New Criticism
NEW CRITICISM
Introduction
New Criticism
The name New criticism came into popular use to describe this approach to understanding literature with the 1941 publication of John Crow Ransom’s The New Criticism.
This contains Ransom’s personal analysis of several of his contemporaries among theories and critics.
Here he calls for an ontological critic (one who will recognize that poem is a concrete entity) like Leonardo Da Vinci’s “”Mona Lisa”.
In New Criticism, a poem can be analyzed to discover its true or correct meaning independent to its author’s intention or emotional state, or the values and beliefs of either its author or its reader.
It does not represent a coherent body of critical theory and methodology espoused by all its followers.
At best New Criticism and its adherents (New Critics) are an eclectic group, challenging borrowing, and changing terminology theory from one another while simultaneously asserting a common core of asserting ideas.
John Crow Ransom
He was a Southern poet, a critic and one of the advocates of this evolving movement.
New Criticism was also called:
Modernism
Formalism
Aesthetic criticism
Textual criticism
Ontological criticism
Historical Development
Modernist Period
Started at the beginning of the 20th century, historical and biographical research dominated literary scholarship.
Criticism’s Function
To discover the historical context of the text and to ascertain how the author’s lives influenced their writings. Such as extrinsic analysis became the norm in the English departments of many American universities and colleges.
Other Groups of Critics
Impressionistic Critics
For them, how we feel and what we personally see in a work of art is what really matters.
Naturalism
According to them, human beings are simply animals who are caught in a world that operates on definable scientific principles and who responds somewhat instinctively to their environment and to their internal drives.
New
Introduction
New Criticism
The name New criticism came into popular use to describe this approach to understanding literature with the 1941 publication of John Crow Ransom’s The New Criticism.
This contains Ransom’s personal analysis of several of his contemporaries among theories and critics.
Here he calls for an ontological critic (one who will recognize that poem is a concrete entity) like Leonardo Da Vinci’s “”Mona Lisa”.
In New Criticism, a poem can be analyzed to discover its true or correct meaning independent to its author’s intention or emotional state, or the values and beliefs of either its author or its reader.
It does not represent a coherent body of critical theory and methodology espoused by all its followers.
At best New Criticism and its adherents (New Critics) are an eclectic group, challenging borrowing, and changing terminology theory from one another while simultaneously asserting a common core of asserting ideas.
John Crow Ransom
He was a Southern poet, a critic and one of the advocates of this evolving movement.
New Criticism was also called:
Modernism
Formalism
Aesthetic criticism
Textual criticism
Ontological criticism
Historical Development
Modernist Period
Started at the beginning of the 20th century, historical and biographical research dominated literary scholarship.
Criticism’s Function
To discover the historical context of the text and to ascertain how the author’s lives influenced their writings. Such as extrinsic analysis became the norm in the English departments of many American universities and colleges.
Other Groups of Critics
Impressionistic Critics
For them, how we feel and what we personally see in a work of art is what really matters.
Naturalism
According to them, human beings are simply animals who are caught in a world that operates on definable scientific principles and who responds somewhat instinctively to their environment and to their internal drives.
New