Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide

New criticism is a form of literary criticism that “dominated” from the 1930s to the 1960s. While it is no longer widely used today, it impacted contemporary literary criticism, as seen in the mainstream acceptance of the need to provide textual support for literary interpretations.

“The Text Itself”

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, it was common to evaluate literary works through the lens of authorial intent. In contrast, the new critics argued that the author’s intent is unknowable and that the text itself provides all the necessary information for its interpretation. Further, the reader’s impressions of, or feelings about, the work are not a relevant criterion for analysis. Instead, new criticism argued that literary analysis should focus on the formal elements of the text itself through close readings. The new critics saw a literary work as “a timeless, autonomous (self-sufficient) verbal object” with eternal, consistent meaning (123).

Literary Language and Organic Unity

New criticism focused on literary language, meaning the connotations evoked by choice and arrangement of words and the resulting aesthetics. A literary work is an “organic unity” where the various elements work together to express both complexity and order. 

Tyson notes that new critics believed that complexity was generated through paradox, irony, ambiguity, and tension. She provides brief definitions of each of these four elements and examples in literature. For instance, Willy Loman’s “tiny house” in Death of the Salesman is a “concrete universal” (both literally a house and a symbol of the underdog) that creates tension because it expresses “opposing realms of physical reality and symbolic reality” (125). These complexities are tied together by an order shaped by the theme of the work. A work’s theme is how it addresses its subject matter.

A key tool of new criticism is the close reading that pays especial attention to figurative language. Tyson describes the key components of figurative language as “images, symbols, metaphors, and similes” (126). She notes that recurring images often have symbolic meanings, like how the image of a river often symbolizes life.

A New Critical Reading of “there is a girl inside”

Tyson provides an example of new criticism through a close reading of the Lucille Clifton poem “there is a girl inside” (1977). She begins with an identification of the narrator and the central tension of the poem, an old woman who feels young inside, and then traces this central tension through the imagery used in the poem, e.g., the youthful “green tree” contrasted with the “gray hairs” of the narrator. 

She then identifies the structure of the poem—how it is divided into stanzas—and its use of punctuation and connects this structure to the central tension; for example, the decrease in punctuation in the final lines represents the excitement of youth. Next, she analyzes the poem’s parts of speech and identifies that the youthful imagery is expressed in active verbiage, whereas its aging imagery is expressed in passive verbiage. 

Then, she looks at the tone of the poem, or the language it uses to express its ideas. She notes that the tone is conversational and playful, representing “the merger of youth and age” (130). She analyzes the evidence collectively to determine that the theme of the poem is that “youth springs eternal in the human breast” (130).

New Criticism as Intrinsic, Objective Criticism

Tyson notes that the above form of criticism, known as “intrinsic criticism” or “objective criticism,” was seen as “the only way” to assess a literary work for new critics (131). She then describes some of the things that this method leaves out, such as alternate meanings of words beyond the work’s context (polysemy), the background of the author and the literary tradition within which they are writing, and the speaker’s psychological state. These are forms of “extrinsic criticism” and therefore devalued by new critics.

The Single Best Interpretation

New critics believed that there could be a single interpretation of the text that best captured its “organic unity” and often focused on criticizing other interpretations for their perceived shortfalls. This method of analysis worked best for poetry and short stories, whereas treatments of longer works focused mainly on one or a handful of aspects, like imagery or plot.

Most critical theorists today reject new criticism’s ideological claim that extrinsic criticism is not valuable. However, they use new criticism’s tools and its focus on the formal elements of the text to support their arguments.

The Question New Critics Asked About Literary Texts

Unlike the other critical theorists covered in this book, new critics asked only one question about the text to uncover the single best interpretation:

What single interpretation of the text best establishes its organic unity? In other words, how do the text’s formal elements, and the multiple meanings those elements produce, all work together to support the theme, or overall meaning, of the work? Remember, a great work will have a theme of universal human significance. (If the text is too long to account for all of its formal elements, apply this question to some aspect or aspects of its form, such as imagery, point of view, setting, or the like) (133).

Tyson describes the goal of using the new critical approach as enriching understanding of texts through evaluation of its formal elements and how those elements “create meaning.”

The “Deathless Song” of Longing: A New Critical Reading of The Great Gatsby

In her new critical reading of The Great Gatsby, Tyson determines that the novel’s topic is “human longing” through an analysis of its imagery. She then analyzes the novel’s “characterization, setting, and elements of style” and how they contribute to the theme of unfulfilled longing as an essential element of “the human condition” (133). 

Tyson opens her reading by noting that critics have often focused too much on The Great Gatsby’s social commentary on the Jazz Age and have thereby overlooked the central tension between the debauchery and corruption of the world depicted and the beautiful, lyric imagery used to describe that world. This imagery evokes a nostalgic idyll, such as when Nick imagines how Dutch sailors must have seen Long Island as “a fresh green breast of the new world” (136). 

Using quotes from the text, Tyson details how this lyric imagery is used to illustrate and define the characters in the novel (“characterization”) in relation to their nostalgia, dreams, and undefined longing. Perhaps the most famous example of this is Gatsby’s reflection on the green light as a manifestation of “the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us […] so we beat on, boats against the current, borne ceaselessly into the past” (141). Tyson notes that while for Gatsby, the green light represents Daisy, “for us, it could represent anything” that we long for but will never obtain (141). 

Tyson then goes on to trace similar imagery in the setting, such as the description of Tom and Daisy’s home or the sight of a sailboat during their drive to New York City. She concludes that the reason why The Great Gatsby is a “masterpiece” is due to the way the novel’s imagery expresses “the universal theme of unfulfilled longing” through its imagery (145).

Questions for Further Practice: New Critical Approaches to Other Literary Works

Tyson provides model questions to guide new critical literary analysis. These questions explore how new critical concepts, such as close reading and analysis of formal elements, can deepen a reader’s understanding of texts. Topics include the following (145):

1. How dialogue, cultural setting, and imagery contribute to the theme that “individual circumstances, not abstract rules, determine what is right and wrong” in “The Storm” by Kate Chopin

2. Formal elements like biblical allusion and nature imagery and their relationship to the central theme in “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” by Langston Hughes

3. How settings contribute to the theme of how “the needs of the individual are often sacrificed to the demands of society” in Death of a Salesman

4. How characterization, plot, and nature imagery contribute to the theme of adultery as “a form of emotional distance” in “The Chase” by Alberto Moravia

5. How point of view, tone, dialect, and other formal elements contribute to the theme of “The Lesson” by Toni Cade Bambara