New criticism 1940s-50s

 New criticism 1940s-50s

-known as Formalistic / ontological

-Derived its name from John Crowe Ransom’s ‘The new criticism’(1941)

-This term was coined by  J. E. Spingram in 1910 in his address at the Columbia University.

-In this essay New Criticism he listed 10 principles.

-It is a reaction against impressionism and relativism.

It rejects the expression theories of poetry and concentrates only on textual explication. It rejects the historical biographical roots of the author.

Close reading of the text is the method to value the work particularly poetry it is solely on the basis of cohesiveness (close unity) of the work.

 French term for close reading is ‘explication D texte’.

It is kick-started by TS Eliot and Ezra Pound (imagism)

It doesn’t give importance to the distinction between literary genres .

 

Key terms

Intentional fallacy:

-Coined by Wimsatt and Beardsley in their essay ‘The intentional Fallacy’(1946).

-It is the error of interpreting and evaluating a literary work by references to evidence outside that text itself

-Judging a work of art by assuming the intention of the author.

It begins with the psychological cloud causes and ends in biography.

It refers to confusion between poem and its origins.

Affective Fallacy

 coined by Wimsatt and Beardsley in their essay ‘The effective fallacy’.

Judging a work of art based on its effect on the reader.

It begins with the psychological effect and  impression.

It refers to confusion between poem and its results.

Heresy and Paraphrase

-Coined by Cleanth Brooks in Well Wrought Urn(1947).

 Heresy is assuming the meaning of work of art can be paraphrased.

Heresy and paraphrase occur when reader interprets the text in different ways that other than it says.

Translation of poem to prose is injustice to the poem.

“The language of poetry is the language of paradox”-Cleanth Brooks.

 

Critics and works:

 Thomas Earnest Hulme:

-The father of imagism'.

Foundations of new criticism is in his essay ‘Speculations on humanism and the Philosophy of Art’.

He says aim of language as “accurate, precise and definite descriptive. “

 

 

 

Thomas Stern Elliot:

-In his book The Sacred Wood (1920), he made poetry central to the theory and focused specifically on poem as a text.

-He took the classical idea of studying literature as literature.

-He says, “poetry is escape from emotion and escaped from personality.”

-The function of criticism(1933): separates poem from the poet.

-The Frontiers of Criticism.

 

Tradition and Individual Talent(1919).

-The essay was first published in The Egoist (1919) and later in Eliot's first book of criticism, "The Sacred Wood" (1920).

-This essay is divided into three parts:

Ø  first the concept of "Tradition,"

Ø  then the Theory of Impersonal Poetry,

Ø  and finally the conclusion.

Part 1: concept of Tradition:

It is in the first part of essay Tradition and Individual Talent, he relates poet to the past.

Tradition is not blind adherence to the past generations.

It is not a slavish imitation.

He says, “novelty is better than repetition.”

Tradition is something inherited or handed down, it is not only of the pastness of the past, but also its presence.

Since no poet writes in isolation, the significance of the work judged only in comparison with the works of the poets of the past.

Tradition is not static, fixed it is dynamic constantly growing and changing just as the past directs the present also modified the past.

When a new work is created (original/ significant), the whole literary tradition is modified. there may be refinement but there is not any improvement in art.

Tradition demands vigorous scholarship (not bookish knowledge)

We never judge the quality in degrees.

Part 2: “Theory of Impersonality”

-In which he says “poet has no personality, he merges his feelings, thoughts, experiences into the subject of his poetry. The experience is (poets and past) and impressions (poem and author) may be interested to the writer but not to his readers.

The emotion of art is impersonality” -(T.S Eliot, Tradition and Individual Talent).

 

-Progression of an artist is “continual self sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality.

-The more perfect the poet the more completely separated in him. The poets mind is like platinum in a chemical reaction.

-In Sulphur + Oxygen -----à Sulphurous acid

-Here platinum remains unaffected the same way the mind of the poet remains unaffected during the poetic composition.

-so he says poetry is not turning off loose of emotions but it is an escape from emotions. Poetry is not the expression of personality but an escape from personality.

-He refuses the Wordsworth theory of “emotions recollected in tranquillity.”  He says poet can't reach his impersonality without surrendering himself wholly to the work to be done. Poet must suppress his personal feelings.

-The biography of poet is not to be studied, but the structure of the poem and its evocation powers are important.

-In this essay

Ø  In Part 1, He explains relation of poet to the past. He says, “past is never dead.” No poet has his complete meaning alone, his significance in relation to the dead poets.

Ø  In Part 2:  He explains the relation of poet to the poem. He says, “poem and poet are two separate things poet should be passive and impersonal. “

 

“Hamlet and His problems”

-He coined the term ‘Objective Correlative’, in this he says “a set of objects, situations, events which create emotion.

‘What is a classic?’

‘Metaphysical Poets’

Emotions should be conveyed indirectly through paradoxes. Readers should be challenged and made to think.

He took the concept of ‘Dissociation of sensibility’, in which he rejects the Wordsworth theory of “emotions recollected in tranquilly as an exact formula.

He influenced I. A.  Richards and F.R.Leavis.

His other essays are

Ø  “The Perfect critic”,

Ø  “The imperfect critic”

 

Unification of sensibility vs dissociation of sensibility

In his essay ‘Metaphysical Poets’ he says, unification of sensibility is the amalgamation of individual with the tradition, feeling with the thought, temporal with external.

In writings of Dante and Shakespeare unification is there (16th century).

In 17th century Metaphysical poets have unified sensibility after Donne, Herbart. It is lost. In the 18th century intellectuals they didn't feel.

In 19th century Romantics they didn't think. Tennyson and Browning are poets and they think but they don’t feel.

Charge against Milton and Dryden:

-Though they are great poets they refined language but feeling became crude.

-For this reason, feeling and expression in Gray’s country churchyard is cruder and less satisfying than Coy mistress

Charge against Browning and Tennyson:

-Browning and Tennyson tried but a failed, English poetry recovered in modern age.

-He says that they can think, but they cannot feel; Their thought is as immediately as the odour of a rose.

 

Ivory Armstrong Richards:

‘Father of new criticism’

Science and poetry 1926

Practical criticism: study of literary judgement 1929

He experimented with his students by giving poems in which he took off the names of authors and asked them to write analysis he would lecture on the poems and written responses which he called protocols.

The foundation of Aesthetics(1922)CK Ogden and James wood collaborated with CKOgden.

The Meaning of meaning(1923) with CKOgden.

The principles of literary criticism(192 in this book he commented on the two uses of language (close reading)referential or scientific and emotional use of language.

The philosophy of rhetoric (1936)

The Times of India Guide to basic English 1938

‘Coleridge on imagination’, an essay.

He coined the terms a tenor and vehicle in description of metaphor.

Four kinds of meaning sense- literary meaning, feeling- attitude of speaker of the subject, tone -attitude towards the listener, intention -the speakers aim what is said emotions attitude towards reader.

Writers aim-sense

Emotions- feeling

Attitude towards reader- tone

Writer’s aim- intention

Basic English : A general Introduction with rules and Grammar.

Used in schools in China.

A simplified subset of English with 850 words used only in 18 verbs emphasized the ease of use.

He says,” there is no verb in basic English.” Poet in our times is a semi- barbarian in a civilised community- Thomas Love Peacock.

Other works of  Richards

Mencius of the Mind

The speculative instruments.

Poetics and Science.

 

William Empson:

A student of I A Richards.

Seven types of Ambiguity (1930)

Ambiguity is a puzzle to him. He made the term ambiguity famous. He rejects Richards’ emotive and referential use of language. He proposed “Atomic Theory of Language” in “The Structure of Complex Words”

 Modern poetry and the Tradition (1939).

 

CleanthBrooks:

Well wrought Urn: Studies in the structure of poetry.

He is  an American critic it contains full of close readings of the greatest hits of English poets from Shakespeare  and Donne to Keats and Wordsworth.

He calls poetry as “away off saying.” poetic language is different from scientific language.

‘The language of Paradox’(1942) an essay.

“Language of poetry is a language of paradox”- through analysis of Wordsworth and Donne's poems.

Heresy and Paraphrase a term coined by Cleanth Brooks in Well Wrought Urn the title is taken from Donne’s Canonization.

The language of paradox an essay published in 1942 in a journal named “The language of poetry “  latter included in The well Wrought Urn. He says, “literary language is a kind of language not accessible to science or scientific discourse.”He used this formula in paradox while Tate finds it in ‘Tension’, Empson in ambiguity, Ransom in ‘structure and texture’.

In The well Wrought Urn he refers to Wordsworth poem ‘it is a beauteous evening..., calm and free’ “Intimations”.

Coloriage’s poem The Rime of Ancient Mariner. Pope’s lines from “The Essay on man”

Gray’s “Elegy”, Donne ‘s Canonization compared with Macbeth. Tennyson’s “Tears idle tears.”

The well wrought Urn contains 11 chapters turn off which are close readings of English poems from Shakespeare’s Macbeth to WB Yeats “Among the school children”

In 11th chapter famous entitled ‘Heresy and paraphrase’

The title of the book alludes the fourth  stanza of John Donne’s poem ‘The canonization’

The first chapter tells us in its title that poetic language is the language of paradox. Brooks is associated with the Southern Movement which is manifested his association with the Southern Review and Kenyon review.

Magazines

Fugative 1922-25 J.C.Ransom edited with the group of writers Tate Robert  Penn Warren, Donald Davidson.

Southern view by Robert Penn Warren and Brooks

Kenyon review Ransom

Sewanee Review

Partisan Review: Lionel Trilling

Scrutiny  a journal founded and edited from 1932 to 53 by F. R. Leavis.

William Kurtz, Wimsatt and Monroe Beardsley:

The verbal icon- book

The intentional fallacy

The Affective fallacy both are published in The verbal icon. judging a poem is like judging a pudding or a machine. Wimsatt and Beardsley in The verbal icon.

Wimsatt ideas have affected the development of Reader Response Criticism.

Richard Palmer Blackmore: derived naturalistic motive from George Santayana

for analytical procedure indebted to I A Richards and Empson.

The double agent

The expense of Greatness

 

Frank Raymond Leavis:

British critic, he can be placed it under moralistic and humanistic tradition of Arnold. His the criticism is ontological criticism.

Education and University 1943 essays study of humanities in England.

New bearings in England English poetry (1932) critical opinions on modern poetry.

Revolutions: Tradition and Development in English poetry (1932), critical opinions on post Shakespeare poetry.Scrutiny magazine name given by F.R.Leavis(close scrutiny of text )close scrutiny defined life of text. Leavis greatly admired DH Lawrence who echoed Leavis sentimentsin his essays Morality and the Novel (1925)and Why the novel Matters(1936).

The Great Traditions(1948): Leavis names 8 great novelists. It is a collection of critical opinions on novel. 

The 8 novelists are 

1. Jane Austen

2. George Eliot

3.  Henry James

4. Joseph Conrad

5. Dickens

6. Hawthorne

7. Melville

8. Edgar Allan Poe.

Features of new criticism:

• “A poem should be treated as a poetry and not other thing.” T. S.  Elliot.
• “Language of literature is different from science or logic.
• It has words, figures of speech”-Cleanth Brooks.
• Close reading or explication.
• There is no distinction between literary genres (although acknowledged).

Limitations of new criticism

• Excessively preoccupied with the textual analysis. Over emphasising the aesthetic function whereas the older theories emphasize moral function.
• It ignored the study of history of literary criticism.
• This approach is often dogmatic and narrow.
• Since their close scrutiny of text alone is not wholistic.
• Their antipathy to the historical, sociological and psychological etc.. will not provide the better insight of the work.