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What is Formalism and New Criticism in Literary Criticism? — Transcript

by Dr. Masood Raja · 3,330 words · 533 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:08[Music]
0:10hello today I'll be talking about
0:13formalism in literary theory and
0:18literary criticism formalism refers to a
0:20style of inquiry that focuses almost
0:23exclusively on features of the literary
0:27text itself to the exclusion of any
0:32biographical historical or intellectual
0:35context the name formalism derives from
0:40one of the central tenets of form of
0:44formulas thought that the form of a work
0:47of literature is inherently a part of
0:53the text itself and any attempt to
0:57separate the two the form and content is
1:00fallacious
1:01so by focuses on focusing on literary
1:04form excluding any context formulas
1:08believed that it would be possible to
1:10trace the evolution and development of
1:14literary forms and that's thus
1:17literature itself now in simple terms
1:23formal is believed that the focus of
1:26literary studies should be the text
1:30itself and not the author's life or
1:33social class art is produced according
1:38to certain sets of rules and with its
1:41own internal logic new arms are formed
1:45or forms of art does represent a break
1:48with past forms and an introduction of
1:51new rules and logic and the goal of the
1:55critic is to examine this feature of art
1:58now in the case of literature the object
2:02of reflection is the text literally Ness
2:05that which makes it a work of art
2:09and not a piece of journalism now this
2:13attention to the details of the literary
2:15text was an attempt on the part of the
2:19literal literature your literary studies
2:21to turn itself it's discipline into a
2:24kind of science now there is no one
2:28school of formalism and the term groups
2:31together a number of different
2:34approaches to literature many of which
2:38you know seriously diverge from one
2:41another
2:42formalism in the broadest sense you know
2:47was the dominant mode of academic
2:50literary study in the United States and
2:53United Kingdom I would say from the end
2:57of the Second World War
2:58till the 1970s and particularly the
3:04formalism of the new critics including
3:09among others ie Richards John Crowe
3:13ransom CP snow TNT Azalea not on the
3:19European continent formalism emerged
3:23primarily out of the Slavic intellectual
3:27circles of Prague and Moscow and
3:31particularly out of the work of roman
3:34jakobson and boris icon bomb and viktor
3:39shklovsky now although theories of
3:43Russian formalism and new criticism are
3:47similar in a number of ways or in a
3:50number of respects that to schools
3:53largely developed in isolation from each
3:56other and should not be conflated or
4:01considered identical in reality even
4:05many of the theories proposed by critics
4:08you know working together within their
4:11own respective circle often diverge from
4:16one another
4:18No
4:20beginning in the late 1970s formalism
4:24began to fall out of favor in the
4:26scholarly community you know a number of
4:28new approaches which often emphasize the
4:34political importance of literary tax
4:37begin to you know these discourses began
4:40to dominate near the field and the
4:42theorists became suspicious of the idea
4:45that I'd literally work you know could
4:48be separated from its historical origins
4:51you know or from the background of
4:56political and social context so for a
5:00number of decades following the early
5:031970s the world formalism you know took
5:07on a negative almost pejorative
5:10connotation denoting works of literary
5:15criticism you know that were so absorbed
5:18in meticulous reading as we have no
5:23larger cultural relevance in recent
5:27years as the wave of post structuralism
5:29and post modernism criticism has itself
5:33you know began to dissipate the value of
5:36formulas method says again come to light
5:40and some believe that the future of
5:44literary criticism will involve some
5:47form of Richards resurgence of formalist
5:50ideas now Russian formalism refers
5:58primarily to the work of the Society for
6:02the study of poetic language which was
6:06founded in 1916 in st. Petersburg which
6:09was then called Petrograd you know by
6:13Boris I can burn viktor shklovsky and
6:16yuri tiny tuile enough and secondarily
6:21to the moscow linguistic circle you know
6:26founded in 1914 by roman Yakuza
6:31and I in in the essay in the theory of
6:36the formal method is the one that
6:42provides an economical overview of the
6:45approach the formulas that located
6:47you know which included some basic ideas
6:52for example the aim I mean this is I
6:56kind of suggesting the aim is to produce
6:58a science of literature that would be
7:03both independent and factual since
7:06literature is made of language
7:08linguistics will be a foundational
7:12element of the science of literature
7:15then literature is autonomous from
7:18external conditions in the sense that
7:21literary language is distinct from
7:25ordinary uses of language not least
7:28because it is not entirely communicative
7:33literature has its own history a history
7:37of innovation in formal structures and
7:42is not determined by external material
7:46history and what a work of literature
7:49says cannot be separated from how the
7:53literary works says it and therefore the
7:57form and structure of a work from from
8:01being merely the decorative wrapping of
8:06the content is in fact an integral part
8:09of the content of the work no according
8:15to icon Baum koloski was the head or the
8:19lead critic of the group and shlonsky
8:22contributed two of their most well-known
8:26concepts defamiliarization right which
8:31can be also translated as estrangement
8:34or making it strange
8:36and the plot slash story distinction
8:41like no defamiliarization is one
8:45of the crucial ways in which literary
8:48language distinguishes distinguishes
8:51itself you know from ordinary
8:53communicative language and speech and is
8:57a feature of how art in general
9:00functions by presenting things in
9:04strange and new ways right that allow
9:09the reader to see the world in a
9:11different light so innovation in
9:14literary history is according to
9:16philosophy partly a matter of finding
9:20new techniques of defamiliarization not
9:24the plot and story distinction the
9:27second aspect of literary allusion and
9:32according to shlonsky is the distinction
9:35between the sequence of events the text
9:39relates which is the story from the
9:44sequence in which those events are
9:46presented in the work the plot by
9:51emphasizing how the plot of any fiction
9:55naturally diverges from the
9:58chronological sequence of its story
10:01chalo ski was able to emphasize the
10:07importance of being an external of an
10:12extraordinary amount of attention to the
10:14plot that is the form of a text so as to
10:18understand its meaning right both of
10:21these concepts are attempts to describe
10:24the significance of the form of a
10:27literary work right in order to define
10:30its literal enos right you'll point to
10:33this now the prog circle you know is
10:38connected to structuralism and the
10:40Moscow linguistic circle both were
10:42founded by Roman Jack's Jacobsen and
10:45they were more directly concerned with
10:48recent developments in linguistics then
10:52icon bomb scoop you know
10:55Jake Jacobson left Moscow for Prague in
10:581920 and in 1926 co-founded the Prague
11:03linguistic circle now together with niko
11:07like trubotsky and others they combined
11:12an interest in literary theory by an
11:16interesting literary theory with an
11:18interest in linguistics and especially
11:21the work of so sure you know the
11:26clearest and most important example of
11:29prague school structuralism lies in its
11:34treatment of phony phony mix rather than
11:39simply compile a list of which songs
11:42occur in a language the prague school
11:46led by hiccups and sought to examine how
11:49they were related influenced by
11:53caesarian linguistics they determined
11:56that the inventory of sounds in a
11:59language you know could be analyzed in
12:05terms of a series of contrasts Jakob
12:09sons work on linguistics and you know in
12:12in such sure especially proved seminal
12:16and more important for the development
12:20of structuralism like his move from
12:22Prague to France when he moved there so
12:27to help catalyze the its development
12:30there the development of structuralism
12:32now another important figure this is ie
12:36Richards right he was born on February
12:3926 1893 died in 1979 and he was an
12:43influential literary critic and retreat
12:46right who off who was was often cited as
12:50the founder of you know Anglophone
12:53school of formulas criticism that that
12:56would eventually become you know known
12:58as the new criticism now Richards you
13:03know his books especially the meaning of
13:06meaning
13:07principles of literary criticism
13:11practical criticism and the philosophy
13:15of rhetoric
13:17these were seminal documents not only
13:21for the development of new criticism
13:24right but also for the field of
13:28semiotics the philosophy of language and
13:32linguistics moreover you know Richards
13:38was an accomplished teacher in most of
13:42the eminent knew critics that were
13:44Richards his students at one time or the
13:47other media work insists the new
13:51criticism at least in you know
13:54english-speaking countries is often
13:58thought of as the beginning of modern
14:01literary criticism Richards is could be
14:07considered one of the founders of the
14:09contemporary study of literature in
14:12English what else can I say
14:20and so he you know he's the father of
14:22kind of new criticism and as the new
14:28criticism was largely the product of his
14:30students who extended reinterpreted and
14:37in some cases misinterpreted Richards
14:40more general theories of language right
14:46and although Richards was a literary
14:48critic he was trained as a philosopher
14:50right and it is important to note
14:54there's a his own theories of literature
14:56were primarily carried out to further a
15:01philosophical theory of language itself
15:04rather than as a critical theory of
15:08literature
15:10Richards is perhaps most famous for an
15:13anecdote which he reproduced in
15:16practical criticism illustrating his
15:20file of critical reading and we have
15:22heard of that as the you know as a
15:24classroom assignment Richards would give
15:29his undergraduate short poems stories or
15:33passages from longer works without
15:36indicating you know who the authors were
15:39and then he discovered that pretty much
15:44all of his students even the ones who
15:47were most advanced exceptional and
15:49sophisticated were utterly at a loss to
15:53interpret a sonnet of Shakespeare let's
15:58say without relying on the cliches drawn
16:01from shakespeare's biography and started
16:05so in attempting to you know ascertain
16:08why his students had such difficulty in
16:12interpreting literary text without the
16:15aid of biographical and historical you
16:19know common places Richard hit upon his
16:22method of extremely close reading of the
16:27text
16:28you know forcing his students to pay and
16:31almost you know capacious degree of
16:34attention to the precise wording of a
16:37text right so in addition to developing
16:41the method of close reading you know
16:44this which would eventually become the
16:46foundation of formalist criticism
16:49especially new criticism Richards was
16:52also deeply invested in understanding
16:55literary interpretation you know from
16:58the perspective of psychoanalysis and
17:01psychology which a lot of people don't
17:04realize he was read well-read in the
17:08psychological theory of his day you know
17:10and helping to further the development
17:13of psychoanalytical criticism which
17:18would ultimately surpass new criticism
17:20you know when it's embraced by most of
17:23stories so while Richards theories of
17:28poetic interpretation and poetic
17:32language have been surpassed like you
17:35know his initial impulse to ground a
17:39theory of interpretation in psychology
17:42and textual analysis has become the
17:46paradigm for the development of the you
17:52know wherever literally criticism start
17:54it's part of the curriculum so a new
17:59criticism coming to that was the new
18:03dominant trend in English in American
18:05literary studies of criticism of the mid
18:0920th century like from the 1920s to the
18:13mid 1960s
18:15now it's its adherents were you know
18:19empathetic in orem Phatak in their
18:22advocacy of close reading and attention
18:25to tax themselves and the rejection of
18:30criticism based on extra-textual textual
18:33sources you know especially biographies
18:35that they absolutely didn't want to do
18:37that and at their best new critical
18:40readings were you know brilliant
18:42articulately argued and broad in scope
18:44scope but at their worst the new
18:48criticism you know sounded pedantic and
18:52idiosyncratic and at times dogmatic in
18:55the refusal to invest or investigate
18:59other contextual avenues of critical
19:02inquiry so as a result of these failings
19:06the new critics were evil eventually you
19:09served by the development of post
19:13structuralism deconstruction you know
19:16post colonialism right and cultural
19:20studies and more politically oriented
19:23schools of literary theory but new
19:28criticism became a byword or backwards
19:31model of conducting literary you know
19:35research
19:37that paid no attention to anything
19:39outside the small world of a close text
19:43and when literature literary studies
19:47became political and and now then in and
19:54within an increasingly complex and
19:56chaotic academic environment the Academy
20:03itself has turned back to re-examine
20:05some of the more open-minded and
20:07incisive works of new critics you know
20:10although new criticism has rarely been
20:13taught in classrooms and still taught as
20:16a an approach since the 1970s in recent
20:20years it has begun to make its
20:22resurgence you know into the critical
20:25discourse now some of its main
20:31attributes you know even though they are
20:36often thought of as a school it is
20:39important to note that give two key
20:42ideological differences you know among
20:45some of its most prominent scholars and
20:48members new criticism never became a you
20:54know an a unified science of literature
20:58the major critics were often grouped
21:02together as being the leaders or seminal
21:06figures of new criticism are TS Eliot fr
21:10Lib is William Empson Robert Penn Warren
21:13John Cole ransom write and Clint books
21:18they even practice Lee invents it it is
21:22worthwhile to note that the new
21:23criticism was rather unique because you
21:27know a sizable number of practicing new
21:31critics were also activist poets
21:35novelists and short story writers well
21:39almost all literary critics today are
21:42exclusively scholars and academics they
21:46don't do poetry in fiction also
21:49and although difficult to summarize it
21:52is sufficient to say that new criticism
21:55resembled the formalism of ie riches
21:59okay
22:00and in that that it focused on a
22:02meticulous analysis of the literary text
22:06to the exclusion of outside details in
22:10particular the notion of the ambiguity
22:14of literary language right and it's an
22:17important concept within new criticism
22:21now several prominent new critics you
22:27know have been particularly fascinated
22:29with the way that a text can display
22:33multiple simultaneous meanings in the
22:38thirties I Richards borrowed Sigmund
22:41Freud storm overdetermination I do refer
22:45to the multiple multiple meanings which
22:49he believed were always simultaneously
22:52present in language so treacherous
22:56claiming that a work has one and only
23:01one true meaning wasn't was an act of
23:05superstition and he says that in the
23:09philosophy of rhetoric page 39 right so
23:13in 54 Pym said and Monroe Bradley
23:18published an essay you know which is
23:20very famous the intentional policy I it
23:25it would become a watershed text in the
23:28development of new criticism not I teach
23:30it now this has a argued strongly
23:34against any discussion of an author's
23:37intention or you know intended meaning
23:41for whim certain threats Lee the world's
23:45on the page were all that mattered the
23:49reader has no privileged access into the
23:53author's mind right to determine what
23:57the author intended
24:00the importance importation of meanings
24:04from outside the text was quite
24:06irrelevant right that's why intentional
24:09fallacy not to read intentional so this
24:12became a central tenet of new criticism
24:15excluding the authorial intention and
24:17other context so since the new criticism
24:23admitted no information other than that
24:26contain in the text right no proper new
24:30critical investigation therefore should
24:32include biographical information you
24:35know on the author furthermore studying
24:39a passage of prose or poetry in new
24:45critical style requires careful exacting
24:49scrutiny of the passage itself a very
24:53rigid attitude for which the real new
24:55critics have often being you know
24:59reproached in later times however close
25:03reading is now a fundamental tool of
25:05literary criticism you know and such a
25:08reading places great emphasis on the
25:13particular over the general you know
25:16paying close attention to individual
25:19world's syntax even punctuation in the
25:23order in which sentences and images you
25:27know unfold as they're read even in our
25:31times the excruciating Lee exact style
25:35of reading advocated by new criticism
25:39you know has its jokingly referred to as
25:43analyzing the daylights out of a phone
25:47before 30 stupid fight undergraduate
25:51students but that's what you are
25:53required to do and despite the numerous
25:56flaws of an exclusively new critical
26:00approach the new critics were one yummy
26:04they were one of the most successful
26:05schools of literary theory in that you
26:10know
26:10in the brief history of literary studies
26:13now in the hundred or so years that
26:16literature has been taken seriously as
26:19an academic discipline within the
26:23university and you can watch my lecture
26:25on the rise of English the new critics
26:29are probably the most influential and
26:32and they were obviously the
26:35longest-lasting of all critical schools
26:39it was not a little political and
26:42ideological turbulent decades of the 60s
26:45and 70s that the methods of the new
26:49critics were questioned and in the wake
26:53of their downfall literary theory has
26:56never had a unified system of literary
27:01analysis that it had during the time of
27:04new criticism no current schools are
27:10beginning to reevaluate the methods of
27:13the new critics in order to apply them
27:18to the broader fields of excute
27:20culturally and politically relevant
27:22relevant criticism would that have
27:26emerged and it is clear that many of the
27:29ideas of the new critics and those are
27:32formulas at large or far from you know
27:36obsolete they still work so you know
27:45what are my concluding thoughts on this
27:50so formalism a focus on the form right
27:56has two correlated systems of literary
28:02criticisms of which Russian formalism is
28:09one and new criticism is one so they
28:12should not be conflated no the Russian
28:14formalists
28:16and then the later Prague school focused
28:20on the work itself work of art the text
28:23later
28:24literary text itself and the reason was
28:26that they were very skeptical of
28:28bringing in any outside information any
28:34biographical information they were
28:37objecting to the romantic biographical
28:40criticism that preceded them and then as
28:43you move into Roman Jakobson formalism
28:46becomes more and more informed by
28:50theories of linguistic especially
28:52socially and linguistic but the main
28:54concept is that literature is estranging
28:58d familiarising and it is that language
29:03made strange in a poem that makes the
29:07reader pause and think about the poem
29:11itself or about the world I mean it's
29:13that movement into a literary text in
29:15the estranging language and that has
29:18sowed one of the rules of the literary
29:20text is d familiarization people from
29:23the everyday monotony of life the
29:25automation of life and Eagleton has some
29:28beautiful passages on it in his first
29:31chapter what is literature introduction
29:35to his literary theory and I have a
29:37lecture on it which she should please
29:39watch and then we moved on to new
29:41criticism its rise as practical
29:44criticism in England with the father
29:48figure as I Richard's fr levees and
29:50other and the scrutiny group and then
29:53its rise in the u.s. Academy especially
29:56as led by John Cresson Benson who has a
29:59wonderful article called critical
30:01criticism incorporated which you should
30:04also read but overall an emphasis on the
30:08text close reading and an emphasis on
30:12the form
30:13how does form shape the content of a
30:17text and a complete exclusion of
30:22anything outside the text history
30:25culture politics authorial biography
30:30what you're literally doing is reading
30:32the form
30:34linguistically or otherwise through an
30:36understanding of the fountain what the
30:38language does what devices are used by
30:41the poet how does a poet resolve the
30:43tensions within the poem and you're
30:47focused on the form and the literary
30:50devices used in a poem or in a short
30:53story and that in a nutshell is kind of
30:55two schools a formalistic literary
30:58criticism formalistic Russian formalism
31:01and American new criticism and that is
31:06all I have today I will come back for
31:11more
31:11meanwhile thank you so much for joining
31:14me and I will see you next time

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