New Criticism and the main proponents of New Criticism and their contribution to literary theory.

MEG – 05: Literary Criticism & Theory

ASSIGNMENT 2019 - 2020

                                                                          Max. Marks: 100

3. What is New Criticism? Who were the main proponents of New Criticism and what was their contribution to literary theory?

Answer.: 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. Also very influential were the critical essays of T. S. Eliot, such as “Tradition and the Individual Talent” and “Hamlet and His Problems,” in which Eliot developed his notion of the “objective correlative.” Eliot’s evaluative judgments, such as his condemnation of Milton and Shelley, his liking for the so-called metaphysical poets and his insistence that poetry must be impersonal, greatly influenced the formation of the New Critical canon.

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