New Criticism facts for kids

New Criticism was a way of looking at literature, especially poetry, that was very popular in America in the middle of the 1900s. It focused on reading a text very carefully, like solving a puzzle, to understand how it worked all by itself. The idea was that a poem or story should be understood based only on its own words, not on what the author meant or how a reader felt about it.

This way of thinking got its name from a book called The New Criticism by John Crowe Ransom in 1941. Other important thinkers who helped shape New Criticism were I. A. Richards and T. S. Eliot. Richards wrote books like Practical Criticism, which suggested a scientific way to study literature. Eliot's essays, like "Tradition and the Individual Talent", also influenced how New Critics thought about poetry.

Why New Criticism Started

New Criticism came about because people felt that the old ways of studying literature weren't good enough.

Focusing on the Text Itself

Before New Criticism, many scholars focused on things outside the text. They would study:

• The history of words.
• How words related to old or foreign languages.
• The author's life story.

New Critics felt that these approaches took away from the actual poem or story. They believed that focusing on outside facts made people miss the beauty and meaning within the text itself.

Another older way of studying literature just pointed out the "beautiful" parts or how a text could teach good morals. New Critics thought this was too personal and emotional. They wanted a more organized and fair way to understand literature.

Many writers and critics outside universities also felt that the special experience of reading poetry was getting lost. They thought that too much focus was put on history, philosophy, or social issues instead of the words on the page.

What New Critics Believed

New Critics believed that the way a text was built (its structure) and its meaning were deeply connected. They thought you couldn't study them separately.

To bring the focus back to the text, they decided to ignore:

• The reader's personal feelings.
• What the author intended to say.
• The historical or cultural background.
• Any moral lessons.

They wanted to find the meaning that was right there in the words.

Key Ideas of New Criticism

One of the most important tools of New Criticism was "close reading." This means reading a text very carefully, line by line, to understand every detail.

The Intentional Fallacy

In 1946, two New Critics, W. K. Wimsatt and Monroe Beardsley, wrote an important essay called "The Intentional Fallacy". In it, they argued that an author's original intention or "intended meaning" doesn't matter when you're analyzing a literary work.

For them, only the words on the page were important. They believed that trying to guess what the author meant outside of the text was not helpful and could even be confusing.

The Affective Fallacy

Wimsatt and Beardsley also wrote another essay called "The Affective Fallacy". This essay said that a reader's personal or emotional reaction to a story or poem is not a good way to analyze it.

They believed that focusing on feelings would make literary study too subjective, meaning it would be different for everyone. Later, other literary thinkers, like Stanley Fish, disagreed with this idea.

How New Criticism Became Popular

Even though some older scholars didn't like it at first, the methods of New Criticism quickly became very popular in American universities. It was especially strong during the Cold War years, from the 1950s to the mid-1970s.

Books like Understanding Poetry by Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren were used in many high schools and colleges. These books taught students how to "close read" texts.

Studying a Text with New Criticism

When studying a text using New Critical style, students would look very closely at the passage itself. They would examine:

• Rhyme and rhythm.
• The setting.
• Characterization (how characters are described).
• The plot.

They used these elements to find the main theme of the text. New Critics also looked for things like paradox (things that seem to contradict each other), ambiguity (things that can have more than one meaning), irony (when something means the opposite of what it seems), and tension. All of these helped them find the single best and most complete meaning of the text.

New Criticism Today

New Criticism is not the main way of studying literature in American universities anymore. Other ideas, like feminist literary criticism and structuralism, became popular in the 1970s.

However, some of its methods, especially "close reading," are still very important tools in literary study. Many newer ways of looking at literature, like post-structuralism and reader-response theory, still use close reading as a basic skill.

Criticism of New Criticism

New Criticism faced some common criticisms:

• People said it treated literary texts as if they were completely separate from history or the real world.
• Critics argued that New Critics didn't care about the human meaning or social impact of literature.

Some critics, like Terence Hawkes, argued that New Criticism assumed readers and texts were "stable and independent." He felt that a critic actually helps "create" the finished work by reading it, rather than just being a passive consumer.

However, Cleanth Brooks, one of the New Critics, argued that New Criticism wasn't completely against ideas like reader-response theory. He said, "No one in his right mind could forget the reader. He is essential for 'realizing' any poem or novel." But he also warned that letting every individual reader decide the meaning would turn literary study into just psychology or a history of personal tastes.

Another criticism was that New Criticism tried too hard to make literary study into a science. John Crowe Ransom even suggested that "criticism must become more scientific." But others, like René Wellek, pointed out that many New Critics actually wanted their methods to be different from the "objectivity" of science.

Important Texts of New Criticism

Here are some of the key books and essays that helped define New Criticism:

• Richards' books Principles of Literary Criticism and Practical Criticism
• William Empson's book Seven Types of Ambiguity
• T.S. Eliot's essays "Tradition and the Individual Talent" and "Hamlet and His Problems"
• Ransom's essays "Criticism, Inc" and "The Ontological Critic"
• Tate's essay "Miss Emily and the Bibliographer"
• Wimsatt and Beardsley's essays "The Intentional Fallacy" and " The Affective Fallacy"
• Brooks' book The Well Wrought Urn: Studies in the Structure of Poetry
• Warren's essay "Pure and Impure Poetry"
• Wellek and Warren's book Theory of Literature

See also

In Spanish: New criticism para niños