE FACULTY in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY BY BARBARA KERR SCOTT Norman, Oklahoma 1978 AN ANALYSIS OF CRITICAL AND AESTHETIC IDEAS IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY BRITAIN: AN ORIENTATION APPROACH APPROVED BY DISSERTATION COMMITTEE To my husband and best friend Arthur Ward Scott And to our son Robert Bruce Scott Copyrighted by Barbara Kerr Scott 1978 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many people have assisted me in the pursuit of an unusual doctoral program. After completion of an inter­ disciplinary master's degree (Master of Liberal Studies, Unviersity of Oklahoma, 1970) under the direction of Mr. Cecil Lee, Dr. William Horosz, and Dr. Paul Ruggiers, I desired to continue the same type of program on the doctoral level. Under the auspices of the Department of History an interdisciplinary academic program was designed for me by Drs. Arrell M. Gibson, DougaldT. Calhoun, and Mr. Cecil Lee. The program, consisting of parallel inquiries into the fields of history, art history, philosophy, and literature, permitted me to pursue the materials of distinct but decidedly related disciplines. To the Department of History my deepest gratitude for its blend of integrity and flexibility necessary to promote and support such an unusual program, and to Dr. William Maehl (now Dean of the College of Liberal Studies) my thanks for his personal involvement in the program. My thanks are also extended to Mrs. Josephine A. Gil, Assistant to the Chair, for her helpful knowledge of departmental guidelines, and for her friendship. The thesis presented here evolved gradually from several papers written during the course of my studies; I wish to express my thanks to Calhoun and Lee for their help and advice in the structuring and synthesis of these iv ideas. I would also like to thank Dr. David French for his patient reading of manuscripts; his suggestions significantly strengthened the presentation of the mat­ erials. I am also indebted to the staff of the Interlibrary Loan Department of the Bizzell Memorial Library for their kind assistance in obtaining hard to find materials. It is most difficult to express my gratitude to the person who has helped me most in these years of study and research. Without the constant encouragement and support of my husband Arthur Ward Scott I would not have been able to complete this program. V TABLE OF CONTENTS Page PREFACE ................................................... vi CHAPTER I A SURVEY OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CRITICISM AND THE A R T S ..................... 1 CHAPTER II THE THREE ORIENTATIONS OF ANALYSIS IN CRITICAL AND AESTHETIC IDEAS ............ 53 CHAPTER III THE OBJECT ORIENTATION ........................ 120 CHAPTER IV THE SUBJECT ORIENTATION ..................... 202 CHAPTER V THE CREATOR ORIENTATION ..................... 269 SUMMARY ................................................... 319 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................ 325 PLATES ................................................... 332 Vi PREFACE Many literary historians and critics recognize a change in attitude toward the arts during the course of the eighteenth-century in Britain. The change is reflected in four major areas: the development of a school of aesthetic philosophy, of an influence upon it from traditional criti­ cism, and in turn, of its influence upon criticism, and a faction of rejection of both traditional interpretations and the new aesthetic principles. The new ideas in criticism which arose from the emergence of aesthetics and from other forces led to three distinct critical attitudes in the cen­ tury. These have been identified as rather general trends in literary theory and taste. Calling attention to these critical attitudes in the period, Walter Jackson Bate refers to neo-classicism, associations of ideas, and the premise of feeling.^ Ernst Cassirer recognizes the same three 2 trends in all of European critical thought. Referring to th< work of the Restoration and the eighteenth century in England as a distinct and coherent school, R. S. Crane notes that the emphasis of interpretation varied according to the frame 3 of reference of the writer. His "f rame of reference," as we si)all see, is the key to identifying and clarifying the vii three critical trends which characterize the period. Frame of reference, critical perspective, point of view, or orientation all refer to the critic's reference point in his analysis of art. He may. for example, look at art as a mirror or reflection of nature; he may look at art from the perspective of the viewer, as a stimulus to his imagination; he may be concerned only with the creative processes of the artist's imagination; or he may consider 4 the art object in itself with no reference to other criteria. Indeed, an eclectic may form his critical opinion using several of these orientations. Usually, however, one point of view is predominant. The intent of the present study is to demonstrate that there were three dominant critical orientations in eighteenth- century British thought, that these attitudes were a deter­ mining factor in definitions and values--for example, how a critic defined beauty— and furthermore, that the orienta­ tions were responsible for the change which is evident in British critical ideas throughout the century. The orienta­ tion method which I have proposed is designed to organize the many materials produced in the period, and to demon­ strate the relationship between the point of view and critical definitions and values. Three perspectives are to be defined: (I) object orientation, (2) subject orientation, and (3) creator orientation. These three refer to analysis based on art as viii a reflection of nature, art as a stimulus to ideas in the subject, or viewer, and art as an expression of the creative power of the artist. In order to understand critical attitudes in the century, however, we need to look at the conditions which generated them. Therefore I will devote the first chapter to a survey of the arts and general trends in criticism. Next I will turn to a gen­ eral definition of the three orientations. Finally, a chapter will be devoted to each orientation to demonstrate its impact upon definitions of ideas such as beauty, gen­ ius, and art. IX FOOTNOTES TO PREFACE ^Walter Jackson Bate, From Classic to Romantic Premises of Taste in Eighteenth-Century England (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1946), See chapter headings, 2 Ernst Cassirer, The Philosophy of the Enlightenment, trans. by Fritz C. A. Koelln and James P. Pettegrove (Boston: Beacon Press, 1955), first published for J. C, B. Mohr in Tubingen, 1932. Cassirer's sub headingsof his chapter on Aesthetics are: "Classical Aesthetics and the Objectivity of the Beautiful," "Taste, and the Trend Toward Subjectivism,” and "Intuitional Aesthetics and the Problems of Genius," pp. 275-360. 3 R. S. Crane, ed. Critics and Criticism, Ancient and Modern (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1952), "English Neoclassical Criticism: An Outline Sketch," R. S. Crane, pp. 374-375. 4 M. H. Abrams, The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition (Oxford: Oxford Univer­ sity Press, 1953), reprinted as an Oxford Paperback, 1971. Abrams discusses four orientations in his introductory cha pter. LIST OF PLATES Page PLATE 1. "Nature and the Arts" from the front- piece of James Harris's Three Treatises .