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=What is New Criticism?=

Peaked in the 1940's, a theory that is commonly used in academic settings (high schools, colleges) as a part of their literary studies which emphasized the use of "close reading".

New Criticism focused on what is known as "the text itself", which replaced the theory (biographical-historical criticism) that existed before which examined only authorial intention during that time.

Before New Criticism, literary studies focused on the intent of the author was when they are writing their works. The work was then examined for the author's biographical-historical context instead of the text. This was mainly studied to see if there was any relation to the author either both biographical or historical and did not focus of the text's actual interpretation.

What is known as "the text itself" became synonymous with New Criticism, which focused on the literary work instead of other factors as the source of the interpretation of the work.

Knowing what the author intended to write does not provide us with what the text intended to portray which the New Critics coined the term the "Intentional Fallacy", which the reader creates a false interpretation of the text's meaning for the actual text's intention.

A literary text must not look into the author's intent neither can we look to the reader's response as the source of interpretation for the text. A reader's response to a text does not provide the actual interpretation of a text.

New Critics referred this as the "Affective Fallacy" as the use of a reader's responses which is mistaken as the interpretation of the text. Readers would create either an impressionistic response; which a reader feels a certain way about a character to summarize their interpretation (ex. a character is disliked; therefore, that character is mischievous). Readers would also create a relativism response, where they would base their interpretation to what they think the text actually means.

The New Critics focused on the literary work as a timeless and autonomous object, where the readers and interpretations may change over time but the literature will always remain intact. This allows the text to exist as it is where changing any factor such as any word, line, image of the text would cause the work to change it's meaning completely. The New Critics referred this as the "Heresy of Paraphrase", which a literary work can not be simply explained by omitting anything from the text.

New Criticism looks at a literary work at it's whole value; which each line, phrase, and paragraph exists in one unified body. Omit any of these factors, the entire meaning of the text would lose it's meaning. New Critics called this the "Organic Unity", which a literary work consists of a unified body that has a structure of complexity and order which provides readers to have a complete interpretation of the work. The literary work must also present a moment of tension that must complete a cycle of being resolved by the end of the work

New Critics treats literary works as an intrinsic and objective work, which the formal elements (images, symbols, metaphors, rhyme, meter, point of view, setting, characterization, plot) along with the work's psychological, sociological, and philosophical elements contributes to it's aesthetic experience. The formal elements and other factors form the basis of interpretation which is why New Criticism is also known as an objective criticism. 1