Formalism and New Criticism

Formalism, and its later manifestation as New Criticism in the work of

William Wimsatt and Monroe Beardsley in the 1950s, refers to the qualities
and features of a text that are seen as making it literary in nature. The
idea that literary texts were things in themselves, their meaning
independent of the context in which they were situated, was first put
forward by Viktor Shklovsky and the Russian formalists. Shklovsky argued
that the language literary texts used, unlike writing undertaken to make a
transaction, for example, was strange and stylistically unique to literary texts. This
led him to formulate the idea that literary language created a defamiliarization
(ostranenie) that encouraged the reader to see the familiar things described
in the text as new and strange. In this, Russian formalism moved away from
the limited focus of new critical approaches to one that forced the reader to a
questioning and reappraisal of the world outside the text.New criticism,
however, is characterized by an insistence on seeing the text as
autonomous and divorced from context. This approach views the meaning of the
text as reducible to that which can be derived from a close analysis of its
language and use of literary devices such as metaphor and figurative
language generally. As such the approach can feel at times like a kind of literary
archaeology, excavating the text to find a single meaning or reading that is
supported only by the evidence within the text.
This approach has been challenged either directly or by implication by theoretical
approaches such as those espoused by new historicism, Marxism and feminism
that insist on the importance of various contexts in enabling the reader to
construct a more complete reading of the text, its place in society and its
meaning.
While few now would champion formalism as the dominant approach to how we
understand literary texts the core skill of close analysis remains, if not as an
end in itself, rather as an essential tool in gathering evidence from the text
to support a reading fully informed by an understanding of the range of
contexts that also shape meaning.
 Guiding questions
How far can a text be said to have a single and true meaning that can be revealed
by close reading alone? Look at the evidence you bring to bear in developing
your own reading of a text.
What different kinds of evidence do you draw on to support your ideas and
interpretation?
Can different readers, even if only using evidence found within the text alone,
develop and justify different interpretations of the text?
How important is it to understand the author’s life and beliefs?