“New Criticism is really a cluster of attitudes towards literature rather than an organized critical system.”

As an approach to literature, New Criticism seems to begin analysis with the assumption that, if studied closely, texts will turn out something of value. The New Critics’ concern for the unity of poetry is apparent in their practice of analysis that, as the discussions of some of the New Critics writings will show, focusses on the examination of attitudes, tones, tensions, irony and paradox in a poem. It is difficult to refer to New Criticism as an organized critical system because the approach does not stem from a defined ideology. New Criticism is rather a collection of attitudes, which work to discover meaning that a work of art offers through evaluation of the work’s internal unity.

The concerns that shape the New Criticism approach towards literature are outlined in Ransom’s essay, ‘Criticism Inc.’, published in 1937. The essay discusses the defects of the contemporary trend in literary criticism and the subsequent need for revamp in focus and method. Literary criticism at the time looked to aspects outside the texts – other fields of study, for example philosophy and history - to explain literature. This method of looking at literary texts, as Ransom points out, inevitably relegates literary texts to the periphery. Rather than attending to the texts, one looks for relevance between literary texts and other fields of study so that literature, instead of being the focus of study, assists the studies of other subjects. For Ransom, it is the studies of the techniques of art that must be the focus of literary criticism, because “they cannot belong anywhere else, because the technique is not peculiar to any prose materials discoverable in the work of art, nor to anything else but the unique form of that art.” (117). To illustrate this idea, there is Ransom’s theory of poetry as a literary work with a prose core which is made poetic by imposing on this prose core certain structural forms. To Ransom, criticism should study these structural forms as technique. Ransom’s reading of a poem like ‘Dream Deferred’, for example, will not immediately place the poem within the framework of the Harlem Renaissance. The analysis that results will most likely discuss the concerns of Harlem Renaissance, citing the poem as a prototype of the time. At best, the analysis will be a historical or sociological study. Here is an example to show how Ransom’s scheme of analysis may work.

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore-- And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over-- like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.
Or does it explode? (Hughes 231)

Structurally, the poem is constructed on the comparison between a dream deferred and several physical objects. The comparison is sustained on two levels: one, the comparison between the abstract and the concrete; another, the comparison between the dream and the physical objects.
The first line is crucial because, with the presentation of each image, one needs to return to the idea of a dream deferred. The physical objects that are described do not carry a logical connection between themselves; they illustrate instead the abstract idea of a dream deferred. The comparison between the two operates on the emotive level. The description of physical objects communicates vividly the sense of wastedness. Through the initial comparison between a dream deferred and the objects, the sense of wastedness becomes an aspect of the deferred dream.

The last line contrasts with the sequence of images not in meaning but in implication. The description of the objects suggests a sense of having let go; there is no suggestion of the need to revive. The last line, on the other hand, carries a sense of something being contained, which finally has to break out because the container will not hold any longer. In connection with the first line, the last points up the urgency of the dream. The description of the objects that precedes the explosion helps to build up the final sense of urgency: a deferred dream can be let alone to waste away, but not in this case because the dream is too urgent. What comes out of the analysis is the recognition of the internal unity of the poem: the literary devices, positioning and phrasing of sentences contribute to the wholeness of the poem to make it comprehensible.

If there is purpose in this method of analysis, it seems only to shift the focus of literary criticism exclusively to literature, not studying it in the framework of another field of study. As discussed, Ransom’s focus of analysis is on method, not purpose. His method of critical reading is similar to what Schorer, Brooks and Empson recommend in their respective works, although each focusses on certain specifics. In the discussion of their works, one may be able to see the likely purposes of this particular mode of approach and why technique is so important.

For Schorer, any literary work contains two elements: content, which is the subject matter of a work of art, and what he terms ‘achieved content’, which is the structure or form of the work of art. He argues that contemporary literary criticism tends to focus on the latter, because to speak of the former is to speak of experience. What differentiates the former from the latter is technique. Technique is then the means by which a structured work of art explores its subject matter. Since experience is the substance of literary works, technique is the manner in which a work of art looks at experience. A similar idea is to be found in Brooks’ approach to poetry, which will also be discussed in detail. Schorer categorizes technique as “everything which is not the lump of experience itself” (388). ‘Technique as Discovery’ illustrates how technique functions to examine the subject matter of a work of art (the subject matter is, of course, experience), drawing on Wuthering Heights for illustration. The argument is that while the subject matter of Wuthering Heights is too weak to make a novel out of, the story turns out to be effective because of the techniques with which it is written. The experience that is portrayed in the book, as Schorer recognizes it, is fanciful, whimsical. Yet the book is written with techniques which alter the fanciful into something more realistic and grounded. The choice to narrate the story during a period that spans long years and to first narrate it from the point of view of one unfamiliar with the immediate participants of the central event of the story creates, in the novel, a sense of detachment which in turn makes the story more credible and convincing. The techniques used must have taken out elements of sentimentality that may have been attached to the raw experience, and objectified it, so that the experience in retelling is informative. Wuthering Heights then does more than communicate experience: it allows for the teasing out of essentials from experience. This is possible because detachment (which is the result of technique) happens only when the retelling of experience is mediated by perspective. There is of course a slant of attitude in the retelling which points to the teller’s stance; nevertheless, it informs the experience, transforming and renewing it. This is what Schorer has identified too: “what we need in fiction is a devoted fidelity to every technique which will help us to discover and to evaluate our subject matter…to discover the amplification of meaning of which our subject matter is capable” (397). It seems then, that perspective decides technique (the outlook that an author wishes to convey decides the kind of technique he uses); technique in turn confers meaning on experience. This outlook that decides technique is what Wimsatt recognizes as authorial intention in “The Intentional Fallacy.” In the essay, Wimsatt quotes this statement of Curt Ducasse:

Aesthetic art…is the conscious objectification of feelings, in which an intrinsic part is the critical moment. The artist corrects the objectification when it is not adequate. But this may mean that the earlier attempt was not successful in objectifying the self, or it may mean that it was a successful objectification of a self which, when it confronted us clearly, we disowned and repudiated in favour of another.
…the standard by which we disown or accept the self…is an element in the definition of art which will not reduce to terms of objectification.” (338)

More than acknowledging the presence of authorial intention in literary texts, Wimsatt, like Ducasse, recognizes the abstraction of the concept. Lacking in solid parameters, it is impractical to ground criticism on the basis of authorial intention. The method of textual approach that attempts to look at technique must necessarily admit to the subsistence of authorial intention; the ground for criticism, however, must be restricted to the manners in and the extent to which technique, in literary texts, transforms experience so that the adaptation is instructive. The methods with which New Criticism studies poetry are quite similar. One will need to return to this point and clarify it further, but it is already apparent that a methodology of criticism such as one proposed by Schorer makes it possible to see connections between experience and essence and how one is to be extracted from the other, to see how the two are relevant to works of literature, and finally to see why the attitudes of New Criticism towards literary texts are significant.

In Seven Types of Ambiguity, Empson objects to the approach of criticism that favors sensibility, where the emphasis is placed on the effects poetry produces in its readers. To Empson, poetry creates a certain consciousness by implication; this he calls ‘atmosphere’. The nature of Empson’s ‘atmosphere’ is similar to Beardsley’s concept of the affective fallacy. While both writers acknowledge the capacity of poetry to stir up particular moods or produce in its readers a particular emotion, they object to the adoption of this capacity as a motive for literary criticism: the kind of criticism that results, as correctly argued, will be both subjective and unreliable. If objectivity were to be the principle, instead of analyzing effects, criticism should look for elements within poetry that are responsible for the effects. Ambiguity, for Empson, is one of those elements.

Empson’s understanding of ambiguity will also, to a measure, clarify Brooks’ objection to the paraphrasing of poetry. Brooks’ idea of a paraphrase is to look for a statement of truth within a poem. This is similar to figuring out the ‘moral’ of a story. In the line of paraphrasing, the reading of poetry begins with the assumption that there is a statement of truth contained within a poem; the interest lies in extracting a certain ‘truth’ from the poem, which in turn will be considered a worldview. Brooks’ argument on why paraphrasing is a crippled method of analysis concerns his idea of a poem as an intact, differentiated unit and will be discussed later. Meanwhile, Empson’s idea of ambiguity within a poem also works against paraphrasing. Here is an example.

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens. (Williams 224)

The statement that so much depends upon a red wheelbarrow demands justification. The answers are spelt out right away: because the wheelbarrow is glazed with rainwater, because it is positioned beside the white chickens. There is a relationship of dependency between stanza 1 and 2 on one side, and 3 and 4 on the other. This relationship affirms that so much depends upon the red wheelbarrow only because of the specific circumstances described in stanza 3 and 4. Although one concedes to the criticality of the wheelbarrow in the poem, one cannot accurately define the nature of the wheelbarrow’s significance. The ambiguity in the poem arises out of the impossibility to define the wheelbarrow’s criticality. There can be many arguments as to why the wheelbarrow is important, but what matters in the end is that the wheelbarrow is there at that moment when it is glazed with rainwater, beside the white chickens.

The concept of poetry as a prose core on which is imposed certain structural forms – as Ransom suggests – in fact persuades paraphrasing. In instances where ambiguity is present, however, it is tricky to paraphrase. It is difficult to paraphrase ‘The Red Wheelbarrow’, for example, because there can be inferred many grounds for the wheelbarrow’s significance.

Brooks considers a poem as a self-contained and intact unit (a ‘dramatic wholeness’), so that the facts that hold true in the poem may not stay true if extricated from the poem. One knows that not all wheelbarrows are as significant as the one in the poem is; even the one in the poem is significant only insofar as it is glazed with rainwater and is beside the white chickens. If New Criticism does away with paraphrasing, it removes the assumption that poetry contains concealed meaning. This in turn may explain the New Criticism’s preference of focus on method rather than purpose.

Brooks’ work, particularly the chapters “Language of Paradox” and “Keats’ Sylvan Historian”, centers on the idea of paradox as a component of poetry. Through his analysis of several poems, Brooks illustrates how paradox (a state of contradiction) in a poem contributes towards the internal unity of the poem. In the extract from ‘Essay on Man’, for example, the state of contradiction in the poem brings out irony: the fact that man is born only to die, that man has capacity to reason and yet err. In the example from Wordsworth, the sense of wonder in the poem is the effect that results out of the paradox of seeing ordinary objects in unusual ways. The cause of paradox in both instances is perspective, which brings about the poem’s internal unity. Consider this analysis of Ramanujan’s ‘Striders’ for better illustration.

And search
for certain thin-
stemmed, bubble-eyed water bugs.
See them perch
on dry capillary legs
weightless
on the ripple skin
of a stream.
No, not only prophets
walk on water. This bug sits
on a landslide of lights
and drowns eye-deep
into its tiny strip
of sky. (3)

The first stanza of ‘Striders’ is an imperative; it contains a command to search for water bugs (striders) and to see them perch on the surface of a stream. The immediate implication is that these water bugs possess something – a quality or aspect – worthy of notice. Since all water bugs are thin-stemmed, bubble-eyed and perch on capillary legs on water surface, it must be assumed that there is something other than these features to be observed in the water bugs in the poem.

The first sentence of the second stanza, ‘not only prophets walk on water’, calls for a comparison. ‘Not only’ suggests that, excluding prophets, there are others who walk on water. The contrast between prophets and water bugs happen naturally, since the only beings that have walked on water in the poem so far are the water bugs. Whenever a comparison is made, it is logical that one should look for a common quality between the things compared to give reason for the comparison. In the poem, the quality is quite plainly the ability to walk on water, but one also recognizes the incongruity of the comparison. As far as the water bugs are concerned, the ability to walk on water is an observed fact; with prophets, it is an associative notion. One does not see prophets walking on water; one assumes they do. The assumption entails the idea of holiness associated with prophets. Prophets can walk on water because they are holy. It is this quality of holiness that is compared with the water bugs’ action of walking on water. The idea that the comparison provokes is: if prophets are able to walk on water because they are holy, are striders – being able to walk on water – also holy? The speaker does see a rather holy strider: one that sits on a landslide of lights; one that now, drowns eye-deep into its tiny strip of sky, not by virtue of being a strider, but because it is holy.

The internal unity of the poem justifies the transformation of the strider’s status (from water bug to prophet): the poem is constructed on the contrast between prophets and water bugs to confer on the water bug the associative quality of holiness that really belongs to the prophet.

It is difficult to look at New Criticism as an organised critical system because the varying attitudes and approaches that came to be clubbed under the term surfaced principally as an opposition against what at the time was the traditional method of criticism. New Criticism is not a method of approach that is formulated on the basis of a certain ideology, like the Marxist or Psychoanalytical method of analysis; the process of analysis is therefore not organised.

It is however clear that New Criticism studies literature as an isolated unit, as is evident in the attitudes of and methods of analysis proposed by the authors discussed. The general approach seems to be to identify techniques in a work of art (in textual art, one speaks of literary devices and structural forms) to arrive at the coherence of the work. The material of poetry cannot be anything but human experience, so that to identify literary techniques is to examine the way art reworks experience. Brooks sees a poem’s structure as “conditioned by the nature of the material which goes into the poem. The nature of the material sets the problem to be solved, and the solution is the ordering of the material.” (195). Perhaps what Schorer applies to fiction is appropriate for poetry too – that technique (or literary devices) transforms experience and makes it informative. If this is true, what poetry offers is an amplification of experience, where the experience is ‘ordered’ so that it turns out meaning. Technique, in the form of literary devices, becomes vital because these are the tools with which the examination is done. The discovery of technique may occur only when texts are scrutinized, hence the method of close reading that New Criticism recommends. The essence, the significance of experience, that must surface as a result is a heartening inevitability.


Works Cited:

[Ambiguity of the first type]. Seven Types of Ambiguity. Empson, William. London: Penguin, 1995. 19-69.

“Criticism Inc.” Ransom, John Crowe. 20th Century Literary Criticism. Ed. David Lodge. London: Longman, 1972. 228-241.

“Dream Deferred.” The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes. Hughes, Langston. Ed. Arnold Rampersad. New York: Vintage, 1995. 231.

“Heresy of Paraphrase.” The Well Wrought Urn. Brooks, Cleanth. Orlando: Macmillan, 1975. 192-196.

“Keats’ Slyvan Historian: History Without Footnotes.” The Well Wrought Urn. Brooks, Cleanth. Orlando: Macmillan, 1975. 151-167.

“Orientation of Critical Theories.” The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition. Abrams, M.H. New York: OUP, 1953. 3-26

“Technique as Discovery.” Schorer, Mark. 20th Century Literary Criticism. Ed. David Lodge. London: Longman, 1972. 387 – 400.

“The Affective Fallacy.” Beardsley, Monroe C. 20th Century Literary Criticism. Ed. David Lodge. London: Longman, 1972. 345 –358.

“The Intentional Fallacy.” Wimsatt, W.K. 20th Century Literary Criticism. Ed. David Lodge. London: Longman, 1972. 334-343.

“The Language of Paradox.” The Well Wrought Urn. Brooks, Cleanth. Orlando: Macmillan, 1975. 3 – 22.

“The Red Wheelbarrow.” Collected Poems of Williams Carlos Williams. Williams, Carlos Williams. Ed. A. Walton Litz and Christopher MacGowan. New York: New Directions, 1986. 224.

“The Striders.” Collected Poems: A.K. Ramanujan. Ramanujan, A.K. New Delhi: OUP, 1995. 3.