American New

Criticism
History, Assumptions, and Methodology
 The poem's overall meaning or form
depends solely on the text in front of the
BASIC TENET reader. No library research, no studying
OF AMERICAN of the author's life and times, and no other
NEW extra textual information is needed; the
CRITICISM poem itself contains all the necessary
information to discover its meaning.
 The term New Criticism came into
popular use to describe this approach to
understanding literature with the 1941
publication of John Crowe Ransom's The
THE TERM New Criticism, which contained Ransom's
personal analysis of several of his
contemporary theorists and critics.
 In The New Criticism, Ransom
articulates the principles of these various
groups and calls for an ontological critic, one
who will recognize that a poem (used as a
synonym in New Criticism for any literary
THE TERM work) is a concrete entity.
Similar to concrete objects, a poem can be
analyzed to discover its true or correct
meaning independent of its author's intention
or of the emotional state, values, or beliefs of
either its author or reader.
 FALLACIES

ASSUMPTION Affective
S Fallacy

Intentional
Fallacy
 To believe that a poem's meaning is
nothing more than an expression of the
private experiences or intentions of its
author.
Intentional
Fallacy Eliot asserts that the poem is about the
experiences of the author that are similar to
all of our experiences. By structuring these
experiences, the poem allows us to examine
them objectively.
 To believe that a reader's emotional
Affective response to the text is important or
equivalent to its interpretation. confuses
Fallacy what a poem is (its meaning) with what it
does.
 To believe that a reader's emotional
Affective response to the text is important or
equivalent to its interpretation. confuses
Fallacy what a poem is (its meaning) with what it
does.
 The chief characteristic of the poem-
and therefore of its structure-is coherence
or interrelatedness.
ASSUMPTION New Critics posit the organic unity of a
poem- that is, all parts of a poem are
S necessarily interrelated.
Superior poetry, declare the New
Critics, achieves such oneness through
paradox, irony, and ambiguity.
 Good critics examine a poem's structure by
scrutinizing its poetic elements and
demonstrating how the poem supports its
overall meaning in reconciling tensions into
a unified whole.
ASSUMPTION
S Bad critics are those who impose extrinsic
evidence, such as historical or biographical
information, on a text to discover its
meaning.