Monday, February 02, 2009

New Criticism in the Classroom

Today in class I told students to forget authorship, to ignore the name at the top of the page.  And that's when I realized that in the classroom, I'm something of a New Critic.

I generally provide little to no biographical information about the author, focusing on the text itself.  I like a Reader-response approach, but what I want students responding to is the text alone (and their experience with it).   I don't want students to worry too much about the author's identity or biography (with some exceptions).  In some cases, if students ask questions about the author, I can provide them nothing because I know nothing (other than that they write in English, and perhaps a general idea of when they wrote).  I do provide some cultural and historical material, but only when it is directly relevant to the text itself.

The specific context today was Robert Frost's "Home Burial."  While teaching this poem, I often talk about ways of dealing with death: the different ways individuals handle grief, the rituals we construct surrounding death, etc.  A student raised the issue of gender roles in the poem, and I'm open to that exploration (though in this poem, I didn't want gender roles to define the different ways the husband and wife grieve).  But for some reason when it was pointed out that the poet was a man and could be slanting perspectives of the characters (which is true), I found this a tremendous distraction from the text itself.  The wife in the poem has lengthy stretches of straight dialogue where she is able to express what she thinks and feels.  If we get hung up on discussing how a male author constructed those words for her, then we aren't taking the words of the text on their own merits, and I don't think we're reading the poem well.

I don't think I can formally call what we do in my literature classes New Criticism: I'm far too willing to bring up extra-textural material if I think it offers insights into the text (or if I think the text offers insight into extra-textural material).  But in my decision to forgo authorial biography almost entirely, and my insistence that students respond to what they see in the text itself, I'm certainly incorporating the ideas of New Criticism into the classroom.

4 comments:

  1. "But in my decision to forgo authorial biography almost entirely, and my insistence that students respond to what they see in the text itself, I'm certainly incorporating the ideas of New Criticism into the classroom."

    How do you reconcile this with your frequently stated view that we read in many different ways and for many different purposes? How is your approach in the classroom not a form of aestheticism?

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  2. Responding strictly to the text doesn't mean we'll all read in the same ways or for the same reasons--it just means we're focusing on the work itself without much concern for authorial biography, authorial "intent," etc. As a reader, I've generally considered those things irrelevant to good reading of a work of literature (we have the work to examine--how the author's biography influenced the work, of what the author intended with the work, is largely speculation).

    There may other legitimate areas of inquiry; for the purpose of this particular class, though, I think we should focus most of our attention on the text itself.

    Yes, it is a form of aestheticism (particularly if "aestheticism" is a broad term for direct confrontation with an artistic work). But I've always focused on response to the text itself, and in general I think that is a better way to read.

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  3. So you do believe that some ways of reading are better than others?

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  4. Well, yes.

    I think individuals should read for themselves, and should read in whatever ways bring them the most fulfilling reading experience. But I think some ways of reading will bring about a better reading than others.

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