The second in Abram’s fourfold division is pragmatic mode. The theories of this mode emphasize the reader’s relation to the work.

    Towards the end of 19th century, pragmatism became the most vital school of thought with in American philosophy.

    It continued the empiricist tradition of grounding knowledge on experience and stressing the inductive procedures of experimental science.

    The pragmatist believed in the progress of human knowledge and those ideas are tools whose validity and significance are established as people adapt and test them in physical and social settings. For pragmatists, ideas demonstrate their value insofar as they enrich human experience.

    Pragmatic theories emphasize on the reader’s relation to the work. The work is treated as something that is constructed to achieve certain effects on the audience. Effects may be for the aesthetic pleasure, instruction or any kind of emotion.

    Despite the fact that pragmatic criticism originated in the Roman times, Philip Sidney, a Renaissance critic, is one of its most influential theorists.

    For Sidney, poetry has a clear-cut purpose to achieve certain effect in an audience. Good poets are those who write both to delight and teach, or in other words, for delightful instruction.

    Furthermore, the objective of all arts and sciences is to lift human life to the highest altitudes of perfection. Therefore, virtuous action is the goal of all learning.

    Poets desire either to improve or please, or to unite the agreeable and the profitable. Fiction composed to please should be very near to truth, so that the play may not demand unlimited belief.

     Literary works and theoretical practices appeared with a radical subjectivism in the 19th century in the work of Walter Pater and Anatole France.

Horace    Horace was the classicist who established the classical sets of belief rules and orders, restraint and correct expression. He wished that the writer should choose correct and right words; that he should use meters maintaining their appropriateness; that he should be able to choose a proper subject; that he should make use of proper poetic diction; and that he should follow the rules of ancient arts. Alexandrian influence can be noted in his demand for careful workmanship and polish and order and organization. Moreover, for that he says an artist is always a craft man who using his architectural genius maintains decorum and ‘urbanity’ in his work of art. For Horace, a writer must choose a subject within his power and appropriate to his gifts; he must say at any given moment what needs to be said, and no more. He must choose vocabulary, meter and form that are right for his subject, whether noble, exciting, erotic or joyous. He warns against extravagant implausibility and incongruities. Indeed the prevailing emphasis throughout is on the need for consistency, coherence and seemliness. It is the writer's business to refine and polish his text that the highest standards of propriety and artistry are maintained. However, Horace demands a craft man’s skill in an artist; he does not utterly neglect the role of natural talent in art. In fact, he is insisting on a complementary relationship between learned artistry and genius. Read More...

Longinus     Longinus defines sublime as a kind of loftiness and excellence in language raising the style of the ordinary language. Sublimity springs from a great and lofty soul, thereby becoming " one echo of a great soul". It should not only be distinct and excellent in composition but also move the readers along with the effects of pleasure and persuasion. Such effects should be subtle, flashing at the right moment, scattering everything before it like a thunder bolt and at once displaying the power of plentitude. In this sense, sublime is lofty and excellent poetic creation with power to please, persuade and move the readers through the up liftment of their souls. Sublimity is thus the aesthetic up liftment of the soul through the reconciliation of the poetic inspiration and rhetorical mastery of the writers. Longinus believes that sublimity is achieved by a deft handling of Nature and Art, which is inborn genius and learned skills. The five sources he mentions for the sublime are either related to author or poem. In the course of dealing with the sources of the sublime, Longinus even differentiates true sublime between false sublime. Read More..

Sir Philip Sydney     Philip Sidney in his "Apology for Poetry" reacts against the attacks made on poetry by the puritan, Stephen Gosson. To, Sidney, poetry is an art of imitation for specific purpose, it is imitated to teach and delight. According to him, poetry is simply a superior means of communication and its value depends on what is communicated. So, even history when it is described in a lively and passionate expression becomes poetic. He prefers imaginative literature that teaches better than history and philosophy. Literature has the power to reproduce an ideal golden world not just the brazen world.Stephen Gossen makes charges on poetry which Sidney answers.
The charges are:

1.Poetry is the waste of time, 2.Poetry is mother of lies, 3.It is nurse of abuse, 4.Plato had rightly banished the poets from his ideal world. Read More...