The text and nothing but the text

            John Crowe Ransom explains “ The critic should regard the poem as nothing short of a desperate ontological or metaphysical maneuver. “ Though I agree that a poem should try to explain knowing or being, a poem does not have to always be abstract. In my opinion, though I’m probably biased, is

that the author does be completely separated from their inner thoughts. And the reader does not always have to just simply look at the imagery and meter of the poem.
        
           New criticism has some points that I agree with, such ias close reading, And others, such as the fact that as the reader you were not supposed to take any background from the authors life or the times that they were living in. All of that background and history seeps into the poem unconsciously, without meaning to or not. This seems almost inescapable unless you completely ignore it as the readers. That is probably why 

           
        
           

Follow the Leader?

In the grand course of time people have enacted 'follow the leader' in all forms of the phrase. An extreme example could be of the Roman emperors who ruled with an iron fist, to the more subtle scene of children occupying themselves on a playground. History has a habit of repeating itself, and most of the time it's unnoticeable until we look back and see what's been done. In The Nortan Anthology of Theory and Criticism (Tradition and the Individual Talent) the author states that "Many of Elliot's readers took his generalizations as literal truths, and even skeptics, such as the English critic Frank Kermode, judged that refuting Eliot demanded full-scale scholarly and critical demonstration" (953). Many times it seems like people who come up with a seemingly original idea, end up earning a multitude of followers. Now whether or not it's because people want to believe something entirely different than what has been around before, or they are so enthralled by the new way of thinking they do not stop to wonder if the idea is beneficiary or true. Sometimes people end up being too afraid to confront an idea, so it festers and grows into something much more toxic. Writers and poets like Eliot and Ransom brought to light a new way of thinking almost without question until later on. Do you think there should be more confrontation towards those who bring up new ideas? Good or bad?

               Source: http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/05/19/09/4086096800000578-4521462-     In_the_works_Ridley_and_I_have_actually_talked_about_that_contin-a-17_1495180900202.jpg
                              

Don't H8, Appreci8

I anticipate finding myself in varying degrees of agreement and disagreement in all the authors this semester. For example, I found Eliot's definition of great artists fascinating; to paraphrase, the Greats are mediums between the present and the channel of the past. And how often do we listen to a new musician or read a new author because they are evoke parallels to one or more of their predecessors? Suddenly Eliot becomes widely applicable.

As for disagreement, I can't expect to fully appreciate a poem like Wilbur's Junk by simply closely reading it! Yes, the poem's alliteration is intricate and its structure taunts the conventional reader's eye, but Wilbur wouldn't have included references to Waldere, Hephaestus, and Wayland without intending the reader to research who they are. Once Abby and I discovered that Waldere is an epic poem, Junk became an epic poem itself—the journey of jerrybuilt things from humble origins to earning their place aside their probable gods (Hephaestus and Wayland). Close reading would have prevented such illuminating research.

Fine.

Source: https://memegenerator.net/img/instances/500x/59640945/yeah-if-you-could-just-get-to-the-point-that-would-be-great.jpg

Upon reflection and despite inconsistencies of their craft, I can't help but find it noble that the New Critics attempted to make reading a science. They were fed up with the depreciation of criticism into banal philosophy—to which Barry alludes—and tried to make a change. To abbreviate the disparaging Ransom, English may as well have called itself history—in other words, boring and staid.

Like the New Critics in their time, today we experience a similar devaluation of English as a respectable field of study; It is rather easy to see where they were coming from. Though their ideas ultimately fall short of realizing a full appreciation of a poem, at least those stuffy, intellectual white guys rejuvenated the field for debate, dissection, and study for the 20th and 21st century.

Poet v.s. Reader Influences on Literature

On page 957 of Tradition and the Individual Talent, T.S. Elliot explains that "he [the poet] must be quite aware of the obvious fact that art never improves, but that the material of art is never quite the same." 

"Material of art" could be seen as how the art is formed or written, which changes with new ideas and theories presented. 

How does this quote about a poet relate to the fact that T.S. Elliot believes that the reader's perception of a text is influenced by our past? (Does the reader and the poet approach a text in a similar way, or in a different way?) 

                                          Change in Draft = Change in Thought

                                                         

http://www.litpark.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/draft1.jpg  

To what extent can a poem take on a life of its own and how much control should its creator have over its "life": AKA a Frankenstein poem?

I am beginning my post with a short quote, but only to lead into a question.

From the Lynn reading The Purpose of New Criticism, Lynn tells us "Only the poem can tell us how to read the Poem."

I take this statement to mean that poem once published takes on a life of its own, and that the authors intentions of the poems meaning should not have any swing on how readers interprete it.

I mostly agree with that, however...

 I have a few questions regarding this statement. The first would be, what do YOU take this to mean, "Only the poem can tell us how to read the poem?"

Also, what if two readers interpreted the poem differently? Technically "the poem" told the readers two different things, does the poem then have two different meanings? What if the author clearly intended the poem to have only one meaning?

Certainly I am on board with texts taking on a lives of their own. I appreciate the beauty of a poem meaning separate things to separate people. But do you think it is possible for someone to get the meaning of a poem wrong, or is meaning relative? 

Literature Does NOT Imitate Life (Maybe??)

In Lynn's "The Unifying Work," it is stated that "Literature does not imitate life in any literal way, according to New Critics; instead, poems (and other works) create realities of their own, transforming and ordering our experience." To what extent do you agree, or disagree with this statement? Earlier in the text, it was said that "a poem should be motionless in time." If you believe poems/other works create realities of their own, do you think that plays a part in making poems motionless in time?

https://www.colourbox.com/image/stopwatch-and-book-on-the-white-background-image-2695089

Poetry vs Prose, aka Sensation vs Intention

      The quote by Lynn (pg 41):
"Poems as unchanging objects represent an organized entity, not a meaning. In this way, poems are fundamentally different from prose: prose strives to convey meaning; but poems cannot be perfectly translated or summarized, for they offer a being, an existence, an experience perhaps -- not a meaning."
      describes poetry as something that is so beyond itself (in that it touches on the senses of humanity but does not seek to define them) that it never has meaning. Have any of us ever found a poem with a definite meaning? If so, then how did you manage to find its meaning? And if what Lynn says is true, that prose and poetry are fundamentally different, then couldn't this distinction coincide with literary theory and new criticism? If something is fundamentally different, typically that means analysis would have to explain and recognize those differences through close reading.

https://www.brainyquote.com/photos_tr/en/r/robertfrost/107263/robertfrost1.jpg

The 'Perfect' Formula

In T. S. Eliot's Tradition and  the Individual Talent, Eliot specifically discusses the power of the artist's creativity being a catalyst to other instances of inspiration like a chemical formula to create literature. I was particularly fond of this idea as I believe that creativity is spontaneous but does work similarly to the "chemical" formula that Eliot described. In example Shirley Jackson wrote We have Always Lived in the Castle in response to the alienation she felt in her community as a Jewish woman in her community. Jackson's psychological stability was fleeting, but this was supposedly the best time for her stories like "The Lottery" and The Haunting of Hill House. Though I believe that Eliot’s formula is agreeable, the ‘catalyst’ is much harder to pinpoint on in a writer’s success. The ‘tradition’ that Eliot describes along with a talent for perfected writing are the foundations for this formula, but the ‘Chemical X’ could be anything from a writer’s experience, a historical event, or politics of the time of publishing. These ‘catalysts’, along with the foundations of the formula are clearly important; but it’s discovering what the perfect catalyst is that makes a piece of literature timeless.

Source: (https://www.buzzfeed.com/lorynbrantz/submit-a-photo-and-well-illustrate-you-as-a-powerpuff-girl?utm_term=.jhqe00OrQ#.usAEVVY36)

Is Poetry Even Poetry?

In Lynn's Unifying the Work, there is a list as how to see poems in the light of New Criticism. We are told that, "a poem should be seen as an object- an object of an extraordinary and somewhat mysterious kind, a silent object that is not equal to the words printed on a page." (39) However, a poem cannot be silent. The words exist on the page and are not silent when read, written, or spoken. If a poem were to be completely silent, then the person looking at the poem wouldn't be even reading it. Even in our heads, there is a voice of some kind that we read everything in. A poem is never truly silent. it is spoken out-loud or in our heads as we read. In each poem there is a meaning behind the words, however simple it may be, and it can different for each person who reads the poem.

Photo link: https://www.pexels.com/photo/seaport-during-daytime-132037/

Everyone is doing it, why should we?

The question I have is regarding a quotation from "Criticism, Inc." by John Crowe Ransom. He quotes a "head of English studies in graduate school" as saying, "This is a place for exact scholarship, and you want to do criticism. Well, we don't do criticism here, because that is something which anybody can do." Do you think the fact that anyone can do criticism makes it less important or worthwhile? Why is it important that we have literary criticism and learn how to do it correctly?

Image found at: https://www.abc123start.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/anyone-can-do-this.png.