New Criticism 1920s-30s

1. Specially an American Movement Pioneered by T.S Eliot and I.A Richardson until 1946s
2. The term new criticism came to use after the publication of John Crowe Ransom’s book The New Criticism in 1941.
3. Eliot remarked “a poem’s existance is somewhere between the writer.”
4. In the Preface to the Anthology Understanding Poetry, the editors: Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren condemned the use of potry for all purpose beyond itself, wheather historical or moralistic. They asserted: “If poetry is worth teaching at all, it is worth teaching as poetry.”
5. A formalist movement
6. T.S Eliot Called it “Lamon’s Squizing”
7. A theory of – 1920s in Britain and 1940s in America
8. New Critics- Brirish writers only
9. First introduced in early 20th C in America by John Crowe Ransom.
10. I.A Richards is called the father of New Criticism.
11. Dryden/Matthew Arnold – Father of modern literary criticism
12. Tate coined the term ‘tension’ to describe what he called the common quality of good poetry.
13. Works
    1. In 1940’s American writer John Crowe Ransom wrote an essay ‘New Criticism’
    2. Practical Criticism (1923) , The Meaning of Meaning (1923), Principles of Literary Criticism (1924), The Philosophy of Rhetoric (1936) – by I.A Richards
    3. T.S Eliot’s essays: Tradition and Individual Talent, Hamlet and His Problems in which Eliot developed his concept of Objective Correlatives
    4. The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism (1933) by T.S. Eliot
    5. The World’s Body (1938), New Criticism (1941), God without Thunder (An Article; 1930), Criticism INc, The Ontological Critic – by J. C. Ransom
    6. The International Fallacy (Essay) – Wimsatt and Beardsley**
    7. Pure and Impure Poetry (Essay) – Warren
    8. Seven Types of Ambiguity – 1930 by William Empson
    9. The Death of The Author – 1967 essay by Roland Barthes
    10. The publication of college text ‘Understanding Poetry: An anthology for college students’ (1938) by Cleanth Brooks and R.P Warren influnced new criticism in American Universities as a leading form of textual analysis from 1930s till 1960s.
    11. Miss Emily and Bibliographers (1908), On the Limits of Poetry (1928-1948) by Allen Tate.
    12. The Well Wrought Urn (1947) by Cleanth Brooke
    13. The Common Pursuit (1952) by F.R. Lewis
    14. Language as Gestures (1952) by R.P Blackmur
    15. Understanding Poetry (1938) by R.P Warren
    16. The Verbal Icon (1954) by w.K Wimsatt and Monroe Beardsley

1. People
   1. Cleanth Brooks
   2. Robert Penn Warren
   3. William Wimsatt
   4. Mouroe Beardsley
   5. R.P.Blackmur
   6. I.A Richards
   7. William Empson
   8. F.R Leavis
   9. R.P Blackmur
   10. Allen Tate
   11. John Crowe Ransom
   12. Neo Aristotelian
2. Terms Assosiated:
   1. Intentional Fallacy: The meaning according to the author’s intentions can not be understood by the reader, then it is called Intentional fallacy. New criticism rejects the idea that author’s intentions are essential to understand a text.
   2. Affective fallacy: If the reader interprets the text according to his experience and emotions and that is different from the author’s intentions, it is affective fallacy. ***** The terms: ‘Intentional Fallacy’ and ‘Affective Fallacy’ were coined by W.K. Wimsatt and Monroe Beardsley in 1949, it got published in Verbal Icon in 1954.
   3. Haresy of Paraphrase: The term was coined by Cleanth Brooke in his book – The Wall Erought Urn (1947) divided into 7 chapters. It means believing enormously that interpretation of a literary text  consists of a detailed summery or paraphrase.
   4. Close reading/ Explication de Texte: It means reading seriously, word by word. For critics like Cleanth Brooks, william K. Wimsatt, John Crowe Ransom and Allen Tate, only close reading could address the work in its complex unity.