The Theories Of New Criticism

At a first glance, the poem “The Author to Her Book”, written by Anne Bradstreet, is quite difficult to decipher. With a perplexing use of diction, Bradstreet manages to lure readers in and stimulate interest, much like puzzle. The language usages in the poem was intrinsic to the time period it was written in however, a current audience may become confused at the site of this poem and be more inclined to investigate it. After reading this particular poem numerous times, the underlying story begins to be revealed. It appears as if the author being described in the poem is unhappy with her work. The speaker’s friends on the other hand, liked it and decided to publish it so the author was forced to revise the writings and make them better. The vibe from the speaker however, is of constant disgust in their work. No matter how much they revised and edited, they were never satisfied with anything completed. To add character to her work, Bradstreet effectively uses metaphors throughout the poem to aid in her overall theme of conflicts

The criticism that I will be using is a rhetorical analysis which simply means analyzing texts on how they make the audience feel using symbols, the type of genre, aesthetics and more while also looking at why that happens. I decided to use a rhetorical

New Criticism posits that in order to understand a work, one must focus solely on the work looking at, for example, its figures of speech among other elements and how such add to the organic unity (the coming together

Contemporary civilisation places immense significance upon writings that stimulate the human psyche. Weldon extrapolates upon this notion through her epistolary work Letters to Alice. The author imbues the audience with the extended metaphorical image of the “City on Invention”. This developed and intricate allegory facilitates comprehension regarding the depth of literary matter. Such complexity is explicated by the alliteration of “mind meeting mind” coupled with the sarcastic “It’s getting crowded”. The City exists as a metaphysical realm negligent of boundaries, thus exemplifying the human mind and appetite for growth. However, Weldon makes tantamount didactic statements that transcend metaphorical allusion and convey explicit points. The high modality language of “no one burns Emma” is symbolic of humanity and its inherent need to preserve and learn about the foundations of its society. Furthermore, Weldon employs a mocking tonality in “real history” to reveal her didactic perspective pertaining to literature, furthered by the authorial intrusion of “you must read”. Weldon re-enforces the relevance of literal compositions, outlining the dire need for its prevalence in society. By observing the past through an inscribed lens, humanity progresses. The written word acts as an artefact through which contemporary society may learn to better themselves by considering the nature of each

Literature is such a beautiful thing because it does not give us an answer to it's questions. There are so many iffy spots that leave us to develop our own thoughts and feelings toward the piece of work. This is an interesting factor because at many times it affects us in a different way and can develop us as an individual. When reading a piece of literature, one person can interpret it in different ways than another person reading the same piece of work. I remember analyzing poems with my English class in the previous years and when we were asked to interpret it, we all had different answers. Sometimes what I got out of the poem didn’t even go close to the direction that my classmate

The deconstruction school of literary criticism is different from the formalist and new critics, as well as the reader-response

The problem this imposed was manual recording was tedious and stressful for staff and introduced errors in the Freight Operations Systems database causing delays in tracking processes; cost also being a huge downfall.

In Annie Murphy Paul's "Reading Literature Makes Us Smarter and Nicer," she tries to persuade the reader of the importance of deep reading. She wrote this article because she heard an argument which she disagreed with and wanted to show her beliefs. Her audience, the readers of Time, are meant to learn about deep reading and its importance to them. Paul's tone is confident, as she speaks about what she thinks and supports it with a lot of evidence. Paul uses many rhetorical devices and appeals in her essay to accomplish her purpose.

What about literature entices individuals to read, and to pursue a further understanding of the writing material? Surprisingly, it lies in the fact that literature creates a solid connection between readers and relatable personal experiences. With literature, readers transcend their own physical lives, and for the duration of the story, experience someone else’s emotions, and realities, as if it were their own. One person known for discussing the importance of “human connection” (Llosa, 2001), is Mario Vargas Llosa, a famous Peruvian writer. He deems that in order for literature to gain substantiality and longevity, it must first create strong connections with its readers. In the three works Until Gwen, A&P, and Winter’s Bone, the primary goal of human connection as emphasized by Llosa is largely attained through experience.

In life, people undergo many experiences leading them to new questions giving a sense of uncertainty. In Bloom’s prologue to How to Read and Why, he uses Emily Dickinson’s poem “875” in order to further proclaim his thesis. In his essay, Bloom addresses the solitary reader and urges them to read in order to discover and benefit themselves. Reading and gaining more knowledge leads to a more questioning and open mind. It is ironic how the more one reads and the more knowledge they gain, the more aware one is of how much they will never know. Emily Dickinson’s poem is reflective of Bloom's argument because the speaker stepping alone from “plank to plank” cautiously with a “precarious gate” can be compared to the individual reader reading from book to book in order to strengthen themselves, gaining more knowledge and ironically becoming more uncertain.

This paper will cover this topic by using the main aspects of Reader-Oriented Criticism, so it will also evaluate a few essays, reviews, or analyses on the book. Considering that there are two possible angles to interpret the book (idealistic or cynical), it is ultimately the readers who decide how they find its meaning, and their past experiences can influence that decision. In fact, these past experiences can also affect their character as a whole, possibly determining their attitudes towards life or the world. When analyzing the sources, this paper will focus on the parts of the book that people tend to reference most often when explaining their interpretations. It’s essentially important to see whether the readers from both sides are referencing the same scenes or different ones. If both “idealistic readers” and “cynical readers” are viewing the same moments from different perspectives, then that suggests their thoughts are essential to forming their interpretations, which supports the ideas of Subjective

Formal criticism is a performance evaluation, formal setting, constructive criticism and offering criticism in manner that non-disruptive, or professional through the elements of structure, style, tone, etc. The formal critics emphasize connotation and figurations within a text, Brooks states: “That in a successful work, form and content cannot be separated. That form is meaning. That literature is ultimately metaphorical and symbolic. That the general and the universal are not seized upon by abstraction, but got at through the concrete and the particular. That literature is not a surrogate for religion.” The context is important because the readers have to think about every sentence in the story. Since the contexts guide the reader to the narrator’s point of view so it seems there is one way direction, the reader cannot be lost. In order to understand more indepthly in formalism structure, I break it down in two parts which are formal element and connect formal element to interpretive meaning.

Canonical criticism is an interpretative strategy that focuses on reading the final form of the biblical text in relation to its context in the biblical canon, constitutes one of the major critical methodologies that has challenged the predominance of historically based or diachronic biblical exegesis in the latter portion of the twentieth century.

The Reader Response Theory emerged as a reaction against the New Criticism or formalistic approach, which focused on the text, finding all the meaning, the value in it and regarding everything else as extraneous, including readers. Despite the ideas of the Reader Response in the 1920’s, the late Louise Rosenblatt pioneered the Reader Response theory. She was a literary theorist and an English Educator. In her writing, Literature as Exploration written in 1938, she emphasizes that the readers play an important role in the life of any piece of literature. According to Rosenblatt, “A novel or a poem or a play remains merely ink spot on a paper until a reader transform them into a set of meaningful symbols” (1985, 25).

The word New Criticism was appearing on the book, "The New Criticism", written by John Crowe Ransom. In his book, "The New Criticism", Ransom came up with a new formalist current, which emphasized close reading, particularly of poetry, to discover how a work of literature functioned as a self-contained, self-referential aesthetic object. It soon became a dominated theory in the middle of 20th century in Anglo-America.( Tyson, 135)