LITERARY CRITICISM NOTES

I. Defining criticism, theory, and literature

1. What is literary criticism?
Literary criticism is the act of studying, analysing, interpreting, evaluating, and enjoying a
work of art (p 5).
According to Matthew Arnold 19 th century critic), it is “a disinterested (unbiased)
endeavour to learn and propagate the best that is known and thought in the “world” (p 6).
Literary criticism is a discipline that attempts to formulate aesthetic and methodological
principles (literary theories = the critics’ tools) on which the critic can evaluate a text (p 6)
2. What is a literary critic?
A critic (Grk. krino, meaning “to judge” and krites, meaning “a judge or jury”) is a “judge
of literature”.
A literary critic is someone who interacts with the story thinking about his/her likes and
dislikes of the various characters, his/her impressions of the setting, plot, and structure and
his/her overall assessment of the story itself, whether that assessment was full-fledged
interpretation that seeks to explain every facet of the text or simply bewilderment as to the
story’s overall meaning (p 5).
Literary critics involves in either theoretical or practical criticism: (p 7)
Theoretical criticism formulates the theories, principles, and tenets of the nature and
value of art (ex. explaining what is postcolonialism).
Practical criticism (also known applied criticism applies the theories and tenets of
theoretical criticism to a particular work (ex. Using postcolonialism in analyzing a literary
work).
3. What is a literary theory?
Theory is derived from the word theoria (Grk.), which means “view or perspective of the
Greek “stage” (p 8).
Literary theory offers us a view of life, an understanding of why we interpret texts the
way we do.
A literary theory is our (conscious or unconscious) assumptions that undergird our
understanding and interpretation of language [of the text], the ways we construct meaning,
and our understanding of art, culture, aesthetics, and ideologies (p 8)
A literary theory concerns its itself with our understanding of the ideas, concepts, and
intellectual assumptions upon which rests our actual literary critique (p 8)
 Intertextuality = How we arrive at meaning in fiction [literary work] is, in part,
determined by our experiences [with other texts] (p 8).
4. What is literature?
The term literature is derived from the word littera (Grk. meaning “letter” therefore,
literature refers primarily to the written word (p 12).
Hyperprotected cooperative principle - the belief that published works are deemed worthy
to be dubbed as literature as they have been evaluated and declared literary texts by a group
of well-informed people who are protecting the overall canon of literature (p 13)
Aesthetics the branch of philosophy that deals with the concept of the beautiful, strives to
determine the criteria for beauty in a work of art.
* the source of beauty is inherent within the art object itself (Plato & Aristotle)
* beauty is in the eye of the beholder (David Hume) (p 14)
Literary theory offers a variety of methodologies that enable readers to interpret a text
from different and often conflicting point of view (pp 14-15)
The definition of literature depends on the particular kind of literary school of criticism
that the reader or critic espouses (p 15).
Literature’s primary function is moral its chief value being its usefulness for cultural or
societal purposes (Plato).
A work of art can be analyzed and broken down into its various parts, with each
contributing to the overall enjoyment of the work itself (Aristotle) (p 15)

II. A historical survey of literary criticism

The Greeks of the 5th century BCE (Before Christ Era) were the first to articulate and
develop the philosophy of art and life that serves as the foundation for most theoretical and
practical criticism (= they inaugurated the formal study of literary criticism) (p. 19)
1. Plato. He systematically begins for us the study of literary theory and criticism.
✔ Plotinus reintroduced Plato’s ideas to the Western world, known study as
Neoplatonism.
✔ Essences, Ideas or Forms – core of Platonic thought
✔ Plato stated that the ultimate reality is spiritual.
✔ The One – composed of “ideal” forms or absolutes that exist whether or not any
mind posits their existence or reflects their attributes. It is these ideal forms that
give shape to our physical world because our material world is nothing more than
a shadow, a replica, of the absolute forms found in the spiritual realm.
 ✔ If ultimate reality rests in the spiritual realm, and the material world is only a
shadow or replica of the world of ideals, then according to Plato and his followers,
poets (those who composed imaginative literature) are merely imitating and
imitation [mimesis] when they write about any object in the material world.
✔ Plato declares that the poet’s craft is “an inferior who marries an inferior and has
inferior offspring”, because the poet is one who is now two steps removed from
reality.
✔ Plato contends that these mere imitators of mere shadows [the poets] cannot be
trusted.
✔ Plato also argues that poets produce their art irrationally, relying on untrustworthy
intuition rather than reasons for their inspiration.
✔ Plato condemns all poets and argues that critical lies about the nature of ultimate
reality and dangerous lies about human reality abound in their works.
✔ In the Republic [thought to be the first book on literary criticism], Plato concludes
that poets must be banished from Greek society.
✔ In Laws, Book VIII, Plato recanted the total banishment of the poets in society, but
asserted that only those poets “who are themselves good and also honorable in the
state” can be tolerated.
✔ Plato decrees poetry’s function and value in and for his society: to sing the praises
of loyal Greeks.
2. Aristotle. He answers Plato’s accusations against poetry in a series of lectures known as
the Poetics.
✔ The Poetics is an esoteric work, one meant for private circulation to those who
attended the Lyceum [Aristotle’s school; Plato’s school is called Academy].
✔ Aristotle contends that poetry is more universal, more general than things as they
are, asserting that “it is not the function of the poet to relate what has happened,
but what may happen --- what is possible according to the law of probability or
necessity”.
✔ Aristotle’s chief contribution to literary criticism is his complex definition of
tragedy:
i. Tragedy, or a work of art, is an imitation of nature that reflects a high form
of art in exhibiting noble characters and noble deeds, the act of imitation
itself giving us pleasure.
 ii. Art possesses form, that is, tragedy has a defined beginning, a middle, and
an end, with each of the parts being related to every other part. A tragedy,
then, is an organic whole, with its various parts all being formally
interrelated.
iii. In tragedy, concern for form must be given to the characters as well as to
the structure of the drama because the tragic hero must be “a man who is
not eminently good and just, yet whose misfortune is brought about not by
vice or depravity, but by some error or frailty.
iv. The tragedy must have an emotional effect on its audience and “through
pity and fear” effect a catharsis --- that is, by the play’s end, the
audience’s emotions should be purged, purified, or clarified.
v. The universal, not the particular, should be stressed.
vi. The poet must give close attention to diction or language, be it in verse,
prose, or song; but ultimately, it is the thoughts expressed through
language that are of the utmost concern.
✔ Aristotle emphasizes literary form or structure, examining the component parts of
a tragedy and how these parts must work together to produce a unified whole.
3. Horace (65-68 BCE). He wrote Ars Poetica (The Art of Poetry) which articulated the
standards of good and proper literature.
✔ He articulated what became the official canon of literary taste during the Middle
Ages, the Renaissance, and much of the Neoclassical period.
✔ He declares that poets must imitate other poets, particularly those of the past and
especially the Greeks.
✔ He establishes the practical do’s and don’ts for a writer.
✔ He maintains that one should write about traditional subjects in unique ways to be
considered a good writer.
✔ He declares that literature’s ultimate aim is “dulce et utile”, to be “sweet and
useful”: the best writings both teach and delight.
✔ The poet’s task is to combine usefulness and delight in the same literary work.
They must understand their audiences; the learned reader may want to be
instructed, whereas others may simply read to be amused.
✔ The poet’s greatest reward is the adulation of the public.
4. Longinus (1st century CE). He wrote the treatise On the Sublime as a response to a work o
Sicilian rhetorician, Caecillus of Calacte.
 ✔ He is considered the first comparative critic in literary history as he is the first
critic to borrow from a different literary tradition than his own.
✔ He is the first critic to define a literary classic.
✔ He maintains that a well-read critic can evaluate and recognize what is great or the
sublime.
✔ He defines the sublime as “the echo of greatest of spirit”.
✔ The sublime has five key elements:
i. the power of forming great conceptions
ii. vehement and inspired passions
iii. the due formation of figures, such as word order and appropriate audience.
iv. noble diction
v. dignified and elevated composition
✔ He says that we have been touched by the sublime when our intellects, our emotions
and our wills harmoniously respond to a given work of art.
✔ He emphasizes that the author must possess a great mind and great soul, the work
itself must be composed of dignified and elevated diction, and the reader’s response
(the reaction of a learned audience) determines in large part the value of any given
text.
5. Plotinus (204 – 270 CE). He is the founder of Neoplatonism
✔ He wrote treatises, named Enneads, as an attempt to articulate clearly other scholars’
garbled misinterpretations of Plato.
✔ Both Plato and Plotinus believe that humanity’s goal was to achieve unity with The
One through contemplation and study.
✔ He asserts that humanity exists in other forms of being: Intelligence (nous), Soul
(psyche), and Matter (physis)
i. Intelligence – corresponds with Plato’s real of ideas: people comprehend ideas
and concepts through the intellect, not the senses.
ii. Soul – the overarching Soul that runs through not only humanity but also the
entire creation: all souls form only one Soul; such unity allows all souls to
intercommunicate by extrasensory means.
iii. Matter – creation is able to know The One because of its overflow into matter:
it is the lowest form of existence, one that is more frequently than not separate
from The One.
6. Dante Alighiere (1265- 1321). His concern is the proper language for poetry; heralded as
Tuscany’s greatest poet.
✔ In his pivotal work of literary theory, Letter to Can Grande della Scala, he states that
the language spoken by the people (the vulgar tongue or the vernacular) is
appropriate, acceptable, and beautiful language for writing.
✔ Until the publication of Dante’s works, Latin was the universal language, and all
important works were written in this official Church tongue.
✔ In his Letter he asserts and establishes that the vernacular is both an excellent and
appropriate vehicle for works of literature.
✔ He established himself as the leading critic of the Middle Ages.
✔ Because he declared a people’s common language or the vernacular to be an
acceptable vehicle of expression for writing literature, literary works found an ever-
increasing audience.
7. Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375). He is one the founders of the Renaissance, a shift of
focus from God and the afterlife to the present moment, focusing primarily on the
problem of the human condition.
✔ His most famous work, Decameron, is a frame narrative consisting of one hundred
tales.
✔ His most influential scholarly work, De Genealogia Deorum Gentilium or On the
Genealogy of the Gods and the Gentiles, a collection of classical myths and
legends, serves as a window into literary criticism of the 1300s.
✔ He asserts that myth reflects both truth and reality, while simultaneously having
moral and religious value.
✔ He states that the purpose of poetry is to improve life by revealing both truth and
God.
✔ He asserts that poetry comes from “the bosom of God” and “moves the minds of a
few men from on high to a yearning for the eternal”. The poet is like a philosopher
who seeks truth through contemplation rather than reason. In the same vein, the
poet is equal to the theologian who seeks knowledge about God Himself.
8. Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1589). He is the first great English critic-poet. His work An
Apology for Poetry (published 1595; originally Defence of Poesy) is the definitive
formulation of Renaissance literary theory and the first influential piece of literary
criticism in English history.
 ✔ He values poetry over history, law and philosophy and declares that poetry, above
all the other arts and sciences, embodies the truth.
✔ He declares that poetry alone is a teacher of virtue, moving the mind and spirit to
both teach and desire to be taught.
✔ For him, creative poetry is akin to religion, for both guide and achieve their
purpose by stirring the emotions of the reader.
9. John Dryden (1631-1700). He is the most prolific writer of the Restoration, the age that
follows Renaissance.
✔ Dryden’s contribution to literary criticism:
i. He develops the study of literature in and of itself, not obsessing over its
moral and theological worth.
ii. He creates a natural, simple prose style that still guides and affects modern
criticism and writing in general.
iii. By making use of a variety of critical perspectives --- from Greek to
French --- he brings all of these critical perspectives’ best insights into the
still infant discipline of literary criticism.
iv. He advocates for the establishing of objective principles of criticism, while
simultaneously moving the emphasis of criticism away from the
construction of a work into its more modern emphasis on how readers and
critics appreciate texts.
10. Joseph Addison (1672-1719). He highlights the concept of the “greatness of literature”
in his essays and newspaper articles, appealing to the common readers of England.
✔ His literary goal was “to endeavor to enliven morality with wit and to temper wit
with morality” (Spectator 10)
✔ He highlights the sublime or the greatness of literature: greatness in literature is
not a mechanical superiority, but the prowess to display the immensity of life in a
way that transcends imagination.
✔ He attests that the aim of the critic is not to dissect the writer of genius, but to look
at what occurs in the interaction of literature and its audience.
11. Alexander Pope (1688-1744). He asserts that the chief requirement of a good poet is
natural genius, coupled with a knowledge of the classics and an understanding of the rules
of poetry (literature).
 ✔ The critic’s task is clear: to validate and maintain classical values in the ever-
shifting flux of cultural change. In effect, the critic becomes the custodian and
defender of good taste and cultural values.
✔ He grounds his criticism in both mimetic (imitation) and rhetoric (patterns of
structure) literary theories.
12. William Wordsworth (1770- 1850). He published, together with Samuel T. Coleridge, a
collection of poems, Lyrical Ballads, which heralded the beginning of British
romanticism.
✔ Common men and women people his poetry, not kings, queens, and aristocrats.
✔ He asserts that in “humble and rustic life”, the poet finds that “the essential
passions of the heart find a better soil in which they can attain their maturity, are
less under restraint, and speak a plainer and more emphatic language”.
✔ He redefines poetry itself: “For all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of
powerful feelings.”
✔ For him, the effective use of a passion-filled imagination becomes the central
characteristic of poetry.
✔ His poet “has acquired a greater readiness and power in expressing what he thinks
and feels, and especially those thoughts and feelings which, by his own choice, or
from the structure of his own mind, arise in him without immediate external
excitement”.
✔ Poetry is unlike biology or any other sciences because it deals not with something
that can be dissected or broken down into its constituent parts, but primarily with
the imagination and feelings.
✔ The expressive school emphasizes the individuality of the artist and the reader’s
privilege to share in this individuality.
13. Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822). He was the greatest devotee of Plato and established
himself as the voice of Neoplatonism in British Romanticism.
✔ He asserts that poetry is by far the best way to gain access to the Forms and to
ultimate Truth.
✔ In his poetic craft, poetry is less concerned with reason and rationality and more
concerned about the spiritual and transcendental.
✔ He redefines poetry as “the expression of the imagination”.
✔ Poetry is not only an outstanding art form, but a teacher and a guide to Truth, one
embodied in nature and the individual, not in science or reason or philosophy.
 ✔ For him, there is nothing more sacred and perfect than poetry: the poet is the
greatest among all the various artists because the poet alone can see the future in
the present and, can “participate in the eternal, the infinite, and the one”.
14. Hippolyte Adolphe Taine (1828-1893). He believes that an investigation of both the
text and the author would result in an accurate understanding of the literary work.
✔ He asserts that to understand any literary text, we must examine the environmental
causes [influences] that joined together in its creation: race, milieu, moment and
dominant faculty
i. Race. Authors of the same race, or those born and raised in the same
country, share peculiar intellectual beliefs, emotions, and ways of
understanding.
ii. Milieu or surroundings. By examining the culture of the author we would
understand more fully the intellectual and cultural concerns that inevitably
surface in an author’s text.
iii. Epoch or moment. The time period in which the text was written reveals
the dominant ideas or worldview held by people at that particular time and,
therefore, helps us identify and understand the literary characters’ actions,
motivations, and concerns more fully than if we did not have such
information.
iv. Dominant faculty. We must examine each author’s individual talents or
dominant faculty that makes him or her different from others who share
similar characteristics of race, milieu, and moment.
✔ He asserts that a work of art is “ the result of given causes”: race + milieu +
moment + dominant faculty = work of art. He argues that we cannot appreciate art
as it “really” is without considering all these four stated elements.
15. Matthew Arnold (1822-1888). He believes that literature reflects the society in which it
is written.
✔ He adapts that the best poetry is of a “higher truth and seriousness” than history
--- or any other human subject or activity.
✔ It is poetry, not religion, science or philosophy, that is humankind’s crowning
activity.
✔ He asserts that the best poetry can and does provide standards of excellence, a
yardstick by which society should judge themselves.
 ✔ He affirms that the role of criticism is to create a “current and fresh ideas”. The
critic’s task is “to have always in one’s mind lines and expressions of the great
masters, and to apply them as a touchtone to other poetry”.
✔ In touchtone theory, the literary critic is no longer just being the interpreter of a
literary work, he/she now functions as an authority on values, culture, and tastes.
✔ He helps establish “culture” and, in particular, literature as the highest object of
veneration among civilized peoples.
16. Henry James (1843-1916). His critical essay “The Art of Fiction” provides the first well-
articulated theory of the novel in English literature.
✔ He states that “a novel is in its broadest definition a personal, a direct impression
of life: that, to begin with, constitutes its value which is greater or less according
to the intensity of the impression”, furthermore, “the only obligation to which in
advance we may hold a novel, without incurring the accusation of being arbitrary,
is that it be interesting.
✔ Good writers are good thinkers who can select, evaluate, and imaginatively utilize
the “stuff of life” in their work. They also recognize that a work of art is organic.
✔ He declares that the reader must decide the worth of the text, and “nothing of
course, will ever take the place of the good old fashion liking of a work of art or
not liking it: the most improved criticism will not abolish that primitive, that
ultimate test.”
17. Mikhail Bakhtin (1895-1975). His concept, dialogic, posits that all language is a
dialogue in which a speaker and a listener form a relationship. Language is always the
product of at least two people in a dialogue, not monologue.
✔ Unfinalizability – No individual can ever be completely understood of fully
known.
✔ Heteroglossia (Russian raznocerie, meaning “other or different tongues” or
“multilanguagedness”) – Demonstrate the multiplicity of languages that operate in
any given culture.
✔ Each individual speech act is a dialogic utterance that is oriented toward a
particular listener or audience, demonstrating the relationship that exists between
the speaker and listener.
✔ He believes that the novel is characterized by dialogized heteroglossia. Within
the novel multiple world views and a variety of experiences are continually
 dialoguing with each other, resulting in multiple interactions, some of which are
real and others of which are imagined.
✔ Bakhtin says that whatever meaning the language of the text possesses, resides not
in the intention of the speaker in the text, but somewhere between the speaker or
writer or between the listener or reader.
✔ Hybridization - within a single utterance, two different languages clash.
✔ In nonpolyphonic novels, the author knows the ending of the novel while writing
the novel's beginning.
✔ In polyphonic novel, there is no overall outlined structure or prescribed outcome,
nor is the text a working out of the author's worldview or understanding of truth.
✔ For Bakhtin, the polyphonic nature of the novel implies that there are many truths,
not just one.
✔ Carnivalistic atmosphere - a sense of joyful relativity.
✔ Bakhtin asserts that polyphonic novels have a carnival sense of the world, a sense
of joyful abandonment where many voices are simultaneously heard and directly
influenced their hearers.

III. Russian Formalism and New Criticism

1. Russian Formalism
 Russian scholars boldly declared the autonomy of literature and poetic language,
advocating a scientific approach to literary interpretation. Literature, they
believed, should be investigated as its own discipline, not merely as a platform for
discussing religious, political, sociological or philosophical ideas.
 The Russian Formalists emphasized the autonomous nature of literature and
declared that the proper study of literature is literature itself.
 To study literature is to study poetics, which is an analysis of a work’s constituent
parts --- it's linguistic and structural features --- or its form.
 Form, they asserted, included the internal mechanics of the work itself, especially
its poetic language.
 Devices - compose the artfulness and literariness of any given text not a work’s
subject matter or content.
 Literariness - the language employed in the actual text. Literary language, they
asserted, is different from everyday language.
  Defamiliarization - It is the process of making strange (ostranenie) the familiar,
or putting the old in new light, what Victor Shklovsky called a “sphere of new
perception”.
 The structure of a narrative has two aspects: fabula (story) and syuzhet (plot).
i. Fabula is the raw material of the story and can be considered somewhat akin
to the writer's working outline. This outline contains the chronological series
of events of the story.
ii. The syuzhet is the literary devices the writer uses to transform a story (the
fabula) into plot.
 The Formalists asserted that literature, like all sciences, is a self-enclosed, law-
governed system. To studied literature is to study a text form and only incidentally
its content. For the Formalists form is superior to content.
2. New criticism
 This particular interpretive model begins with a close analysis of the poems
individual words, including both denotative and connotative meanings, then
moves to a discussion of possible allusions within the text.
 The critics sharp eye also notes any symbols (either public or private) that
represents something else.
 New criticism is an approach to literary analysis which provides the reader with a
formula for arriving at the correct interpretation of a text using---for the most
part---only the text itself.
 An ontological critic is one who recognizes that a poem is a concrete entity as in
Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa or the score of Handel’s Messiah or any chemical
elements such as iron or gold.
 A poem can be analyzed to discover its true or correct meaning independent of its
author's intention or of the emotional stat,e values or beliefs of either its author or
its reader.
3. Historical development
 Extrinsic analysis - examining elements outside the text to uncover the text’s
meaning.
 Impressionistic critics - critics who believed that we should appreciate the text
for its beauty. How we feel and what a personally see in a work of art are what
really matter.
  Naturalism - human beings are considered animals who are caught in a world that
operates on definable scientific principles and who responds somewhat
instinctively to the environment and internal drives.
 New humanists - valued the moral qualities of art.
 Romanticism (known as the expressive school) - For the romantic scholar,
literary study concerns itself with the artist's feelings, attitudes, and personal
vision exhibited and their works.
 New critics assert that only the poem itself can be objectively evaluated, not the
feelings, attitudes, values, and beliefs of the author or the reader.
 The New Critics espouse what many call “the text and text alone” approach to
literary analysis.
 Both the Russian Formalists and the New Critics believe that every text and
indeed all literature is a complex, rule-governed system of forms (literary devices)
that are analyzable.
 From T.S. Eliot, New Criticism borrows its insistence that criticism be directed
toward the poem, not the poet. He declares that the poet does not infused the poem
with his or her personality and emotions, but uses language in such a way as to
incorporate within the poem the impersonal feelings and emotions common to all
mankind
 The New Critics also borrow Eliot’s beliefs that the reader of poetry must be
instructed and literary technique. He maintains that a good reader perceives a
poem structurally, resulting in good criticism.
 A poor reader and poor criticism may argue that a poem can mean anything its
reader or its author wishes it to mean. On the other hand, a good reader or critic
and good criticism will assert that only through a detailed structural analysis of a
poem can a reader discover the correct interpretation of a text (p. 56)
 objective correlative or a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events or reactions
that can effectively awakened in the reader the emotional response the author
desires without being a direct statement of that emotion (p.56).
4. Assumptions
 New criticism begins by assuming that the study of imaginative literature is
valuable; to study poetry or any literary work is to engage oneself in anesthetic
experience (i.e. the effects produced on an individual when contemplating a work
of art) that can lead to truth (p.56).
 Poetic truth - involves the use of imagination and intuition, a form of truth, that
according to the New Critics is discernible only in poetry (p. 57).
 Objective theory of art - the meaning of a poem must not be equated with its
author's feelings or stated or implied intentions (p. 57).
 To believe that a poem’s meaning is nothing more than an expression of the
private experiences or intentions of its author is to commit a fundamental error of
interpretation which the New Critics call the intentional fallacy.
 According to the New Critics, the design or intent of the author is neither
available nor desirable as a standard for judging and literary work (p. 57)
 Any literary work is a public text that can only be understood by applying the
standards of public discourse, not simply the private experience, concerns, and
vocabulary of its author (p. 57)
 Eliott asserts that the created entity, the poem, is about the experiences of the
author that are similar to all of our experiences (p. 58).
 The New Critics give little credence to the biographical or contextual history of a
poem (p. 58).
 Placing a little emphasis on the author, the social context, or the text’s historical
situation as a source for discovering a poem’s meaning, the New Critics assert that
the reader's emotional response to a text is neither important nor equivalent to its
interpretation (p. 58).
 affective fallacy - a mistake in interpretation that confuses what a poem is (its
meaning) with what it does.
 Relativism is the belief that a poem has innumerable valid interpretations.
 According to the New Critics, a poem's meaning does not reside in the author, the
historical or social context of the poem, or even in the reader. The poem itself is
an artifact or an objective entity, its meaning must reside within its own structure,
within the poem itself (pp. 58-59)
 The New Critics conclude that it is the critic’s job to ascertain the structure of the
poem, to see how it operates to achieve its unity, and to discover how meaning
evolved directly from the poem itself (p. 59).
 New Criticism sees the poet as an organizer of the content of human experience.
 As an artisan, the poet is most concerned with effectively developing the poem’s
structure because the artist realizes that the meaning of a word emerges from its
structure.
  The New Critics maintain that the poet’s chief concern is how meaning is
achieved through the various and sometimes conflicting elements operating in the
poem itself (p. 59).
 The chief characteristic of a poem --- and therefore of its structure --- is coherence
or interrelatedness.
 Organic unity of a poem, that is, all parts of a poem are necessarily interrelated
with each part reflecting and helping to support the poem’s central idea.
 organic unity allows for the harmonization of conflicting ideas, feelings, and
attitudes, and results in the poem’s overall oneness (p. 59).
 A poem's form and content are inseparable. For the New Critics, form is more
than the external structure of a poem; a poem’s form encompasses and
simultaneously rises above the usual definition of poetic structure (p. 59)
 Form is defined as the overall effect the poem creates (p. 59)
 Heresy of paraphrase – is an erroneous belief that a poem’s interpretation is
equal to a mere paraphrased version of the text. No simple paraphrase can equal
the meaning of a poem because the poem itself resists through its inner tension
any prose statement that attempt to encapsulate its meaning (p. 60).
5. Methodology
 New Critics search for a poem’s meaning within the text structure by finding the
tensions and conflicts that must eventually be resolved into a harmonious whole
and that inevitably lead to the creation of the poem’s chief effect (p. 60) .
 poem’s diction or word choice - poetic diction often has multiple meanings and
immediately sets up a series of tensions within the text
 denotation - dictionary meaning of words
 connotation - implied meaning of words
 ambiguity - the language’s capacity to sustain multiple meaning
 At the end of a close reading of a text, all such ambiguities must be resolved.
 The poem's meaning is derived from the oscillating tensions and conflicts that are
brought to the surface through the poetic diction (p. 61).
 Literary discourse, unlike normal or everyday language, is able to sustain multiple
meaning (p. 61).
 Tension (the opposition or conflict operation operating within a text) - implies
the conflicts between a word’s denotation and its connotation, between the literal
detail and a figurative one, and between an abstract and a concrete detail (p. 61).
 Because conflict, ambiguity, or tension controls the poem’s structure, the meaning
of a poem can be discovered only by contextually analyzing the poetic elements
and diction (p. 61).
 It is the task of the critic to unravel the various apparent conflicts and tensions
within each poem and ultimately to show that the poem possesses organic unity,
thereby demonstrating how old parts of the poem are interrelated and support the
poem’s chief paradox (p. 61).
 Form or overall effect can usually be expressed in one sentence that contains the
main tension and the resolution of that tension. It is the key idea to which all other
elements of the poem must relate.
 Steps textual analysis:
i. Step 1 Examine the text diction. Consider the denotations,
connotations, and etymological roots of all words in the text.
ii. Step 2 Examine all allusions found within the text by tracing the roots
to the primary text or source, if possible.
iii. Step 3 Analyze all images, symbols, and figures of speech within the
text. Note the relationships, if any, among the elements, both within
the same category (e.g. between images) and among the various
elements (e.g. between the image and a symbol).
iv. Step 4 Examine and analyze the various structural patterns that appear
within the text, including the technical aspects of prosody, or the
principles that govern the writing of poetry, such as rhyme, meter,
rhythm, and so forth. Note how the poet manipulates metrical devices,
grammatical constructions, tonal patterns, and syntactic patterns of
words, phrases, clauses, or sentences. Determine how these various
patterns interrelate with each other and with all elements.
v. Step 5 Consider such elements as tone, theme, point of view, and any
other element --- dialogue, foreshadowing, narration, parody, setting,
and so forth --- that directly relate to the text’s dramatic situation.
vi. Step 6 look for interrelationships of all elements stated in steps 125
noting where tensions ambiguities or paradoxes arrive
vii. Step 7 After carefully examining all of the above, state the poems
chief overarching tension, and explain how the poem achieve its
dominant effect by resolving this tension.
  A good critic examines a poem’ s structure by scrutinizing its poetic elements,
rooting out and showing its inner tensions, and demonstrating how the poem
supports its overall meaning by reconciling these tensions into a unified whole.
 Bad critics are those who insist on imposing mainly evidence.
 New Critics believe that a text ultimately has one and only one correct
interpretation and that the poem itself provides all the necessary information for
revealing its meaning (p. 63).
6. Questions for analysis
 If the text has a title, what is the relationship of the title to the rest of the poem?
 What words, if any, need to be defined?
 What words and their etymological roots need to be scrutinized?
 What relationships or patterns do you see among any words in the text?
 What words in the text possess various connotative meanings? Do these various
shades of meaning help establish relationships or patterns in the text?
 What allusions, if any, are in the text? Trace these allusions to their appropriate
sources and explore how the origins of the allusions help elucidate meaning in this
particular text.
 What symbols, images, and figures of speech are used? What is the relationship
between any symbol and/or image? Between an image and another image?
Between a figure of speech and then image? A symbol?
 What elements of prosody can you note and discuss? Look for rhyme, meter, and
stanza patterns.
 What is the tone of the work?
 From what point of view is the content of the text being told?
 What tensions, ambiguities, or paradoxes arise within the text?
 What do you believe the chief paradox or irony is in the text?
 How do all the elements of the text support and develop the text’s chief paradox?

Work Cited
Bressler, Charles E. Literary Criticism: An Introduction to Theory and Practice. 5th ed.,
Longman, 2011.