EN 2002 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Opojaz, New Criticism, Phatic Expression
21 Jul 2020
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Document Summary
I want to cover a number of different points that connect the readings for today but it does mean jumping a bit between the readings. Last time we were looking at the new critics, who treat the text as a verbal icon, as something whole and complete in itself. Anyway, some of you in one of the forums have been looking at that poem, and you have found all sorts of tensions, paradoxes, ironies, and ambiguities in the poem. You have performed exactly what the new critics seek: attention to the text itself. Any meaning found must stay inside the poem. So, for example, the poem is full of ambiguity; life is full of ambiguity. That is where the new critics stop in relation to meaning. Some of them recanted, like victor shklovsky (a central member of the russian formalism movement) while others left russia: this is important for 2 reasons, there is no such thing as an apolitical theory.
