Introduction to New Criticism Literary Theory
When formalism was witnessing its heydays in the Soviet Socialist Republic pf Russia, New Criticism emerged in the United States as an alternative literary theory. The main emphasis of this theoretical concept was on the closed reading, specifically, of the poetic texts. The point was that a literary piece was self-referential having its own interpretations and meanings. As it was different from general criticism, it was named as “New Criticism.”
Meanings of “New Criticism” Literary Theory
New criticism means a new way to critique literary texts. This movement emerged during the half of the 20th century when formalism or Russian Formalism was also seeing its good days. The main point of this new criticism was to look at the poetic texts from a new angle by analyzing the language, literary terms, and linguistic features of the language. It means that it has stressed the idea of seeing relationships between form and text.
Origin of “New Criticism” Literary Theory
This literary theory borrowed its name from John Crowe Ransom’s book about criticism titled New Criticism which appeared in 1941. Later, T. S. Eliot also joined this movement of new criticism by writing about the tradition and talent of individual literary figures in his essay “Tradition and Individual Talent” and writing a critique of Hamlet, the popular Shakespearean play. His concept of “objective correlative” and critique of metaphysical poetry further fueled this movement. It was actually a reaction to philological and literary history schools which were dominant at that time in the United States.
Principles of New Criticism
- A text is an independent and autonomous entity, having its own existence after it is written.
- A text derives its meanings from its form and structure which are intimately connected with each other.
- Readers need to be adept in close reading to draw meanings from the text.
- The focus of the attention should be literary terms or devices such as irony, metaphors, conflicts, and tensions including paradoxes used in the text.
- This literary theory involves “intentional fallacy (author’s assumption), affective fallacy (error of judgment), the heresy of paraphrase and ambiguity.
Criticism Against New Criticism
- It only focuses on the text and excludes all other external factors impacting the production of the text.
- It does not seem suitable for all types of writing.
- It supposes or assumes that one reading is enough and correct to draw certain meanings.
- It ignores the readers and their cultural understanding and background.
Examples of New Criticism
Example # 1
From “Ars Poetica” by Archibald MacLeish
A poem should be palpable and mute
As a globed fruit,
Dumb
As old medallions to the thumb,
Silent as the sleeve-worn stone
Of casement ledges where the moss has grown—
A poem should be wordless
As the flight of birds.
A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs,
Leaving, as the moon releases
Twig by twig the night-entangled trees
Archibald MacLeish has beautifully summed up how New Criticism literary theory is applied in letter and spirit to a point in this part of his poem “Ars Poetica.” The very first line defines what a poem should be, what it should say, and what it should look like. In fact, he is stating how a reader should perceive a poem, though, it seems that he is advising the poets on how to see their poems.
Example # 1
From Practical Criticism by I. A. Richards
“Since so many readers did not succeed in applying their intelligence, a paraphrase kindly supplied by one writer may be inserted here. It will help moreover to bring out an interesting double-reading that the seventh line of the poem lends itself to.
It is difficult to understand this poem first. After thinking about it a good deal I have come to the conclusion that this is the meaning of it – an elderly man, experienced in such matters, has found a girl grieving at the falling of leaves in autumn.”
These lines occur in Practical Criticism, a book of I. A. Richards. Although the poem he is referring to is not given here, a reader can easily perceive that he is referring to “heresy of paraphrase” that a reader can depend on the paraphrase of the main idea done by some other reader. This is the main point of New Criticism literary theory.
Example # 2
From “The Language of Paradox” by Cleanth Brooks
“Few of us are prepared to accept the statement that the language of poetry is the language of paradox. Paradox is the language of sophistry, hard, bright, witty; it is hardly the language of the soul. We are willing to allow that paradox is a permissible weapon which a Chesterton may on occasion exploit. We may permit it in epigram, a special subvariety of poetry; and in satire, which though useful, we are hardly willing to allow to be poetry at all. Our prejudices force us to regard paradox as intellectual rather than emotional, clever rather than profound, rational rather than divinely irrational.”
This passage occurs in The Language of Paradox, an essay by Cleanth Brooks in which he has discussed some points of New Criticism literary theory. Using paradox is one of them. He clearly discusses here the benefits of using paradoxes and how a paradox and its understanding help the readers to comprehend a poem. He also points out that it is our prejudice as a reader that does not understand a paradox which is a point of intellectualism rather than simple emotions.
Example # 3
From Metaphysical Poetry by T. S. Eliot
His fate was destined to a barren strand,
A petty fortress, and a dubious hand;
He left a name at which the world grew pale,
To point a moral, or adorn a tale.
“Where the effect is due to a contrast of ideas, different in degree but the same in principle, as that which Johnson mildly reprehended. And in one of the finest poems of the age (a poem which could not have been written in any other age), the Exequy of Bishop King, the extended comparison is used with perfect success: the idea and the simile become one, in the passage in which the Bishop illustrates his impatience to see his dead wife, under the figure of a journey.”
This stanza and its explanation occur in Metaphysical Poetry, an essay by T. S. Eliot. He points out the contrast of ideas, and their impact, referring to comparison and use of similes to point out how these structural features of verses help the readers to understand them easily.
Example # 4
From Seven Types of Ambiguity by William Empson
“One feels the conceit must have arisen, in a mood of moral causitry, from a sense of the oddity in that reliance on convention which gives us different reactions to killing at different times; murder as well as soldiering, therefore, were in mind of the speaker, and are suggested to the audience.”
These lines written by William Empson in his book, Seven Types of Ambiguity, show how the lines from Macbeth are to be interpreted from their structural features. These lines are ‘findes thee in stought Norweyan Rankee, / Nohting affeard of what thyselfe didst make, / Strange images of death.”
Keywords in New Criticism Literary Theory
New Criticism, affective fallacy, intentional fallacy, close reading, heresy of paraphrase, ambiguity, structural features, metaphorical language, metaphorical features
Suggested Readings
Abrams, M.H. “New Criticism.” A Glossary of Literary Terms. 7th ed. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1999. 180-182.
Grafe, Gerald. “What Was New Criticism? Literary Interpretation And Scientific Objectivity.” Salmagundi, no. 27, 1974, pp. 72–93. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40546822. Accessed 22 June 2021.
Lynn, Steven. Texts and Contexts: Writing About Literature with Critical Theory. 2nd ed. NY: Longman, 1998. Murfin, Ross, and Supriya M. Ray. The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms. Boston: Bedford Books, 1997.
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