Cultural Fragments essay:
“Should literary critics
focus solely on the words on the page?”
- F. R. Leavis
- 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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