How should we think about interpreting literature?

Encyclopedia of Opinion

Question: How should we think about interpreting literature?
Position1 of 4›: Formalism and New Criticism
Argument: The text alone determines its meaning

When trying to interpret a literary work, readers should pay close attention to the text itself, disregarding outside influences. This method emphasizes close reading, form, irony, paradox, symbols, patterns, and allusions.

The argument

In order to interpret a text correctly, readers must pay close attention to the text alone. They must look at the text itself, not at the things happening around it, like historical context, the author's interpretation of their work, or their own feelings about it. These things distract from the text. Ignoring outside influences leads to a purely objective, and therefore correct, interpretation of the work. New Criticism takes a somewhat scientific approach to literary criticism. It gives readers a methodical way of arriving at the text's meaning. If readers give the text a close reading, analyze the work's form, and note any instances of paradox, irony, patterns, symbols, or allusions, they can interpret the text correctly. Famous advocates of this method include Robert Penn Warren, Cleanth Brooks, and John Crowe Ransom, the founder of this school of criticism.

Premises

[P1]To interpret a text correctly, readers should attend only to the text itself, not to historical context, the author's intentions, or their own feelings. [P2] Those outside influences distract from the work, while ignoring them yields a purely objective interpretation. [P3] New Criticism offers a methodical, almost scientific approach through close reading and analysis of form, paradox, irony, and symbol. [C] Therefore, because the text alone determines its meaning, formalism and New Criticism is the right approach.

Counter-arguments

Critics reply that meaning is not simply 'in' the text waiting to be extracted. Reader-response and reception theory argue that a text is realised only through a reader, whose knowledge and interpretive frame shape what it means, so a 'purely objective' reading is a myth rather than an achievable standard. They add that New Criticism's claim to scientific objectivity is undercut by the plain fact that skilled close readers reach divergent readings of the same work, and that irony, allusion and diction often depend on historical and authorial context the text alone doesn't supply — so bracketing that context can impoverish meaning rather than purify it. On this view 'the text alone determines its meaning' is one contested school, not the neutral method it claims to be.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Reader-response theory argues a text is realised only through a reader whose frame shapes its meaning, so meaning isn't simply 'in' the text waiting to be extracted. [Rejecting P2] The claim to scientific objectivity is undercut by skilled close readers reaching divergent readings of the same work, so close reading doesn't yield one 'correct' interpretation. [Rejecting P3] Irony, allusion and diction often depend on historical and authorial context, so bracketing it can impoverish meaning — the method is one contested school, not a neutral procedure.

Proponents cited

Cleanth Brooks
“We had better begin with it, by making the closest possible examination of what the poem says as a poem.”
Robert Penn Warren and Cleanth Brooks
“Of course, paraphrase may be necessary as a preliminary step in the reading of a poem, and a study of the biographical and historical background may do much to clarify interpretation; but these things should be considered as means and not as ends. And though one may consider a poem as an instance of historical or ethical documentation, the poem in itself, if literature is to be studied as literature, remains finally the object for study. Moreover, even if the interest is in the poem as a historical or ethical document, there is a prior consideration: one must grasp the poem as a literary construct before it can offer any real illumination as a document." (excerpt from 'Understanding Poetry')”