Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.Chelsea Knutson, Annette Ekstrom, Andrew Street, and Alex Houle.

New Criticism

New Criticism was used in the 1940’s by Americans to attack standard notion of “expressive realism”.The romantic fallacy that literature is the efflux of a noble soul.The goal is not the pursuit of sincerity, but subtlety, unity, and integrity.

History of New Criticism

• Biographical Criticism that understood art primarily as a reflection of the author's life (sometimes to the point that the texts themselves weren't even read!).

• Competition for dollars and students from sciences in academia.

• New forms of mass literature and literacy, an increasingly consumerist society and the increasingly visible role of commerce, mass media, and advertising in people's lives.

New Criticism Occurred Partially in Response To:

• New Criticism was created by T.S. Eliot.

• He also created The School of New Criticism and the Canon.

• Eliot is considered by some to be one of the greatest literary critics of the 20th century.

• New Criticism introduced the idea that the value of a work of art must be viewed in the context of the artist's previous works, a “simultaneous order” of works.

Who created it?

• Also important to New Criticism was the idea—of an “objective correlative,” which shows a connection among the words of the text and events, states of mind, and experiences. This notion concedes that a poem means what it says, but suggests that there can be a non-subjective judgment based on different readers’ different—but perhaps corollary—interpretations of a work.

• New Critics followed in Eliot’s foot steps in regard to his “‘classical’ ideals and his religious thought, Eliot’s attention to the poetry and drama of the early seventeenth century, his deprecation of the Romantics (especially Shelley), his proposition that good poems constitute ‘not a turning loose of emotion but an escape from emotion‘, and his insistence that ‘poets…at present must be difficult.’”

• New Criticism tends to emphasize the text as something complete with in itself, written for its own sake, unified in its form and not dependent on its relation to the author's life or intent, history, or anything else. The formal and technical properties of work of art.

Ideas of New Criticism

New Criticism in Frankenstein

• In Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein, instances of New Criticism appear everywhere.

• Victor Frankenstein is the narrator of Frankenstein.

• Victor Frankenstein describes his surroundings differently depending on his mood and feelings at the time.

• Victor goes into depth describing nature, life, death, people, and his feelings. He paints an image in your head as you read.

Rainy morning in Ingolstadt:Victor is feeling guilty, afraid, and worthless.“…although drenched by the rain which poured from a black and comfortless sky.”“…bodily exercise to ease the load that weighed upon my mind.”“My heart palpitated in the sickness of fear, and I hurried on with irregular steps, not daring to look about me.”

“Like one, on a lonesome road who,

Both walk in fear and dread,

And, having once turned round, walked on,

And turns no more his head;

Because he knows a frightful fiend

Doth close behind him tread.”

Lightning Storm:Victor is amazing and in awe. His mood is uplifting. “… the thunder burst at once with frightful loudness from various quarters of the heavens.”“… on a sudden I beheld a stream of fire issue from an old and beautiful oak,…”“It was not splintered by the shock, but entirely reduced to thin ribbons of wood. I never beheld anything so utterly destroyed.”

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New Criticism has left

a permanent mark on

the history of literary

criticism, and is

worthy not only of

serious study, but

also deep respect.