New Criticism
Words-only literary theory
New Criticism is an approach to literary analysis that treats a text as a self-contained work, focusing on close reading of its formal elements—structure, imagery, tone, paradox—rather than on the author's biography, historical context, or reader response.
Dominant in American universities from the 1940s through the 1960s, it emphasized that meaning resides in the text itself: A New Critical reading of the poem ignores what Keats intended and examines only what the words on the page actually do.
Systematic examination of writing
- explicationDetailed interpretive analysis
- exegesisCritical textual interpretation
- interpretationAssigned meaning
- annotationAdded explanatory comment
ambiguity · irony · paradox · tension · imagery · diction · syntax · metaphor
Independent decision-making capacity
textual analysis
Systematic examination of writing
- explicationDetailed interpretive analysis
- exegesisCritical textual interpretation
- interpretationAssigned meaning
annotation · ambiguity · irony · paradox · tension · imagery · diction · syntax · metaphor · symbol
autonomy
Independent decision-making capacity
T.S. Eliot
death of the author
Intent doesn't govern interpretation
- interpretationinterpretive dance, translation, interpreting, translating, construing
- literary analysisliterary analysis, character analysis, book review, plot, analysis
- literary criticismliterary theory, literary analysis, close reading, formalism, literary essays
- literary movementsRomanticism, Realism, Modernism, Surrealism, Symbolism
- criticismreview, feedback, opinion, judgment, evaluation
- ismscapitalism, socialism, communism, anarchism, racism
New Criticismhistoricism
Era determines truth claims
feminist criticism · deconstruction · poststructuralism · queer theory · hermeneutics
New Criticismdeconstruction
Analysis exposing self-contradiction
critical, criticism, criticize, critique, critically, uncritical, criticisms, hypercritical, critiqued