‘Late twentieth-century theory can be considered first and
foremost as a reaction against the tenets
of liberal humanism’

by: Jenny Roch
 

Liberal humanism. The ‘theory’ that has been in place and in use to read texts since pretty much the beginning of literary history. Indeed, with its goal to convey timeless truths, liberal humanism in literature has even been seen as a means to educate the masses, and carry through the ‘ideological task which religion left off.’¹ Liberal humanism has been largely uncontested until, in the late twentieth century, other theories take over on what has been a year-long tradition. These interesting facts do indeed pose some questions on why, first of all, liberal humanism was uncontested for such a long time, but also, why then, so suddenly it seems, it was overthrown by modern day literary theory and put off as ‘an ideological smokescreen for the oppressive mystifications of modern society and culture, the marginalisation and oppression of the multitudes of human beings in whose name it pretends to speak.’²

Indeed, many of the theories, literary, cultural or other, maintain a strong antihumanist attitude. Hopefully in the course of analysis, there will be explanations or reasons for this outlook. To be able to discuss the contention that late twentieth-century criticism is a reaction to liberal humanism, it is necessary to first lay out what the tenets of this ‘theory’ before theory are. We can then go on and mount, on these tenets, what would or could be a critique of them. Of course, with background knowledge of modern day theory, the tenets of liberal humanism almost dissolve in themselves, without having to rely or run back to a certain school or specific theory as a means of counter argument, as a lot of the theories that have emerged in the late twentieth century have some common points.³ Nonetheless, it will be interesting to see whether the critique of these tenets by structuralist and feminist critics’ standards can really be seen as a direct reaction to liberal humanism, or whether they are simply a new way of thought and conception. One of the best critics to fall back on when talking about this ‘theory’ is Matthew Arnold. He is one of the critics to voice what the goals are, what literature, from a liberal humanist point of view, should be. Having been considered as ‘virtually the founding father of modern day criticism in the English-speaking world’ it is him who first opened up the notion of criticism as a means to mediate between the reader and the text. For this reason, much of the quotations that follow to underpin the tenets of liberal humanism are taken from the works of Matthew Arnold. So then, let us have a closer look at the tenets of this ‘theory’ before theory. Firstly, literature, for liberal humanists, is timeless. Since the goal is to ‘learn and propagate the best that is known and thought in the world,’⁴ only literature which conveys values that will transcend time can be considered valuable literature. In other words, diachronically valid literature, or also, literature that can be read in all ages, and still be pertinent and applicable to the time it is being read in, and to the reader who reads it, is good literature. Of course, this implies that human nature is unchanging.

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1 Terry Eagleton., Literary Theory: An Introduction, (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1996), p. 22

2 Tony Davies, Humanism, (London: Routledge, 1997), p. 5

3 This is wonderfully laid out by Peter Barry in Beginning Theory, (Manchester: MUP, 2002), p. 34-36

4 Matthew Arnold, ‘The Functions of Criticism at the Present Time’, in The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, Gen. ed. Vincent B. Leitch, (New York and London: Norton & Company, 2001), p. 824 political - in order to generate meaning.