Moral approaches to literature are some of the oldest approaches that exist. Indeed, Plato—the great Greek philosopher who is often considered the first real literary critic—put morality at the very center of his thinking about literature. Plato insisted that literature should promote morality; any literature that failed to do so should be ridiculed, censored, or banned. Practically everyone else who has thought seriously about literature has also adopted—either explicitly or implicitly—some kind of attitude toward the morality of creative writing. The purpose of this essay, then, is to outline, very briefly, a wide variety of ways to think about moral interpretations of literature.

To try to suggest how variously a single work can be studied from numerous perspectives, I have chosen to focus (as in the Psychological Approaches volume in the present series of books) on the famous poem “On My First Son” by the English Renaissance poet Ben Jonson (1572–1637).

In this poem, Jonson laments the death of his young son (also named Benjamin), who died unexpectedly at the age of seven. Jonson first bids farewell to his son (line 1), then censures himself for having assumed that the boy would always be his (line 2), then acknowledges that God created the boy and therefore could justly take him back at any time God thought fit (lines 3-4). Up to this point, Jonson seems to be dealing very rationally with his grief, as reasonable Christians of his time were expected to do. He puts his trust in God’s wisdom. In line 5, however, his paternal emotions burst out: he wishes that he could “lose” the painful sensation of even being a father. But then, in lines 5-8, he reminds himself that his son is now in a much better state (in heaven, with God) and that by dying at an early age, the boy has escaped all the pain of growing older. In lines 9-10, Jonson expresses pride in his son, calling him the best thing Jonson ever made (the word “poetry” comes from a Greek word for “to make”). Finally, in the last two lines, Jonson vows that in the future, he will never again take too much personal, egocentric pleasure in anything he loves.

In suggesting briefly how this poem might be examined from various moral perspectives, I have focused on some of the most common approaches to literary theory and criticism.¹—Robert C. Evans

A PLATONIC APPROACH. Plato (d. 348 BCE), the influential Greek philosopher, believed that all human beings should try to behave as rationally and morally as possible. Indeed, Plato strongly linked moral behavior to rational thought. Persons controlled by their emotions could not, almost by definition, behave in ethical ways. Plato might therefore admire the attitudes toward morality implied by Jonson’s poem and the moral conduct the poem itself exhibits. In lines 1-4, the father tries to come to terms rationally with his son’s death. He tries to respond to that death as a mature adult. He thereby provides a model of appropriate conduct for other people as they try to deal with the pain of grief. In lines 5-6, a brief outburst of agony enters the poem. This outburst signals that Jonson is not a robotic automaton or a kind of Renaissance Mr. Spock. He does feel deeply the loss of his son; if he did not, his attempts to control grief would not be necessary. By the end of the poem, however, the speaker’s mind has regained control of his emotions; he has achieved a kind of rational, stoic calm, and he vows that in the future he will not make the mistake of assuming that anything he loves ultimately belongs to him. Plato would surely admire the rational morality this poem implies and the moral behavior it exhibits.

AN ARISTOTELIAN APPROACH. Aristotle (385–323 BCE), Plato’s most important pupil, agreed with his teacher that moral behavior must be rooted in intelligent thinking. In his approach to art, however, Aristotle was more tolerant than Plato had been. Whereas Plato believed that most art, because it encouraged emotional attitudes, should be strictly policed or even censored, Aristotle believed that the best art reflected a human nature that was often admirable. Aristotle believed that most humans have an ingrained desire to learn and that art (especially poetry) helped provide the knowledge that most people seek about themselves, others, and the characteristics of human nature. Aristotle, then, would probably admire Jonson’s poem because it realistically displays the ways aggrieved people actually feel. It reveals much about common human nature. We take a kind of pleasure in any accurate depiction of reality because through such depictions we learn, and learning is inherently a good thing. Aristotle would admire Jonson’s poem for the poet’s commitment to his craft and his successful craftsmanship because artistry and beauty are themselves worthy goods. Jonson, in this poem, displays superior moral character because of his commitment to think, feel, and behave in ways worthy of imitation.

A HORATIAN APPROACH. Horace (65–8 BCE), the great Roman poet, was one of the first important literary theorists who was also a significant creative writer. Many of his general ideas are indebted to Aristotle’s thinking, but he added a few special emphases of his own. First and foremost, he argued that a writer’s chief obligation was to win the audience’s approval. A writer could do this either by pleasing the audience, by teaching the audience, or (perhaps best of all) by doing both at once by combining entertainment and instruction in the same work. A literary work that both taught and pleased was likely to have the broadest appeal. It would win the applause of (for instance) both the young and the old. One of the best ways to appeal to the broadest possible audience would be to follow custom, not only in style and design but also in morality. Because human nature does not fundamentally change, works similar to writings that had won approval in the past are likely to win approval in the present and future. A writer who hoped to be successful should essentially give the audience what it expected, both artistically and ethically. Horace would probably admire Jonson’s poem for expressing common human emotions, for endorsing the traditional moral values of his culture, and for writing in a way that could both please his audience (because of the work’s craftsmanship and clarity) and teach his audience (by providing a worthy object lesson in how to deal with grief).

A LONGINIAN APPROACH. “Longinus” is the name traditionally given to an unknown ancient Greek (living perhaps in the first few centuries of the Common Era) who composed a work titled “On the Sublime.” The word “sublime” means “elevated” or “lofty,” and Longinus believed that only a poet whose own character was elevated and lofty could produce an elevated and lofty work. Elevation and loftiness referred not only to the style of the work but also (and perhaps especially) to its moral content and its ability to inspire moral thoughts and emotions. Jonson’s poem, for instance, is not written in the same sort of lofty, elevated style as Milton’s Paradise Lost, but it is definitely (Longinus would probably say) a work that models and inspires proper moral behavior. Jonson’s values in this poem are spiritual, not materialistic; he is motivated by admirable thoughts and emotions, not by selfish desires. He wants what is best for his son, and in dealing with his grief, he tries to behave as a good man should.

A TRADITIONAL HISTORICAL APPROACH. “Traditional” historical critics believe that a proper understanding of a literary work ideally requires a full understanding of the historical period that produced the work. Such understanding might include, for instance, detailed knowledge of the author’s own life and values and detailed comprehension of the social and cultural values that prevailed during the period of the author’s life. Traditional historical critics would be especially interested in the moral values the author either embraced or opposed. In assessing Jonson’s poem, for instance, traditional historical critics would want to know as much as possible about the classical and Christian roots of the ethos the poem exhibits. They would want to know how people of Jonson’s era were expected to respond to the deaths of loved ones as well as how they typically did respond. Such critics would examine Jonson’s other writings to see if the responses evident in this poem resemble (or differ from) responses to similar situations in other works. Traditional historical critics would want to know which previous texts, if any, may have influenced Jonson’s moral, intellectual, and emotional responses in this work. Traditional historical critics might note that Jonson’s poem echoes various classical texts while also embracing standard Christian values of his day. In combining classical and Christian ideals, Jonson has written a poem that is very much typical of the Renaissance era.

A THEMATIC APPROACH. Thematic critics are interested in the main ideas, concepts, or topics a work reflects. Moral ideas, concepts, and themes would obviously be of great interest to them because morality is considered so important by so many human beings. Thematic critics would want to know which moral themes are especially significant in Jonson’s poem. One of those themes, for instance, is love. This theme is emphasized both in the second and last lines of the poem. The entire poem can be regarded as a meditation on the theme of love and especially on the morality of love. What kind(s) of love are truly moral, and what kinds are immoral? The poem suggests that God loves both Jonson and Jonson’s son and knows how to treat both figures morally. The fact that the boy has died means, ironically, that he has escaped much pain and suffering. Therefore his death, as painful as it is to his father, can be seen as a good thing—a kind of blessing in disguise. Additionally, by the end of the poem, the father is very much concerned to embrace a kind of love that is both sensible and non-selfish. In other words, he tries to imagine a kind of love that is also moral, not self-centered and presumptuous. Love is a key idea that contributes to the unity of the poem.

A FORMALIST APPROACH. As the very word suggests, “formalists” are primarily interested in all aspects of literary form, from the effectiveness of individual words and sounds to the overall design and structure of the work as a whole. Formalists, then, are less interested in the moral traits of a work per se; a work might be well written, skillfully designed, memorable, and even beautiful as a work of art and still be “immoral” by some external standard. A classic example is Leni Riefenstahl’s artistically powerful film titled Triumph of the Will. Most historians of cinema have long regarded it as one of the most aesthetically striking films of the twentieth century, but its obvious purpose is to glorify Adolf Hitler. Similarly, in the immediate aftermath of World War II, American formalists defended the awarding of a literary prize to Ezra Pound, the famous poet, even though he had broadcast fascist propaganda during the war. Numerous other examples can easily be thought of in which a work seems artistically powerful but also morally flawed. Most formalist critics, however, would probably find nothing ethically troubling in Jonson’s poem. They would closely examine its merits as a piece of writing and neither celebrate nor denigrate its moral implications.

A PSYCHOANALYTIC APPROACH. Psychoanalytic criticism derives from the influential thinking of Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), who believed that the human mind consisted of three basic parts. These parts are the id (the unconscious part of the mind that is rooted in individual desires, fears, fantasies, and other often impulsive emotions); the ego (the rational, mainly conscious part of the mind that must deal with reality as it is, not as we wish it might be); and the superego (the seat of conscience, morality, and traditional social values). The rational ego and moralistic superego must often struggle to control the impulsive, emotional id, and the id is typically the source of behavior normally considered immoral or unethical. The id is basically selfish, whereas the ego and superego are concerned with the self’s relations with (and obligations to) others. In Jonson’s poem, the rational id and moral superego help the poet control the impulses of his id. These impulses especially rise to the surface in the exclamation that bursts out in line 5. In that exclamation, Jonson expresses an intense desire to avoid or escape from pain, but by the end of the poem, his ego and superego have helped him tame his emotions and behave in a morally responsible way. His yearning to (or fantasy about) escaping pain is perfectly understandable and is not exactly immoral, but if all people went through life motivated by nothing but a desire to escape or avoid pain, civilization would not be possible. The poem shows Jonson behaving as a responsible human being and as an adult whose rational ego and moralistic superego control his impulsive id.

AN ARCHETYPAL APPROACH. Archetypal critics, whose thinking is inspired by the pioneering work of Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1961), believe that all human beings, everywhere and at every time, share certain basic fundamental responses to the same basic stimuli. Humans tend to think and feel in predictable, stereotypical (“archetypal”) ways: mothers tend to love their children; darkness tends to inspire fear; humans tend to seek love and acceptance; and so on. These basic reactions are rooted in a part of the mind that Jung called the “collective unconscious.” Jonson’s poem, for instance, expresses the typical grief almost all parents feel at the loss of a child. The poem also exemplifies the quite typical struggle between reason and emotion that is a basic characteristic of human nature. The fact that classical and Christian teachings about ways to deal with grief had so much in common would not at all surprise an archetypal thinker. An archetypal critic might argue that most human beings have a deep-rooted desire to conform to the moral teachings of their culture and that Jonson’s poem shows how this fundamental desire affects the phrasing and structure of his poem.

A MARXIST APPROACH. Marxist critics are influenced by the teachings of Karl Marx (1818–1883), the famous philosophical advocate of communism. Marxists pride themselves on being very much interested in moral questions, especially in the moral treatment of members of the working class or other oppressed or marginalized groups. A moral act, for a Marxist, is an act that advances the interests of social and economic justice by promoting social and economic equality. A Marxist might be less interested in Jonson’s own situation, as described in this poem, than in larger social and economic questions such as these: How widespread was childhood mortality in Jonson’s day? What were its causes? What efforts were made to prevent it? Did the rich and powerful make any efforts to prevent childhood mortality among the poor and downtrodden? Did Jonson himself ever advocate on behalf of the poor and underprivileged? Does this poem express only a personal concern for his own child, or does it imply some larger concern for all suffering children? Does Jonson’s commitment to the Christian religion do anything to help advance the real material welfare of suffering persons? Or was his Christianity merely a way for him and others to avoid dealing with practical solutions to real-world problems? In other words, was his Christian morality in that sense (from a Marxist viewpoint) actually immoral?

A FEMINIST APPROACH. Most feminist critics begin with the fundamental assumption that in most cultures, throughout most of human history, females have been oppressed by male power structures (often called “patriarchy”) and that it is morally right—indeed, morally necessary—to oppose and combat such oppression. The rights of women, in other words, are basic human rights and need to be defended and championed by literary critics and by all other decent people. How might feminists, then, discuss the moral implications of Jonson’s poem? Some feminists might note that the boy’s mother is never mentioned. Jonson treats his son as if the child is his own creation—“Ben Jonson[’s] [own] best piece of poetry” (li. 10). The poem makes no reference to grief felt by the boy’s mother, and the most important relationships Jonson as father discusses are his relationships with his male child and with his own male heavenly father, God. Surely Jonson is not trying to be deliberately sexist; he is simply taking for granted what was indeed simply true in his culture: the fact that women had little real power and influence. Patriarchs of various sorts (both literal and figurative) were in command. The poet may not have consciously intended to exclude females, but the fact that they are excluded would be significant from a feminist moral perspective.

A STRUCTURALIST APPROACH. Structuralist critics argue that humans make sense of reality by imposing structures on it or inventing structures to deal with it. The most obvious of these structures are languages themselves. Each way of imposing order on reality is a kind of language, or code, and codes tend to operate by creating binary oppositions, such as male/female; positive/negative; strong/weak; powerful/powerless; and so on. Moreover, these binaries tend to reinforce one another. Thus, in recent Western culture, the dominant (some would say “phallocentric”) culture has arguably tended to define reality in terms of male-positive-strong-powerful vs. female-negative-weak-powerless. Binaries do not necessarily have moral implications (the solid/liquid binary, for instance, seems fairly ethically neutral), but often they do. Even apparently neutral binaries can be absorbed into larger ethical structures: “his morals are solid; hers are as fluid as water.” Structuralists often present their approach as objective and scientific; they are less interested in making judgments themselves than in showing how such judgments are typically made. Usually judgments are made by carving the world up into opposites. It is easy to imagine how structuralism could be used as an analytical tool to help other kinds of theorists (such as feminists and Marxists) arrive at moral conclusions. Thus, in dealing with Jonson’s poem, structuralism could be used to help pursue, in very methodical terms, a feminist moral analysis. Note, for instance, the off-hand way in which Jonson uses the word “man” in line 6. By “man” he simply means “human being” as opposed to something non-human. But a feminist, using structuralist techniques, might find it significant that Jonson equates the word “man” with humanity, perhaps thereby inadvertently revealing that in his culture women were considered not fully or equally human.

A DECONSTRUCTIVE ANALYSIS. As the very term implies, “deconstruction” assumes that structuralism is too simple, too dualistic in the way it thinks about the world and in the way it thinks about the languages and codes it studies. Deconstuctors (or deconstructionists) tend to look at any binary opposition (such as male/female), show that one term in that binary is the dominant term (in this case, “male” dominating over “female”), and then, rather than merely reversing the dominance (with “female” dominating over “male”), show how the two terms or ideas exist in an unstable relationship, with one term or idea bleeding into another. Deconstruction, then, tends to undermine any easy confidence we might have in binaries. It also tends to undermine any confident moral claims we might want to make on the basis of those binaries. For example, in Jonson’s poem, one important implied binary is God/human. God is immortal, perfect, always good, always right, etc.; humans are mortal, imperfect, often evil; and frequently incorrect, etc. This is the sort of analysis a stucturalist might offer. But a deconstuctor would soon begin to challenge those simple binaries. In particular, deconstructors would suggest that gods are the figments of human imaginations: no clear distinction between the divine and the human can therefore be maintained. Whereas stucturalists look for clarity, deconstuctors show how clarity never really exists. Everything is “always already” complicated and complex. Thus, Jonson finds himself submitting to the authority of a god who has been created by other humans; he finds himself accepting (but also briefly protesting against) the justice of a god whose nature, actions, and even existence have always been open to debate. Deconstruction often has a key consequence for moral analyses of literature: it makes moral distinctions and moral judgments very difficult to establish with any final firmness. It thus challenges any claims to moral certainty, undermining dogmatism but perhaps also undermining any confidence at all in moral claims. Should Jonson feel sinful for having great hopes for his son? Is the boy’s death really “just”? Should living humans really “envy” the dead, who supposedly have gone to live with a god who may not even exist? Deconstruction typically leaves us (in ethics as in other spheres) with constant questions rather than with any settled answers.

A READER-RESPONSE APPROACH. As the term implies, reader-response critics are interested in the ways individual readers (or groups of readers) respond to literature, whether in moral terms or in other ways. Reader-response critics tend to assume that it is the reader who determines how a text is interpreted. There are no self-evidently “correct” or “proper” interpretations. Readers (or groups of like-minded readers) tend to respond to literature in ways they find congenial, and there is no sense in disputing this simple fact. Indeed, individual interpretations can be regarded as valuable and worthy simply because they are individual. In a sense, the reader-response approach authorizes (and makes sense of) all the other approaches discussed in this essay. More specifically, a reader-response critic might argue that a father might respond to Jonson’s poem differently than someone who has never been a father. Similarly, a parent who has lost a child might respond to the poem differently than a parent whose children are all still living. Someone from Jonson’s time might respond to the poem differently than someone from the twenty-first century. An atheist might find Jonson’s references to God not only mystifying but also immoral, whereas a Christian might take great solace in Jonson’s lyric. From a reader-response point of view, there is no obviously “right” or “wrong” way to respond to the poem, either in moral terms or in any other terms.

A DIALOGICAL APPROACH. “Dialogical” critics are interested in the different voices or tones that can inhabit a single text. For instance, Jonson’s poem can be read as speaking now in a classical stoic voice, now in a Renaissance Christian voice, and now in the voice of a timelessly grieving father from any culture. The opening line of Jonson’s poem clearly alludes to the biblical meaning of the name “Benjamin” (the name both of Jonson and of his dead son). “Benjamin,” in Hebrew, literally means “son of my right [hand].” Therefore, at the very start of the poem, Jonson is speaking in his own voice as well as in the voice of the Bible. Similarly, the final line of the poem echoes phrasing by the ancient Roman poet Martial. Thus, both at the opening and at the conclusion of his poem, as well as throughout, Jonson echoes a variety of voices, and a sensitive reader will be alert to these echoes. One could claim that the poem sets classical and Christian moral systems in dialogue with one another in this poem. In this final line, Jonson vows that he will think and act in a certain way (a stoic way) as he lives the rest of his earthly life; but earlier in the poem he had implied that from a Christian perspective this present earthly life is relatively unimportant compared to the eternal afterlife in heaven with God. The final line implies a kind of prudential morality (doing what will cause the least personal pain while one is living); earlier lines had implied that life in heaven frees us from earthly pain. Two distinct ethical systems, then, are arguably in dialog in this poem.

A NEW HISTORICIST APPROACH. “New historicists” claim to offer a more complex approach to history and literature than had been offered by traditional historical critics. They pride themselves on studying all the aspects of history that traditional historicists tended to ignore, especially anything, anyone, or any group considered marginal, powerless, ignored, or conventionally unimportant. Almost by definition, then, new historicism can be seen as a moral approach to literature, especially in its emphasis on people who are marginalized, stigmatized, stereotyped, or overlooked. A new historicist, for instance, might approach Jonson’s poem by looking for evidence concerning the status of children (especially poor children) in Jonson’s culture, as well as (1) the status of people who were ill, (2) rates of childhood mortality, and (3) any efforts that were (or were not) made to improve the health of the general population. In some ways new historicists can resemble Marxists (or latter-day “cultural materialists), but the latter sometimes accuse new historicists of merely studying history rather than trying to advocate for the moral improvement of society. New historicists might note that God is imagined (in Jonson’s poem) as exercising ultimate power in the universe; Marxists might argue that God is a convenient fiction used by the powerful to maintain power over the powerless.

A MULTICULTURALIST APPROACH. Multicultural critics, like new historicists, are especially interested in (and usually see themselves as advocates for) various minority populations within the broader culture or the population at large. In this sense, then, they often take explicitly political or moral stances. For example, they not only study the literature of African Americans but also tend to champion (implicitly or explicitly) the rights of African Americans. The same is true, for instance, of multicultural critics who not only study literature by or about gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transsexuals, the disabled, etc., but who also defend the rights and interests of these groups. The mere fact that literature by or about members of minority groups is being studied suggests the value of those groups and our obligations to treat them morally. Jonson’s poem, for instance, might be studied as an example of a work relevant to grieving parents who have lost a child and of our moral obligation to pay attention to such parents. However, the poem could also be looked at from many other multicultural perspectives. For example, an atheist in Jonson’s culture could never have written a poem openly alluding to his atheist beliefs, even if he was grieving for the loss of a son. Jonson, precisely because he was a Christian, enjoyed a kind of power that an atheist would have lacked (a fact that would also be of interest to new historicist critics). But because Jonson was a Christian Catholic, in a culture in which Catholicism was technically illegal, he was in that sense a member of a minority group that could not express itself completely freely. For multicultural critics, moral questions and moral standing never exist in a vacuum; they are always affected by one’s status in the culture at large.

A POSTMODERNIST APPROACH. Postmodernists question any “grand narratives”—any large explanations that claim to provide wholesale truth. Postmodernists are skeptics who emphasize “local” choices and “local” decisions; they distrust broad claims about absolute rights and absolute wrongs. For this reason, they have sometimes been criticized by other theorists (such as Marxists) for being indifferent to morality, for being unable to say with any certainty that some thinking and decisions are ethical and others are not. In this sense, postmodernism resembles many other recent kinds of theory (such as reader-response criticism and deconstruction) that challenge claims to certainty and objectivity. It seems safe to say that Jonson’s poem is, in many ways, at the opposite end of the philosophical spectrum from postmodernism. It assumes that there is a God; it assumes that humans have a responsibility to conform themselves to God’s decrees; and it assumes that there are absolutely right and wrong ways of thinking, behaving, and even feeling. The ideas it explores, the ways it explores them, and the form it imposes on them are all relatively traditional and conservative. If there is a single “postmodern” moment in Jonson’s poem, it may be the full sentence in line 5, where unexpected, unruly emotion suddenly bursts into an otherwise calm, rational text.

AN ECOCRITICAL APPROACH. Ecocritics emphasize the importance of humans’ relations with physical nature, especially the natural environment in which all life must coexist. Ecocritics believe that humans have a moral obligation (rooted partly in their own self-interest but also in concern for other creatures) to preserve the environment, keep it healthy, and protect it from unnecessary harm. Ecocriticism can thus seem, perhaps, largely irrelevant to Jonson’s poem, but that fact alone (if it is a fact) is important. This possible irrelevance itself tells us much about the poem’s own nature: it is largely concerned with moral relations between humans and God rather than between humans and the natural environment. In fact, the poem implies that our earthly home is merely temporary and is far less satisfying than heaven, the eternal home that far surpasses any worldly existence. Ecocritics might consider this otherworldly emphasis typical of the thinking of many human religions and might even regard such an emphasis as implicitly immoral.

A DARWINIAN APPROACH. Darwinian critics are interested in the ways literature reflects the basic impulses (of all living things) to survive and reproduce. Darwinians regard themselves almost as scientists interested in exploring literature objectively, without offering moral or ethical assessments of it. They might note, for instance, that part of the pain Jonson feels as a father who has lost a seven-year-old son is a pain that makes obvious biological sense: Jonson’s boy passed away before he was old enough to pass on his genes by having children of his own. Jonson’s pain, then, is partly rooted not only in pain at the loss of his beloved son but also in pain at the loss of that boy’s potential progeny, who would have been Jonson’s biological heirs. From a Darwinian, evolutionary perspective, Jonson’s pain makes perfect sense. Whether his pain is moral would be a question for other theorists to decide. For example, ecocritics might even argue that in certain contexts, it would be better not to have more humans on the planet, consuming its limited resources and damaging the environment in various ways. Darwinians, in contrast, might simply note that among most forms of life, infant mortality is quite common and is to be expected.