REFERENCE:
http://public.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/lit.crit.html
New
Criticism is one of several ways of looking at and analyzing
literature. It is a form of criticism that gives importance to the textual
properties of the text. Close reading of the text is theory of New Criticism. According
to this theory, we should judge books the same way. Rather than worrying
about the author's background or our own reactions to a book, we should
evaluate it based only on the text itself. New Criticism went on to
become a popular method of literary analysis throughout the middle of the
twentieth century.
New
critical approach focuses the attention on the literary text as the only
sources of interpretation. Rather than giving importance to historical
background, social background and biographical background; New Critics give
importance to the textual elements. When the critics value plot, character,
language, form, image and so on, it is the new critical approach of
interpreting the text. If the critics give priority to the writers thinking, it
is intentional fallacy and when the critics value what the readers feel
about the text it is about affective fallacy. According to the intentional
fallacy, it's impossible to determine an author's reasons for writing a
text without directly asking him or her. And even if we did determine the
author's intentions, they don't matter, because the text itself carries its own
value. So even if we're reading a book by a renowned author like Shakespeare,
we shouldn't let the author's reputation taint our evaluation of the text. Similarly,
the affective fallacy claims that we shouldn't waste time
thinking about the effect a text may have on the reader because then we're
polluting the text with our own personal baggage. So we should ignore how
'beautiful' a poem may be or our reactions to an emotional novel. If we give in
to our emotional reactions, we're less able to evaluate the text objectively. So,
critics should avoid intentional and affective fallacies. What the critics
should do according to the new critics is to analyze the formal elements of
giving importance to literary work as timeless autonomous verbal object. As textual
properties always remain the same, despite the fact that readers and readings
way change. Rather than giving importance to paraphrasing, they give priority
to images features and linguistic behavior. So, New Criticism emphasizes
explication, or "close reading," of "the work itself." It
rejects old historicism's attention to biographical and sociological matters.
Thus,
New Criticism attempts to be a science of literature, with a technical
vocabulary for the new critics the text is sole and whole in itself. The interpreters
should not go beyond the text and search for the outside elements. They should
seek the elements that are within the text. To do New Critical reading, ask
yourself, "How does this piece work?" Look for complexities in the
text: paradoxes, ironies, ambiguities. Find a unifying idea or theme which
resolves these tensions.
LITERARY
LANGUAGE & ORGANIC UNITY
New criticism dominated
literary studies from the 1940's through the 1960's. It has left a lasting imprint
on the way we read and write about literature. New Criticism values close
reading, textual properties and organic unity of the outside elements and
interpretation. It gives importance to literary language and organic unity. Literary
interpretation which New Criticism called “close reading” has been a standard
method in literary studies for the past several decades.
Although the author’s
intention or the reader’s response is sometimes mentioned in New Critical
readings of literary texts, neither one is the focus of analysis. If a given
author’s intention or a given reader’s interpretation actually represents the
text’s meaning is to carefully examine or “closely read”, all the evidence
provided by the language of the text itself: its images, symbols, metaphors,
rhyme, meter, point of view, setting, characterization are called its “formal
elements”. For New Criticism, a literary work is a “timeless”, “autonomous
verbal object”. Readers and readings may change but the literary text stays the
same. Its meaning is as objective as its physical existence in the page.
Literary language is
different from day to day language. For New Criticism, literary language is
very different from scientific language and from everyday language. Similarly,
organic unity of the literary work refers to the inter-connection of different
parts to make the work as an inseparable whole. Due to the use of language that
contains symbol, images, metaphor and so on, literary language is different
from day-to-day language. Literary language appeals to different sense organs
so as to motivate the readers. Organic Unity is a linguistic device
which is likely to generate figures of speech, ambiguity, complexity, paradox,
irony, ambiguity and tension in the text. Either it is a piece of poem or a
novel, there has to be the organic unity. It is possible to identify the organic
unity only through the textual properties. New Critics give importance to the
different elements that are found within the text.
Paradox is a statement that seems self-contradictory but
represents the actual way things are. New criticism observed that paradox is
responsible for much of the complexity of human experience and of the
literature thus portrays it. Irony means a statement or event under-mined
by the context in which it occurs. New criticism primarily valued irony to
indicate a text’s inclusion of varying perspectives on the same characters or
events.
Ambiguity occurs when a word, image, or event generates two or
more different meaning. In scientific and everyday language, ambiguity is
usually considered a flaw because it’s equated with a lack of clarity and
precision. In literary language ambiguity is considered a source of richness,
depth, and complexity that adds to the text’s value.
Tension means the linking together of opposites. The
complexity of a literary text is created by it. Tension is created by the
integration of the abstract and the concrete images. Such concrete images and
fictional characters that are meaningful on both the concrete level are
considered a form of tension because they hold together the opposing realms of
physical reality and symbolic reality in a way characteristic of literary
language. Tension is also created by dynamic interplay among the text’s
opposing tendencies, among its paradoxes, ironies, and ambiguities.
If an image occurs repeatedly in a text, it probably
has symbolic significance. A symbol is an image that has both literal
and figurative meaning. Public symbols are usually easy to spot. For example,
spring is usually a symbol of rebirth or youth; autumn is usually a symbol of
death or dying, a river is usually a symbol of life or of a journey. Thus, a
symbol has properties similar to those of the abstract idea it stands for. The
example, a river can symbolize life because both a river and life are fluid and
forward moving; both have a source and an endpoint.
A ‘metaphor’ has only figurative meaning. A metaphor
is a comparison of two dissimilar objects in which the properties of one are
ascribed to the other. For example, the phrase “my mother is a gem” is a
metaphor. It has no literal meaning. It would mean that my mother gave birth to
a crystalline stone. The figurative meaning of the phrase is that my mother
shares certain properties with a gem. Thus, “he’s a gem” is generally used to
mean “he’s a great guy”. To get from metaphor to ‘simile’ requires one small
step: add ‘like’ or ‘as’. “My mother is like a gem” or “my brother is as
valuable as a gem” are similes that make the same comparison as the metaphor.
The simile is softer because the connection between the idea of “brother” and
the idea of “gem” is less direct or less forceful.
For this new critical reading there lies only one single best
interpretation of the text. The function of the critic is to find the organic
unity and interpret the text from the single mode. New Criticism is already out
of practice today, we still integrate some of its prominent principles to
support our interpretation. To sum up, New Criticism considers its approach the
best as it is founded on the objective analysis/interpretation of
literary texts.
NEW CRITICISM AS INTRINSIC, OBJECTIVE CRITICISM:
(Intrinsic: Belonging to a thing by its very nature)
New Criticism values the formal textual elements of the literary text
for analyzing and interpreting any literary works. It values inside properties objectively.
So, it is intrinsic and objective criticism.
New Criticism is intrinsic criticism because interpretations of the text
are completely based on the elements that are found within the text. It don’t value
the biography, history and any imposed philosophy for the interpretation of the
text. Psychoanalysis goes beyond and tries to search the link between biography
and the text, Marxism goes beyond and tries to find represent of class
struggle: but new criticism confines only within the text. It is objective
criticism because the focus is not on what the readers feel but what is there
in the text.
As new criticism gives importance to the internal, formal, elements it
is known as intrinsic and objective criticism. It is so because it only
highlights the organic unity of the text giving importance to language and
content.
THE SINGLE BEST INTERPRETATION:
New Critics value that a text contains only one best interpretation. The
interpretation can be found through the organic unity of the text. According to
New Critics, the best criticism is one that explains what the text means and
how the text produces that meaning. In other words, the best criticism always
aims at explaining its organic unity.
New Critical reading is a mode of interpretation according to which the
analysis of imagery, role of narrator, minor character or some other formal
elements are valued. For this reason, New Critics paid special attention to
textual features, and considered short poems and stories most suitable for
close reading. This type of reading is independent of history, culture, society
and author. The text contains only one accurate meaning. That meaning might be
found on the basis of the survey of other critics’ interpretation. It is not
useful for long novels and dramas for the reason that it intends to search
organic unity. Longer texts like novels, poems, and plays provides broader spectrum
of textual elements, and they limit themselves on some particular aspects or
certain area of the work such as imagery, role of narrator, the function of the
time in the work, etc.
NEW CRITICAL READING OF THE GREAT GATSBY
New Criticism focuses fundamentally on the text itself and
concentrates on “close reading.” No outside forces or shapers need to be
examined. We do not need to know about the history of the author. In fact, New
Critics had a term called intentional fallacy to say that the “author’s
intention is [not] the same as the meaning of the text.” And affective fallacy
does not let a reader’s feeling about the events of a text to interfere with
the text itself.
The literary language is the meaning of the work, down to
individual words. Changing one word changes the text. There is an organic unity
to the text that makes every word play off each other. New Critics praise
paradox, irony, and ambiguity in the words of a text. Context allows us to trace
the meaning of a symbol in a text.
New Critics try to find that “single best interpretation” of
a work. However, longer works tended to hurt this theory. The Great
Gatsby has a Universal Theme and when analyzed by New Criticism, a reader can gather
a time-capsule image of this theme during a time period of the 1920s. It is the
American Dream. Gatsby as a central character undertakes this theme
almost solely. Tom Buchanan never had to work for his money and takes it for
granted in the book, seeing the advancement of other races as a threat to his
power. Gatsby personifies this American Dream in that he strove to reach it.
- As New Criticism sees plot, characters, images, symbols, irony, ambiguity, paradox, language and tension within the text, The Great Gatsby is studied by new critics as the chronicle of Jazz movement in America.
- Mostly, New Criticism analyzes the central tension in the novel than that between Gatsby and the world in which he lives.
- The characters of The Great Gatsby like Wolfsheim’s (We don't know a lot about Meyer Wolfsheim – and we're not supposed to. Beyond the fact that he's a business associate and a friend of Gatsby's, all we know is that he's an inhabitant of New York. Although Wolfsheim remains a mystery, we end up learning quite a lot about other characters through him.) exploitiveness, Daisy’s duplicity, Tom’s treachery, Jordan’s dishonesty, Myrtle’s vulgarity and the shallowness of American populace (world) is analyzed from a New Critical perspective.
- New Critics see textual central tension between the world of corrupt, vulgar materialism portrayed in the novel and the lyric, imagery, the wasteful beauty and emotional force of which make it the most memorable and revealing dimension of the novel so frequently used to describe that world.
- New Critics analyze Gatsby’s party guests as parasitical (bloodsucking) who’s moral had declined with each passing year.
- There is the world of impermanence, instability, vulgarity, romance within the text. The Great Gatsby while seeing from New Critical modality.
- There is the use of symbols, metaphors, irony in The Great Gatsby. For example: the valley of ashes, the name Nick gives to the damping ground near which George and Myrtle Wilson live-is a metaphor for the spiritual poverty of this world.
- Mostly, New Critics see Gatsby’s capacity to dream and to devote himself to the woman who embodies that dream, including his blindness to the fact that she doesn't deserve his devotion.
- Further, Gatsby represents “the energy of the spirits resistance” and “immunity to the final contamination” of “cheapness and vulgarity.” For the critics, Gatsby is destroyed by the society in which he is living.
- As nostalgia for the lost past, as dreams of future fulfillment, and as vague, under-defined longing that has no special goal are lyric imageries used to inform characterization in the novel.
- The novel has maintained its “hallowed place in American literature” because it speaks to something deep in the heart of human experience.
- History and Author’s biography is less important than structure.
- For New Criticism: “whole is important than the sum of the individual parts.”
- Good application to short poems/literary texts.
- Claims that the work’s structure and genre are crucial to its meaning i.e. “form and content cannot be separated in determining meaning.”
- Determines how the various elements of plot, character, language, etc. reinforce the meaning and unify the work.
- New Critics re-direct critical attention from the external to the internal (textual), “the text and the text alone” approach.
- All formal elements of a text work together to create an organic unity.
- Key principles to seek when interpreting a text are tension, paradox, irony, and ambiguity.
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