| Aspect | Details |
|---|---|
| Name Origin | John Crowe Ransom's book The New Criticism (1941) • Term became label for entire movement • Ransom surveyed Richards, Empson, Eliot, Yvor Winters • "New" because it broke with historical/biographical criticism |
| Origins | • American movement (primarily Southern United States) • Roots: I.A. Richards's close reading + T.S. Eliot's impersonal theory • Developed in universities (especially Vanderbilt, Yale) • Dominated American criticism 1940s-1960s |
| Core Method | Close Reading - Detailed analysis of text's language, structure, imagery • Line-by-line examination • Focus on irony, paradox, ambiguity, tension • Organic unity of the text |
| Central Belief | Poem = autonomous, self-contained object • "The text itself" is what matters • Meaning resides IN the text, not outside it • Literary work as verbal icon |
| What to IGNORE | • Author's biography, intentions • Historical context • Reader's emotional response • Moral/political messages All external factors = irrelevant "fallacies" |
| Principle | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Text as Organic Whole | All parts of poem work together • Like organism: every part contributes to whole • Unity, coherence, integration • Nothing extraneous or ornamental |
| Complexity & Ambiguity | Great poetry is complex, not simple • Multiple meanings, layers • Ambiguity = richness (following Empson) • Resist paraphrase |
| Irony & Paradox | Essential features of good poetry • Irony = saying one thing, meaning another • Paradox = apparent contradiction revealing truth • Complexity of attitude, multiple perspectives |
| Form & Content Inseparable | "What" a poem says = "How" it says it • Cannot separate meaning from form • Paraphrase destroys the poem • The poem IS its language |
| Tension | Opposed forces held in balance • Allen Tate: "Tension in poetry" • Literal vs. figurative, denotation vs. connotation • Good poem maintains productive tension |
| Concept | Details |
|---|---|
| Definition | Error of judging poem by author's intended meaning • "The design or intention of the author is neither available nor desirable as a standard for judging success" • Essay published 1946 in Sewanee Review |
| Why Fallacy? | 1. Intention often unknowable: Author may not remember, may lie, may be unconscious 2. Intention irrelevant: Poem succeeds/fails on its own terms, not author's plans 3. Work has independent existence: Once published, poem belongs to language, not author Poem must stand on its own merits |
| Example | • Don't ask "What did Eliot intend by Waste Land?" • Ask "What does the text itself reveal?" • Author's letters, interviews, diaries = unreliable, unnecessary |
| Evidence Allowed | Internal evidence ONLY: • What's in the text itself • Public meaning of words (dictionary, common usage) • NOT author's private associations or statements |
| Impact | • Challenged biographical criticism dominant in 19th/early 20th century • Shifted focus from author to text • Professionalized literary study (text analysis, not gossip about poets) |
| Concept | Details |
|---|---|
| Definition | Error of judging poem by its emotional effect on reader • "Affective Fallacy is confusion between the poem and its results (what it is and what it does)" • Essay published 1949 (3 years after Intentional Fallacy) |
| Why Fallacy? | 1. Subjective variability: Different readers feel differently 2. Impressionism: "I felt sad" is not criticism, just report of feelings 3. Poem ≠ Its effects: Poem is objective structure, not reader's psychology Criticism should analyze poem, not readers' emotions |
| What They Attack | • Impressionistic criticism: "This poem moved me deeply" • Reader-response: Meaning = what reader experiences • Catharsis theories: Value = emotional effect All focus on EFFECTS, not poem itself |
| Proper Criticism | Analyze objective features of text • Structure, imagery, irony, paradox • How poem is BUILT to create effects • Not whether it moves YOU, but HOW it creates meaning |
| Impact | • Ruled out reader-response approaches (until 1970s revival) • Made criticism "objective" and "scientific" • Established close reading as central method |
| Fallacy | Error | Slogan |
|---|---|---|
| Intentional Fallacy | Looking BEFORE text (author's mind) | "Forget the author!" |
| Affective Fallacy | Looking AFTER text (reader's feelings) | "Forget the reader!" |
| Solution | Focus on TEXT ITSELF - autonomous, objective verbal structure | |
| Concept | Details |
|---|---|
| Work Context | Chapter in The Well Wrought Urn (1947) • Most famous New Critical text after Wimsatt & Beardsley's fallacies • Close readings of 10 poems from Donne to Yeats |
| The "Heresy" | Belief that poem can be paraphrased without loss • "The paraphrase is NOT the poem" • Reducing poem to prose statement = heresy (false doctrine) • Like saying painting = list of objects depicted |
| Why Heresy? | Poem's meaning = its total structure, not extractable "message" • Form and content inseparable • Meaning inheres in language, rhythm, imagery, structure • "The structure IS the meaning" • Paraphrase kills the poem |
| Example | • Keats's "Beauty is truth, truth beauty" in "Ode on a Grecian Urn" • CANNOT extract this as philosophical statement • Meaning emerges from entire ode's context, tensions, ironies • Out of context = meaningless or banal |
| Paradox Central | "The language of poetry is the language of paradox" • Good poems contain contradictions held in balance • Apparent opposites unified • Complexity, not simplicity |
| Organic Unity | Poem = living organism • Every part necessary to whole • Cannot extract "message" without destroying organism • Like dissecting frog: can study parts, but frog is dead |
| Work | Contribution |
|---|---|
| Understanding Poetry (1938) | • With Robert Penn Warren • Most influential textbook of New Criticism • Taught close reading to generations of students • Organized by poetic elements (irony, paradox, etc.) NOT history |
| Modern Poetry and the Tradition (1939) | • Defends modernist poetry using New Critical methods • Traces paradox/irony tradition from Metaphysicals to modernists • Eliot's dissociation thesis supported |
| The Well Wrought Urn (1947) | • Close readings demonstrating New Critical method • Shows all good poetry (not just modern) uses irony/paradox • "Heresy of Paraphrase" chapter most famous |
| Critic | Contribution |
|---|---|
| John Crowe Ransom (1888-1974) | • Named the movement: The New Criticism (1941) • Founded The Kenyon Review (major New Critical journal) • "Ontological critic" - poem's mode of existence • Texture (concrete detail) vs. Structure (abstract logic) |
| Allen Tate (1899-1979) | • "Tension in Poetry" (1938) • Tension = extension (literal) + intension (figurative) • Good poetry maintains tension between opposing forces • Fugitive/Agrarian movement (Southern writers) |
| Robert Penn Warren (1905-1989) | • Co-author of Understanding Poetry with Brooks • Also major novelist (All the King's Men) • "Pure and Impure Poetry" (1943) - defends complexity |
| R.P. Blackmur (1904-1965) | • "Language as Gesture" • Focus on texture of language • Critic as explicator of verbal complexity |
| Yvor Winters (1900-1968) | • More moralistic than other New Critics • Insisted on rational statement in poetry • Controversial, often contrarian views |
| Strengths | Weaknesses |
|---|---|
| ✓ Close reading skill | ✗ Ignores history, context |
| ✓ Focused attention on text | ✗ Denies relevance of author's life/intentions |
| ✓ Professionalized criticism | ✗ Excludes reader's response |
| ✓ Excellent pedagogical tool | ✗ Works best with lyric poetry (not novels, drama) |
| ✓ Objective, rigorous method | ✗ Claim to "objectivity" questionable |
| ✓ Revealed complexity of language | ✗ Over-interprets, finds patterns everywhere |
| ✓ Democratic (anyone can analyze text) | ✗ Ahistorical, apolitical (ignores power, ideology) |
| ✓ Clear methodology | ✗ "Heresy of paraphrase" taken too far |
| Period | Why It Declined |
|---|---|
| 1960s-1970s | Attacked from multiple directions: • Reader-Response: Meaning = reader's experience (Stanley Fish, Wolfgang Iser) • Structuralism: Text = system of signs, needs broader theory (Barthes, Todorov) • Deconstruction: Organic unity impossible, texts self-contradictory (Derrida, de Man) • Marxism/Feminism: Must consider politics, history, gender (Eagleton, Showalter) 1970s "Theory Wars" = death of New Criticism's dominance |
| Legacy | Despite decline, close reading remains fundamental • All later approaches still use close reading • Changed how literature is taught • Method outlived theory |
| Question Type | Key Facts |
|---|---|
| Term Origin | John Crowe Ransom's book The New Criticism (1941) |
| Geography | American movement, especially Southern U.S. (Vanderbilt, Fugitives) |
| Peak Period | 1940s-1960s (declined 1970s) |
| Two Fallacies | Intentional (1946) & Affective (1949) - Wimsatt & Beardsley |
| Intentional Fallacy | Error of judging by author's intention - "Forget the author!" |
| Affective Fallacy | Error of judging by reader's response - "Forget the reader!" |
| Heresy of Paraphrase | Cleanth Brooks (1947) - The Well Wrought Urn |
| Most Influential Textbook | Brooks & Warren: Understanding Poetry (1938) |
| Core Method | Close Reading - line-by-line analysis of text |
| Key Terms | Irony, Paradox, Ambiguity, Tension, Organic Unity |
| What to Ignore | Biography, History, Reader Response, Authorial Intent |
| Ransom's Journal | The Kenyon Review - major New Critical journal |
| Allen Tate Essay | "Tension in Poetry" (1938) - extension + intension |
| Don't Confuse | Distinction |
|---|---|
| New Criticism vs. New Historicism | New Criticism: Ignore history, focus on text (1940s-60s) New Historicism: Return to history, context essential (1980s) OPPOSITE approaches! |
| Intentional vs. Affective Fallacy | Intentional: Don't ask what AUTHOR meant Affective: Don't ask what READER feels Both = focus on TEXT alone |
| Heresy of Paraphrase vs. Ambiguity | Heresy: Can't reduce poem to prose (Brooks) Ambiguity: Multiple meanings in text (Empson) Related but different concepts |
| Brooks's Two Books | Understanding Poetry (1938): Textbook with Warren The Well Wrought Urn (1947): Close readings, "Heresy" chapter |
| Close Reading Origin | I.A. Richards pioneered close reading (Practical Criticism 1929) New Critics developed it into full methodology (1940s-50s) Richards = British precursor; New Criticism = American movement |
New Criticism Complete
Wimsatt & Beardsley | Brooks | Ransom | Tate | Warren