New Criticism

New Criticism was a formalist movement in literary theory that dominated American literary criticism in the middle decades of the 20th century. It emphasized close reading, particularly of poetry, to discover how a work of literature functioned as a self-contained, self-referential aesthetic object. The movement derived its name from John Crowe Ransom’s 1941 book The New Criticism.

The works of Cambridge scholar I. A. Richards, especially his Practical Criticism, The Principles of Literary Criticism and The Meaning of Meaning, which offered what was claimed to be an empirical scientific approach, were important to the development of a New Critical methodology. Cleanth Brooks, John Crowe Ransom, W. K. Wimsatt, and Monroe Beardsley also made significant contributions to New Criticism. It was Wimsatt and Beardsley who introduced the ideas of intentional fallacy and affective fallacy. Also very influential were the 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 John Milton and John Dryden, his liking for the so-called metaphysical poets, and his insistence that poetry must be impersonal, greatly influenced the formation of the New Critical canon.

wikipedia/en/New%20Criticism

American New Criticism was a formalist movement in 20th-century literary theory, dominant in the mid-20th century, that emphasized close reading of a literary work to understand its structure, language, and imagery as a self-contained aesthetic object. Key tenets included rejecting authorial intent (intentional fallacy) and reader response (affective fallacy), focusing instead on the text’s inherent meaning, complexity, and unity. Influential New Critics included John Crowe Ransom (who coined the term), T. S. Eliot, I. A. Richards, Cleanth Brooks, and Robert Penn Warren, whose collaborative work Understanding Poetry became a foundational text.

• Close reading: A detailed, objective examination of the text’s formal elements, such as diction, imagery, structure, and sound patterns, to uncover its underlying meaning and complexity.
• Autonomy of the Text: The idea that a literary work is a self-contained aesthetic object whose meaning is found within the text itself, not in external factors.
• Rejection of External Factors: New Critics deliberately excluded authorial intent, historical context, biographical details, and the reader’s personal response from their analysis.
• Intentional Fallacy: The error of determining a work’s meaning based on the author’s intentions; for New Critics, the author’s purpose is irrelevant to the text’s meaning.
• Affective Fallacy: The error of judging a work’s value based on its emotional effect on the reader; this emotional response does not constitute a valid critical analysis.
• Focus on Complexity: New Critics often highlighted literary devices like irony, paradox, and ambiguity as integral to the richness and complexity of a text’s meaning.

Key Figures

• John Crowe Ransom: Coined the term “New Criticism” in his 1941 study, The New Criticism.
• T. S. Eliot: His essays, such as “Tradition and the Individual Talent,” were highly influential, promoting the idea of poetic impersonality and influencing the New Critical canon.
• I. A. Richards: His 1929 work Practical Criticism provided a foundational methodology by having students analyze texts without context, demonstrating how much could be derived from the words on the page.
• Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren: Their textbooks, Understanding Poetry (1938) and Understanding Fiction (1943), were staples for generations of American high school and university students, teaching the principles of New Criticism.