↓ Introduction of New Criticism
New Criticism is a literary theory movement that originated in the first half of the 20th century in the United States and Great Britain. It is a formalist style of criticism that focuses on analyzing the text itself, without considering any external factors. New Criticism emphasizes close reading of a work of literature, particularly poetry, to discover how it functions as a self-contained, self-referential aesthetic object. ↓ Founder of New Criticism
This theory arose in America and Great Britain in the first half of the 20th century. 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, and W. K. Wimsatt also made significant contributions to New Criticism. It was Wimsatt who gave the idea of intentional 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.
↓ Most Important Things to New Criticism
These goals were articulated in Ransom's "Criticism, Inc." and Allen Tate's "Miss Emily and the Bibliographer."John Orley Allen Tate (November 19, 1899 – February 9, 1979), known professionally as Allen Tate, was an American poet, essayist, social commentator, and poet laureate from 1943 to 1944. Among his best-known works are the poems "Ode to the Confederate Dead" (1928) and "The Mediterranean" (1933), and his only novel The Fathers (1938).
He is associated with New Criticism, the Fugitives, and the Southern Agrarians. Tate was born near Winchester, Kentucky, to John Orley Tate, a Kentucky businessman, and Eleanor Parke Custis Varnell from Virginia. On the Bogan side of her grandmother's family, Eleanor Varnell was a distant relative of George Washington; she left Tate a copper luster pitcher that Washington had ordered from London for his sister.
In 1916 and 1917, Tate studied the violin at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music.New Critics rapidly predominated in American universities until challenged by feminist literary criticism and structuralism in the 1970s. Other schools of critical theory, including post-structuralism, deconstructionist theory, New Historicism, and reception studies, followed. In 1946, William K. Wimsatt and Monroe Beardsley published a classic and controversial New Critical essay entitled "The Intentional Fallacy," in which they argued strongly against the relevance of an author's intention, or "intended meaning," in the analysis of a literary work.
William Kurtz Wimsatt Jr. (November 17, 1907 – December 17, 1975) was an American professor of English, literary theorist, and critic. Wimsatt is often associated with the concept of the intentional fallacy, which he developed with Monroe Beardsley in order to question the importance of an author's intentions for the creation of a work of art. In another essay, "The Affective Fallacy," which served as a kind of sister essay to "The Intentional Fallacy," Wimsatt and Beardsley also discounted the reader's personal/emotional reaction to a literary work as a valid means of analyzing a text.
In response to critics like Hawkes, Cleanth Brooks, in his essay "The New Criticism" (1979), argued that the New Criticism was not diametrically opposed to the general principles of reader-response theory and that the two could complement one another. Richards' books Principles of Literary Criticism and Practical Criticism, William Empson's book Seven Types of Ambiguity, T.S. Eliot's essays "Tradition and the Individual Talent" and "Hamlet and His Problems," Ransom's essays "Criticism, Inc" and "The Ontological Critic," Tate's essay "Miss Emily and the Bibliographer," Wimsatt and Beardsley's essays "The Intentional Fallacy" and "The Affective Fallacy," Brooks' book The Well Wrought Urn: Studies in the Structure of Poetry, Warren's essay "Pure and Impure Poetry," and Wellek and Warren's book Theory of Literature all contributed significantly to the New Criticism movement. Seven Types of Ambiguity ushered in New Criticism in the United States.
Additional Information
→New Criticism:
New Criticism is a literary theory movement that originated in the first half of the 20th century in the United States and Great Britain. It is a formalist style of criticism that focuses on analyzing the text itself, without considering any external factors.
→New Criticism example:
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, were important examples of the development of a New Critical methodology.
→ What is the New Criticism:
New Criticism is a formalist style of literary criticism that focuses on the close reading of the text itself, without considering external factors such as the author's intention or the reader's response.
→New Criticism vs Formalism:
New Criticism and formalism both emphasize close reading and analyzing the text itself. However, New Criticism specifically focuses on the text as a self-contained, self-referential aesthetic object, while formalism may include a broader range of structural and linguistic elements.
→ New Criticism literary theory:
New Criticism is a literary theory that emerged in the early 20th century, focusing on the text's intrinsic features and advocating for close reading to understand its aesthetic and functional properties.
→ New Criticism lens:
Viewing a text through the New Criticism lens involves focusing on its internal structure, language, and meaning without considering the author's intention or the reader's emotional response.
→Difference between New Criticism and Formalism: While both approaches prioritize the text over external factors, New Criticism specifically focuses on the text's unity and organic form, whereas formalism may also consider broader structural elements.
Comments