Literary Theory

Series 1: Handout #6

New Criticism (Formalist Criticism): the pendulum swings from the “old historicism” to New Criticism (1930s-1960s but few have forsaken “close reading,” which is regarded by most as foundational). Followed by New Historicism (1970-Present). What will be next? (“Behold, I give you the “New Aestheticism” [rejoicing ensues].)

Breaks: De-emphasize context (political, social, biographical, literary historical). Reject the lingering Genteel Tradition of the moralistic gentleman critic (still present in Arnold and Eliot). Professionalize and institutionalize literary criticism in rivalry with the social sciences and sciences. Establish the disciplinary independence of English (not a branch of history or philosophy). Develop a precise, rigorous vocabulary (e.g., Empson’s “Seven Types of Ambiguity”) for describing literary technique (especially poetry, other forms are regarded as inferior because of lack of technical complexity).

John Crowe Ransom (1888-1974): One of the Southern “Fugitive Poets” (incl. Cleanth Brooks) who rejected Victorian sentimentalism in the 1920s. Established Kenyon Review in late 1930s.

“Criticism, Inc.” (1938):

Professionalization and Institutionalization: “It is strange, but nobody seems to have told us what exactly is the proper business of criticism. There are many critics who might tell us, but for the most part they are amateurs . . . They have not been trained to criticism so much as they have simply undertaken a job for which no specific qualifications were required . . . the university teacher of literature, who is styled professor, and who should be the very professional we need to take charge of the critical activity.”

Scientific Methods: “Criticism must become more scientific, or precise and systematic, and this means that it must be developed by the collective and sustained effort of learned persons—which means that its proper seat is in the universities.”

“Criticism . . . will never be a very exact science, or even a nearly exact one. But neither will psychology . . . nor even will economics.”

Against Moralism: “It would be quite premature to say that when a moralist is obliged to disapprove a work the literary critic must disapprove it too . . . Following the excitement produced by the Humanist diversion, there is now one due to the Leftists, or Proletarians, who are also diversionists. Their diversion is likewise moral. It is just as proper for them to ferret out class-consciousness in literature, and to make literature serve the cause of loving-comradeship, as it is for the Humanists to censure romanticism . . .”

On Literary Curatorship: “Professors (Humanists following Arnold and Eliot) so engaged are properly curators, and the museum of which they have the care is furnished with their cherished literary masterpieces, just as another museum might be filled with paintings. They conduct their squads from one work to another, making appropriate pauses or reverent gestures, but their own obvious regard for the masterpieces is somewhat contagious, and contemplation is induced. Naturally they are grateful to the efficient staff of colleagues in the background who have framed the masterpieces, hung them in the proper schools and in the chronological order, and prepared the booklet of information about the artists and the occasions.”

What is Criticism? “Easier to ask, What is criticism not? . . . 1. Personal registrations, which are the declarations of the effect of the art-work upon the critic as reader. . . 2. Synopsis and paraphrase . . . 3. Historical studies . . . 4. Linguistic studies . . . 5. Moral studies . . . 6. Any other special studies which deal with some abstract or prose content taken out of the work.”

Cleanth Brooks: Another Southern Fugitive, major figure in New Criticism; “The Intentional Fallacy”; “The Heresy of Paraphrase”; his “articles of faith” became easy targets for New Historicists.

“The Formalist Critics” (1951):

“Articles of Faith”: “the primary concern of criticism is with the problem of unity—the kind of whole which the literary work forms or fails to form, and the relation of the various parts to each other in building up this whole . . . That in a successful work, form and content cannot be separated. That form is meaning . . . That the general and the universal are not seized upon by abstraction, but got at through the concrete and the particular. That literature is not a surrogate for religion. That, as Allen Tate says, ‘specific moral problems’ are the subject matter of literature, but that the purpose of literature is not to point a moral.”

Avoiding the “Intentional Fallacy”: “The formalist critic . . . (1) assumes t hat the relevant part of the author’s intention is what he got actually into his work . . . not necessarily what he was conscious of trying to do, or what he now remembers he was then trying to do. And (2) the formalist critic assumes an ideal readers: that is, instead of focusing on the varying spectrum of possible readings, he attempts to find a central point of reference from which he can focus upon the structure of the poem or novel.

Paradise Lost (1667) by John Milton

Book I.

Of Mans First Disobedience, and the Fruit
Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal tast
Brought Death into the World, and all our woe,
With loss of EDEN, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat,
Sing Heav'nly Muse, that on the secret top
Of OREB, or of SINAI, didst inspire
That Shepherd, who first taught the chosen Seed,
In the Beginning how the Heav'ns and Earth
Rose out of CHAOS: Or if SION Hill
Delight thee more, and SILOA'S Brook that flow'd
Fast by the Oracle of God; I thence
Invoke thy aid to my adventrous Song,
That with no middle flight intends to soar
Above th' AONIAN Mount, while it pursues
Things unattempted yet in Prose or Rhime.
And chiefly Thou O Spirit, that dost prefer
Before all Temples th' upright heart and pure,
Instruct me, for Thou know'st; Thou from the first
Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread
Dove-like satst brooding on the vast Abyss
And mad'st it pregnant: What in me is dark
Illumine, what is low raise and support;
That to the highth of this great Argument
I may assert th' Eternal Providence,
And justifie the wayes of God to men.