The New Criticism

The New Criticism was a formalist movement in literary theory that dominated American literary criticism in the middle decades of the 20th century. It emphasized close reading, particularly of poetry, to discover how a work of literature functioned as a self-contained, self-referential aesthetic object. New Criticism developed as a reaction to the older philological and literary history schools, which, influenced by nineteenth-century German scholarship, focused on the history and meaning of individual words and their relation to foreign and ancient languages, comparative sources, and the biographical circumstances of the authors. It became common consensus that these approaches tended to distract from the text and meaning of a poem and entirely neglect its aesthetic qualities in favor of teaching about external factors. 

Creative writers and literary critics felt that the special aesthetic experience of poetry and literary language was lost in the chaos of unnecessary emotions and feelings. Heather Dubrow notes that the prevailing focus of literary scholarship was on "the study of ethical values and philosophical issues through literature, the tracing of literary history, and . . . political criticism". Literature was approached and literary scholarship did not focus on analysis of texts. New Critics believed the structure and meaning of the text were intimately connected and should not be analyzed separately. In order to bring the focus of literary studies back to analysis of the texts, they aimed to exclude the reader's response, the author's intention, historical and cultural contexts, and moralistic bias from their analysis.

Reading Poetry Closely

In +Carly Brown 's post on Wordsworth's poetry being worth every word, I think that she makes some great observations about how a close reading of the poem can add deeper meaning to the poetry and increase the awe that's felt while reading. Her efforts to reach into the words and text are exactly the ways in which a New Critic would go about unraveling a poem. I suggest that you go back and read that post, it has great relevance to what I'm saying.

Much like Carly, I have had a similar experience with poetry when I was required to read Keats for my British Literature 292 class. His poem "Ode to a Nightingale" is one of my favorite poems to this day. I enjoy his use of imagery, and how he is able to invoke such a beautiful scene with very few actual words. But what does it mean? There are many different ways in which this poem can be interpreted by drawing on the historical events of the time, or what Keats himself was going through at the time in his personal life, but in keeping with what I stated earlier,  when the principles of New Criticism are applied to poetry in particular, more awe can be found in the structures and words of poetry.

In and of itself, poetry is beautiful. When you apply the theories of New Criticism to poetry, new meanings are discovered. Since New Criticism focuses on the individual connotations and meanings of words and how they can add to the overall meaning of the poem, it's extremely effective to apply this literary theory to any form of poetry, or even prose, that you read. Essentially, it's applying close reading skills to any text, but it's more applicable to poetry because there is so much that is said with so little words. Take the following stanza from "Ode to a Nightingale" as an example of saying so much without using a lot of words:

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The same that ofttimes hath
Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

Every word is measured. Every line is metered and rhymed. Each word is important. These are the things that New Criticism highlights in poetry. There isn't an unnecessary word or syllable in the entire poem.

New Criticism is something that we're all familiar with as English majors, so I won't deconstruct that passage for you; you're more than capable of doing that. Instead, can you think of ways in which understanding individual words can lend to the overall meaning of a poem? Through this process, is it possible to find more awe in the text? I know that I certainly did. In my experience with awe and New Criticism, it doesn't come on the first read-through for me. Often it's the 10th or 20th time I read a poem that the deeper meaning of the words and poem hit me. In this I am referring back to my post on delayed awe. Just because you know how to look for awe, doesn't mean you're going to find it on your first try. So what if Keats isn't your cup of tea? Look at any other poem, by any other poet, and test out the techniques of New Criticism on it. It'll bring a deeper meaning. 

How have the techniques of New Criticism helped you in your days as an English major?

Dubrow, Heather. "Twentieth Century Shakespeare Criticism." The Riverside Shakespeare. Houghton Mifflin, 1997.

Keats, John. Ode to a Nightingale. Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation, n.d. Web. 25 Feb. 2014.