Wilderness

I am taking a class in ecocriticism, an interdisciplinary branch of study that is interested in illuminating, fixing, and seeking the relationship between humans and the earth we inhabit and participate in.

One of the readings this week was about the idea of Wilderness.  The chapter was informative, rather than argumentative.  The author of the book (Ecocriticism: The New Critical Idiom), Greg Garrard, explained the evolution of view about the idea of Wilderness from the 18th Century up through the 20th.  To me, the clearest issue that came up again and again, poking holes in the different theories, was dichotomy: Wilderness v. Civilization, masculine wilderness v. feminine domesticity, chaos v. order.  Dichotomies seem to lose complexity and simplify an idea to the point of absurdity.  There is a beauty to dichotomy: for example, the black and white of Ansel Adams photographs.  But there is so much of the picture that is left unseen.  A dichotomy is only strong for a static moment, like a photograph, but, if life does not continue into the complexity of color and flux of time, the photograph will disintegrate.

An NPR interview discussed the book Why Expert Predictions Fail and Why We Believe them Anyway.  In it are described two types of experts: fox-type and hedgehog-type.  Interestingly, the hedgehog type was more like the experts on FOX news who make bold and simple statements and predictions often claiming that a specific and solitary thing will happen.  The more you push and ask questions the firmer they stick out their spikes and say they are right without allowing for more than one angle.  The fox-type, interestingly, tend to hedge more, not in a weak way, but they allow for the complexity of sides, shifts, and probabilities.  Two guesses which type is more often correct.

The fox-type, who eschew simplifying dichotomies, are more accurate more often.

This seems to indicate that a complex view of interrelationships is necessary to understanding the unpredictable patterns of life.  Carrying this into Ecocriticism, I think complexity and relationships is the best way to understand the relationship between humanity, nature, flora, fauna, and the globe that we call home.  To boil it down to a single conflict between Wilderness and Civilization, male or female, technology versus plants and animals, is unhealthy and inaccurate.

Towards the end of the chapter was a sentence I appreciated: "One way of guarding against this risk is to subvert the dualistic construction of wilderness and civilisation (sic) [by bringing] the 'wild' closer to home" (Garrard 83).  By merging the ideas of home and wild, the ties between the two--in other words, the relationship--becomes clearer.  The clearer the relationship--a two way give and take, ebb and flow--the better we, as humans, can participate in said relationship for a more positive interaction.

I hope this can happen.  I believe that as Christians we are called to be both caretakers of and members in the society of earth.  Only by acknowledge how truly deep the familial relationship is can we begin to make it a more positive interaction.  The earth is something that on the whole is both beyond us and deeply a part of us.  Thinking about wild and home: our bodies are a wilderness, both known to us and unknown.    I'm still working it out and not quite sure where all I'm at.

I know I am part of the community of earth.  And I know that I respect and care of the this place and family in which I live and breath.  It affects me and I affect it.  How to live that the most responsibly, lovingly, and pragmatically?  I am not sure.  I do know that I will recycle, I will seek sustainable living options, and I will endeavor to be kind and courteous to the earth and my fellow creatures in all the ways that I know how.  I also know that, just as the creatures of the earth live in food chains and cycles, I too am part of the cycle.  I live on and off of the earth; the earth lives and will live on and off of me.  But I want to be conscious and respectful in the way that it happens.

I like my ecocriticism class a lot.  =)  I hope that it goes on pushing my brain. 

New Criticism

The following are my notes, observations, and mini application of New Criticism.


New Criticism seeks to locate the organic unity and balanced complexity inherent

to a piece of literature by close readings of the text itself. New Critics allow

the poem to be an experience, instead of a meaning, while they study it as a

distinctive, artistic object.


Major Critics include: Welleck, Ransom, Warren, Wimsatt, Beardley, Brooks, T. S. Elliot, Richards.


The first major advantage of New Criticism (hereafter NC) is that it

specifically studies the literary product rather than literary history, authorial bibliography,

or political context. By focusing on the “work itself” NC is actually the study of

literature. NC looks at the work as an observable object with specific textual patterns,

elements, and incongruities that can be measured and understood. This quantifiable

method of study helped NC advance the study of literature as a discipline in a field

dominated by scientific disciplines. The quantifiable variables—including but not

limited to Irony, Paradox, Tension, and Ambiguity—are pieces with complex layers

tied together to create a unified experience in the work. NC rates the relative success or

failure of a piece of literature discovering how well the disparate and conflicting parts are

tied into a cohesive unity. This once again makes criticism more viable as a “science”

because there is a specific measuring stick against which to judge works of literature. The

method of discovering both conflict and unity is “close reading”. Finally, the emphasis

on allowing a poem to be an experience—more than just a meaning or personality

mirror—celebrates the literature as a conduit of experience.

Opponents claim that the goal of NC is to destroy the author and the

reader in the attempt to establish “the primacy” of the work itself. When focusing on

the text, the author, the context, and the reader seem to be forgotten. This can make

NC a very limited viewpoint. Additionally, as opponents Russian Formalism, a related

movement, complained, the emphasis on form regardless of content might be dangerous

because it is more tolerant of the ideas expressed within a poem. Because the emphasis

of NC is specifically not seeking a moral understanding to determine success or failure,

NC and Russian Formalism tacitly encourage a multitude of ideas without critique for

morals or politics. Lastly, the heresy of paraphrase—which states that paraphrase can

never capture the whole of the poem—creates an inherent mistrust of criticism within the

NC school. This could be a problem for New Critics.


John Crowe Ransom could be the main critic in the school of New Criticism.

He believed that the critic should be a trained professional who combined

three main skills: knowing good literature intuitively, knowing good literature

philosophy, and knowing the mechanicals of good literature. He believed that “It

is not anybody who can do criticism” (1112). Ransom was driven to create a

class of professional critics who could raise the status of criticism to a respected

calling. The calling itself was “the attempt to define and enjoy the aesthetic of

characteristic values of literature” (1110). Ransom used the term “appreciation”

as a companion to criticism. Criticism, he said, should be “objective” and focus

on the “autonomy of the work itself” (1115). He supposed that paraphrase was

not the sum of a work’s content. That history, linguistics, morals, and ideas were

not the study of literature and therefore did not have an exalted place in literary

criticism. Finally, Ransom introduces the idea of a unifying theme, “universal”,

or “residuary quality” to each literary work which the critic must work to locate

and which is present in all great works of literature.


Cleanth Brooks is the “whipping boy” (Geriguis) of New Criticism in spite of his

often conciliatory and reasonable consideration of the importance of other fields

(such as history, biography, and ideas) in relation to a strong field of literary

criticism. Brooks stressed the “primacy” of the work, the patterns, and the

structure. He spent his critical work The Well Wrought Urn analyzing several

poems in the new critical way and stressed the deep interrelation between content

and structure. He frames the relationship between content and form as content

creating a problem which form solves. He then proceeds to use several different

metaphors—including architecture, ballet, music, and drama—to explain the

concept. To Brooks, like to Ransom though categorized, the goal of a critic is to

locate and notice the textual patterns, technical elements, and incongruities and

identify how the work “achieve[s] harmony”. Good literature will be very

complex in terms of the patterns, elements, and incongruities while still

maintaining an overall “positive unity”. Brooks also describes the heresy of

paraphrase—the concept that literature cannot be paraphrased because the

paraphrase and original will only share the “lowest common denominator” of

meaning. To Brooks, the paraphrase cannot substitute for the work—that

substitution is the heresy. He believes that the “essence of the poem” is an

experience; this is along the lines of letting a poem or work be instead of mean.


New Criticism was rebelling against Old Historicism and Marxism

in the field of literary criticism by prioritizing the text over both author and

context respectively. In specific response to Old Historicism, NC developed

the “intentional fallacy” which states that the authorial intent (i.e. circumstances

of the work’s creation) has nothing to do with understanding what the work itself

says. NC was emerging concurrently with English Literature—the discipline. As

a discipline, Literature had to compete with the sciences for validity. Because of

science’s established preeminence, NC sought to prove the study of literature’s

legitimacy by treating literary works as observable “objects”. New Critics

claim that the study of literature differs from the history of literature, authorial

biography, and the cultural context of literature. In addition, New Criticism

rejected the fluidity and intuitiveness of the Romantic Movement in favor of a

more objective view of the text. They rejected Romanticism in an effort, again,

to make the study of literature more like a science. The need for clear and

quantifiable variables also arose as part of a growing sense of positivism—the

idea that the critics could be certain about their studies.


New Criticism has deeply influenced the development of 20th

century criticism. Close reading, the central method of a New Critic, is also

the central method that most of the subsequent schools of criticism utilize in

their criticism. Additionally, some schools grew directly out of New Criticism.

Structuralism takes New Criticism a step farther, focusing closer on the

structure of the language. In NC, the text becomes “an infinitely complicated

process of establishing interrelations” (Brooks and Warren 527 qtd in Lynn

44). Structuralists use a microscope to focus on this idea word by word. For

structuralism, the text becomes a network of signs, primarily binaries, which

defines words by the tensions created: for example, “man” and “woman” have

meaning because of the opposition or tension between them. On the other hand,

deconstructionists took the New Critical idea of an inability to sum up or truly

say what a poem means and assert that all meaning in the poem is arbitrary and

unstable—Cleanth Brooks anticipates this (1359). Reader Response theory rebels

against the primacy of the text in favor of the primacy of the reader. Finally New

Historicism acknowledges the importance of the text as it combines tenets from

several different schools. Once again, though some of the succeeding schools

distanced themselves from NC, they all seem to have adopted close reading.



New Criticizing Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

In the beginning of chapter five, the third paragraph details Dr. Frankenstein’s initial

impressions of and reactions to the creature that he created. It is a rather long paragraph but

upon close inspection it reveals complex layers of textual patterns and incongruities that unite in

an effort to express the unnatural backwardness of infusing life into already dead matter.

At the beginning of the paragraph Frankenstein states, “the different accidents of life

are not so changeable as the feelings of human nature” (60). The “changeable” feelings are

Frankenstein’s own. When he sees the monster alive, his previous “ardour”, an almost sexual

desire to create life, changed into “breathless horror”. The phrase “accident of life” could

suggest the uncontrollable occurrences of life, but it also suggests the creature’s life (as it is the

most recent life referenced before this paragraph). That life, in this sentence, is an accident—

quite in line with the rest of Frankenstein’s changing point of view. As conception is also often

an accident, which is unchangeable (except by miscarriage or death), the tension in this sentence

comes from the inability to change the “accident of life” while the feelings change rapidly and

In the next two sentences, the first irony of the paragraph occurs. Frankenstein states, “I had

worked hard for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body”.

So for two years he tried to create backwards; rather than a new body, like the creation of a fetus,

Frankenstein used pieces of corpses, an unnatural and backwards flow from death to life. The

next sentence explains how he did it: “For this I had deprived myself of rest and health”. Rest

and health are two things necessary for life to continue. Ironically, Frankenstein must deprive

himself of bits of his own life in order to give life to the creature.

Further into the paragraph, Frankenstein runs from the creature, ironically similar to how

the creature will run from him later. In running Frankenstein again creates conflict—as a father

and creator he should not be afraid of his creation, and yet his emotions have so quickly altered

in response to the “accident of life”. He seeks solace in his dreams. But his dreams reflect the

same backwardness, the “accident of life” that he cannot escape. In his dream is “thought I

saw Elizabeth, in the bloom of health, walking in the streets of Ingolstadt”. Elizabeth who he

plans to marry is way that he might have created life in the natural sense—conception and birth.

Just as he once viewed the creation of his creature with “the beauty of [a dream]”, Frankenstein

is “delighted and surprised” by Elizabeth. In the dream, he “imprinted the first kiss on her lips”.

This phrase is very specific, imprinting is the process by which young animals first bond to their

parent—ironic because in this case Frankenstein flees the moment of imprinting twice (once

at the beginning of the paragraph and once at the end)—again he is moving backward rather

than forward. Second, the phrase says “the first kiss on her lips” which invokes a beginning of

a new life—as in the marriage ceremony, or even the Biblical account in which God breathed

into Adam to create life. In the dream, the imprint of the first kiss, rather than creating life, goes

backward and ironically turns Elizabeth into the corpse of Frankenstein’s dead mother. Just

as Frankenstein has gone backwards in his experiment, the dream reflects and goes backward.

And as the doctor realized when the creature opened it’s eyes and when he saw the corpse of his

mother, it is an unnatural and backwards progression.

Frankenstein wakes from the dream. A moment later he perceives the creature standing

over him and reaching out to him. Ironically, this scene seems to be an inverted version of

the creation of the creature. Frankenstein lay on a bed, in sleep—unaware. The creature lay

on a table dead. Both awake and open their eyes. And both Frankenstein and the creature

have convulsions in their limbs—“the dull yellow eye of the creature open[ed]; it breathed

hard, and a convulsive motion agitated it’s limbs” and “I started from my sleep with horror; a

cold dew covered my forehead, my teeth chattered and every limb became convulsed” (italics

mine). However, the creatures reaction to Frankenstein’s return to life is quite different. And, if

Frankenstein had not had changeable human feelings, it might have been what the creature’s first

sight was “his eyes . . . were fixed on me. His jaws opened, and he muttered some inarticulate

sounds” for the creature wouldn’t yet know language, “while a grin wrinkled his cheeks”.

But this moment of creation, just like the first (from corpse to living thing) is backwards and

unnatural—the creation should not welcome the creator to life. The creator welcomes the

creation.

But Frankenstein “escaped”. He spent the rest of the night in action: “took

refuge”, “remained”, “walking”, listening”, “catching”, “fearing”. And several actions have

adverbs to give more weight to the action. For example, he walks in “greatest agitation” and

listens “attentively”. Ironically he works as hard to avoid and hide from the creature as the

creature will work to find, discover and follow Frankenstein later in the book. But finally all the

ironies are unified at the end of the last sentence. Frankenstein does all of the above work in one

sentence which is for the goal of avoiding “the demoniacal corpse to which I had so miserably

given life”. That sense of unnaturalness—so unnatural it becomes negatively supernatural, a

demon—and backwardness—a corpse given life—dominates the changing human feelings of

Frankenstein as he seeks to understand and explain his reactions to the creature he has made.