New Criticism : “Form and Content” -A Process of Identification

According to the new critical Theory “Language is a crucial element in the theory for it is only the moment of entry into the symbolic order of language that full subjectivity comes into being." Before it enters the symbolic through acquisition of language, the infant goes through the mirror stage, entering the realm of the imaginary on which the subject never entirely leans. In the mirror stage Lucan argues that the infant beings to recognize a distinction between its own body and the out side world. This is illustrated in the child’s relation to its own image in the mirror; the infant lacks control of its limbs and its experience is a jumbled mass but its image in the mirror appears unified and in control. The child recognizes its image and merges with in a process of identification, creating an illusory experience of control of the self  and world – an imaginary correspondence of self and image. 

New Criticism was a formalist movement in literary theory that dominated American literary criticism in the middle decades of the 20th century. It emphasized close reading, particularly of poetry, to discover how a work of literature functioned as a self-contained, self-referential aesthetic object.

The movement derived its name from John Crowe Ransom's 1941 book The New Criticism. The work of Cambridge scholar I. A. Richards was also influential in the development of New Criticism.

In fact, between the late 1930s and 1945 a critical approach known as New Criticism developed. Taking its name from a 1941 essay by John Crowe Ransom, it emphasized close analysis of text and structure rather than analysis of social or biographical contexts. Critics expounding this approach included Cleanth Brooks, Kenneth Burke, Ransom, Allen Tate, and Robert Penn Warren. Several other literary scholars were less doctrinaire. Among them were Joseph Wood Krutch, whose essays were collected in The Modern Temper (1929) and The Measure of Man (1954), and Lionel Trilling, author of one of the most influential of modern critical essays, The Liberal Imagination (1950). Also noteworthy were Malcolm Cowley, author of Exile's Return (1934); Alfred Kazin, author of On Native Grounds (1942) and The Inmost Leaf (1955); and Leslie Fiedler, whose Love and Death in the American Novel (1960) provided a new interpretation of certain American themes and approaches.

New Critics argued that the meaning of a text is located in the text itself, and that the reader should not be concerned with the author's intentions or the historical context of the text. They also rejected the idea that literature can be used to teach moral lessons or promote social change.

Instead, New Critics focused on the formal elements of the text, such as imagery, symbolism, and irony. They believed that these elements could be analyzed to reveal the text's meaning and significance.

New Criticism was a highly influential movement, and it had a major impact on the way that literature was taught and studied. However, it has also been criticized for being too narrow and limited in its focus.

One influential group of modernist poets from the South was dedicated initially to poetry that had a regional basis. But the main commitment of these poets—John Crowe Ransom, Allen Tate, and Robert Penn Warren—was to a well-wrought, ironic, and often indirect or obscure poetry. Their work led to what came to be called the New Criticism, a way of reading poems and other literature that tended to value work that was difficult, ambiguous, and that transcended its personal, historical, and cultural surroundings. The goal was a poem that could survive on its own as a perfected work of art. Their work built upon that of other modernists, such as Eliot, and encouraged a new formalism—that is, a return to careful craftsmanship and tradition as the primary virtues of poetry.

The two are perceived as self-identical. However to achieve full distinction of the subject has to enter the symbolic, where identify depends on difference rather than self-identically. Language, the system of difference which articulates identities constructs positions for the subject notably the subject position ‘I’ –which allows differentiation from the others and identity for self. However, in the necessary acceptance of the subject-positions offered by language the individual experiences a loss or lack because it is subject to the positions that are predefined for it and beyond its control. The sense of a full and unified subject is contradicted by a sense of being defined by the law of human culture. At this point, desire and the unconscious are also created. The unconscious is, as it were the repository of that which has too be repressed which subject predefined positions available in language.  

Thus some of the key tenets of New Criticism include:

• The text is the only object of study.
• The meaning of a text is located in the text itself.
• The reader should not be concerned with the author's intentions or the historical context of the text.
• The text should be analyzed in terms of its formal elements, such as imagery, symbolism, and irony.
• The text should be interpreted in a way that is consistent with its own internal logic.
• New Criticism has been criticized for being too formalist and for ignoring the historical and social context of texts. However, it remains an important and influential movement in literary theory.

Here are some of the key figures in New Criticism:

1. John Crowe Ransom
2. Cleanth Brooks
3. Robert Penn Warren
4. William Empson
5. I. A. Richards
6. F. R. Leavis

New Criticism declined in popularity in the late 20th century, but it continues to be an important influence on literary theory. Its emphasis on close reading and its focus on the formal elements of texts have been adopted by other schools of thought, such as deconstruction and reader-response criticism.

Ardhendu De

Ref: 

Bourinot, J. G. -Our Intellectual Strength and Weakness

New Criticism - Wikipedia. (n.d.). New Criticism - Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Criticism

The New Criticism. (1979, April 27). Greenwood. https://doi.org/10.1604/9780837190792

The New Criticism.  John Crowe Ransom 1941