Article
New Criticism By Hines, Andy
Article
Formed in response to philological, historical, and moral methods of teaching literature in the mid-1930s, the New Criticism was an American critical movement that insisted poetry should be read as a distinctive object of communication, not a moralizing lesson or a biographical example. The New Critics sought to make the formalist interpretation of poetry the focus of literary education. While their hermeneutics de-emphasized the role of politics, history, and authorial intent, the push for the acceptance of criticism in the academy was part of a political effort to preserve tradition in the face of mass culture.