The new criticism is an important school in literary critique, that flourished in the United States of America from the ’30s to the ’50s. Probably one of the main contributions of this school of thought was its focus on the autonomy of the literary work.
When they were evaluating pieces of literary work, New Criticism didn’t take into account the author’s intention nor the reader’s reactions.
They strongly believed that the work ought to be considered per se, as a formal structure.
New criticism stopped on the borders of formalism. This, however, was a healthy corrective to the overemphasis on psychological and biographical values at the time.
In modern thinking, the formalist impulses in literature and in aesthetics and critique, in general, are quite strong. The new criticism is an influential manifestation of these impulses. Almost invariably, excessive work with works of art as self-sufficient forms provokes a reaction: the systematic negation of the context is thus tested and the human dimensions of art respond.
