The New Criticism Explained | Pros and Cons, Proponents of New Criticism and their Works

 The New Criticism Explained | Pros and Cons, Proponents of New Criticism and their Works

Hello and welcome to the Discourse. New Criticism is a method of literary analysis that focuses on the text itself, advocating for "close reading" to derive meaning without considering external influences. The theory of New Criticism emerged as a significant literary movement in the early to mid-20th century, particularly in the United States. The method of new criticism primarily follows a formalist approach to literary analysis, emphasizing the importance of the text itself, rather than external factors such as the author's biography, historical context, or reader's interpretation.

Rather than worrying about the author of a book and his reputation, historical background, and own reaction to the book, one should focus on the text of the book and analyze or interpret it objectively, without any biases, predetermined notions, or a sense of awe towards the author.

Difference between the Old Criticism and the New Criticism

Generally, when we analyze and critically appreciate a content, let’s say a particular poem by John Donne, we begin with examining John Donne as a person, his spiritual views and leanings about Christianity, Protestantism, and Catholicism, general historical views of that age, the Elizabethan age of England and how that affected the works of John Donne, his religious sonnets. We will discuss John Donne’s personal life, how he fell in love and married a girl so young to him, and how his love life influenced his love poems. Only after that, we will discuss the actual text of the content. This is the Old Way of Criticism, or the Traditional Criticism which suggests that content, an article, a poem, or an essay can be understood and analyzed in its entirety, we need to evaluate an author's biography, culture, and background. In 1929, this Traditional method of literary criticism was challenged by the proponents of the New Criticism. Many writers and literary critics in the United States and England supported the idea of New Criticism. They suggested that it is futile to look at the author’s background or historical perspective. Rather, they claimed that such observations create a bias and predetermined notion about the content (John Donne’s poem in this case), which reduces the worth of the content in itself. Thus, they said that the content must be analyzed as a particular free text without any prior knowledge about it which may create a bias or hindrance to studying it objectively. Thus, a New Critic while examining The Flea by John Donne may stress more on how the use of metaphor in the poem shows what the poem is about, rather than the biography of John Donne.

Let’s take another example of Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare to be analyzed using the theory of New Criticism. A New Critic might notice that Juliet's lines are longer than Romeo's, which could indicate that the play emphasizes Juliet and her thoughts. The play's theme of individual versus society is explored through Juliet's desire to be with Romeo, despite their families' feud.

New Criticism stresses close reading, which involves a detailed and careful analysis of the text. Critics focus on the language, structure, imagery, and other literary devices within the work to uncover its meaning. The main idea of New Criticism is that a literary work has intrinsic value and meaning that can be understood through its own elements. This perspective insists that the text should be treated as a self-contained entity. The formalist approach of New Criticism emphasizes the structure and literary devices of the content rather than the historical background or the individual perspective of the author.

Proponents of New Criticism:

Proponents of the New Criticism movement often claimed that T. S. Eliot was one of their founding fathers, and his work influenced the New Critical canon. However, T. S. Eliot himself rejected this claim and denied adhering to any school of criticism. He rather called New Criticism the "lemon-squeezer school of criticism". Along with T. S. Eliot, the New Critics took inspiration from the essays and works of Mathew Arnold, an English poet, and a cultural, and literary critic. In 1853, Mathew Arnold published "Preface to the Poems" Arnold emphasized the importance of subject in poetry, on "clearness of arrangement, rigor of development, simplicity of style." He supported objectivity in literary criticism and suggested that the text should be objective and it should not be influenced by the subjective or personal views of the writer.

The term New Criticism was first used by J. E Spingarn, or Joel Elias Spingarn, a professor of comparative literature at Columbia University. He gained prominence as a literary critic, theorist, and comparative with the success of his works 'A History of Literary Criticism in the Renaissance' (1899), and ‘Critical Essays of the Seventeenth-Century’ (1905). In 1910, he gave a lecture titled ‘The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University’ in which he argued against the constraints of such traditional categories as genre, theme, and historical setting in favor of viewing each work of art afresh and on its own terms (autotelic).

Some of the influential proponents of New Criticism include I. A Richards, John Crowe Ransom, Cleanth Brooks, Robert Penn Warren, W. K. Wilmsatt, Monroe Beardsley, and William Empson.

These literary critics and academics were influenced by critical essays of T. S. Eliot, such as "Tradition and the Individual Talent" and "Hamlet and His Problems", in which Eliot developed his notions of the "theory of impersonality" and "objective correlative" respectively. Eliot's evaluative judgments, such as his condemnation of Milton and Dryden, his liking for the metaphysical poets, and his insistence that poetry must be impersonal, greatly influenced the formation of the New Critical ideas. In 1929, I. A, Richards was working as an instructor of English Literature at Cambridge University when he gave an assignment of critically examining a few poems to his students without offering any information about the authors of those poems or when they were written. When the students submitted their work, I. A. Richards noticed that the same poems were analyzed and examined by different students in very different manners and each study offered a unique and impressive perspective. He published a detailed analysis of his experiment in his book ‘Principles of Literary Criticism and Practical Criticism’ published in 1929. The book didn’t offer any new theory of literary criticism, rather it questioned the established process of Traditional Criticism. I. A. Richards suggested that since students did not have any information about the author of the poems or other historical context related to the poems, they were able to concentrate more on the text of the poem to observe and analyze the literary elements, figures, and structure of the poem without any preconceived notion of what the poem may suggest. He suggested that effective critical work requires a closer aesthetic interpretation of the literary text as an object.

In 1930, Richards’s student William Epsom published his book Seven Types of Ambiguity in which he supported I. A. Richards’ idea of interpretive or practical criticism.

During the same time, some history schools in the United States were stressing the importance of the history and meaning of individual words and their relation to foreign and ancient languages, comparative sources, and the biographical circumstances of the authors while critically assessing a literary work. Proponents of the New Criticism opposed this idea of Formalism and suggested the development of a newer, systematic, and objective method of literary criticism. It is known as the New Criticism. John Crow Ransom of Kenyon College, America became the voice of New Criticism. In 1941, he published his book The New Criticism which became the milestone of the New Criticism Movement. His students included Allen Tate, Cleanth Brooks, and Robert Penn Warren who strongly supported the ideas and theories of the New Criticism, and thus, John Crow Ransom is known as the founding father of the New Criticism school of literary theory.

Intentional Fallacy

William K Wimsatt and Monroe Beardsley published a classic New Critical essay titled The Intentional Fallacy in 1946 in which they argued against the relevance of an author's intention, or "intended meaning" in the analysis of a literary work. Suppose you are reading a novel by Charles Dickens. If you know that the novel is by Charles Dickens and you have a biographical idea of him and the historical context of his writing, then you will have a prior-deterministic idea that the novel is about sociological work highlighting class discrimination and the ill effects of industrialization on the poor section of society. However, if you are not aware of the author of the same novel and have no idea of the historical context, then you will read the novel as an empty slate and will grasp it with a free-thinking. You may analyze the same novel influenced by spirituality. Wimsatt and Beardsley suggested that as a reader and a critic, it is better to ignore the ‘intended meaning’ of the author and to read the text and analyze it in an unbiased and independent manner.

Affective Fallacy:

In 1949, Wimsatt and Beardsley continued their ideas and published a new essay titled The Affective Fallacy in which they suggested that even the reader’s personal, emotional reaction to the text must not be considered a valid point to analyze the text. This idea was vehemently opposed by the proponents of the Reader-Response school of literary theory who stress more on the reader and their experience of a literary work. Anyhow, the New Criticism school of literary theory continued to gain prominence in the United States during the Cold War from the 1950s to 1970. Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren published their book Understanding Poetry in 1976 was highly appreciated and continued to influence the new readers and scholars of English literature alike. In the book, the authors stressed the ‘close reading’ of the text, to observe, understand, and analyze the rhythm, meter, tone, literary figures, imagery, metaphor, symbolism, and other entities of the text itself while ignoring the historical context and the intention of the author.

Terminology of the New Criticism:

Autotelic Text: Autotelic text is a work of literature or art that is considered to be an end in itself, and is not intended to serve a moral or didactic purpose.

The term comes from the Greek word autotelḗs, which means "complete in itself". T.S. Eliot used the term in 1923, and it was later adopted by New Criticism to distinguish literary art from other types of works. New Criticism used the term to differentiate literary art from works that are critical, biographical, philosophical, or didactic, which often refer to things outside themselves. The idea of the autotelic text is similar to the "art for art's sake" doctrine of the Aestheticism movement in the late 19th century. The New Critics suggested that every text is self-contained and independent of the author, genre, or historical context.

Close Reading: Close reading is a deep analysis of how a literary text works. It is a method of reading a text carefully and with the purpose of understanding its deeper meaning. It involves paying close attention to the text's words, structure, ideas, flow, and purpose. The reader then compares what the author said to what they already know, believe, or think. 

So this is it for today. We will continue to discuss Literary Theory and Literary Criticism. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and Regards!