by Jacob Cooper

Definition

• New Criticism is a shift in literary criticism from the late 19th century and early 20th century theory that was grounded in Marxism. Marxist literary theory focused on the relationships that historical, political, and social conditions have to works of literature.

• In his book Understanding Contemporary American Literary Theory, Michael P. Spikes describes the distinction of New Criticism from the preceding dominant literary theory of the time — Marxist literary theory: “Though sociological and political criticism were important in the first half of the century, the most influential and significant movement of this time was one which eschewed sociology and politics altogether: the New Criticism.”
• New Criticism began in England in the 1920s, and flourished in the United States in the ‘30s and ‘40s. New Criticism was the dominant school of literary theory in the United States until the early 1960s.
• Important New Critics include I.A. Richards, T.S. Eliot, William Empson, John Crowe Ransom, Allen Tate, R.P. Blackmur, Cleanth Brooks, and W.K. Wimsatt.

Tenets of New Criticism include:

“The design or intention of the author is neither available nor desirable as a standard for judging the success of a work of literary art.” (W.K. Wimsatt and Monroe C. Beardsley’s “The Intentional Fallacy”)

(1) A work of literature is understood apart from the intention of its author — the author’s intention is irrelevant. The meaning of the text is contained wholly in the words on the page.

“In short, though cultures have changed and will change, poems remain and explain; and there is no legitimate reason why criticism, losing sight of its durable and peculiar objects, poems themselves, should become a dependent of social history or anthropology.” (Wimsatt and Beardsley’s “The Affective Fallacy”)

(2) The historical, political, and social context in which the text is produced is irrelevant to an understanding of the text. Once again, the meaning is built solely into the words on the page.

“The Affective Fallacy is a confusion between the poem and its results (what it is and what it does)…It begins by trying to derive the standard of criticism from the psychological effects of the poem and ends in impressionism and relativism.” (Wimsatt and Beardsley’s “The Affective Fallacy”)

(3) The meaning of a text should never be confused with the reader’s personal response.

“Indeed, one may sum up by saying that most of the distempers of criticism come from yielding to the temptation to take certain remarks which we make about the poem — statements about what it says or about what truth it gives or about what formulations it illustrates — for the essential core of the poem itself.” (Cleanth Brooks’ “The Heresy of Paraphrase”)

(4) A text’s meaning cannot be reduced to a simple thematic summation.

New Critics also believed that:

• A text is “autotelic”—an artifact that is complete within itself, written for its own sake, unified in its form, and whose meaning can be excavated by a close reading, separate from any biographical or historical information.
• Linguistic devices, such as metaphor, paradox, and irony, which bring opposites together and create unified tensions, are the basis of literature. A text should be a network of varying ideas and images that create an organic whole.
• The language of literature is different from other forms of language, such as scientific language. Literature language is richer and more connotative.

Works Cited

Brooks, Cleanth. “The Heresy of Paraphrase.” The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Ed. Vincent B. Leitch. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2001. 1353-365.

Spikes, Michael P. Understanding Contemporary American Literary Theory. South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press, 2003.

Wimsatt, William K., and Monroe C. Beardsley. “The Affective Fallacy.” The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Ed. Vincent B. Leitch. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2001. 1387-401.

Wimsatt, William K., and Monroe C. Beardsley. “The Intentional Fallacy.” The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Ed. Vincent B. Leitch. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2001. 1374-387.