The New Criticism Flashcards
Wimsatt, Brooks
How does new criticism see literature?
The New Critics created a special aesthetic space
for poetry that would preserve it from all
external forces.
They see literature in opposition to the
encroaching technocratic culture. (e.g. literary
journal Scrutiny placed emphasis on the moral
dimension of poetry)
What view does New Criticism offer?
The New Criticism offers an ontological view of
literature. The text is seen as a linguistic construct which
speaks its own truth.
The reign of positivism brings loss of
irony,
metaphor, symbolism, paradox, ambiguity.
What did the New Critics seek to accomplish regarding poetry
The New Critics sought to build an aesthetic wall
around poetry that would preserve it as a
complete, self-enclosed artifact that obeyed its
own laws.
The New Criticism offers a
formal approach to
the study of literature.
A poem is treated
as a timeless microcosm, over
which the physical, historical forces of decay
and change (not to mention the laws of
science) could have no power.
Close reading
is a critical principle of the New
Critics, an orientation toward an immanent
analysis, which claims the priority of text over
the reader.
Axes/frames of close reading
The semantic context;
The syntactic context;
The thematic context;
The iterative context;
The generic context.
Remember: words open up through interrelations
and their cruxes and patterns.
Close reading highlights
the opaqueness of poetic
language as a source of aesthetic appreciation.
intentional fallacy
Focus on the psychological causes of poetry
affective fallacy.
Focus on the psychological effects of poetry
Affective fallacy is an error
of judgment made when
focusing on the effect the text has on the reader.
Intentional fallacy is an error
of judgment made
when defining the meaning of a text in terms of
the author’s intentions
Critical judgment must be based
on the standards
inherent in the poem.
Analysis demands a focus on
the aesthetic integrity
of the poem as an immanent structure.
