Formalism is a branch of literary theory and criticism which deals with 

the
structures of text. It means that external agents outside of the text are not taken into
consideration. All the things about culture, politics, and the author’s intent or
societal influences are excluded from formalism.
Russian Formalism
Russian Formalism was a school of literary criticism in Russia from 1910 to 1930.
Russian Formalism brought the idea of scientific analysis of poetry. It is an
authoritative introduction to the movement that was a major precursor of
contemporary critical thought. The principles of Russian formalism are-
1. The aim is to produce "a science of literature that would be both independent
and factual," which is sometimes designated by the term poetics.
2. Since literature is made of language, linguistics will be a foundational element
of the science of literature. 
3. It emphasizes the difference between literary language and non-literary practical
language that aims at communicating information.
4. The basic principles of the Formalists and explores their contributions to the
study of poetics, literary history, the theory of literary genre, and prosody.
5. Literature is autonomous from external conditions in the sense that literary
language is distinct from ordinary uses of language, not least because it is not
(entirely) communicative.
6. Literature has its own history, a history of innovation in formal structures, and
is not determined (as some crude versions of Marxism have it) by external,
material history. 
7. What a work of literature says cannot be separated from how the literary work
says it, and therefore the form and structure of a work, far from being merely the
decorative wrapping of an isolable content, is in fact part of the content of the
work.

New Criticism
New Criticism is an American Literary theory in the 20th century. Its philosophy
was taken from John Crowe Ransom’s The New Criticism, 1941. New Criticism
talked about the closed-reading approach.  The New Criticism is often classified as
a type of formalism for its focus on the literary work in isolation from its
attendant’s circumstances and effects. The formalistic approach adopted by the
new critics implied an awareness of form. 
1. “Art for art's sake," "content=form," and "texts exist in and for themselves."
These premises lead to the development of reading strategies that isolate and
objectify the overt structures of texts as well as authorial techniques and
language usage. 
2. It focuses on the essential components of any literary work of literature,
whether lyric, narrative, or dramatic, are conceived to be words, images, and
symbols rather than character, thought, and plot. 
3. Like Formalist critics, New Critics focused their attention on the variety and
degree of certain literary devices, specifically metaphor, irony, tension,
and paradox. 
4. With these isolated and objective readings, New Criticism aims to classify,
categorize, and catalog works according to their formal attributes. 
5. The New Critics emphasized “close reading” as a way to engage with a text,
and paid close attention to the interactions between form and meaning. 
6. Along the way, New Criticism wants to pull out and discuss any universal
truths that literary works might hold concerning the human condition. These
truths are considered by New Critics to be static, enduring, and applicable to
all humanity.