New Criticism - Criticism

Criticism

One of the most common grievances against the New Criticism, iterated in numerous ways, is an objection to the idea of the text as autonomous; detractors react against a perceived anti-historicism, accusing the New Critics of divorcing literature from its place in history. New Criticism is frequently seen as “uninterested in the human meaning, the social function and effect of literature.”

Indicative of the reader-response school of theory, Terence Hawkes writes that the fundamental close reading technique is based on the assumption that “the subject and the object of study—the reader and the text—are stable and independent forms, rather than products of the unconscious process of signification," an assumption which he identifies as the "ideology of liberal humanism,” which is attributed to the New Critics who are “accused of attempting to disguise the interests at work in their critical processes.” For Hawkes, ideally, a critic ought to be considered to “ the finished work by his reading of it, and remain simply an inert consumer of a ‘ready-made’ product.”

In response to critics like Hawkes, Cleanth Brooks, in his essay "The New Criticism" (1979), tried to argue that the New Criticism was not diametrically opposed to the general principles of reader-response theory and that the two could complement one another. For instance, he stated, "If some of the New Critics have preferred to stress the writing rather than the writer, so have they given less stress to the reader--to the reader's response to the work. Yet no one in his right mind could forget the reader. He is essential for 'realizing' any poem or novel. . .Reader response is certainly worth studying." However, Brooks tempers his praise for the reader-response theory by noting its limitations, pointing out that, "to put meaning and valuation of a literary work at the mercy of any and every individual would reduce the study of literature to reader psychology and to the history of taste."

Another objection to the New Criticism is that it is thought to aim at making criticism scientific, or at least “bringing literary study to a condition rivaling that of science.” However, René Wellek points out the erroneous nature of this criticism by noting that a number of the New Critics outlined their theoretical aesthetics in stark contrast to the "objectivity" of the sciences (though it should be noted that Ransom, in his essay "Criticism, Inc." did advocate that "criticism must become more scientific, or precise and systematic").

Wellek actually attempts to refute much of the recent criticism aimed at the New Critics in his essay "“The New Criticism: Pro and Contra” (1978).