New Criticism in Literature; Characteristics & Examples

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Definition

New Criticism, in simple terms, is a critical movement that propagates the idea of ‘art for art’s sake’.” In focusing on the text itself (“close reading“), New Critics intentionally ignore the author, the reader, and the social context.

New Criticism is an approach to literature made popular in the 20th century that evolved out of formalist criticism. New Criticism coined by John Crowe Ransom’s The New Criticism in 1941, came to be applied to theory and practice that was prominent in American literary criticism until late in the 1960s.

Characteristics

  • The movement derived in significant part from elements in Principles of Literary Criticism (1924) and Practical Criticism (1929) by I.A. Richards and from the critical essays of T.S. Eliot.
  • It opposed the prevailing interest of scholars, critics, and teachers of that era in the biographies of authors, the social context of literature, and literary history by insisting that the proper concern of literary criticism is not with the external circumstances or effects or historical position of a work, but with a detailed consideration of the work itself as an independent entity.
  • New Criticism is distinctly formalist in character.
  • The method of New Criticism focuses on a close reading of rhythm, meter, theme, imagery, metaphor, etc.
  • According to the intentional fallacy, it’s impossible to determine an author’s reasons for writing a text without directly asking him or her.
  • Intentional Fallacy, a literary term, is coined by the American New Critics W. K. Wimsatt Jr and Monroe C. Beardsley to describe the general assumption that an author’s assumed or declared intention in writing a work is an appropriate basis for deciding upon the meaning or value of a work.
  • Even if we did determine the author’s intentions, they don’t matter, because the text itself carries its own value. So, even if we’re reading a book by a renowned author like Shakespeare, we shouldn’t let the author’s reputation taint our evaluation of the text.
  • The affective fallacy is a literary term that refers to the supposed error of evaluating or judging a work on the basis of its emotional effects on a reader.
  • The new critics held that work should not have to be understood relative to the responses of its readers; its merit (and meaning) must be inherent.
  • The New Critics favoured poetry over other literary forms because for them poetry is the purest exemplification of the literary values which they upheld. Still, the techniques like close reading and structural analysis of the works are also applied to drama, novel, and other literary forms.
  • The aesthetic qualities used by the New Critics were largely borrowed from the critical writings of ST Coleridge. Coleridge was the first to describe poetry as a unified, organic whole that reconciles its internal conflicts and reaches some final balance or harmony.

Examples

  • Practical Criticism: a Study of Literary Judgement by IA Richard  (1929).
  • The Well Wrought Urn by Cleanth Brooks  (1947).
  • British Poetry Since 1960 by Michael Schmidt and Grevel Lindop (1972).
  • Eight Contemporary Poets by Calvin Bendient (1974).
  • Nine Contemporary Poets: A Critical Introduction by P.R. King (1979).
  • The Force of Poetry by Christopher Ricks (1987).

Here is another important article on New Criticism.