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.
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.
