ENGL 260 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: New Criticism, Organic Unity, Close Reading
12 Jan 2015
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Originated in 1930s and 1940s, us and southern states. Before new criticism there was a focus on history: writers influences and milieus, repetition between poets, writers biography (where and how they lived influencing their work) Prior to nc - impressionism: new critics move away from talking about literature in a vague way, clear way of talking about literature. Prior to nc - moralizing: try to find a moral to the story, new critics tried to move away from this, not interested in moral of the story. According to new criticism, the best analysis of literature is to have a clear interpretation, and to do this we need to do a close reading. Close reading: a detailed, clear analysis of a text (no secondary research, all arguments from within the text) New critics believed that good literature was unified. Organic unity forms an organic whole, complete and self-sufficient text.
