new criticism

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Introduction ………………………………………………………………. 3

Historical background ……………………………………………………. 5

� New Criticism V.S. Biographical and Traditional Historical criticism ……………….……………………………….. 9

What should we do in New Criticism? ….……………………………...... 11

� What is close reading? …………………………………………..… 14

� What should we look for in the close reading? …….……………... 14

The downfall ……………………………………………………….…..… 16

Influences of New Criticism ……………………………………………... 18


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The dominated literary theory in 1940s was New Criticism. It was almost

a reaction toward Biographical and Traditional Historical criticism, which was

focused on extra-text materials, such as the biography of the author. New

Criticism claimed that the text, as a complete work of art, is adequate for

interpretation, and one should look at the text, and only the text, in order to

analyze it and get the true meaning of it. New Criticism is quite well connected

with the term “close reading”, which means the careful analysis of a text with

paying attention to its structure, syntax, figures of speech, and so one. In this

way, a New Critic tries to examine the “formal elements” of the text, such as

characterization, setting of time and place, point of view, plot, images,

metaphors and symbols to interpret the text and find the theme.

These formal elements, as well as linguistic elements (i.e., ambiguity,

paradox, irony and tension) are the critic’s references to interpret and support

the theme of a literary work. New Critics believe that there is a unique and

universal theme in [great] works of art, which is timeless and independent of the

reader or social, historical events. And these elements are the only true means

by with a critic can understand and should interpret the text.

Although New Criticism was once successful in a way to ask critics and

readers for a change in their view point of evaluating a literary text, after a


while it was accused of being too restrictive by denying the historical and

biographical information, and too linguistic, and not universally practical,

consequently it was replaced with other literary theories, such as Reader

Response, New Historicism and Cultural Studies. New Criticism was practiced

from 1920s to early 1960s, and can be considered a dead theory now. Affirming

this, Tyson states that it is no longer in practice, but also comments that some of

its features are still in use and important to observe, such as the notion of close

reading. Thompson, also, believes that New Criticism has received a great

attention and its popularity among literary publications and academic programs

is because of its elusiveness. “It has never been a school in the sense Russian

Formalism has and therefore its commentators could exercise pleasant freedom

in singling out its characteristics and defining its boundaries” (33-34). This is

the reason we can find different definitions and principles about New Criticism,

and we cannot 100% agree on a particular group of people to call them the

founders of New Criticism, although there are well-known advocators.

It is worth mentioning that because New Critics tried to provide verbal or

textual evidences for their claim, their approach is objective. They believe that

the text provides a way to be interpreted, and formal elements help this to be

done. That is why New Criticism is sometimes called objective criticism. It is

also called an intrinsic criticism, because it is just concerned about the text itself

(Tyson).


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Back to nineteenth century and the first two decades of twentieth century,

Biographical and Traditional Historical criticism was the dominated literary

theory, which was practiced in academics and by critics. It had focused on all

documents about or related to the text and the author. But it had gone to

extreme, and had forgotten the original text itself. This (for New Critics, and for

us a well,) negligence was academically accepted and so common that in a

poetry class, students had expected the lecturer to talk about the poet and give

“a description of poet’s personal and intellectual life: his family, friend,

enemies, lovers, habits, education, beliefs and experiences” (Tyson 118),

without analyzing or even reading the poem!

T. S. Eliot (1888-1965) was among the first ones who claimed that poetry

stands for its own, and in his essays asked critics to pay attention to the poem,

rather than the poet. He believed that “the poet does not influence the poem with

his or her personality and emotions, but uses language in such a way as to

incorporate within the poem the impersonal feelings and emotions common to

all humankind” (Bressler, 57). And as a result, study of poet’s personal life is

not useful. He, himself, examined Dryden’s poetry and that of Metaphysical

poets of Donne’s school in the same way. Baldick explains that he attended to

the poems, and analyzed those poems; he was concerned about the wit and the

emotions presented in them. According to Thompson, Eliot, who asked for the


new poetry, and the new poetry criticism, started his essays by attacking the

past and current critics. He called them either historian, if they were interested

in historical events, or philosophers, if they treated the work of art as a

philosophical formulation. He attacked the poems at the same time. In his

critical essays, he emphasized the text and found the faults within the text.

Thompson believes that his collection of essays (and among them ‘Traditional

and Individual Talent’) “is the first in the line of New Critical attempts, to

demonstrate an impersonal non-biographical continuity which later were

undertaken in regard to English poetry, by Leavis and Brooks” (41).

In 1927, Laura Riding and Robert Graves in their book A Survey of

Modernist Poetry examined the poems of T. S. Eliot and Cummings in a new

way of criticism, too. This new way of criticism was paying attention to the

text. Through their careful reading, they showed that a poem is more than some

general ideas, and the concluded that “only those words in that exact order and

arrangement could produce the precise effect intended; no simpler statements of

an idea could be substituted for it” (Baldick, 79).

I. A. Richards (1893-1979) also tried to differ between the traditional

reading of a poem, which was similar to paraphrasing the text, and the modern

view of poetry. He was less concerned about close reading, but “helpfully

classified the numerous ways in which reading of poetry could go wrong”

(Baldick, 79). He reinforced what Riding and Graves have claimed, that readers


are dependent on poet, by examining a technique, known as practical criticism,

in which he gave his students some untitled poems, without any reference to the

poet, to analyze. The result was significantly unacceptable, and he claimed that

the way of teaching criticism is not complete and proper, because students are

dependent on the poet’s name or hints about the poet’s biography (Baldick).

If we agree with Litz that Eliot wrote the first essays which became the

“corpus of acceptable interpretive techniques by I. A. Richards” (7) we should

name Richard’s student who followed the exercises of these techniques. He was

William Empson.

Another important figure in New Criticism was F. R. Leavis who claimed

that the old way of looking at poetry is not sufficiently convincing and as a

result contributed in making a new way of reading and looking at the poetry.

Eventually in 1941 John Crowe Ransom, who is considered as the

‘Philosopher General of the New Criticism’ (Jancovich, 11), called this new

formalist view of analyzing a text “New Criticism” and introduced it to

American critics by his book New Criticism. Bressler explains that Ransom,

before publishing his book, had made the Fugitives (a literary group including

some other university professors and some of his students) where they could

freely discuss about their new point of view, regarding literature and criticism,

and practice it together. Then he tried to publish his ideas and explain his

personal interpretative approach in New Criticism. He explained that a “poem


(used as a synonym in New Criticism for any literary work) is a concrete entity

… [and should] be analyzed to discover its true or correct meaning independent

of its author’s intention or of the emotional state, values or beliefs of either its

author or reader ” (Bressler, 55). However, according to Thompson, there is no

fixed and unique definition for New Criticism. He believes that different people

thinks of it in different way, as

R. W. Stallman considers the concern with ‘the dissociation of

modern sensibility’ to be the distinguishing mark of a New Critic.

The growing disparity between scientific and aesthetic sensibility

is, in his view, the fact which the New Critics attempt in various

ways to construct, or at least vividly to record. David Daiches

regards New Criticism as an American phenomenon which arose

on the basis of contemporary interest ‘in myth and symbol’ and in

high standards of professional criticism. He observes that it has

developed ‘its own scholasticism’ and ‘its own technical jargon’

which limits its appeal considerably. Ransom himself (whose

central position in New Criticism nobody questions) … grouped

together such disparate people as T. S. Eliot and Ch. Morris.

Walter Sutton sees as the distinguishing feature of the New Critics

‘their practice of close textual analysis’ and ‘the conservatism of

their literary, social and political views’. (Thompson, 34)


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According to Tyson, in overcoming the Biographical and Traditional

Historical criticism and replacing the extra-text materials with internal

references to the text itself, New Criticism had to face “the authorial intention”.

Traditional readers and critics believed that there is always an idea (or intention)

behind every literary work which its author had in his mind, before writing.

This is the reason he has written the book; to communicate it, implicitly or

explicitly, with us. That’s why they studied the author’s biography, his life and

time. But New Criticism rejected the authorial intention, by pointing out the

intentional fallacy. They doubted if there is an authorial intention at all, when

most of great authors of past are death and cannot come to tell us how their

books are supposed to be read. And, based on New Criticism, even if there is

such a claim, it may be just an intentional fallacy. Too many times an author

wants to say something, but the result is different and it is possible if the poet is

not aware of the intention of his poem at the first stage. Therefore, whatever an

author says about his work is just an interpretation of it, like many other

interpretations by its readers. When it is not supported by the text, it is not

valuable.


New Critics also rejected any personal interpretation by referring it to the

affective fallacy, which is an understanding or interpretation of a text, based on

personal feelings, understanding or experiences which cannot be supported by

the text. New Criticism admits that different readers may have different

interpretations based on their personal backgrounds, but such an interpretation

is not universally acceptable, and is not the true interpretation of the text. It may

be suitable for a particular critic, but is not for others. It is made by a personal

reading of a text, and contrasts the universal theme of it.

New Critics claimed that the text itself is the only source or evidence that

a critic should focus on. As a result, New Criticism stated that the text is our

sole evidence or reference, not the author’s claim and the only important

materials are the printed words on the page. Based on fundamental principles of

New Criticism, in order to find the universal theme of the text, a critic should

avoid his subjective personal interpretations, called affective fallacy.

On the other hand, New Criticism never fully ignored the reader’s

response or the author’s intention. They rejected the judgment or the criticism

solely based on these interpretations. In a New Critic analysis of a literary text,

any interpretation which may help to find or develop the connection between

the formal elements of the text and its theme is welcomed. Therefore a New

Critic may concern about the authorial intention, but just as much as he

concerns about other interpretations.


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New Criticism searches for meaning within the structure of the text, and

finds it by examining the text though the close reading and analyzing the formal

elements (elements that form the text) within the text. That is why New

Criticism seems to be a kind of new formalism, although the purpose is different

here. In New Criticism, one may examine “all the evidence provided by the

language of the text itself: its images, symbols, metaphors, rhyme, meter, point

of view, setting, characterization, plot and so forth” (Tyson 119), to find their

relationship with the theme, in a way that confirms the single best interpretation

of the text, because New Criticism believes that there is such a single complete

interpretation, which is timeless and is not related to individual readers or social

events. Accordingly “the critic’s job … is to ascertain the structure of the poem,

to see how it operates to achieve its unity and to discover how meaning evolves

directly from the poem itself” (Bressler, 60).

This process of analyzing the text is more fitted to short texts like poems,

as New Critics are mostly interested in lyrical poetry too, but if the literary work

is too long, one can explain just some aspects of its form, like setting or imagery

of the text.

To analyze the text closely, New Critics first need to examine the words, and

may need to trace back the meaning(s) of individual words to the time the


literary text was written as well. Bressler mentions that for example “if a

fifteenth-century poet called someone a ‘nice person,’ the New Critics would

investigate the meaning of the word nice in the fifteenth century, discovering

that at that time nice meant foolish” (60). Looking carefully at the words, New

Critics would find both connotations and denotations for each one. Different

literal and implied meanings create “ambiguity”. Ambiguity is “language’s

capacity to sustain multiple meanings” (Bressler, 62) which intensifies the

complexity of the language. This complexity, which is made by organic unity of

the text, is a positive characteristic of a text, but should be resolved by the

critics. “If a text has an organic unity, then all of its formal elements work

together to establish its theme, or the meaning of the work as a whole. ... A

literary work must have [complexity] if it is to adequately represent the

complexity of human life” (Tyson, 121).

Tyson maintains that multiple meaning of the text is the results of four

linguistic elements: paradox, irony, ambiguity and tension. Paradox means a

statement which seems to be self-contradictory. At the first sight, it contradicts

or conflicts itself, but when analyzed deep, it intensifies the meaning by

suggesting broader areas to the statement. Irony is also a statement or an event

which seems to be contrary to its literal sense; an ironic statement, most of the

time, presents a meaning which is opposite of the intended meaning. And

tension, in New Criticism, means the conflicts within the text. Bressler defines


it as “the conflicts between a word’s denotation and its connotation, between a

literal detail and a figurative one, and between an abstract and a concrete detail”

(63).

These four linguistic devices, as well as other figurative devices such as

images, symbols, similes and metaphors control the poems structure. Tyson

argues that if they are all harmonized to the theme of the literary work, they

make a great work of art. She suggests that a New Critic should first try to

discover the theme and then analyze the ways these formal elements establish or

contribute to the theme. New Critics “were concerned with the universal aspects

of human experience” (Ryan, 3); they believed that a great work of art will

definitely have a theme of ‘universal human significance’. Thompson claims

that New Critics “do not merely investigate the ambiguities of language, but

also try to relate them to what is permanent and essential about man” (38).

Ryan also explains that for New Criticism “literary form is welded to content or

meaning in an organic unity” (3). Meaning that in a great work of art, in which

there is an organic unity among its elements, meaning and form are fused

together. A New Critic, therefore, should discuss both. He can find form with

the help of ambiguity, paradox, irony or tension. On the other hand, finding

formal and verbal elements, by supporting the theme or the meaning of it, leads

to a better understanding and interpretation of the text.


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Kain explains that for a close reading of a text, whether the aim is to point

out rhetorical features, structural elements, or cultural references, one should

observe carefully particular details and facts within the text. She offers a three-

step procedure, in which the first step is to read carefully and underline or

highlight keywords that are significant or causes doubts or questions. It may be

the ambiguity of the text, or a something related to the characterization; it can

be anything! Next step is to “look for patterns in the things you've noticed about

the text—repetitions, contradictions, similarities”. And the last step asks the

questions of “why” and “how”. These questions should be related to the

preview data, and may make the reader look back again to the text, in order to

find more references and reasons. Interpreting these keywords, which brings

about the result of our close reading, is a kind of inductive reasoning, “moving

from the observation of particular facts and details to a conclusion, or

interpretation, based on those observations” (Kain, 1).

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To briefly explain the process of New Critic interpretation of a literary

text, Tyson says that “New Criticism seeks to reveal how the text works as a

unified whole, by showing how its main theme is established by the text’s

formal, or stylistic elements” (253), like point of view, imagery, setting or


symbolism. So the first thing is to find the tension within the text, the conflict

between different parts or ideas presented in the text. Then, a New Critic would

try to establish the theme, and find out the relationship between formal elements

and the theme. This detailed analysis of tensions and reconciliations of formal

elements or verbal components is the important part of the process of close

reading. The formal elements of the text should contribute to the theme, and the

theme should be supported if there are any devices like tension, irony,

ambiguity and paradox. “All of these qualities must serve the unifying purpose

of supporting the text’s main theme … so that the whole text can be seen to

achieve its artistic purpose smoothly and completely” (Tyson, 254).

But a New Critic should always be aware of subjectivity in his

interpretation. Imagination and emotion has nothing to do in the judgment.

According to Graff, the theory of imagination “which the New Critics took over

and adapted largely from Coleridge … was a vehicle by which distinctions

between opposites were transcended and the logical, analytical view of the

world overcome … but this philosophical monism at the center of organicist

poetics was necessarily fatal to the New Critical attempt to establish the

objectivity either of textual interpretation or of the literary work's reference to

the outer world” (84).


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In the history of literary movements and critical approaches, there is

almost always another opposite reaction for every critical approach, and New

Criticism faced the same trouble. Jancovich implies that two major

controversial issues of New Criticism were its fully dependence on the text, and

its rejection of extra-text materials, which went to extreme. According to Graff

this text-isolation was not acceptable for some who thought that New Criticism

have “trivialized literature and literary study by turning critical interpretation

into an over-intellectualized game whose object was the solution of interpretive

puzzles. [Because] this way of viewing literature tended to ignore or destroy the

moral, political, and personal impact that literature might possess” (72). When

New Critics considered a poem an objective work of art, they ceased unrelated

interpretations to exist, but on the other hand, they ignored all other areas as

well. They ignored external influences to be studied, such as gender, race or the

social class. Subjectivity and emotion were among the things they tried to

ignore. Basically speaking, New Criticism attempted to settle a scientific

method of interpretation and evaluation literary texts. Eliot’s criticism is among

the first examples, which “was ostensibly formalist, insisting on the recognition

of literature as an object of study on its own term; it was anti-impressionistic …

it had the look of being theoretical” (Litz, 10).


New Criticism separates the text from its author and the readers, to

analyze it closely in an objective academic isolation. New Critics claim that

“literature can only be discussed in terms of its intrinsic qualities--language and

structure” (Wallace, 7). This isolation was not tolerable to proceeding critics

who spoke of interactions between the text and the reader. This scientific

objectivity was the same as dehumanization of a voice of the text which was

once narrated from a human being to share knowledge. The knowledge which

should be discussed in regards to other social, historical and cultural issues.

Opposes to New Criticism claims that poetry (or any kind of literary work) is

different from a scientific report, and should not be observed in the same

manner. Graff quotes from Richard Palmer's Hermeneutics, that this objectivity

was so emphasized that students were told in literature classes to avoid from

any personal interpretation of a poem because it was sure an irrelevant fallacy to

their interpretation and analysis. Palmer was among the people who criticized

New Criticism because of its fundamental principle of objectivity. He believed

that there should be an interaction or “a loving union between the text and the

interpreter” (Graff, 74).

According to Wellek, New Criticism “is considered not only superseded,

obsolete, and dead but somehow mistaken and wrong” (611). He strongly

rejects theory of New Criticism, and believes that it is “uninterested in the

human meaning, the social function and effect of literature” (611), and is


“unhistorical” because it ignores the historical context of the text, influences of

past or its influences on the future. Wallace also states that for New Critics, “the

socio- subjective content of literature is either ignored or mystified in critical

practice” (101).

Other critics have also accused New Criticism of paying too much

attention to the text, as if worshiping or placing it on a pedestal, and ignoring all

other areas, such as history, sociology, psychoanalysis and subjective responses

of the readers, which could be relevant or necessary in interpretation of a

particular text. Jancovich maintains that “rescuing the text from author and

reader went hand in hand with disentangling it from any social or historical

context” (6).

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Although, as we saw, New Criticism is considered by some critics as a

dead theory today, but it had a great influence on its following literary theories,

and still is useful in order to explore a text and interpret its elements for a better

understanding. Litz believes that comparing to modernism, New Criticism is “a

more systematic, more philosophical or more academic articulation of formalist

undercurrents within modernism” (3). Close reading or close analysis of a text

is what New Criticism introduced and is a fundamental tool in today’s modern

literary criticism. Some of the New Criticism’s “most important concepts,


concerning the nature and importance of textual evidence-the use of concrete,

specific examples from the text itself to validate our interpretations-have been

incorporated into the way most literary critics today, regardless of their

theoretical persuasion, support their readings of literature” (Tyson, 117). Tyson

explains that even today, close reading is the predominant and standard method

of instruction in high schools and colleges for students of English Literature.

There are also professors and literature teachers who believe that New

Criticism, by paying much more attention to the text, is a helpful device in

teaching literature, if it is not to ignore other eras as well. Combination of New

Criticism and the suitable theory (for example feminism, psychoanalysis and

etc.) for a particular text, leads to a careful analysis of the text and strong

support for the theory.


WWoorrkkss CCiitteedd

Baldick, Chris. Criticism and Literary Theory 1890 to the Present. New York:

Longman, 1996.

Bressler, Charles E. Literary Criticism: an Introduction to Theory and Practice.

New Jersey: Upper Saddle River, 2007.

Graff, Gerald. “The New Criticism” Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Ed.

Linda Pavlovski, Vol. 146 (summer-fall 1974). Gale Cengage, 2004.

<http://www.enotes.com/twentieth-century-criticism/new-criticism/

gerald-graff-essay-date-summer-fall-1974>

Jancovich , Mark . The Cultural Politics of the New Criticism. New York:

Cambridge University Press, 1993.

<http://books.google.com.my/books?id=TiDDj8HIqboC&dq=The+Cultur

al+Politics+of+the+New+Criticism&source=gbs_summary_s&cad=0>

Kain, Patricia. How to Do a Close Reading. Writing Center: Harvard

University, 1998.

<http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~wricntr/documents/CloseReading.html>


Litz , A. Walton, Louis Menand, Lawrence Rainey. “Modernism and the New

Criticism” The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism (No. 7) Princeton

University, New Jersey.

<http://www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=0521300126>

Ryan, Michael. Literary Theory: a Practical Introduction. UK: Blackwell

Publishing, 2007.

Thompson, Ewa M. Russian Formalism and Anglo-American New Criticism:

A Comparative Study. The Netherlands: The Hague, 1971.

Tyson, Lois. Critical Theory Today. USA: Garland Publishing, 1999.

Wallace, David M. (1970) Literary Criticism as Ideology: A critique of New

Criticism. Master thesis. Unpublished. University of British Columbia.

Wellek, René. “The New Criticism: Pro and Contra.” Critical Inquiry, Vol. 4,

No. 4. (Summer, 1978), pp. 611-624.

<http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0093-1896%28197822%294%3A4%3

C611%3ATNCPAC%3E2.0.CO%3B2-L>.

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