Cultural Fragments essay:

“Should literary critics focus solely on the words on the page?”

- F. R. Leavis

Introduction

Within this essay one of the areas covered will be the subject of New Criticism and how this is

relevant to the main topic. New criticism is a form of literary critique named after John Crowe

Ransom’s book The new criticism. A form of criticism that looks at literary works as though they

were their own self contained reference, involving mostly close reading as opposed to looking at

the bigger picture. This is the type of criticism that will be researched and discussed, judging the

advantages and disadvantages it may encompass. This formalist approach to literature enables

critics to judge the book or poem by the quality itself, instead of looking at it as a product of its

generation or culture, it enables us judge the literary piece as more individualistic, one that

stands on its own. If we disregard not only the historical and cultural context in which it was

written, but perhaps even the authors themselves, we are capable of reading the piece from a

completely objective and fresh perspective, we are freed from judging the work with a biased or

pre existing opinion of the author which would subsequently colour our opinions of the text and

change how we read it. An anonymous blogger claims: “Critics are free from contextual trappings

that tend to stir their attention away from the text.”

Main article

Some books will come across as less effective and in some ways entertaining without the context.

Jane Austin’s Northanger Abbey is a good example of this; the context Austin provides in the

introduction to the novel enables us to see that this book is a parody. This explanation is arguably

one of the most important factors for understanding the story, however that being said the

quality of the work itself is not reduced. Looking at her use of discourse and narrative, how

Austin dips in and out of the story with her own voice to add some satirical or comedic insight, as

well as the imagery used, one can see that these still allow for a well written book even when

disregarding context. Contrary to the books that suffer from a close reading, poetry instead tends

to benefit more, the compact structure and form poetry uses as well as its ability to be

understood and properly appreciated without needing context enables readers to perform a

close reading and purvey the raw quality of the work, similar to a work of visual art that often

leaves the interpretation up to the viewer instead of explaining itself.

Gary Lehmann, poetry critic writes “Poems should be read for what they say, not what they say

about the poet or his times. The text is its only spokesperson and the only one we should attend.”

Reading about a poet or author’s life and upbringing could colour the way you read and interpret

their work. The work of Sylvia Plath is an example of this; you’d be hard pressed to find

somebody familiar with her work that wasn’t also knowledgeable about her external life,

depression and suicide. The knowledge on this is so abundant it has become associative with her

work and in turn a critical analytical tool for her poems, it’s difficult to critique and study her

work without your opinion of it being swayed by the biographical information, and though she is

undoubtedly a skilled and talented writer, what readers and critics are looking at when they read

Plath’s work is her life, not the words on the page. To disregard the biographical context and

perform a close reading of her work with a New Criticism approach, one may discover a

completely new perspective and meaning to her work.

Looking further into how close reading and New Criticism can effect the study of various texts,

one can begin to break down the main advantages and disadvantages to the practice, having

already touched upon some advantages of this we now look to some criticisms of New Criticism,

when analyzing The New Criticism by John Crowe Ransom, literary critic and advocate of New

Criticism Rene Wellek talks about the four main reasons why many critics, such as Ronald Crane,

are disputing this form of criticism as being obsolete, one of the four reasons given was

explaining how limiting some believe New Criticism to be: “Finally the New Criticism is being

dismissed as a mere pedagogical device, a version of the French explication de texte, useful at most

for American college students who must learn to read and read poetry in particular.” Even though

Wellek continues on to claim that these accusations against New Criticism are baseless, we have

to wonder if there is any validity to these disputes.

In his essay on literary criticism Ronald Crane argues that in the New Critics attempt to remain

objective to the text, only to end up instead becoming subjective “They fail to come out of the grip

of New Criticism. Consequently many important aspects are lost sight of.” The underlying argument

is that instead of creating a form of literary criticism that remains entirely unbiased and objective

of the text it’s studying, it ends up limiting the potential of the book or poem and can cause New

Critics to overlook crucial context. An example of this would be Oscar Wilde’s A picture of Dorian

Gray, without looking at the historical and cultural co-text in which the book was written, the

importance and merit that it carries becomes limited, and Wilde’s message about the dangers of

the aesthetic movement at the time will be lost.

Conclusion

One can study and appreciate the quality of the written word, they can analyse the patterns and

structures within poems and books, but because the literary works contain so much more than

that you would only be studying half of the poem or book. Similar to judging a work of art by

nothing more than the mediums, colours and practices used, it could be argued that in studying

the format and text only, one can use the method of close reading to research the author or piece

together their thought process. Instead of using biographical, historical and cultural information

and co-text to study the book, you could use the book to study the biographical, historical and

cultural. However to conclude it would ultimately seem that to focus solely on the words on the

page, critics would be limiting themselves to the depth, messages, context and meaning the

literary piece may contain. There is evidence that proves the effectiveness of New Criticism and

close reading, and for many it’s a preferable approach to analyzing work, however the evidence

to the contrary goes to say that it is not the only effective method. We as readers and critics and

writers should look at more than just the words on the page, as most literature goes beyond just

that.

References

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