From MH Abrams, _A Glossary of Literary Terms_, 8th
ed., on the New Critics: "In analyzing and evaluating a
particular work, they eschew reference to the biography and
temperament and personal experiences of the author, to the
social conditions at the time of its production, or to its
psychological and moral effects on the reader" (p. 189)
Now, this was hardly total orthodoxy, and there were
modifications / variations (Leavis couldn't / wouldn't give
up on values, for instance). And in fact the very rejection
of the question of moral effect may itself have had a moral
valence ... New Critics could be quite evangelical. It's
important also to remember that New Criticism came of age
after WWII, and there was a quest for a kind of purity to
literary studies -- and so these critics essentially posited
that the literary work could be kind of ethereal and rise
above the petty, changing, historical concerns of the
"culture" of humankind (whose members were clearly capable of
the worst kinds of atrocities). New Critics in some ways saw
themselves as rescuing art from (Fallen, seriously Fallen)
man.
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