NEW CRITICISM: Origin, Definition, Features
ORIGIN OF NEW CRITICISM:
New
criticism emerged as a reaction against the traditional 19th century
criticism during the first half of the 20th century. It is a Post
World War I Anglo-American literary critical theory. The term ‘New
Criticism’ was coined by John Crowe Ransom when he published his ‘New Criticism’
in 1941 and then it came to be applied as a theory. This theory remained prominent
in American literary criticism until late in the 1960s.
WHAT IS NEW CRITICISM?
It consisted of a group of critics who considered texts as
autonomous and “closed”. They believed that everything that we need to
understand about a work of art is within the text only. We need not go anywhere
to see the biographical, sociological, political connections. In short, they
emphasized more on the close study of the text only.
MAJOR NEW CRITICS:
Allen Tate, Robert Penn Warren, J. C. Ransom, Cleanth Brooks,
William Empson, T. S. Eliot and F.R. Leavis.
NEW CRITICISM THEORY:
1. Surface
reading of literature is insufficient. The critic has to examine different patterns
of literary devices within the text.
2. They
excluded the author, the reader and the contexts in which the work is written.
3. They
avoided the study of the author, the social, cultural, political background in
which the work is written.
4. They laid
emphasis on the close examination of the words, the diction, the meter, irony,
paradoxes, images etc.
5. They
adopted a scientific and objective approach in their analysis of the work of
art. They considered text as a “code” and did the task of “decoding” the
“code”.
NEW CRITICISM VS FORMALISM:
There are
many similarities between New Criticism Theory and Formalistic Theory.
|
New Criticism |
Formalism |
|
Created in America and Great Britain |
Created in Russia |
|
Created in first half of the 20th century |
Created in the 1910s |
|
Analyzed form and content of a text |
Analyzed form and structure of a text |
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