"To give the New Critics their due"

Reading notes on: Marxist Literary and Cultural Theory by David Anshen (2017)

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Chapter Two: Major Marxists' Approaches to Literature and Culture 

THE EFFORT TO DEVELOP A MARXIST THEORY OF ART

....before we consider the need for applying Marxist theory to literature, we shall consider the closest thing opposite to a Marxist approach, the anti-political literary critical approach, New Criticism or American formalism, largely dominant in the United States from the 1940s till the 1960s. This critical approach argued that interpretation of the poetic should confine itself to the text and must avoid the world beyond the poem or text. The motivation and approach of New Criticism is summarised by Cleanth Brooks, an advocate who argues '[…] the primary concern of criticism is […] the kind of whole which the literary work forms or fails to form' and insists that 'literature is not a surrogate for religion' (798). In denying any compatibility between literature and religion, Brooks targets any reading of art for ethics or values, including political, social or traditional ethical questions as concerns for literary critics. Brooks and other New Critics explicitly challenged historical approaches to literature, denying any connection between the text and its unity (unity comprising the basic aesthetic principle in their eyes), and the life conditions of the author, especially denying the relevance of any political context. The audience and social environment were also viewed as inappropriate areas of inquiry for criticism. Brooks claims 'the kind of audience [Alexander] Pope had did not condition the kind of poetry that he wrote' (798). This argument that Alexander Pope remained uninfluenced by the reception and treatment he might receive by the public in reaction to his poetry seems questionable, to say the least. A more significant omission by New Criticism is the lack of consideration about how history might have shaped the content and forms of poetry over time.

....they find a unique function for themselves in the academic division of labour.

....to avoid even explicit politics only happens in certain political situations and what constitutes politics derives from historically determined conceptions of the political.

....it is fairly certain that the poet Milton, for example, connected religion, poetry, and politics and that the development of Protestantism was, however it conceived itself, connected with the early development of capitalism.

....to give the New Critics their due, they raised the rigorous question of what makes things 'literary' or 'poetic'

....Victor Shklovsky, in his essay 'Art as Technique' (1917), argues that things and social relations appear normal due to their everyday familiarity, becoming 'habitual' and 'automatic' (778) in perception. Artistic phenomena 'defamiliarised' these everyday objects, thereby also negating automatic responses to the world around us....

THE EFFORT TO DEVELOP A MARXIST THEORY OF ART

http://jayrothermel.blogspot.com/2021/11/anshen-on-defamiliarization-shklovsky.html

CONCEPTUAL APPROACHES TO CATEGORISING MARXIST LITERARY THEORY

http://jayrothermel.blogspot.com/2021/11/how-art-arises-in-human-history.html

http://jayrothermel.blogspot.com/2021/11/anshen-on-walter-benjamin.html

Jay

5 November 2021